NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale Announces New Exhibition WALASSE TING: PARROT JUNGLE

Beginning November 9, 2023 through March 12, 2024, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle, a comprehensive exhibition created to re-introduce Western audiences to the extraordinary world of artist Walasse Ting (b. 1928, Wuxi, China; d.2010, New York NY). Ting was one of the most radical and independent figures of his time. His work bridged ancient Chinese aesthetics and the European avant-garde with the American Pop Art multiverse. While Ting's place within the art historic canon is recognized due to his artist's book 1¢ Life (1964), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will be the first American institution to go beyond this legacy and acknowledge Ting's mastery within a monographic museum show.

Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle will provide viewers the opportunity to immerse themselves in Ting's neon-soaked visions of nubile women, flora, fauna, and an endless menagerie of cats, parrots and hibiscus. Simultaneously, the show will establish a biographic narrative, in which viewers will learn about the diasporic life of Ting; whose transnational identity left him without the typical ambassadorship countries engage in to display their creative wealth. 

Parrot Jungle will make South Florida Ting's honorary home; one perfectly fitting given the artist's love of the region. Ting and his family came to South Florida frequently to visit his in-laws, who were among the influx of Jewish residents who relocated here between the 1950s and ‘70s . This exhibition will highlight how Ting's signature motifs were inspired by these trips, where he discovered and fell in love with Miami's wildlife park Parrot Jungle, a landmark he documented in hundreds of photographs and countless artworks. 

Curated by the Museum's Bryant Taylor Curator, Ariella Wolens, this exhibition is in dialogue with the Museum's CoBrA Collection, which includes essential works by Ting and is the largest holding of artworks created by affiliates of the post-war movement known as CoBrA (an acronym for the founding artists' native cities: Copenhagen - Brussels - Amsterdam) within the United States. The CoBrA artists stood for freedom, spontaneity, collaboration, interdisciplinary practice and ceaseless experimentation. These values resonated profoundly with Walasse Ting, who upon his arrival to Paris in 1953 quickly established lifelong friendships with key CoBrA figures Pierre Alechinsky (b.1927, Brussels, Belgium; lives and works in Bougival, France), Karel Appel (b. 1921, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; d. 2006, Zurich, Switzerland) and Asger Jorn (b.1914, Jutland, Denmark; d. 1973, Aarhaus, Denmark). In the spirit of CoBrA and the Museum's ethos, this exhibition will champion Walasse Ting as a citizen of the world, one who made many places, including South Florida, his honorary home, and created a unique oeuvre that was passionately enriched by all he encountered.

This retrospective is accompanied by a full-color, hard bound monograph, edited and with an essay by Ariella Wolens, the museum's Bryant-Taylor Curator. Published by Skira, it includes additional text by CoBrA artist Pierre Alechinsky, Bonnie Clearwater, Xiao (Amanda) Ju, and Ting's daughter Mia Ting. 

The exhibition and book were made possible by an anonymous long-time supporter of NSU Art Museum, Joan and Stephen Marks, the Barron Family Foundation, Imperfect Family Foundation, Funding Arts Broward, Inc., the Sam Francis Foundation in honor of Francis' 100th birthday, Caroline and David Stonehill, Judith Stonehill, Marlène Brody, Marion Lefebre and Robert S. Pynoos, Wenise Wong and Eric Barron.

Situated midway between Miami and Palm Beach, NSU Art Museum is located in the heart of Downtown Fort Lauderdale. The Museum is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing all facets of civilization's visual history and is widely known for its significant collection of Latin American art, contemporary art with an emphasis on art by Black, Latin American and women artists, as well as works by American artist William Glackens and the European CoBrA group of artists. For more information, please visit https://nsuartmuseum.org. 

Founded in 1958, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing many facets of civilization's visual history. Located midway between Miami and Palm Beach in downtown Fort Lauderdale's arts and entertainment district, the Museum's 83,000 square-foot building, which opened in 1986, was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and contains over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, the 256 -seat Horvitz auditorium, a museum store and café. In 2008, the Museum became part of Nova Southeastern University (NSU), one of the largest private research universities in the United States. NSU Art Museum is known for its significant collection of Latin American art, contemporary art with an emphasis on art by Black, Latinx and women artists, African art that spans the 19th to the 21st-century, as well as works by American artist William Glackens, and the European Cobra group of artists. Two scholarly research centers complement the collections: The Dr. Stanley and Pearl Goodman Latin American Art Study Center and the William J. Glackens Study Center.

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