Impressions of Ink Art

Yang Yongliang (Chinese, b. 1980). View of Tide, 2008. Inkjet print; 17 3/4 in. x 32 ft. 9 3/4 in. (45 x 1000 cm). Lent by M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. @ Yang Yongliang

«The exhibition Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China is all about ink. Darks and lights and midtones are used everywhere. There are so many different art styles that you're bound to find something you like. The exhibition features several scrolls, which tell stories through writing or pictures and even through combinations of the two.»

My absolute favorite piece in the whole exhibition is Yang Yongliang's View of Tide, an inkjet print that is thirty-two feet long. (That's another important thing about this exhibition: almost everything is huge!) What I love about it is that from far away, it appears like a rocky mountain forest landscape, but as you get closer, the "trees" become power lines, and the mountains turn out to be stacked skyscrapers! The details are phenomenal. The story of the scroll starts with a giant wave heading to the city and, as the scroll continues, water spreads out all over the ground. Waterfalls flow through the city-mountains, and about halfway through it switches into a wetland forest.

Overall, the exhibition is an amazing collection of art that is so fabulous I don't want to say any more; come see it for yourself before it closes on April 6! After all, this will probably be the last time any of these artists' works are displayed in the United States.