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Lalan （Xie Jing-lan）
Lalan (Xie Jing-lan,1921-1995) was a French Chinese female artist whose legacy lies in the art form known as integrated art, incorporating painting, music, and dance. Having received professional vocal training, Lalan studied composition and modern dance, and began her artistic career painting abstract art after relocating to Paris. From her early abstract paintings with vivid calligraphic lines and symbols, to the subtle and introspective landscapes inspired by the spirit of traditional Chinese paintings of the Song and Yuan Dynasties in the 1970s, Lalan further developed the delicate and rhythmic abstract paintings intertwined with dancing movements in her late artistic career. Without making any sketches, Lalan choreographed the paintings with her instinct and voluntary gestures. The evolution of her paintings shows the transition of Lalan’s spirituality and reflected the harmonious inner state.

Biography
Xie Jinglan, nicknamed Lalan (formerly "Lanlan"), was born in Guizhou, China in 1921.

Early Life
Brought up by a scholarly family. Lalan's grandfather was a famous scholar and her father was a traditional Chinese literati. At a young age, Lalan had a musical gift and had the opportunity to cultivate her talent thanks to her family’s support of the arts and academia. When Lalan was seven, she and her family moved to Shanghai. In 1937, she moved to Hangzhou where she studied at the Music Department in the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts, where she met Zao Wou-Ki. In 1941, they married in Hong Kong.

Moving to Paris
In 1948, the couple traveled to Paris to start a new phase of life together. Finding themselves in the centre of the art world in the late 1940's, the couple quickly became enamoured with France’s artistic metropolis and world-famous museums. Lalan and Zao settled into a studio in Paris Montparnasse where they became neighbors with Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti and befriended artists Sanyu, Georges Mathieu and Pierre Soulages, as well as the poet Henri Michaux who had helped both Lalan’s and Zao Wou-Ki’s artistic development.

Lalan continually pursued her passion in music, while Zao Wou-Ki’s career in the visual arts progressed. During this period, Lalan studied music composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, and later, she studied modern dance at the American Cultural Centre after watching a documentary on Martha Graham. As mentioned, the poet Henri Michaux was a supportive figure in Lalan’s artistic growth and he introduced her to the distinguished and avant-garde American-French electronic composer Edgard Varèse who offered Lalan the opportunity to learn about electronic music. As a result, this experience led to Lalan’s realization of her genuine passion to express her inner world of artistry.

From "Lanlan" to "Lalan"
In 1957, Lanlan divorced Zao Wou-Ki and moved to St. Ouen in the north suburb of Paris. One year later, she married Marcel Van Thienen, a French musician, and changed her name from “Lanlan” to Lalan. From then on, she started a new life as an artist, devoting herself to painting, music, dance and poetry.

Integrated Art
In the 1960s, Lalan was active in the French music scene. Chris Marker invited Xie Jinglan to compose the soundtrack for his film many times. Among them, "Description d'un combat" won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961. Lalan also won the French composer in the same year and certified as a film composer with the Music Editors Association (La Sacem).

In the 1970s, Xie Jinglan combined music, painting, and dance to create a comprehensive art form called Spectacle. In 1973, Xie Jinglan received a grant from the French Ministry of Culture for his research project "Parallel Research: Painting, Music, and Dance" (Recherches Paralleles sur la peinture, la musique er la danse) to continue to research and develop her integrated art form. Her triptych "Soudain Bleu" created for the "Landscape" performance was later awarded the permanent collection of the French Ministry of Culture. In 1975, she was awarded the "Chevalier of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the French Ministry of Culture.

Death
Lalan never ceased to paint with vibrancy and spirit until a car accident took her life in 1995.

Most significant to her work was the conveyance of her intuitive artistic vision and the freedom of self-expression.

Calligraphic Abstraction, 1957-1969
During the mid-20th century, Lalan’s gestural application of thick, black calligraphic brushstrokes conveyed a bold, dancer-like quality on her large canvases and caught the attention of the French art world in 1960 when the Creuze Gallery in Paris held her first solo exhibition.

In her abstract works, Lalan introduced symbols and forms inspired by Chinese oracle bone scripts, ancient bronzes and stone tablets. Perceiving painting as a manifestation of the subconscious and the externalization of inner emotions, Lalan’s voluntary gestures unleashed organic moves and rhythmic marks across the canvas. She once said of her works, “They are abstract paintings, akin, to writing, completed by movements led by the hands.” Against the dense background of chromatic colors, the bold and intense brushwork dominated by black, sepia and vermillion tones conveyed the artist’s desire and urgency of self-expression.

Inner Landscape, 1969-1983
After 1969, Lalan sought to achieve a new artistic language. To breakaway, Lalan studied traditional Chinese painting particularly of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, as well as Taoist classic readings. She was greatly enlightened by the philosophy of Chuang Tzu on the aesthetics of stillness and emptiness and of the spirit and beauty of the nature. Lalan also traveled extensively to famous mountains in Europe to experience the connection and resemblance between humans and nature.During this period, Lalan began creating watercolor on scroll and her works changed from emotional abstract paintings to peaceful landscapes particularly depicting the sun, the moon, mist, peaks and rock formations. In 1971, the French Ministry of Culture purchased Lalan’s three-paneled oeuvre Sudden Blue into their permanent museum collection, which marked the beginning of Lalan’s landscape series. Distinctly characteristic of this series are Lalan’s soft tones of white, light yellow, gray and light blue, as well as rhythmic lines that evoke a calm and peaceful energy, and reflect her consciousness and introspection on life.

Beginning in 1971, Lalan incorporated performance art into her solo exhibitions at the Galerie Jacques Desbrières, the Galerie Iris Clert, and the Centre Culturel Pablo Neruda of the Corbeil-Essonnes. She performed her own choreographed modern dance accompanied by her original electronic compositions in front of her paintings. The interdisciplinary integration of her creations marked the formation of her unique “integrated art” (L’Art Synthèse). In 1973, the French Ministry of Culture awarded her with a special grant in recognition of her work in integrated art.

Return to Abstraction, 1984-1995
Lalan‘s return to abstraction demonstrate her own life transmuted through inner reflection. Stepping away from the figurative elements of the landscape, her works featured a fuller and more resolved composition, a simplified expression of the dynamism of form. In the 1980s, Lalan returned to China several times and spent a lot of time exploring museums and nature. During this period, Lalan found inspiration rooted deeply in Chinese culture and her works returned to the abstract. In 1988, Lalan and Van Thienen moved to Bormes-les-Mimosas. The beauty of Southern France provided many inspirations, and the ever-changing Nature imbued her works with an immense energy in the form of giant canvases almost two meters high. The use of wash, brushstrokes, splatter and splashes at this stage became more deftly executed.

In 1990, the Euro-Asian Cultural Exchange Association and the Espace Cardin in Paris jointly held a grand solo exhibition for her. The exhibit included A Salute to Edgard Varèse (1985). Painted in gold-yellow and brown, the composition gradually changes from the indefinite at left to the complex strokes at right. In memory of her teacher, Lalan was sincere in her intention to convery life as dancing music on her canvas.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS / PERFORMANCES ======

Museum Collection
Lalan’s works are widely collected by art institutions and museums around the world, including:


 * Culture Ministry of France,
 * Paris Modern Art Museum （Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris),
 * Shanghai Art Museum,
 * Macau Museum of Art,
 * Zhejiang Art Museum