LAURA LUO

ZAO WOU-KI: "THE GAME OF INK"

French-Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki (1921-2013) was considered a pioneer in breaking the limits of Chinese and Western artistic traditions. Zao was one of the first artists of the Chinese diaspora to gain recognition internationally. Emigrated from Shanghai to Paris in 1948, Zao soon established himself as one of the most prominent figures in the European art scene. Towards the late twentieth century, Zao became increasingly recognized in the United States and in Asia. Zao’s artistic career, however, is not a linear one and Zao’s works do not fit into a singular category–it was through decades of experimentation, collison, and reconciliation that Zao brought influences of European modernism, American Abstract Expressionism, and the Chinese ink together in his works.

This essay turns to a crucial moment in the development of Zao’s artistic style: his mid-career in the 1970s. During this period, Zao returned to Chinese ink painting after working only with oil painting for decades. Reconciling with the ancient medium of ink was not looking back into the past; instead, it opened the doors for Zao to explore a world of new artistic expressions. On the paper, Zao liberally explored the artistic potentials of ink–the flexibility of the brush, the variety of the ink shades, and the painterly calligraphy–that helped build his artistic vocabulary. He came to realize that the calligraphic lines coincide with strokes in Abstract Expressionist works, as they both translate artists’ gestures and movements particularly well. Drawing inspiration from Abstract Expressionist works, Zao invented new expressions in ink that no Chinese artists had practiced before: he created his own “game of ink.” Focusing on his ink on paper works in the 1970s, this paper demonstrates that experiments with ink were instrumental in the development of Zao Wou-Ki’s pluralistic and global artistic identity.