Zeng Fanzhi - Near and Far/Now and Then

"One of the most talked-about exhibitions during the 2024 La Biennale di Venezia by renowned artist, Zeng Fanzhi and installed by preeminent architect Tadeo Ando, is captured in this sumptuous volume. Presenting the latest breakthroughs in Zeng Fanzhi's work and shedding light on Zeng's ambitious practice of redefining the abstract, this book features two recent bodies of work-oil paintings and works on handmade paper. Emerging from the artist's decades of research in color theory, Zeng's new oil paintings draw on and challenge Impressionist and Pointillist practices, with layers of brushwork creating figurative elements that are readily recognizable from afar but dissolved when viewed up close. Zeng's works on handmade paper, rendered in ink, graphite, chalk, gold dust, and other mineral pigments, ambitiously combine Christian, Buddhist, and literati iconography, pointing to a new direction in his practice. In a world inundated with machine-rendered images, Zeng's boundary-pushing experiments in painting inspire viewers to experience the beauty and time-honored art and craft of painting. More than a collection of art, this volume expresses the interest of Zeng, Ando, with scholars Michael Govan and Stephen Little, to draw a parallel to our human journey of curiosity, understanding and enlightenment"--