Celebrating 35 Years of Promoting Chinese Contemporary Art

This year Alisan Fine Arts celebrates the 35th anniversary. On this momentous occasion we will be presenting a large scale exhibition at the Hong Kong Central Library with a curated selection of 35 works by 35 artists the gallery has represented over its history, several of which have never been published or exhibited. On display are significant paintings from important private collections purchased through the gallery by canonical Hong Kong, Mainland, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora artists, including Zao Wou-ki, Chu Teh-chun, Chao Chung-hsiang, Walasse Ting, Lui Shou-kwan, Fang Zhaoling, Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang, and Gao Xingjian to name a few. This set of artworks and artists presents a slice of Chinese contemporary art’s history, and perhaps more locally Hong Kong's evolving art ecology from the 1980s to present.

Alongside the exhibition a monograph will be published dedicated to the gallery’s history, the artistic milieu (from 1980-2015 in Hong Kong), and Director Alice King’s accomplishments. Over 50 artists’ works that were placed in important museum and private collections, including the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, Oxford University and the Fine Arts Museum, Boston, will be published. Alongside the works are essays by important academics, curators and collectors of Chinese contemporary art. Of note are the essays by Catherine Maudsley covering the gallery's history, and the interviews with artists and their families (such as Walasse Ting's and Lui Shou-kwan's children, Zao Wou-ki’s and Chu Teh-chun's wives, with reflections by artists Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang, Gao Xingjian and Xu Lei). Numerous pages of the book are also devoted to the artists and their relationship with the gallery, with the inclusion of primary sources such as photographs and hand-written letters pulled from our archives. Contributors include HC Tang, Mayching Kao, Julia F. Andrews, Martina Köppel-Yang, Jeffrey Wechsler, Lars Berglund, and Tiffany Beres. Collectors Victor Lo and David Pong also offer their thoughts on the role of Alisan Fine Arts in introducing Chinese contemporary art to the Hong Kong public.