Double Square 双方藝廊

Double Square Gallery is delighted to present a new group exhibition, Blossom Trees in the Stone, which runs from December 26, 2020 to February 6, 2021. The exhibition features Taiwanese artists of different generations born between 1950s and 1990s, including Yen Ye-Cheng (1955-), Lin Chuan-Chu (1963-), Sung Hsi-Te (1964-), Wu Meng-Chang (1971-), Lee Jo-Mei (1985-), Liao I-Chin, (1987-) and Hsu Jui-Chien (1994-). With their individual expression of diverse media, ranging from two-dimensional painting, sculpture to installation, these artists interpret the contemporary literati spirit with the abundance of their creative vocabularies. Art critic Shen Bo-Cheng is specially invited to serve as the researcher of this exhibition to study the artists’ experiences of inner emotions and life revealed by their art practice from an academic viewpoint and reinterpret the refined artistic world of contemporary literati.

Master Yangming toured a southern town, and one of his friends pointed to a flower tree in the stone and asked, “since nothing under the Heaven is outside the Heart-Mind, when a flower tree like this blossoms and wilts by itself deep in the mountain, how is that related to my Heart-Mind?” Master Yangming said, “before you see this flower, this flower and your Heart-Mind both reside in a quietude. When you come here and look at the flower, its colors immediately become obvious and perceived. That is how you know this flower is not outside your Heart-Mind.”
——Wang Yangming, Introductions for Practical Living

The exhibition title, Blossom Trees in the Stone, is inspired by Introductions for Practical Living by philosopher Wang Yangming of the Ming dynasty. Wang used the example of blossoms on barren rocks to expound the concept of “nothing exists outside the Heart-Mind,” and explained that only through one’s experience could the existence of blossom trees in the stone and the wind be revealed. In Eastern art, “landscape” and “nature” have always been the core subjects of artistic creation and aesthetics. Artists’ thinking and spirit can only be embodied through their art. “Blossom trees in the stone” refers to an aesthetic gesture to appreciate works of art. It denotes not only the state of encounter between artists and the motive of their creation, but also the changing state of mind when a spectator gazes into an artwork. According to researcher Shen Bo-Cheng, “when a spectator encounters a work, the artist has already delivered ‘the blossom trees in the stone’ into the spectator’s mind in that instant; it is an encounter between artistic creation and aesthetics.”