Lan Zhenghui: The Weight of Ink at Charles E. Shain Library Connecticut College

The Chu-Griffis Asian Art Collection at Connecticut College is presenting a new exhibition, Lan Zhenghui: The Weight of Ink, in the Charles Chu Asian Art Reading Room at Charles E. Shain Library at Connecticut College, which opens on December 5, 2024 and will be on view through March 4, 2025.

Born in 1959 in Sichuan, Lan Zhenghui 蓝正辉 belongs to the post-Cultural Revolution generation of Chinese avant-garde artists who flourished from 1985 onward. Lan has been particularly famed for his oversized, monumental abstract ink painting in a style which he himself coined as “heavy ink” or 重水墨. It utilizes bold and dynamic brush strokes, joining the great tradition of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy with various trends of modern and contemporary experimental art such as Western abstract expressionism, but also pushes boundaries, transcending constraints of material and medium, and yearns for a free-spirited yet structured expression that bears its own distinctive personal marks.

Lan Zhenghui: The Weight of Ink offers a glimpse into the evolution of Lan’s ink art over the past two decades. It features some of his very first “heavy ink” works created back in 2000, which were only briefly exhibited in China and Canada shortly afterward, as well as some of his more recent works created in 2024 specifically for this current exhibition at Connecticut College, none of which had previously been exhibited in the United States.