美国华网讯：
胡溧：一位艺术家、移民、教师的美国梦
Ethan Cohen（一森·科恩）
要理解胡溧的重要性，我们必须审视他留下的画作，以及创作这些作品所经历的非凡旅程。
胡溧于 1950 年出生于上海的一个艺术世家，属于深受 20 世纪中国政治与文化动荡影响的一代人。他的青年时代正值文化大革命，在那段时期，教育、知识生活、家庭历史以及个人抱负都可能在瞬间变成负担。他被迫中断学业，被下放到农村参加体力劳动。然而，胡溧在夜间坚持自学，在结束稻田里的劳作后，借着烛光读书画画。这一画面早在胡溧成为成功艺术家或教授之前，就揭示了他性格中最根本的一面：他是一位开拓者。
文化大革命结束后，胡溧追求了他们那一代许多人曾被剥夺的艺术教育。他考入上海大学美术学院，接受了在绘画、构图、解剖、观察和具象绘画方面极为严格的学术训练。
1986年毕业后，他留校任教。他在中国已经取得了显着的成就，但他选择重新开始。
1990 年，胡溧与妻子李萍以及他们年幼的家庭离开中国来到美国。他们在南达科他州的弗米利恩（Vermillion）定居，胡溧进入南达科他大学攻读研究生学位。
在美国，胡溧不再仅仅是一位卓有成就的画家和大学教师，他是一名移民。他必须学习一门新语言，理解一种新文化，适应不同的大学体制，建立在美国的学术资历，并抚养家庭。他还必须探索，一位深受中国历史和教育熏陶的艺术家，如何在不放弃塑造了自身的那些经历的前提下，在美国文化中找到一席之地。
攻读硕士学位期间，胡溧利用暑假前往纽约市，与其他中国艺术家一起在街头为人画肖像。我觉得这段经历尤为动人。
1987 年我在苏荷区（SoHo）开办画廊时，我认识的许多中国艺术家都在纽约街头画肖像，以此支付房租、维持生计和购买食物。其中就有艾未未，我很熟悉他，他在需要钱时也会去街头画肖像。看到这么多中国艺术家以此谋生，激发了我的灵感，策划了一个名为《生存》（Survival）的展览。我邀请艺术家们来到画廊为观众画肖像，观众可以当场购买作品。我想让人们了解中国艺术家是如何适应异国他乡以及资本主义制度的现实。
胡溧的经历正是这一宏大历史的一部分。
一位受过高等训练、曾在中国顶尖大学任教的画家，横跨半个美国来到纽约街头画肖像，只为了支持在南达科他州的家庭。艺术才能成为了生存的手段。
胡溧于 1993 年获得南达科他大学的美术硕士（MFA）学位。次年，他被威斯康星大学奥什科什分校聘为艺术系助理教授，获得了终身教职轨道的职位。
来到美国仅四年，他就学会了适应新的国家和学术文化，完成了美国的研究生学位，并作为教授进入了大学体系。他从助理教授晋升为副教授，最终成为正教授。他获得了终身教职，并于 2006 年被大学授予终身讲席教授（Endowed Professorship）荣誉。
胡溧在美国扎下了根。在很多方面，他践行了美国梦。我使用这个词绝非轻率。在胡溧的故事里，美国梦并不是一帆风顺的扶摇直上，而是通过能力、纪律、教育、牺牲和坚持不懈，获得重新开始并建立事业的机会。
他成为了受人尊敬的教授，作品在美国及国际上广泛展出。从 1994 年开始，他举办了 40多次个展，并参加了 100 多次经过评审的群展。然而，仅凭专业成就并不能完全解释胡溧的重要性，他在美国留下的最宝贵遗产或许体现在他的学生身上。
胡溧热爱教学。他的学生们描述了一位全力以赴投入于他们发展的教授。他不仅教他们如何素描和绘画，还教他们如何坚持。当一幅画不成功时，解决办法并不一定是丢弃它重新开始，而是去理解哪里出了问题并解决问题。这既是艺术上的教诲，也是一种人生哲学。
胡溧一生都在解决问题：文化大革命、中断的教育、移民、语言、研究生学业、抚养家庭，以及在美国建立学术事业。他直面每一个挑战，然后教会他的学生也这样做。胡溧带来了严格的训练、对技艺的尊重、中国的历史与视觉文化，以及在大多数美国学生难以想象的环境中磨砺出的坚韧。他不仅保留了这些东西，还与他人分享，改变了身边的文化环境。
他的故事是 1980 年代和 1990 年代来到美国的中国艺术家历史的一部分，这段历史至今仍未被充分理解。我有幸亲眼见证了这段历史。
1984 年，作为我在哈佛大学的毕业设计，我为袁运生举办了题为《被释放的谜》（An Enigma Set Free）的个展。
毕业后，我搬到纽约，与许多离开中国体验西方的中国前卫艺术家成为了朋友，包括徐冰、艾未未、严力、马德升、王克平、林天苗、王功新、高张和张伟。
胡溧是这一时期在纽约的几百名中国艺术家之一。这些艺术家来到美国，并不只是变成了美国人。他们帮助改变了美国文化所能达到的广度。他们进入大学、工作室、画廊、博物馆和社区。他们教学、展览、抚养子女，并带来了记忆、哲学、视觉语言和艺术传统，这些都成为了美国文化景观的一部分。
胡溧是这一现象的杰出代表，他的画作体现了这种对话。他接受的中国学术写实主义训练并没有在他来到美国后消失，他的视觉语言得到了拓展。中国书法与西方油画相遇，中国神话与米开朗基罗相遇，个人记忆与抽象艺术相遇。人们可以从威斯康星州重新审视中国艺术。
