Advertisement

How Chinese abstract artist Ding Yi turned crosses from a symbol of ‘criticism and denial’ into a tool of expression, as seen in Shenzhen retrospective

  • Ding Yi has been painting canvases filled with plus signs and the letter x for 35 years, as seen in a retrospective at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art
  • The exhibition shows how the artist went from pure abstraction to making references to the world around him – his native Shanghai, as well as Xinjiang and Tibet

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Works by Chinese abstract artist Ding Yi featured in “Cross Galaxy”, a restropective at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning  covering 35 years of his work that shows the evolution of his canvases full of plus signs and the letter x. Photo: Mocaup

Seeing artist Ding Yi’s retrospective in the futuristic Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, one has to marvel at the fact that the 61-year-old Shanghai native has laboriously sustained, for 35 years and counting, his practice of covering monumental paintings in tiny, hand-drawn plus signs and repetitions of the letter x.

Advertisement

This practice has been described as unvaried, but viewing around 60 examples from his “Appearances of Crosses” series under one roof offers dramatic proof of the shifts it has undergone.

Called “Cross Galaxy”, the exhibition starts with a loud statement – a replica of Appearance of Crosses I hanging directly in front of the gallery entrance.

While the caption suggests it is the original from 1988 that Ding produced when he was a student in the Chinese painting department of Shanghai University, the show’s curator, Yongwoo Lee, clarifies that the old one is long gone and that this, and two other paintings from the same time, were repainted in 2020 and 2021.

“Appearance of Crosses I”, a new version of a 1988 painting by Ding Yi, is the first work visitors to his retrospective at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning see. Photo: Enid Tsui
“Appearance of Crosses I”, a new version of a 1988 painting by Ding Yi, is the first work visitors to his retrospective at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning see. Photo: Enid Tsui

The work is a near-square divided evenly into three vertical strips in red, yellow and blue. The acrylic surface is perfectly smooth, with little trace of the painter’s hand.

Advertisement

The tricolour background is further divided by black lines into a uniform grid of 90 squares, each with a plus sign inside just short of touching the edges.

Advertisement