FAZ Kunst
Die Hochzeit der Tintenspieler
Von Andreas Platthaus, Paris

22. April 2004 Die Genreausstellung ist im Blick auf die chinesische Kunst ein Paradox. Natürlich gibt es thematische Traditionen, die teilweise seit mehr als zweitausend Jahren verfolgt werden. Natürlich hat sich im Vergleich zur abendländischen Malerei die Motivgestaltung nur wenig verändert. Aber was nicht beachtet wird, ist die ungleich frühere Herausbildung der Künstlerpersönlichkeit im Reich der Mitte - nicht als materiell unabhängige, sondern als geistig autonome, die sich die prägenden Einflüsse auf das eigene Werk aus einem solch gewaltigen Bestand an Sujets, Arbeitsweisen und Schulen heraussuchen kann, daß sich die Bemühung der Kunstgeschichte, regionale Einteilungen oder Epochenbildungen vorzunehmen, als weitgehend vergeblich erwiesen hat. So ist die Geschichte der chinesischen Kunst willkürlich nach politischen Dynastien eingeteilt - und das ist auch gut so, weil jeder andere Versuch der Zu- und Unterordnung sowohl Objekten wie Künstlern ähnliche oder gar größere Gewalt antäte.

Trotzdem ist es dem Pariser Grand Palais gelungen, eine Ausstellung unter dem Titel "Montagnes célestes" ("Himmlische Berge") zusammenzustellen, die erstmals umfassend und mit größter Konsequenz ein spezifisch chinesisches Genre präsentiert: die Darstellungen der geheiligten Berge. Deren gibt es fünf: Tai, Heng in der Provinz Hunan, Heng in der Provinz Shaanxi, Song und Hua. Ihre Landschaften - manche umfassen ganze Bergmassive mit zahllosen Gipfeln - sind von Anbeginn der Zentralisierung Chinas an, also seit der Reichseinigung unter dem König von Quin im dritten vorchristlichen Jahrhundert, feste Bezugspunkte der Verehrung und der Darstellung gewesen. Ihren Höhepunkt aber fand die künstlerische Adoration der fünf Himmlischen Berge in der Rollmalerei, die vom zehnten Jahrhundert an ein Niveau erreicht hatte, das noch heute begeistert. Dank großzügiger Leihgaben der wichtigsten chinesischen Museen kann das Grand Palais eine Auswahl zeigen, die ihresgleichen nur im Palastmuseum von Taipeh haben dürfte.

Erstaunliche Reichtümer

Man liegt deshalb gewiß nicht falsch, wenn man die Pariser Ausstellung auch als Antwort der Volksrepublik China auf die Berliner und Bonner Präsentation der Schätze aus Taipeh (F.A.Z. vom 19. Juli 2003 und vom 3. Januar) in jüngster Zeit betrachtet. Die taiwanische Sammlung, die größte und reichste chinesischer Kunst überhaupt, ist die ehemals kaiserliche, die von Tschiang Kai-schek 1949 bei seinem Rückzug vor den Kommunisten auf die nationalchinesische Inselzuflucht mitgenommen wurde. In Peking ist seitdem in den alten Räumen ein neues Palastmuseum eingerichtet worden, das mit erstaunlichen Reichtümern - wenn auch kaum aus ehedem kaiserlichem Besitz - bestückt wurde, und einige der schönsten und ihrer Fragilität wegen selten zu bewundernden Malereien sind jetzt nach Paris ausgeliehen worden, neben ähnlich hochkarätigen Leihgaben aus Schanghai, Nanking, Tianjin, Luoyang, Liaoning und Henan.