东方与西方不再是相互对立的范畴。
胡溧在一个全新的全球艺术世界中找到了自己的声音。
像他那一代的许多艺术家一样，他抵制种族标签，希望被视为一位生活和工作在美国的艺术家，而不是被局限于“中国艺术家”这一标签。
这种自由是他成熟期作品的核心。
本次展览让我们能够深入审视胡溧的艺术。
其中两件作品尤为震撼。
在《静思》（Silent Meditation）这一由背对观众、坐在地板上的人形雕塑构成的装置作品中，人体缺少了头部、双臂和双脚。
这件作品引发了人们对匿名性、脆弱性、反思以及人性奥秘的思考。
它促使我们去发问：胡溧当时在想什么？他为何创作这个令人念念不忘的形象？
另一件重磅作品是他于 2012 年至 2016 年间创作的巨幅三联画《大移民》（Mass Migration）。
胡溧描绘了成群结队、形象鲜明的人们拥挤在一起，密集的程度使他们开始失去个人身份。他们要走向何方？是什么让他们聚集在一起？他们是在逃避自然灾害、政治动荡，还是未知的命运？
这幅画创作了一首关于流离失所与群体迁徙的有力视觉诗篇，其提出的问题超越了时代。
2008 年胡溧被诊断出患有癌症时，他面临着又一个巨大的挑战。他再一次选择坚持。只要身体允许，他就继续画画和教学。
他于 2013 年从大学退休，但他从未放弃艺术家的身份。
在 2016 年去世前，胡溧和夫人李萍在威斯康星大学奥什科什分校设立了“胡溧艺术学生奖学金”。这个决定几乎告诉了我们关于他需要了解的一切。
在为获得教育、机会、艺术自由和专业认可而奋斗了一生之后，他的回应是为他人创造机会。他种下了另一颗种子。这个比喻尤为贴切，因为胡溧热爱园艺。他懂得种植是一种信仰的体现。你翻耕土地，将微小的种子放入其中，抚育它，并相信你所开创的事物会在你离开后继续生长。这正是胡溧作为教师所做的事情。他的学生成为了艺术家，有些成为了教师，将知识传递给下一代。
2016 年 4 月 13 日，胡溧在与癌症进行了长期抗争后去世，享年六十五岁。
但他的故事并没有结束。他的画作依然在，他的学生依然在，他的奖学金依然在。他的影响通过那些未来可能会教导从未听过胡溧名字的学生的人们继续延续，而那些学生依然会收到源自于他的馈赠。
胡溧代表了跨越重洋、在美国重塑自我的一代中国艺术家的贡献。他们带着自己的历史到来，面对障碍，学习、适应、教学并创作。在这个过程中，他们对接纳他们的文化做出了永久的贡献。
胡溧将双脚扎根于美国的土地，却没有割断他的中国之根。从这两个世界中，他创造了属于自己的人生，并为后代播下了种子。
一森·科恩著
2026 年 9 月 5 日于纽约
关于一森·科恩画廊（Ethan Cohen Gallery）：一森·科恩画廊是全球当代艺术领域的一支重要策展力量，以倡导来自各大洲的新兴及资深艺术声音而闻名。画廊以战后当代艺术为基础，因早期并持续支持中国前卫艺术家，以及前瞻性地接纳新兴人才和当代非洲艺术而赢得了国际认可。
一森·科恩对杰出艺术的敏锐眼光帮助推介了许多如今广受赞誉的艺术家，同时继续向收藏家和机构介绍每一代最具吸引力的新声音。正如《Slant》杂志所指出的，一森·科恩被称为“世界上最具影响力的艺术交易商之一”。
画廊于 1987 年在苏荷区成立（最初名为 Art Waves/Ethan Cohen），是最早向美国观众展示中国实验艺术的画廊之一。
如今，一森·科恩画廊在纽约切尔西（Chelsea）和纽约州比肯的 KuBe 艺术中心 设有两处空间——后者是一个占地 12.7 万平方英尺的跨学科中心，用于展览、表演和艺术对话。
画廊还通过参加重大国际艺术博览会保持着强有力的全球影响力。在所有平台上，伊桑·科恩画廊精心策划博物馆级别的展览，促进跨文化对话，并致力于发现和发扬先锋、相关且引起共鸣的艺术。
Li Hu: My Life Journey (1950 – 2016)Curated by Gan Yu and Ethan Cohen
Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center20 Kent Street, Beacon, NY
September 12 – October 12, 2026
Opening Reception: September 12, 3 – 5 pm
Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center is pleased to present Li Hu: My Life Journey (1950–2016),curated by Gan Yu and Ethan Cohen. The exhibition opens on September 12, 3 – 5 pm, and remains on viewthrough October 12, 2026.Li Hu: Planting Himself in AmericaArtist, Immigrant, Teacher, and the American DreamBy Ethan CohenTo understand the importance of Li Hu, we must consider the paintings he left behind and the extraordinaryjourney required to make them.Born in Shanghai in 1950 into a family of artists, Li belonged to a generation profoundly shaped by the politicaland cultural upheavals of twentieth-century China. His youth coincided with the Cultural Revolution, wheneducation, intellectual life, family history, and individual ambition could suddenly become liabilities. Pulled fromschool and sent to perform manual labor in the countryside, Li continued his education at night, studying bycandlelight after working in the rice paddies.That image tells us something fundamental about Li Hu long before he became a successful artist or professor:he was a trailblazer.Following the end of the Cultural Revolution, Li pursued the artistic education that had been denied to so manymembers of his generation. He entered the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University, where he receivedrigorous academic training in drawing, composition, anatomy, observation, and figurative painting. Aftergraduating in 1986, he was appointed to teach painting at his alma mater.He had achieved something significant in China. Then he chose to begin again.In 1990, Li, his wife Ping, and their young family left China for the United States. They settled in Vermillion, SouthDakota, where Li entered the graduate program at the University of South Dakota.In America, Li was no longer simply an accomplished painter and Chinese professor. He was an immigrant. Hehad to learn a new language, understand a new culture, navigate a different university system, establishAmerican academic credentials, and support his family. He also had to discover how an artist deeply formed byChinese history and education could find a place within American culture without surrendering the experiencesthat had made him who he was.
