HSIAO CHIN PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST

Reflections of an Artist:

How I see art:

Andrea, Art has never been a game for me.

My Art:

Art is my greatest form of self expression. It is odd, serious and difficult. When I create I seek to transmit something I believe in. I am on the lookout for a transcendental emotion which never occurs by chance.

In January 1994 I was in Bologna. In exchange for the exhibition of ceramics by Milan’s great architect Gio Ponti, Arte Fiera offered the Immola Ceramic Cooperative extensive space at the fair. As I was curator and commissioner at the exhibition, I found myself face to face with a Chinese gentleman who courteously and very simply handed me a booklet illustrating his work. I immediately recognised from the artwork that it was China’s most famous living artist Hsiao Chin.

Hsiao Chin is Cantonese and was born in Shanghai on January 30th 1935. His father Yu Hsiao – Mei was one of the best known Chinese composers. Hsiao Chin had barely turned twenty when he decided to form his own art group. On 31st December 1955 he started up the first abstract art movement in China called “Ton-San”.

In January, I got in touch with him to wish him all the best for the New Year and I tried to ask him some questions. I know that this Master is not very talkative, but one never knows.......

When did you realise precisely that your art form entailed the use of hands, spirit, heart and colours?

In 1957 while I was in the West I became aware of the means I had and I looked to being different from others in my way of thinking and painting.

Your work is often huge but the smaller pieces often recall wide spaces: the galaxies, the places for the “Soul”. In one collection you brought us “Beyond the Threshold”. I know that this is a personal and rather private question, but I would like a few quick comments on this.

“Beyond the Threshold” is a collection which was extremely important to me. I felt with all my being that I reached the “infinite immensity”. I began to understand the meaning of life through my work.

You are a famous artist and your wife is a great opera singer, you are often on the road travelling, in touch with people. What’s the atmosphere like in this particular world crisis period?

Personally speaking, our way of life is low key. That is why we do not feel the crisis too much: but I do know that it is felt in different degrees in different places.

I know that you are very interested in unidentified flying objects (U.F.O’s). Do you think we are alone in the universe? Some U.F.O’s have been photographed, even filmed thanks to the advances in technology. What is your point of view?

It is completely idiotic, ignorant and megalomaniac to think that we are alone in this universe......let me say no more.

What are your plans or art exhibitions in the near future?

I am preparing a big exhibition in the Academy in Liège in Belgium. In September there is an exhibition in Taichung, Taiwan, of recent works.

I am in the process of preparing “An Anthology Of Works”, a five month exhibition from October to February 2011 at the Fine Art Museum in Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

Hsiao Chin does not speak a lot but as in his work he gets straight to the point.

Mauro ANDREA