Artist Sean Scully Mounts Major New Exhibition in Guangzhou China

Sean Scully

The second leg of the Irish-born, British artist Sean Scully’s China show, which opens on 6 September at the Guangdong Art Museum in Guangzhou is set to be one of the highlights of the year. Sean’s exhibition tour comes at an interesting crossroads, as China begins to embrace all things abstract and produces more national and international exhibitions in this area. In addition to this Sean’s growing success in the international art market, has firmly created a place for him in this growing market. Set in Guangzhou, a particularly interesting backdrop for the show because of its vast contemporary art scene and penchant for contemporary architecture such as Zaha Hadid’s opera house. 

Immediately following the success of Sean’s recent exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing, the artist’s latest exhibition, Resistance and Persistence opens at the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou on 6 September and runs to 9 October 2016 before travelling to the Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan from 10 January to 12 March 2017.

Showcasing more than 60 works, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s paintings and works on paper – as well as providing a platform for his major sculpture, China Piled Up. The works have been borrowed from leading public and private collections internationally.

According to Wang Chunchen, Research Director at the central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Scully’s exhibition is probably the first of a Western artist to have made a difference to Chinese art since a show by Rauschenberg in the mid-1980s. Targeting, amongst others, artists, a student audience, the large and increasing number of collectors in these cities as well as the general public, the exhibition further aims to develop abstract art in China.

The exhibitions are coming at an interesting moment for a major abstract artist like Scully as Chinese abstract art is generating increasing national and international attention, a development which is also reflected in Scully’s success in the art market.

The tour of exhibitions is organised by Made in China in association with the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London and the British Council.

Sean Scully was born in Dublin in 1945 and was brought up in London and immigrated to the States in 1975. He currently lives and works in New York, Barcelona, and outside Munich. He studied painting at the Croydon College of Art (London) and Newcastle University (England), received a graduate Fellowship at Harvard University in 1973, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983, and Honorary Degrees, Doctorate of Fine Arts from The Massachusetts College of Art (Boston) and the National University of Ireland (Dublin). He has been the Turner Prize nominee at Tate London twice, in 1989 and 1993.

Resistance and Persistence opens at the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou on 6 September and runs to 9 October 2016 before travelling to the Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan from 10 January to 12 March 2017

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