While pursuing his graduate education, Li traveled during the summers to New York City, where he worked as astreet portrait artist alongside other Chinese artists.I find this episode particularly moving. When I opened my gallery in SoHo in 1987, many of the Chinese artists Iknew made portraits on the streets of New York to pay their rent, support their families, and buy food. One ofthem was Ai Weiwei, whom I knew well and who made portraits whenever he needed money. Seeing so manyChinese artists earning a living this way inspired me to come up with the idea to curate an exhibition titledSurvival, where I would invite artists into the gallery to create portraits of visitors, who could purchase thedrawings on the spot. I wanted people to understand how Chinese artists were adapting to a foreign countryand the realities of a capitalist system.Li’s experience belonged to this larger history. Here was a highly trained painter who had taught at a majorChinese university, traveling halfway across the United States to draw portraits on the streets of New Yorkbecause he needed to support his family in South Dakota. Artistic talent became a means of survival.Li earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Dakota in 1993. The following year, he washired as an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh in a tenure-track position.Only four years after arriving in America, he had learned to navigate a new country and academic culture,completed an American graduate degree, and entered the university system as a professor. He progressed fromAssistant Professor to Associate Professor and ultimately Full Professor. He earned tenure, and in 2006 theuniversity awarded him an Endowed Professorship.Li Hu had planted himself in America. In many ways, he lived the American dream. I do not use that phraselightly. In Li’s story, the American dream was not an effortless ascent. It was the opportunity to begin again andbuild something through ability, discipline, education, sacrifice, and perseverance.He became a respected professor and exhibited his paintings across the United States and internationally.Beginning in 1994, he presented more than forty solo exhibitions and participated in more than one hundredjuried group exhibitions. Yet professional achievement alone does not explain Li Hu’s importance. His greatestAmerican legacy may be found in his students.Li loved teaching. His former students describe a professor who gave himself completely to their development.He taught them how to draw and paint, but he also taught them how to persevere. When a painting failed, theanswer was not necessarily to discard it and begin again. The challenge was to understand what had gonewrong and solve the problem. That is an artistic lesson and a philosophy of life. Li had been solving problems hisentire life: the Cultural Revolution, interrupted education, immigration, language, graduate school, supporting afamily, and establishing an academic career in America. He confronted each one, and then taught his students todo the same.
Li brought rigorous training, respect for craft, Chinese history and visual culture, and an understanding of
perseverance born from circumstances most of his American students could scarcely imagine. He did not simply
preserve these things. He shared them, changing the cultural environment around him.
His story forms part of the still insufficiently understood history of Chinese artists who came to the United States
during the 1980s and 1990s. I was fortunate to witness this history firsthand. In 1984, for my senior thesis project
at Harvard College, I organized a solo exhibition of Yuan Yunsheng titled An Enigma Set Free. After graduation, I
moved to New York and became friends with many members of the Chinese avant-garde who had left China to
experience the West, including Xu Bing, Ai Weiwei, Yan Li, Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Lin Tianmiao, Wang
Gongxin, Gao Zhang, and Zhang Wei. Li Hu was one of a few hundred Chinese artists in New York during this
period.
These artists did not simply come to America and become American. They helped change what American
culture could be. They entered universities, studios, galleries, museums, and communities. They taught,
exhibited, raised families, and brought with them memories, philosophies, visual languages, and artistic
traditions that became part of the American cultural landscape.
Li Hu is an outstanding example of this phenomenon, and his paintings embody that dialogue. The academic
realism of his Chinese training did not disappear when he arrived in America. His visual language expanded.
