The Asia Art Center is honored to announce the exhibition "Fadeur: Between the Visible and the Vanishing," which will be held from July 19 to October 12, 2025. Curated by Yao Xiaofei, the exhibition will feature works by four artists: Liang Shaoji, Wang Shaoqiang, Chen Shuxia, and Hang Chunhui.
Fadeur (blandness in English), in the tradition of Chinese aesthetics, denotes an aesthetic tendency that is imbued with profound tension and depth of meaning. It does not celebrate brilliance or grandeur as the ideal of beauty, but rather in the quiet, imperceptible emergence of lasting vitality and grace. Laozi remarks: “It is bland, imperceptible to the eye, inaudible to the ear, and inexhaustible in use.” It is formless yet vast, flavorless yet resonant, unadorned yet enduring. Thus, it can embrace all things and move in harmony with the flow of the universe. Zhuangzi places blandness at the axis of being and virtue: “Serenely without extremes, it gives rise to all forms of beauty,” transcending opposites and achieving harmonious self-sufficiency. It transcends dualities and attains a harmonious, self-sustaining balance.When one perceives all things with a mind of emptiness and stillness, one can naturally attune to the flow of nature without any striving. Thus, Fadeur is not merely an aesthetic inclination, but opens a pathway toward an accessible yet profound mode of existence. The French philosopher François Jullien introduces this meaning into the French linguistic context through Fadeur, making blandness a space of indeterminate potentiality (champ esthétique indéterminé). It is precisely in this “decharacterized” (sans particularité) state that differences coexist and all things converge. What Fadeur opens up is this boundless space of perception—where the lightness of color and the subtle distance of form guide the viewer to break free from utilitarian desires and move toward inner lucidity. The Fadeur in art is found in the subtle perception of something that feels both near and distant, gradually unfolding. It reveals the deep rhythm of existence through contemplation.
The exhibition features works by four artists. Liang Shaoji uses silk from silkworms as a medium, embedding the rhythms of life within its woven strands, revealing the tension of silent creation at the fragile interface. Wang Shaoqiang, through the repeated layering of grids and color blocks, uses the fragility and permeability of Xuan paper to soften the rigidity of geometric order. Subtle differences and contingencies emerge within, transforming the viewing experience into a dialectical exploration of the beauty of Fadeur. Chen Shuxia blurs the boundaries between color and texture in her paintings, guiding the viewer into an incipient perceptual space through pure sensibility, where the stillness and quiet inhabitation of Fadeur emerge before form fully materializes. Hang Chunhui employs the folds and creases of objects to create a temporal deferral of perception, allowing Fadeur to unfold in the interplay between manifestation and concealment, subtly gesturing toward the shifting boundaries of form and meaning.
Fadeur is not the absence; it takes on a suspended state, leading us into a perceptual space where things slowly emerge and coexist in their plurality. In a silent withdrawal from contention, it reveals the poetic order that lies deep within existence.
Yao Xiaofei
July 2025
