Independent Collectors

For this year’s spring exhibition “All Means Are Sacred”, the Beijing-based collection M WOODS presents works by artists across fifteen centuries in a focused examination of reverence, energy, and the spirit.

Staging an encounter between contemporary and pre-contemporary works, the exhibition confronts the means by which art seeks to transcend, often in unconventional ways, the materials and conditions of its making.

Taking over the entire museum – located in a former munitions factory in Beijing’s bustling arts district 798 Art Zone – the exhibition features the work of artists Ouyang Chun, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Raoul De Keyser, Olafur Eliasson, Giorgio Griffa, Charles Harlan, Giorgio Morandi, Guido van der Werve, Xu Sheng, and Yang Changxu alongside anonymous Indian Tantric drawings, a Northern Renaissance painting by a follower of Hieronymous Bosch, and ancient Chinese stone statuary. Time and media are collapsed within this selection, the works – religious and secular alike– unified by an earnest ambition to overthrow ordinary modes of experiencing art to communicate a spiritual truth.

Drawn predominately from the M WOODS collection, the exhibition takes its title from Wassily Kandinsky’s text Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912) in which the artist asserts the legitimacy of all means of art making that serve a work’s inner necessity. Honoring this thought, the exhibition highlights themes of transcendence and enlightenment that are key concerns of the M WOODS permanent collection.

JEAN-BAPTISTE-CAMILLE COROT, Peupliers au bord de l’eau, ca. 1860-65. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

ANONYMOUS, A rocky landscape with Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, another figure looking on, c. 1570-90. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child through a sinful world, c. 1525. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

RAOUL DE KEYSER, Untitled, 1988. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

XU SHENG, Sinkage, 2016. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

ANONYMOUS, Untitled (Sanganer), 2014. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

ANONYMOUS, Untitled (Near Samode) (diptych) (Detail), 1999. From the collection of Franck André Jamme

Installation view at M WOODS. Courtesy M WOODS

GUIDO VAN DER WERVE, Nummer negen, the day I didn’t turn with the world, 2007

ANONYMOUS, Untitled, c. 550 – 557. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

RAOUL DE KEYSER, No, 2000. Courtesy the artist and M WOODS

M WOODS is featured in the BMW ART GUIDE by INDEPENDENT COLLECTORS.

Beijing (4)

Co-founders RongRong and Inri have been supporting contemporary photography by hosting a full program at the Three Shadows.

Beijing

Heart of the Tin Man

Beijing’s M WOODS dedicates itself to the digital age in this exhibition.

Beijing

Beijing Modern

A young collector. A young collection. In the middle of Beijing’s 798 Art District Chinese collector Lin Han opened his own museum of contemporary art at just 29 years old, with his first ever artwork purchase being a Zeng Fanzhi painting in 2013.

Beijing

All Means are Sacred

Beijing-based collection M WOODS presents works by artists across fifteen centuries.

Beijing (4)

RongRong & Inri

Co-founders RongRong and Inri have been supporting contemporary photography by hosting a full program at the Three Shadows.

Heart of the Tin Man

Beijing’s M WOODS dedicates itself to the digital age in this exhibition.

Beijing Modern

A young collector. A young collection. In the middle of Beijing’s 798 Art District Chinese collector Lin Han opened his own museum of contemporary art at just 29 years old, with his first ever artwork purchase being a Zeng Fanzhi painting in 2013.