The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is pleased to announce Zeng Fanzhi: Near and Far/Now and Then, an exhibition featuring new works by renowned artist Zeng Fanzhi (b. 1964) to be opened concurrently with the 2024 edition of La Biennale di Venezia. With an installation designed by architect Tadao Ando, the exhibition will be mounted in the historic Scuola Grande della Misericordia from April 17 to September 30, 2024.

Presented in this exhibition are the latest breakthroughs in the artist’s practice. Near and Far/Now and Then will premiere two recent bodies of work by the artist: new abstract paintings and the debut of works on handmade paper rendered in ink, graphite, chalk, and gold dust, among other mineral pigments.

The exhibition is co-curated by Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, and Stephen Little, Florence and Harry Sloan Curator of Chinese Art and Department Head, Chinese, Korean, and South and Southeast Asian Art.

“Zeng Fanzhi’s work is especially celebrated as a balance of technical mastery and emotion,” said Michael Govan. “Near and Far/Now and Then at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia will shed light on Zeng's ambitious painting practice, and Tadao Ando’s architectural intervention will illuminate the interconnections that Zeng’s new body of work highlights.”

“Zeng Fanzhi’s work engages two different types of materials: one thick and topographical, another thin and translucent,” said Stephen Little. “His work also demands two opposing approaches to viewer engagement—one distant, the other profoundly intimate. Taken together with the Asian and European traditions on which it draws, this exhibition will guide viewers to discoveries prompted by tensions that are deftly deployed by the artist.”