About
Such feeling cannot be recalled again; it seemed long lost even when it was felt then.
—Li Shangyin, “The Sad Zither”
Gagosian is pleased to announce The Sad Zither, the first solo exhibition in Europe by Chinese painter Hao Liang.
In his delicate but immersive landscape and figure paintings, and in his choice of literary references, Hao reflects on a spectrum of emotions while considering the passage of time and the ways in which we move through the world. Giving the methods and motifs of traditional Chinese ink wash painting a contemporary spin, he highlights the genre’s unique materiality while drawing on sources from cinema, modernist art, and Chinese and Western literature. Hao employs the guohua technique to make compositions on silk that are subtly toned and tinted, but indelible, accentuating his subjects’ complexity and infusing narrative and allegorical references with atmosphere and feeling.
In the fourteen paintings on view at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery, which were produced over the past two years, Hao explores themes and symbols from fiction and poetry, engaging with the works of Dante, Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, and Chinese poets Tao Yuanming (c. 365–427 CE), Li Shangyin (813–858 CE), and Du Mu (808–852 CE). The exhibition’s title alludes to Qian Zhongshu’s book On the Art of Poetry (1948), specifically the annotated text of Li Shangyin’s poem “The Sad Zither,” which notes various parallels between the verse and the instrument, including their translations of emotion into symbol, and their aesthetics of “rhythm and vitality.” In three paintings from 2021 named for this Tang dynasty literary and political figure, Hao presents the most impressionistic of all the exhibition’s works—shimmering, near-abstract interpretations of the writer’s texts on emotion and the natural world.
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In Conversation
Hao Liang and Hans Ulrich Obrist
To coincide with his recent exhibition Hao Liang: The Sad Zither at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, the artist speaks with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist about the past, his beginnings, and his references.
Hao Liang: Emaciation Now: Paintings of My Contemporaries
Travis Diehl pens an essay on Hao Liang’s latest paintings.
Hao Liang: To Forge the Chain of Being
Fan Jingzhong analyzes the classical concepts and references in Hao Liang’s paintings.
Behind the Art
Hao Liang: Poetics of Li Shangyin
Join Hao Liang in his Beijing studio as he discusses the inspiration behind his latest series of paintings, rendered in ink and color on silk. Evoking the tradition of literati painting, the three works picture imagery conceived in response to passages of poetry by the ninth-century poet Li Shangyin.
Hao Liang: Portraits and Wonders
Hao Liang speaks with curator Philip Tinari about Chinese artists and traditions that have inspired him. New works by the artist are currently on view at Gagosian in New York.