Foreword | The Beauty of Harmony & Unity: Walnut
Exploring the Spiritual Unity of Life through Art and Education

In an era of multicultural cognizance, Memor Museum has established itself in New York City as a museum dedicated to bringing Asian culture to the public and world through thoughtfully curated exhibitions that reflect the spirit and value of Eastern art.

We are honored to present The Beauty of Harmony & Unity: Walnut—The Art of Xu Zhongou, an exhibition that, beyond its presentation as a visual feast, embarks on a journey toward symbolic cultural heritage, art education, and individual spiritual renewal.

Xu Zhongou is a major figure in Chinese contemporary art. As an artist, he has not only made continuous breakthroughs within the practice of woodblock printmaking, but as an educator, he has also had significant influence on multiple generations of young artists. Xu has had a personal hand in the development and creation of high-level art institutions in China, pushing the advancement of Chinese art education into the modern era. In his teaching, he has retained both a child-like curiosity and the keen perceptiveness of an artist, constantly imparting newer versions of himself in sharing knowledge—yet always returning to his original sources of inspiration as he creates.

His artistic achievements have earned him widespread acclaim and special acknowledgement within international art circles. In 1994, Xu was invited to serve as a visiting professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and he was later awarded lifelong, honorary citizenship by the City of Baltimore. The following year, he was invited to complete a large-scale portrait of President George H. W. Bush, which is now held at the Bush Presidential Library in Texas. Furthermore, works from his series entitled Green Dragon Town and Mortise and Tenon have been permanently collected by the British Museum and The Muban Educational Trust (MET), bearing important artistic witness to Chinese-Western cultural exchange.

Since the 1980s, Xu has focused his work on the theme of “walnuts,” launching a series that lasted more than 30 years. In Chinese tradition, the walnut is a profound cultural symbol in folk customs, religion, philosophy, and life metaphors. In this series, Xu has transformed it into a visual prototype within his printmaking, allowing it to become a vessel to express the profound concepts of he 和 “harmony” and he 合 “unity.”

The shape of the walnut symbolizes the beginning of the universe, the maternal “start” of all things—while its core meaning embodies connection between tradition and the present, perception and rationality, as well as the spiritual echoes that resonate between the individual and the world. In his words, the walnut is not only a distillation of unprocessed nature, but also a condensation of time, thought, and feeling—all to give expression to his sustained inquiry into and artistic expression of the “origin of life” and the “generative force of culture.”

As art critic Professor Zhou Zhiyu has noted, Xu’s In the Name of Walnut series goes beyond innovation in visual language. It is a deeply philosophical exploration that takes the abstract and concrete—the lines and ideas—and blends them into harmony, turning the walnut itself into one of the most elevated explorations of “symbolic imagery” in Chinese contemporary art.

We hope that this exhibition opens a window for viewers into Eastern styles of art and thought, while also allowing new appreciation for and interpretation of the “walnut” as a unique cultural symbol through cross-cultural exchange within Memor Museum’s platform.

We cordially invite you to partake in this journey where art and thought meet, and where, within this dialogue of “harmony within diversity,” one can wholly experience the contemporary expression: the beauty of harmony and unity.

Memor Museum Curatorial Team
Curator — Willa (Wennan) Ao
Executive Curator — Wei Mengying
Visual Design — Wu Jia, Tan Huang
Publicity Team — Chen Junxian, Catherine Wu
Text Translation — Kristen Martucci

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