Match Made in Venice: Tadao Ando and Zeng Fanzhi

An American establishment sponsors an exhibition by a Chinese language artist in collaboration with a Japanese architect at a centuries-old Venetian constructing.

That is the sort of far-flung constellation that may solely come collectively in the course of the Venice Biennale, when the historic Italian lagoon metropolis turns into modern artwork’s grandest stage. Whereas the Biennale itself is famed for its nationwide pavilions, scores of collateral exhibitions, some organized independently, proliferate.

Considered one of this yr’s starriest impartial collaborations pairs up two masters of kind: Zeng Fanzhi, 60, the Beijing-based painter, who’s finest recognized for his virtuosic, monumentally scaled canvases that fluidly traverse abstraction and figuration, and Japanese and Western traditions, has teamed with the architect Tadao Ando, 82, the Osaka-based, self-taught Pritzker Prize winner. Ando sculpts intricate but ethereal interiors, enlivened by dramatic voids or sudden lightwells, out of slabs of concrete.

And the matchmaker is the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, which is sponsoring a collaborative exhibition within the spectacular house of the Scuola Grande della Misericordia within the Cannaregio district of Venice. “Zeng Fanzhi: Close to and Far/Now and Then,” which opens April 17 and continues via Sept. 30, will characteristic a collection of Zeng’s new oil work, starting from densely-worked research of sunshine and water to hallucinatory depictions of non secular motifs like skulls or Buddhist grotto temples — alongside others in mineral pigment on paper.

Ando has conceived a minimalist exhibition design that makes use of the play of pure mild and shadow to intensify the interplay between Zeng’s work and the location, which was inbuilt a neoclassical type within the sixteenth century as the house for certainly one of Venice’s most venerable confraternities.

Ando and Zeng met a decade in the past when Zeng approached Ando about designing a museum for him. (Market success has enabled Zeng to amass his personal artwork assortment.) Though the museum by no means noticed fruition, it led to a collaboration on Zeng’s solo exhibition on the UCCA Heart for Modern Artwork in Beijing in 2016, “Parcours.” Responding to the previous manufacturing unit house, Ando produced a dynamic exhibition design that includes free-standing partitions perforated by giant apertures that visually linked the completely different sections of the present.

“Close to and Far/Now and Then” is cocurated by Michael Govan, the chief govt and director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, and Stephen Little, a curator of Chinese language artwork and head of its Chinese language, Korean, and South and Southeast Asian departments.

The multinational challenge displays LACMA’s strategic pivot to the Pacific Rim — and particularly China, the place companions embrace the personal Yuz Museum in Shanghai — after Govan’s arrival in 2006. “We’re on the sting of the earth in Los Angeles,” Govan stated in a phone interview with The Instances. “Our curators have grow to be near artists working in China. It appeared like an odd, poetic factor to do.”

For all that, Govan harassed, “It is a challenge born of friendship.”

Reinforcing their friendship, Zeng lately visited Ando on the architect’s workplace in Osaka prematurely of the opening in Venice. The Instances joined their dialog, which happened in Chinese language, English and Japanese at a big picket desk within the annex, initially constructed as a residence for Ando. These are edited and condensed excerpts from the dialog.

How did you come to first learn about one another and collaborate?

ZENG FANZHI The primary constructing by Tadao Ando that I ever noticed was 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. I used to be amazed by the structure, as a result of the location appeared so restricted from the skin however the constructing was so expansive on the within. I knew I needed to get in contact with Ando and began researching his different works, corresponding to Church of the Gentle [in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture] and his museum tasks. His structure can match any sort of art work, from work to installations. It’s uncanny how the constructing makes its presence felt one second after which disappears the subsequent.

TADAO ANDO Zeng and I first met in 2014. He struck me as a extremely sensible particular person, and I went to see his work and go to his studio in Beijing. Whereas a lot modern artwork is direct and in your face, his portray is rooted within the Chinese language monochromatic custom, which supplies it a profound depth. Zeng’s dynamic use of coloration and his fusion of classical and trendy, Japanese and Western sensibilities, additionally speaks to me. At a time of a lot battle around the globe, I consider his creative imaginative and prescient, which serves as bridge between Japanese and Western cultures, has a job to play in selling a message of world peace.

ZENG Thanks in your unbelievable praise. I’ll do my finest to dwell as much as it.

ANDO Your works have bought for large sums in the USA [the artist’s record is $23.3 million in 2013, for his painting “The Last Supper”]. But it surely’s not nearly cash. It exhibits how sharp the eyes of collectors are over there. I wager it’s a troublesome world to navigate, since you’re forging your personal path. However I used to be shocked by how mild you have been after we met in particular person. There are lots of challenges in attempting to do one thing that’s by no means been achieved earlier than. I need you to maintain forging forward.

The Scuola Grande della Misericordia was based as a charitable affiliation. Over the centuries the constructing has additionally served as a barracks, a warehouse and a sporting membership. How did you method the historical past out of your completely different views as an artist and an architect?

ANDO Zeng picked a superb website. The constructing dates again to some 500 years in the past. I wished to create an exhibition design that inherits that world from 500 years in the past and extends it 500 years into the long run, so that folks will bear in mind it even then. I wished to make one thing nobody has ever seen earlier than.

I wished to specific the profound depth of Zeng’s worldview. Guests will be capable of really feel that depth as they see how mild, shadow, and time merge within the house. Will probably be a spot for non secular reflection. Clearly there might be large crowds in Venice, however, to be sincere, if I had my means not more than 20 or 30 individuals could be allowed in at any time.

ZENG Your plan for the primary corridor on the bottom stage jogs my memory of the multiperspectival spatial composition of a Chinese language panorama portray. It’s like we’re wanting from one aspect of a river to the opposite, and the play of sunshine and shadow on the ground evokes the motion of the water, whereas my giant portray on the finish of the corridor is sort of a mountain within the far distance, and the intervening house is empty. Then, on the higher stage, your deployment of free-standing partitions aligned on an axis of progressively bigger apertures evokes the perspectival composition of Western portray, with every little thing organized structurally round a single vantage level.

Your design achieves a synthesis of Japanese and Western philosophies of portray, all offered via structure. It impressed me as I labored on the work for the exhibition.

How do you alternate concepts throughout completely different languages and practices?

ANDO I take a look at Zeng’s work after which provide you with concepts in response. It’s necessary for architects to look carefully at an artist’s work and actually perceive it.

ZENG We alternate concepts with out language, via visible considering. I usually spend days taking a look at Ando’s renderings till I’ve an excellent really feel for them. It’s just like once I make a piece on paper. I at all times use richly textured handmade paper. I can spend days taking a look at a sheet of paper earlier than I get out my brush, as a result of the paper in a way tells me what to color. Often Ando’s first design is already superb after which it’s only a matter of fine-tuning. As a painter, I actually reply to Ando’s use of unfavorable house. He has an innate sense of house and lightweight that merely can’t be taught. It’s genius.

ANDO A few decade in the past I underwent main surgical procedure to take away 5 of my inner organs. It’s a miracle I’m nonetheless alive. I’m certain you’ll go on making nice exhibitions, however I need you to maintain working arduous to create a world the place artwork can prepared the ground to peace.