Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Moon Group’s first exhibition this spring with a show featuring 25 classic works from the group.Beginning in the 1950s, the Taiwanese Fifth Moon artists radically reshaped Taiwan’s art world with a new style that combined traditional Taiwanese art forms with the aesthetics of the American avant-garde. In the run up to the Fifth Moon retrospective, ARTINFO spoke with one of the group’s founding artists, Liu Kuo-Sung, widely considered the father of modern Chinese ink painting.What are the origins of the Fifth Moon Group?After we got into the National Taiwan Normal University, we visited the Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition annually in our first three years of school. Every year, the award-winning artworks were poorly made, and were lacking in diversity and variety. In the fourth year, four of us decided to participate. Three of us failed, and it was apparent that only those who presented the most conservative artwork had been selected. Someone even told us we were never going to be chosen, since the winning participants were students of the jury themselves. I took the initiative and suggested that if we could not showcase our work in official exhibitions, we should organize our own. This idea was later supported by our tutor, and this is how the Fifth Moon Group began.In your view, what does a typical Fifth Moon Group work look like?Our iconic style is an amalgamation of East and West. When the Fifth Moon Group was first established, we adopted the Western aesthetic completely. But on reconsideration, we realized that Abstract Expressionism in America was inspired by the West’s impression of Chinese calligraphy, so why don’t we advocate our own traditional heritage? We therefore decided to develop a new path, combining the two great cultures to cultivate our own aesthetic.How did you first encounter Abstract Expressionism? How did it make you feel?I first encountered Abstract Expressionism in 1958, in the library of the Division of Information at the embassy of the United States in Taiwan. There was an American magazine featuring the artworks of Abstract Expressionism, and I was amused by the way they converted abstract Chinese calligraphy into art through painting. Influenced by this, we began our exploration. My first thought at that time was, “Why can’t we advocate our culture by ourselves?”What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the art world since the founding of the Fifth Moon Group?Before the Fifth Moon Group brought up the amalgamation of East and West, artists within the East Asian Confucian cultural community — including Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia — were rather conservative. Among artists in these countries, I was the first one to put forward the idea of the modernization of Chinese painting. Rather surprisingly, it has influenced all the ink painters in the community and led to an innovative change.You have been called the father of modern ink painting. In your opinion, who is the greatest ink painter working today and what do you like about that artist’s work?That would be my good friend Mr. Fong Chung-Ray, who is also one of the members of the Fifth Moon Group. Following my take on the modernization of Chinese painting, he switched his practice from oil paintings to ink paintings. He has devoted himself to Chinese ink paintings since the 1960s and never abandons Chinese culture in his presentation. In my opinion he is really very good.Tell us about one of your works that will be on display in the Galerie du Monde exhibition — where it fits into your career and what you were trying to say with it.The artworks presented in this exhibition are all my personal favorites. “Clear Conclusion of Clearness,” 1965, works perfectly as an example. Although artists of Abstract Expressionism are influenced by Chinese calligraphy, they may not be aware of the concept of spacing between the black and white, brightness and darkness. There is a saying in Chinese calligraphy about constructing the spacing structure, which states, “Full as to be airtight, sparse so that horses can gallop in between.” In other words, the use of space has its vitality. “Clear Conclusion of Clearness” is a satisfactory work as it performed the skill of blank-leaving well.As for the “Moon’s Metamorphosis #231,” 2015, in the 1960s, people were impressed by photographs of the earth that had been taken and sent back to earth by the Apollo spacecraft, which marked the beginning of the era of outer space. In order to incarnate this epochal moment, I created a space drawing. Since then, I haven’t created any space drawings for such a long time. In 2015, I reworked the structure by combining the moon or the sun with the primeval atmosphere in Jiuzhaigou [in China’s Sichuan province] to create a new reconfiguration.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.“The Fifth Moon” runs through June 1 at Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong.
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