Beyond the concrete materials of ink and paper, there is an intangible spirit uniting works of East Asian ink painting. But how does the spirit of ink translate to other mediums, global makers, and contemporary times? Comprising photography, sculpture, video—and, of course, painting—Ink Dreams proposes a new view of ink art for the contemporary era, one that incorporates qualities from the ink painting tradition and new adaptations of traditional subject matter, unbounded by traditional materials.

Ink Dreams is the first presentation of work from the Fondation INK Collection, a 400-piece collection of contemporary art in the spirit of ink that was promised to LACMA in 2018. The exhibition examines the impact of ink on the global contemporary art world, and features works by artists from Asia, Europe, and North America, including Chen Haiyan, Shirazeh Houshiary, Lin Tianmiao, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang, and others.