Whitebox Presents Jizi: Journey of the Spirit

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, many Chinese scholars, critics, and artists decried traditional Chinese painting (Zhongguohua) as out of step with an increasingly global culture. Over an almost half-century career that spanned a dynamic period of Chinese history the painter Jizi (1941–2015) countered that assertion, arguing that painting could indeed be traditionally and authentically Chinese while also addressing themes of universal significance.

Jizi’s work confronted the legacy of the Revolution’s antipathy to religion and traditional Chinese life and attitudes. Deeply interested in the spirit, the artist’s work contains a strong metaphysical strain and sheds light on the complex, and at times contradictory, impulses at work in contemporary Chinese art and culture.

Jizi: Journey of the Spirit : Whitebox, 329 Broome St., January 17 – February 23rd.