“Form & Content II: How Do We Value Painting(s)?” is a series of Study Sessions facilitated by ICA curators using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an inquiry-based method for looking at and discussing art together.
Each one-hour session focuses closely on a single artwork. Rather than offering an exhibition tour or lecture, Study Sessions invite participants to spend time looking, share what they notice, and respond to different perspectives as the conversation develops. No prior knowledge of art or the exhibition is required
Across seven weeks, each Study Session focuses on one painting by a different artist in the exhibition. As part of Vitalisms II, the sessions continue the "Form & Content" conversations begun with artists in Vitalisms I. The first chapter developed its research through conversations with artists about their paintings and what they might tell us about the time and place in which they were made. In this second chapter, we look primarily at abstract painting and invite the public into the conversation, asking what happens when we spend time looking and talking about paintings together.
Through these conversations, Vitalisms II asks how value comes into being through our encounters with painting. What do we notice when we spend sustained time with a painting? How do our observations, associations, and responses affect what it comes to mean or matter to us? Rather than seeking a definitive reading or fixed measure of value, the Study Sessions ask how value might come into being through the acts of looking, interpreting, and talking about paintings together.
Schedule of Study Sessions
Fridays, 13:00–14:00 (English) and 16:00–17:00 (Chinese)
9 October FU Site, Two Standing Figures (2024)
16 October WANG Xiaofu, A Place To Be Held (2025)
23 October GUO Hongwei, The Sound is Like Wind and Waves (2024)
30 October Cong, Tears (2022-2023)
6 November WANG Xingyun, Faultline of the Night (2024)
13 November XIAO Wenjie, Lump 06102024 (2024)
20 November ZHAO Yao, Painting of Thought III-374B (2025)
Free and open to the public. No registration is required. Participation is available on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to venue capacity.
*Study Sessions are discussion-based and primarily take place through spoken conversation. To support focused looking and discussion, participants are asked to avoid using electronic devices unless needed for accessibility. All sessions will be audio recorded for internal research and reference. Please contact us in advance if you would like to discuss accessibility or participation concerns.
In conjunction with Vitalisms II, an exhibition by Cong, GUO Hongwei, FU Site, XIAO Wenjie, WANG Xiaofu, WANG Xingyun and ZHAO Yao.
The exhibition Vitalisms II and related events are presented as the first season of the ICA’s artistic research program Untimely Inheritances (2026–28), attending to what inheritance asks of us and how we might inhabit unfinished worlds through practices of interpretation, response, and transformation.
