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ART
ZAO WOU-KI LIGHTS UP THE HÔTEL DE CAUMONT IN AIX-EN-PROVENCE
Until October 10
This summer Aix-en-Provence is hosting an important artistic event . The Art Centre at Hôtel de Caumont is featuring a superb selection by a French-Chinese artist , Zao Wou-Ki . Coming from a number of public and private collections , these oil paintings , watercolours and Chinese inks are witnessing the creative vitality of an artist who invented new pictorial spaces , playing with colour and light .
Strongly inspired by Paul Klee , Zao Wou-Ki may well adopt his words ‘ art does not reproduce the visible , but makes things visible ’. Zao Wou-Ki has always strived to show , according to his own terms , ‘ the space of the inside ’.
He is thus playing on contrasts : brilliance and darkness , fullness and emptiness , joy and mourning … This exhibition is taking us through his different phases , bringing the artist to produce a painting of a rare plenitude where ‘ It never gets dark ’.
‘ Ville engloutie ’ ( A sunken city ), 1955 . Adagp Photo Antoine Mercier
In his poetic images , sun and lunar star merge in subtle colours . A game of coloured masses represents a passage towards abstraction . Chinese inks inspired by Henri Michaux revisit the ancestral traditions of the Middle Kingdom ... For this Aix exhibition focused around light , the choice of the south of France was obvious . Admirer of Paul Cézanne , Zao Wou-Ki pays tribute to this great artist with a magnificent diptych and a set of watercolours that he painted in Luberon .
Some 90 major works , hosted by a most beautiful private mansion in Aix , now a museum , are thus introducing us to this unique universe , symbolized by Asian refinement and tumultuous Western art history . Prevent the night from falling , such is the artist ’ s purpose . He does fill us with a true light , the happiness of existing .
Hôtel de Caumont – Centre d ’ Art 3 , Rue Joseph Cabassol , Aix-en-Provence www . caumont-centredart . com
‘ Il ne fait jamais nuit ’( It ’ s never night ), 2005 ; Adagp , photo : All rights reserved
‘ Sans titre ’ ( Untitled ), 2005 , Adagp , Photo Antoine Mercier
‘ Hommage à Cézanne ’ ( Homage to Cézanne ), 2005 , Adagp , Photo Dennis Bouchard
92 / Hello Monaco Summer — Autumn 2021 www . hellomonaco . com