Exhibited:

Daniel Abadie, the current director of Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume (i.e. French National Contemporary Art Museum), is one of the most internationally acclaimed exhibition curator for contemporary art at the present moment. In October 2003, Zao Wou-ki held a major retrospective in Paris that lasted for two months and Abadie was the curator responsible for the exhibition. Prior to this, he had just successfully put up retrospectives for the two modern masters, Picasso and Magritte.

Having forged strong bonds of friendship with Zao Wou-ki, Abadie observed his art for over thirty years. In 1988, by the invitation of New York's Pierre Matisse Gallery, Abadie wrote a thesis and even published a book under the title "Zao Wou-ki" In preparation for the 2003 retrospective, Abadie selected more than 80 representative works in oil, watercolor and ink and wash in total. This new piece of work, "8.6.2003",in tones of red, was also selected by him for the retrospective unveiled at Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume during October 2003, categorized under the section of "Recent Works"

In the November 2003 issue of the periodical "Asian Art" Abadie accepted an exclusive interview by the journalist Oliva Sand and he expressed astonishment for the fact that Paris had waited more than 20 years for Zao Wou-ki'sretrospective. Grande Palais had held the last major exhibition in Paris in 1981. This was the artist's first retrospective in Paris for more than 20 years. Abadie said, "I feel I am the only curator that made the effort to look at Zao Wou-Ki's entire body of work. My idea was to select the strongest pieces for this exhibition, disregarding at an early stage issues like location or availability of the paintings. First, I wanted to build the exhibition theoretically and then find a way to assemble it. As Zao Wou-Ki is in the process of compiling a catalogue raisonné most of his work is already archived. At this point there may only be 5 per cent of his work that has not yet been located. I have decided to include approximately 80 pieces, but unfortunately for us museums, Zao Wou-Ki started completing huge paintings. One of these pieces ends up taking the space of three or four smaller pieces. I am committed to the large-scale paintings because they are essential within his work. I am deliberately juxtaposing large-scale pieces with very small ones because what is fascinating with Zao Wou-Ki is that the physical size of the pieces is irrelevant: some of his small pieces create a gigantic space.¹"

The majority of people are only concerned with the artist's earlier works as they all believe that his later works were mostly repetitions of his old works. Abadie was in critical contempt of such mistaken viewpoints. For instance, Picasso's later works had been exhibited in Avignon, France and was then adjudged to be works bordering on senility by the intellectuals, but after thirty years, Picasso's later works turned into the most important pictures in the twentieth century that even laid the paths for subsequent avant-garde artists. It is very much the same in the case of Zao Wou-ki, as explained by Abadie, "In recent years, and perhaps because he has nothing to prove to anybody anymore, he has taken the luxury of taking every possible risk, and to come up with the most unexpected solutions to complete a painting. Even the composition is sometimes unexpected. Of course, he does not succeed every time, but when he does, the result is very powerful. This freedom has been a driving force in the latter part of his life. This desire to put himself back in a challenging position, to take risks, although he has already achieved everything, is the aspect I most appreciate in an artist's career. What is fascinating in Zao Wou-Ki's recent work is that he is painting as he never painted before. He knows how to paint, but nevertheless he constantly keeps reinventing painting²."

As indicated on the back of the painting, Zao Wou-ki's"8.6.2003"was completed on 8 June 2003 and did not make it in time to be included in the exhibition catalogue published by Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in October that year. However, under the insistence of the curator Abadie, it became one of the 80 participating works to be displayed under the unit "Recent Works" In a bright and clean gallery is the "8.6.2003"in tinges of red and pink. On its left is a 2003 size 25 small painting in bluish tinge, while on the right is a 2002 piece of work in green of size 120. The blue, red and green set off each other beautifully and rendered the entire display area in an abundant array of colors filled with vitality. The red and pink color tones of "8.6.2003"became a focal point for one's sense of vision.

Regarding his own creations, Zao Wou-ki thought that they were initially western but had gradually moved towards Chinese tendencies. He also thought that picture compositions in his early works were denser while his later works appeared more free and natural. To fill up everything in paint is easy but it is much harder to paint space. Having long gained a masterful proficiency in using mediums and materials, his recent works have turned out even truer to the desires of his heart, attaining the levels of "returning abstraction to unification"and "vivid and lifelike in spirit and resonance"The pursuit to depict picturesque realms of the universe made Zao Wou-ki forgo on his French and Chinese signatures on the painting surface a long time ago, leaving the space in entirety for the colors and its constituents of pink and Chinese vermilion flat brushes. Colors of indigo black crystallize and coagulate in strokes that interchange promptly between fast and slow according to one's desires. Leisurely and at ease, it is brimming with the painter's beautiful imagination in every respect.

Every year, in June, Basel, Switzerland would hold the global fair "Art Basel" This year, Zao Wou-ki's "8.6.2003"was loaned out to an agent for gallery display. There, the brand new piece by Zao Wou-ki, the master of Chinese descent, vied with all the other distinguished personalities for the glamorous limelight in the global pantheon of art, and this became a much-savored tale that was passed around.

1 An interview between Oliva Sand and Zao Wou-ki, Asian Art, November 2003 (see the website http://www.asianartnewspaper.com/iss0311/art_3.htm)

2 Ibid.