VILLA MALPENSATA, SPAZIO CIELO
The artists Mingjun Luo, Francine Mury, Jiang Zuqing with the musician and composer Sivan Eldar, reflect together on the interaction of body/writing in a now globalised individual creative context. The exhibition is curated by Antonia Nessi and Marco Franciolli and constitutes the second stage of the exhibition that was realised in collaboration with the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Neuchátel (Mahn) where it was presented in summer 2021. Sur Papier confronts notions of space and identity hybridisation between East and West, in a dynamic echo between cultures and media. The broad gesture, the fluidity of the sign or the minuteness of the Indian ink painting follow one another in the exhibition rooms, revealing the peculiar qualities of the media, the variety of languages and the different sensitivities of the artists in the exhibition. The Sur Papier project originates from the encounter between Swiss artist Francine Mury and Chinese artist Jiang Zuqing. Their intense four-handed work on large-format sheets – produced according to the traditional methods of the Chinese province of Anhui – restore the sense of their artistic complicity: the encounter of the body and gesture with the white surface leads the artists to overcome their individual roles and cultural origins. The poignancy of this moment of sharing and encounter between cultures generated the desire to broaden the reflection around the theme of dialogue between artists and the hybridisation of artistic languages between different cultures, by including in the project a third visual artist, Mingjun Luo from China, who has lived in Switzerland since 1987, and a musician-composer, Sivan Eldar (Israel-USA). Closing the exhibition is Domenico Lucchini’s creative documentary ‘One Leaf One World’, dedicated to the encounter and collaboration between Francine Mury and Jiang Zuqing and the dialogue between cultures as a generator of knowledge and art.
Francine Mury and Jiang Zuqing
In the four-handed works created by Jiang Zuqing and Francine Mury on very large sheets of paper, the confrontation of body and gesture with the large white surface of the paper leads to the overcoming of the individual roles and cultural origins of the two artists. Francine Mury’s profound interest in the great Chinese tradition of ink drawing – for the Swiss artist, pictorial research goes hand in hand with the study of Eastern philosophies and thought – is confronted on this occasion with an artist, Jiang Zuqing, trained within the Chinese academic tradition, with which she identifies and where she finds the source of inspiration for her artistic research. Archetypal forms surface and merge in the large inks produced by the two artists, in search of a universal and timeless language.
Francine Mury and Jiang Zuqing at Tsinghua University in Beijing
“”[Zuqing and I] work on the floor in the large workshop of the Academy [of Tsinghua, in Beijing]. Stroke by stroke we enter a different scope, a new approach. Little by little we detach ourselves from our individuality. We move beyond our personal approaches and unite our distinctive rhythms, measure: our brushes cross each other, overlap in response to each other’s stroke or form. Our respective origins are reflected in our moods, the position of our bodies and our movements.” Francine Mury
Mingjun Luo
Of different origins, the works on paper by Mingjun Luo, a Chinese artist who has lived in Switzerland for more than 20 years, focus on the condition of dual identity and the notion of cultural hybridity. The feeling of remoteness and uprooting brought about by his biographical journey generates questions around themes such as trace, memory and remembrance. With this project, it is the first time that the artist focuses on paper and fully understands its importance. Mulberry paper and Indian ink are his new field of experimentation, which he explores with an introspective care.
“I love the delicacy of Chinese paper; the smell of ink; the moment when the ink-covered brush glides over the paper; the beauty produced by black and white; the paper that releases when moistened and becomes smooth after being mounted on canvas. I love the peace that paper instils in me. I appreciate the concept of ’emptiness’ in ancient Chinese art, which leaves room for imagination.” Mingjun Luo
Sivan Eldar
Completing the exhibition is the sound dimension proposed by musician and composer Sivan Eldar, who has been active for years in transdisciplinary collaborations between music, dance, performance, opera and visual arts. Eldar has been investigating the possibility of exhibiting a performance for years. A difficult mission in an institution dedicated to the continuous and eternal preservation of objects, as performance is instead characterised by an innate transience. The sounds created vibrate for a brief moment and then fade away; two interpretations of the same score always differ from each other, and even the memory we retain is not easily communicated. Throughout her career, Eldar has collaborated with classical and non-classical musicians, but also with theatre actors, dancers and visual artists, always searching for new spaces in which to make her sound installations vibrate.
Sivan Eldar at work
