Lu Ping

On Sunday I went to meet Lu Ping, a wonderful Suzhou artist who works in Beijing but who has just built a country vacation home for himself and his wife in the nearby ‘water town’ of Luzhizhen.

You can see some of his work from the 1990s here:

http://www.chineseartnet.com/LuPing/lp10.htm

I bought several of his woodcut prints before I knew who he was. Then the man at the frame shop said, “You really like Lu Ping, don’t you?” I said, “Who is Lu Ping?” Later he said, “Well, I know Lu Ping. Next time he comes to Suzhou I will call you.” And that’s what happened.

His wife He Zhen served us tea, and a pear from the tree in their garden. He showed us some of his more recent work, and we talked about art.

What a treat!

2 thoughts on “Lu Ping”

  1. What a great opportunity to be able to actually discuss art with an ethnic Chinese person. I have wondered, based on an article I read about art epistemology a few years ago, if people from Asian cultures focus more on landscapes when they look at art, while Westerners focus more on individuals and personal identity. I am curious whether you found this to be the case in your discussion.

    1. Hi Brian,

      I’m not qualified to answer your question with any authority, but I suspect that such generalizations have very limited validity, especially when speaking of contemporary artists, who can be influenced by ideas and artists from a wide variety of traditions and cultures. In the case of Lu Ping, his more recent work does, in fact, include quite a few portraits.

      Thanks for the comment! ;^)

      Eric

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