Biography 1960 —

1960 

Tan Ping was born in Chengde City, Hebei Province. He lived with his grandma in his hometown Yantai at one year old, and moved back with his parents at six. Tan Ping’s mother was part of the first cohort of undergraduate student in Chengde Medical College after the founding of new China. She became the College gynecologist after graduation. At that time, lacking of medical resources, Tai Ping’s mother undertook almost all mapping illustrations in the medical apartment. Tan Ping liked painting since childhood, which is inseparable from the influences of his mother.

1972

It was a prime time for youngsters to escape the rural and to seek education. Maybe, Perhaps it was to avoid ardous labours, TanPing’s mother became conscious to develop his artistic talents. He began to learn painting with Teacher Hao from Museum of Longhua county,Chengde. Since then, the 12 year old Tan Ping learnt drawing formally.

1975

Fif teen year-old Tan Ping was selected as the backbone of Chengde Municipal Cultural Museum, where he was creating thematic artworks in his spare time. Tan Ping completed his first watercolor art “work Double Bridges Better than the Singles”at that time Fullstop. In 1978, his worspacing Will Build Skyscrapers When I Grow up”, won the third prize of National Youth Arts Exhibition.

1977

The National College Entrance Examination System was resumed. To meet the requirements of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, in the latter half of the 1979, Tan Ping’s uncle introduced him to study with Cao Dezhao, the graduate of CAFA in Tianjin Beijiao Cultural, to strengthen his drawing skills and foundation.

1983

Tan Ping started to prepare for his graduate work “Miners Series”, Under the influence of the German printmaker, Kaethe Kollwitz, he stressed about the chiaroscuro light ef fect and the complexity of spirituality in his own etchings.Thereupon, he overlooked the themes and story, to emphasise on the darkness and light, and his interpretation on the dif ferences inside the mining grounds, Meanwhile in his other graduation. “ Tibetan Series”, Tan Ping paysq the same attention to the primitive vitality of life in Tibet, no matter of the strong evening light or the heavy red wall of the temples. Pulling away from Chen Danqing’s artistic style, Tan Ping illustrated a completely different Tibet and their shepherding culture.

1987

Tan Ping married Teng Fei, who also graduated from the Department of Print of CAFA . He started making etchings. When Tan Ping lost track of time in one incident, and lef t a corroded copper plate in the acid bath, it motivated his primal exploration of the abstract language. In the same year, he became well-known for his ‘abstract ’ series of etchings.

1989

Tan Ping won the West German Cultural Exchange Scholarship Deutscher Akademischer AustauschDienst (DAAD). As one of the only two students who have gained this honor, he lef t China for Berlin, and began studying in the Free Art Department, Universität der Künste Berlin. He was mentored by the German neo-expressionist master H.K .Hoedicke. Later, he studied with Beckmann. In 1989, Tan Ping witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany.

1995

Tan Ping entered into in another turning point in his life. Under support of President Jin Shangyi, he participated in the establishment of the Design Department of CAFA . How to establish the new design

education system became Tan Ping’s main source of drive, influencing the orbit of his artistic career simultaneously.

1997

Tan Ping created the ’20 x 20’ print series, brought in the principles of design and architecture into his creation. In the same year, the four printmakers: Tan Ping, Su Xinping, Wang Huaxiang and Zhou

Jirong established the Square Studio, with the main purpose of research and artistic exploration.’

1999-2000

The Square Studio GRoup Exhibtions were held at Shanghai Museum of Art, and at Konrad Adenauer Foundation Bonn, Germany. In 2000, Tan Ping’s solo print exhibition was held at Berlin Art Lof t. His work during this period focused more on materiality. Tan Ping used paper pulp and iron plate found in garbage station for his minimalist series called ‘Calligraphy.

2006

“Ruins” Tan Ping and Zhu Jinshi Works Exhibition was held in Today Art Museum, Beijing. The works in this Exhibition were his largest size works at the time, also were most symbolic ones, establishing his position and influence in the field of Chinese abstract art.

