After a thirty-five-year absence from the French art scene, the ICICLE Cultural Space invites you to rediscover the work of Chinese artist Szeto Lap through the exhibition “Presence”.
35 AVENUE GEORGE V, PARIS 8
14 JUNE – 5 SEPTEMBER 2024
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The first contemporary Chinese artist exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in 1982, Szeto Lap combines Chinese and Western influences in his charcoal and oil paintings. Trained in China and later in Paris, he draws on this dual heritage to create landscapes, still lives, and interiors, all characterised by mesmerising plays of shadow and light.
The exhibition “Presence”, organised by the ICICLE Cultural Space and curated by Myriam Kryger, features six large-format paintings. Borrowed from the Guangda Museum in Hangzhou and a private collection, they span a period from 1978 to 2023. Empty of human representation but infused with their presence, they invite each viewer to observe the visible and the invisible, delving into the heart of things.
SZETO LAP
Born in Canton in 1949, Szeto Lap moved to Hong Kong in 1972 and then to Paris in 1975. He lived there until the early 1990s before returning to China, where he has been the artistic director of the Guangda Museum in Hangzhou since 2015.
Close to sculptor Raymond Mason, photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and painter Sam Szafran, his artistic journey spans both France and China. His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries across Europe and Asia, notably at the Grand Palais in 1980 and the Centre Pompidou in 1982 and 1983. A significant travelling exhibition was dedicated to him in five major national museums in China from 2003 to 2005.
Awarded the Fénéon Prize in 1982 and the Grand Prize of Painting from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2000, he was named a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2004.
ARTWORKS
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38°5, LE MATIN, 2003
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L’ANGLE DE L’ATELIER, 2003
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LE COULOIR, 1978-2019
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INTÉRIEUR AU VASE I, 1992
THE AESTHETICS OF ENCOUNTER
Szeto Lap’s work resonates with the aesthetics of encounter, a core concept for ICICLE since over twenty-five years. Inspired by Taoist thought, Chinese pictorial tradition, Western philosophy, and French figurative art, his position in the history of painting is unique.
On the 19th of June, Yolaine Escande, sinologist and specialist in Chinese aesthetics, will host a talk in the presence of the artist at the ICICLE Cultural Space. Drawing connections with the “Presence” exhibition, she will explore the artistic and aesthetic challenges of his work, navigating between the visible and the invisible.
“PRESENCE” EXHIBITION
ICICLE CULTURAL SPACE
35 AVENUE GEORGE V, PARIS 8
14 JUNE – 5 SEPTEMBER 2024