| | | Paul Maurer & Jao Tsung I
Light opens Space - Wisdom Path
Editorial introduction
This exhibition relates to two upcoming collaborative exhibitions between the 90 year Chinese artist and scholar Professor Joao Tsung I and the French photographer Paul Maurer and I‘m honored to include the catalogue on this website. Although the primary focus of the Luminous-Lint website is photography it should never be restricted in the boundaries and interconnections with other media types and this exhibition is an example of that - here linkages of vision between different ages, geographies, viewpoints, stylistic approaches and cultural backgrounds are explored. Here - although everything is different - it is spiritually the same. (Alan Griffiths, October 2006)
Exhibition introduction
Exhibition Paul Maurer / Jao Tsung I
Hong Kong December 8 and 13, 2006
" Light Opens Space "
Wisdom Path
The main argument for these exhibitions is the incredible encounter over time and space of two artists, be it in the real or metaphorical sense of the words.
Times: One is a Chinese scholar born in 1916 in Bejing that is a capital city, the second is an autodidact, born 35 years later in a village of Alsace in France.
Spaces: France - China : 15 000 km. Nevertheless, it is the French territory that will make them work on the same paths, but it is in China that they will actually meet.
Professor Jao will spend an overall 15 years in France to broaden his skills in sinology and ancient calligraphy that he can find in the national archives. He will spend time in the French Alps, namely in the Chamonix Valley… where Paul Maurer will start one of his most famous photographic series…. 40 years later!
But the end of the story is due to the combined efforts of Jess Chan, a young Chinese who had discovered the magnificent personality of Professor Jao a few years before she met Philippe Dova, Paul Maurer‘s agent in China, and pointed out the incredible similarities in the works of both artists. Neither the language barrier, age, nor even the computer show that allowed the photographer to show his work to an elderly teacher, disturbed the two men whose community of thought and work will be a strong basis for the forthcoming exhibition.
This is so true that Paul Maurer had pictured the Wisdom Path, a land-art master piece that was erected in 2005 in Lantau Island next to the Big Buddha, before meeting Professor Jao.
Of course the names of the two men, although internationally known by their professional colleagues, are not familiar to the general public. Nevertheless, the meeting of the two personalities, at a time when Orient meets Occident, trying to communicate and work together, is the premonition of the very near future. History meets actuality, and maybe even future. But this is another story (referring to the Chinese watch and the impact on Chinese youth).
In conclusion the natural elegance of Professor Jao‘s work and philosophy - "Empty my heart of nastiness to fill it with love and generosity" (Heart Sutra) combines perfectly with the refined simplicity in Paul Maurer‘s black and white photographs
Petite Ecole
This is a shared exhibition that points out in a retrospective way, the common artistic courses of the two men, of which the main exhibition at the Central Library is the evident result, amongst the important cultural events organized by the authorities of Hong Kong for Professor Jao‘s 90th birthday.
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