In the Name of Ink: The Discourse of Ink Art

The establishment of M+ has given the Hong Kong art world a glimmer of hope. Aiming to build a world class contemporary art museum with a global perspective, the Museum Advisory Group advised the directors of M+ to build its collection on four categories, visual art, moving image, design and architecture, and public art. Furthermore, the M+ acquisition policy pinpoints that “Hong Kong has rich collections of ink art works. M+ should try to attract these collections, to showcase this important visual form and its interplay with other art forms.” Given that acquisition policies provide practical guidelines for museums to accomplish their mission and vision, looking at the M+ Acquisition Policy thus raises the question of what constitutes ink art works. Although any attempt to define a genre or category of art is an aesthetic and philosophical inquiry, from an administrative point of view, this is also a pragmatic question which governs the allocation of resources.

Recently the new genre (literally, a genre is a “type” or “kind” of art) of “ink art” has received considerable attention in the international art scene. As a new artistic category invented in the late twentieth century, “ink art” has long been associated with traditional Chinese art and culture and has been described as a contemporary art form derived from guohua. However, despite its popularity in the art world as well as on the domestic and international art markets, ink art has no clear and precise definition. With reference to various curatorial statements, the classification of ink art in different cultural institutions, the list of artists included in the ink art exhibitions, and the types of artwork selected under the category of ink art, it is clear that the definition and narrative of the development of ink art remains ambiguous and problematic. By adopting a sociological approach, this paper examines the discourse of ink art, attempting to offer a different perspective for approaching the genre and for advancing our understanding of how this new artistic category entered the contemporary Chinese art discourse, how it was consecrated by different authoritative parties and institutions from the Chinese and international artistic communities, and how the genre has been classified in the Hong Kong art world.