2012

A Line” Tan Ping Solo Exhibition was held in the round hall of National Art Museum of China. One of the works was a forty-meter woodcut, while other works he created during his forty-year artistic career

were used as background in the two side halls. As the first abstract artist exhibition held in National Art Museum of China, his works raised ex tensive discussion in the art world. Cutting a line in National Art Museum of China is unprecedented.

2015

“ Tan Ping: Follow My Line” exhibited in ASU Art Museum, Tempe. In May, “Oriental Abstraction VS Western Figuration: A Dialogue between Tan Ping and Luciano Castelli” held in National Art Museum of

China.In June, “Drawing-The art of Tan Ping”, Ginkgo Space, Beijing. In October, the Duo Exhibition “Divergence” Tan Ping and Liu Qinghe will be present in Meilun Art Museum in Hunan. 2015 was a fruitful

year for him, a year of inheriting the past and opening the future.

In February, Tan Ping held his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, “Certainty in Uncertainty”, curated by Huang Du and was held at the Leo Gallery. Tan Ping brought back his large-scale paintings from

the Heimhausen Museum in Zurich into the gallery. He broke boundaries with traditional painting by adapting the new artistic presence so intentionally uncertain and unstable, showing audience a scene

constituted with elements of ‘abstraction’ and ‘action’. In April, Tan Ping held a solo exhibition at the Yuandian Art Museum in Beijing, which did not demonstrate any drawing elements, but carefully arranged the “light tubes” at the corners of each wall as the main body of creation. The empty space and the artist ’s performative practice became the artwork itself, breaking the inherent cognition about exhibition, and expanding the participation, experience, and interpretation of each visitor. In September, the solo exhibition “ Tan Ping” was held at Horsens Museum of Modern Art, one of the most important contemporary art galleries in Denmark. For the first time, more than 20 large-scale paintings created in recent years were displayed in a  centralised manner in the Western art world. In Andersen’s hometown, he created “Field Paintings” “Fairy Tale”, measuring more than ten meters long.

2018

Tan Ping’s solo exhibition “ Tan Ping 1993: The Beginning of Two Modulus” in Platform China was curated by curator Cui Cancan. From Tan Ping’s numerous creations, the curator has sorted out two fundamentals within Tan Ping’s artistic creation based on “modulus”,and has divided the exhibition into two parts, including 9 selections of video projections and multiple sets of usual works, e.g. drawings,

prints, paintings and installations. Curator Cui Cancan said: “During his 20 years of creative career, Tan Ping has been an artist of the free-spirited, concepts, abstraction, and minimalist, thriving in continuous exploration. Through his work , there are an array of accents, histories, experiences, realities and self reflection. For Tan Ping, there are only two things needed to be expressed - balance and time.”

In December, Tan Ping participated in an exhibition co-organized by the National Gallery Singapore and the Art Science Museum with two sets of works “+40m” and “60×60”, with the theme: Minimalism:

Space. Light. Object.”. Curated by Adrian George, this large-scale exhibition was considered to be the first minimalist themed exhibition in Southeast Asia, about 150 works by more than 80 artists and 40 composers from Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. The curator exhibited Tan Ping’s works and one of Minimalist Greats, Donald Judd’s cube sculptures at the show.

2019

From June to September, the exhibition “Duet: A Tan Ping Retrospective” curated by curator Wu Hung was held at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. The exhibition included more than 40 paintings, prints and videos, tracing the growth of the artist, including life and thinking process, observing the evolution of Tan Ping’s 35-year art career.

2024

The Rothko Museum and Wei Gallery are pleased to announce that the artist Tan Ping will have a major exhibition “Back and Forth: The Art of Tan Ping” at the Rothko Museum in Latvia from May 31st to August 25th, 2024. This exhibition honours Tan Ping's hybrid identity as an artist; not only was he educated in Beijing and Berlin, but his work fuses European and Asian elements – including the work of Mark Rothko. After this major exhibition, which will be the premiere show during the summer season at the Rothko Museum, the artist will have another European show at the Museum Ludwig, Koblenz in Germany.