Paco Knöller, Yuán II (Detail), 2004, Color woodprint, 230 x 110 cm Tan Ping, Untitled (Detail), 2008, Color woodprint, 80 x 160 cm

ALEXANDER OCHS GALLERIES BERLIN | BEIJING Sophienstraße 21 10178 Berlin Germany (city map) Send E-mail tel +49 (0)30 - 283 91 387 www.alexanderochs-galleries.com

Paco Knöller and Tan Ping both work with the medium of woodcut and it seems formally similar but yet they establish very different pictorial and cosmic worlds as well as energies.

While Paco Knöller (to be seen in the Yuán series) is engaged in the 'Chinese' idea of chance - although in a strictly organized manner - you can feel Tan Ping' s deep involvement in the European Modernism (he studied in Berlin from 1989 to 1994). However a highly visible difference in perception due to the fundamentally different cultural connotation becomes obvious.

Paco Knöller pushes his cuttings and the mostly contrariwise placed colours strongly outwards. You can almost speak of a 'blasting' of the format. The lines of Tan Ping usually lead inwards, into the centre of his printed works and express - by abandoning the central perspective - an idea of 'Confucian' harmony.

The exhibition in Berlin is a kind of 'prelude' to an extensive encounter of the two artists in Beijing/China in 2010.

Paco Knöller studied from 1972 to 1978 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He holds a professorship at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen since 2001. Paco Knöller lives and works in Berlin.

Tan Ping studied until 1984 at the Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFA in Beijing and from 1989 to 1994 on grounds of a DAAD-scholarship at the HdK Hochschule der Künste Berlin. Since 2003 he is the vice-chancellor of the CAFA, where he teaches since 1994.