In April 2019, the Power Station of Art presents ‘The Challenging Souls’, a unique exhibition showcasing avant-garde artists Yves Klein, Lee Ufan and Ding Yi. Coming from different cultural backgrounds of the west and east, these three artists polarise, to this day, the relentless pursuit of art through experimentation, innovation and exploration. Individually and collectively, they have invented new artistic languages, media and art forms by challenging existing conventions and trends.

Yves Klein (1928-1962) represented the genius of the French avant-garde scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Lee Ufan (b. 1936) contributed a conceptual framework and practice to the Mono-ha (School of Things) movement of the late 1960s to early 1970s of Japan and a keen advocate for the Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement that emerged in the 1970s in Korea. Ding Yi (b. 1962) has been known since the 1980s for his abstract paintings built up of crosses, a culmination of Chinese contemporary art post the cultural cum political turmoils of the 1960s to 1970s.

This is the first time the works of Yves Klein and Lee Ufan are shown in China under a common artistic umbrella with their Chinese colleague Ding Yi.