The ancient Greeks discovered how to use minerals and biological materials to create different colors at an early stage, and began to systematically classify them primarily for decoration and religious rituals. They believed that excessive use of mid-tone colours—what we today refer to as grey—was undesirable, as the murky mix of black and white would create a sense of impurity, a kind of desecration of the sacred rites. Instead, craftsmen selected bright, vibrant colours, trying to find specific characteristics that resonated with the sacred and symbolic meanings of each ritual. As it became hard to tell apart the many similar colors, the Greeks adopted a narrative approach to naming colours by using attributes such as land and origin, hence creating names such as "white from Milos" or "red from Sinope on the Black Sea". Alternatively, they employed poetic language to describe hues that were hard to define.
In ancient China, the distribution and definition of colours were deeply tied to the imperial class, which held exclusive ownership and control over colours. Even before the Spring and Autumn Period, the doctrines of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth) were used to assign colors in a hierarchical manner. The two characters of colour in Chinese, "Yan" (颜) and "Se" (色), originally had two distinct meanings. "Yan" referred to facial embellishment, which included rituals and decorative practices influenced by Central and Western Asia. "Se" on the other hand, signified a strict tiered system where colors were classified based on political ideologies. Up until the Ming dynasty, colors were an absolute symbol of rank and authority. Thus, colours in early Eastern societies didn’t hold much decorative significance, as the majority of the population had no right to access various colours. However, colours were often borrowed and appropriated in village operas and rituals dedicated to the gods.
Colour has always been an inevitable discourse in art worldwide. Yet, until the Renaissance, the concept of colour was primarily a theory of reflection. It was only with the development of physics and optics from the 14th to the 16th centuries that the understanding and liberation of natural colours began to take shape. In contemporary times, colour has become a conceptual issue within the broader framework of total art. Under the premise that production fully relies on social systems and organizations, the appropriation of rhetoric and political anthropology has become a norm in artistic works. The early questions surrounding colour are revisited: Why do artworks require one or more colours? For Kandinsky, colour was a fundamental source of energy and life, possessing its own inherent logic. The romantic sentiments of artists have been subsumed into the context of neo-avant-garde art, it is increasingly necessary to express reflections on issues such as gender, ethnicity, politics, climate, history, and institutions through the works of artists.
The title of this exhibition is an inversion of Derek Walcott's poemSea Grapes. "Porphureos" represents a colour that lies at the boundary between red and blue, connecting the hue of grapes with the profound depths of the ocean. This description of the sea as a wine-like purple can also be found in the works of Homer, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. In the human brain, colour resides in one of the most ambiguous regions of memory; to this day, our ability to describe and recall colours still requires the use of narrative language to help the brain remember them more fluidly. Each colour has its quirks and characteristics, imbued with emotions and vague thoughts—boundless, enigmatic, and infinitely captivating. Colours are laid out by artists who possess an innate sensitivity to them, existing as hazy concepts and vital symbols before becoming part of named ideas, forms, and structures, and subtly solidifying into elusive implications of emotional projections and turmoil. From that moment on, colours never cease to speak.