Chinese calligraphy encountered Western oil painting. Chinese mythology encountered Michelangelo. Personal
memory encountered abstraction. Chinese art could be reconsidered from Wisconsin.
East and West were no longer opposing categories. Li was finding his voice within a newly global art world. Like
many artists of his generation, he resisted ethnic categorization and asked to be considered as an artist living
and working in the United States, rather than confined to the label of “Chinese artist.”
That freedom is central to his mature work.
This exhibition allows us to look deeply at Li Hu’s art. Two works are particularly powerful. In Silent Meditation,
an installation of human figures seated on the floor with their backs to the audience, the bodies lack heads,
arms, and feet. The work evokes anonymity, fragility, reflection, and the mysteries of human nature. It invites us
to question what Li was thinking and why he created this haunting image.
The other major work is his monumental triptych Mass Migration, created between 2012 and 2016. Li depicts
masses of distinct human beings crowded together so densely that they begin to lose their individual identities.
Where are they going? What has brought them together? Are they fleeing a natural disaster, political upheaval,
or something unknown? The painting creates a powerful visual poem about displacement and collective
movement. Its questions transcend time.
When Li was diagnosed with cancer in 2008, he faced another enormous challenge. Once again, he continued.
He painted and taught for as long as he could. He retired from the university in 2013, but he did not retire from
being an artist.
Before his death in 2016, Li and Ping established the Li Hu Art-Student Scholarship at the University ofWisconsin–Oshkosh. That decision tells us almost everything we need to know about him. After fighting toobtain education, opportunity, artistic freedom, and professional recognition, his response was to create anopportunity for someone else.He planted another seed.The metaphor is particularly appropriate because Li loved gardening. He understood that planting is an act offaith. You prepare the earth, place something small within it, nurture it, and trust that what you have begun willcontinue growing after you have stepped away. That is precisely what Li did as a teacher. His students becameartists. Some became teachers, passing their knowledge to another generation.Li Hu died on April 13, 2016, at the age of sixty-five, after a long struggle with cancer. But his story did not end.His paintings remain. His students remain. His scholarship remains. His influence continues through people whomay someday teach students who never knew Li Hu’s name, but who nevertheless receive something thatoriginated with him.Li Hu represents the contribution of a generation of Chinese artists who crossed an ocean and rebuiltthemselves in America. They arrived carrying their histories. They encountered obstacles, learned, adapted,taught, and created. In doing so, they made a permanent contribution to the culture that received them.Li planted his feet in American soil without severing his Chinese roots. From those two worlds, he created a lifeand planted seeds for the generations that followed.About Ethan Cohen Gallery:Ethan Cohen Gallery is a curatorial force in global contemporary art, known for championing both emerging andestablished voices across continents. With a foundation in post-war contemporary, the gallery has earnedinternational recognition for its early and sustained support of Chinese Avant-Garde artists, as well as itsforward-thinking embrace of emerging talent and contemporary African art. Ethan Cohen’s eye for theextraordinary has helped launch the careers of artists who are now widely celebrated, while continuing tointroduce collectors and institutions to the most compelling new voices of each generation. As noted in SlantMagazine, Ethan Cohen has been called “one of the most influential art dealers in the world.”Founded in 1987 as Art Waves/Ethan Cohen in SoHo, the gallery was among the first to present Chineseexperimental art to the U.S. audience. Today, Ethan Cohen Gallery operates from two locations in Chelsea, NYCand The KuBe Art Center in Beacon, New York—a 127,000 square foot interdisciplinary hub for exhibitions,performance, and artistic dialogue. The gallery also maintains a strong global presence through participation in major international art fairs. Across all platforms, Ethan Cohen Gallery curates museum-quality shows, nurturescross-cultural dialogue, and remains committed to discovering and amplifying radical, relevant, and resonant art.This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of The Cohen Art Foundation, family and friends of LiHu and our fiscal Sponsor Bonfireworks Foundation.
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