White on White: Reading Text in Visual Art (exhibition)

This exhibition explores text art, which uses text in artworks and examines how written language works as a type of post-conceptual art.

Through various text-based artworks, the artist Lulu Ao aims to question the demands that text art places on its audience and the challenges a work of text art poses on the act of reading.

Most of the works in the exhibition are “deep white,” referring to Kazimir Malevich’s (1879-1935) Suprematist idea associated with his painting White on White (1918). Lulu agrees that white is the colour of infinity; it signifies a realm of higher feeling, a utopian world of pure form that was attainable only through non-objective art. On the other hand, according to Chinese Taoist philosophy, the white that can be discussed is not the true white, and the true White cannot be represented by the colour of white. Hence, it comes to Lulu’s oxymoronic term “deep white”. Nevertheless, some important contemporary artists explored this antithetical and paradoxical issue in their artistic practice, such as the New Yok-based conceptual artist Mark Tansey (1946-) in his painting White on White (1986). In Lulu’s current works, she wishes to affirm the importance of textuality in visual art by deconstructing the written words, and thus expose the antithetical and paradoxical significance of White.

Please note that the exhibition will not be open from Fri 7 - Tues 11 April (inclusive).

For accessibility information please visit the event page.