Ausgerechnet der Auftakt der Schau allerdings, der sich zunächst der Bedeutung der fünf geheiligten Berge für Chinas Selbstverständnis widmet, enthält eine Malerei, die gegen die Wunderwerke, die in Berlin und Bonn zu besichtigen waren, geradezu plump wirkt, obwohl Fa Ruozhen auf seinem mehr als dreizehn Meter breiten Panorama der Terrassen des Tai-Bergs, das er als Achtundsechzigjähriger 1681 für seinen Sohn malte, es nicht an Details und subtiler Kolorierung fehlen läßt. Zwar wurde auch Fa am Kaiserhof empfangen, aber er trat seine Beamtenkarriere dann in der Provinz an und entstammte auch keiner am Hof schon etablierten Familie. Wie sehr die Vertrautheit mit den schon damals als klassisch empfundenen ästhetischen Vorbildern, die in der kaiserlichen Sammlung reichlich vertreten waren, prägte, kann man an diesem Beispiel schön beobachten.

Ungewöhnlicher Charakter

Dabei ist Fas Rollbild ein Werk, nach dem sich außerhalb Chinas jedes Museum verzehren würde. Der schwächste Teil der Pariser Ausstellung sind denn auch die Stücke, die aus dem für europäische Verhältnisse blendend ausgestatteten nahe gelegenen Musée Guimet entliehen wurden. Bezeichnenderweise befindet sich kaum Malerei darunter, dafür gibt es mehrere Bronzearbeiten und einige Steinschnitzereien, deren Einbindung in das Thema teilweise rätselhaft bleibt. Eine Konzentration auf Malerei hätte den ungewöhnlichen Charakter der Schau eher unterstrichen als die Ausweitung des Genrebegriffs auf weitere künstlerische Disziplinen.

Doch noch die weiteste Reise nach Paris lohnt für die Betrachtung solcher Glanzpunkte wie der zehn Meter langen Rolle des Wu Wei: "Der große Fluß, der sich im Blick verliert". Wie hier die Nebel- und Wolkendarstellungen - die auf einen im fünften Jahrhundert verfaßten Traktat des Zong Bing zurückgehen - dramaturgisch mit Charakter und Profil der Landschaft vermählt werden und wie die Hintergrundgestaltung im zartesten Blau die Farbabstufungen der europäischen Perspektivmalerei vorwegzunehmen scheint, das ist selten an einer einzigen Arbeit so vollendet zu beobachten. Und wann hätte ein westlicher Künstler je eine so zutreffende Bezeichnung für seine Malerei gefunden wie der im zwölften Jahrhundert tätige Mi Youren, der seine wie durch Gaze gemalten Berg- und Schneedarstellungen als "Tintenspiele" betitelt hat?

Der alte Exzentriker

Es gibt die Albumblätter des Wang Lü zu bestaunen, der zwar den Ehrentitel "Der alte Exzentriker" trägt, dessen Todesdatum - ungewöhnlich für einen bedeutenden chinesischen Künstler selbst des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts - aber nicht mehr bekannt ist. Die fünfzehn in Paris gezeigten Blätter (in Peking werden insgesamt 29 von einstmals vierzig verwahrt) beschwören einen "Kubismus" herauf, der sich mehr als ein halbes Jahrtausend vor Bracque und Picasso hätte entwickeln können, wenn Wang Schüler gehabt hätte. Er löste ein, was Jing Hao im zehnten Jahrhundert als Forderung erhoben hatte: "Durch Ähnlichkeit erhält man gewiß die Verwandtschaft der Form , aber man verfehlt den Atem. In der Wirklichkeit wirken Atem und Substanz in ihrer Vielfalt zusammen."

Zu sehen ist auch das achtteilige Rollbild des Huang Xianjan, der seine Felsgipfel - nahezu singulär - aus der Vertikalen abkippen läßt und das noch dadurch unterstreicht, daß seine Kalligraphie streng senkrecht angeordnet bleibt. Oder der Gipfel der Meisterschaft im Tuschegebrauch, wie ihn Ye Cheng, der den Beinamen "ewiger Berg" trug, in seiner Darstellung der Yandang-Berge erreicht hat. Hier, wie in nahezu allen Darstellungen, sind irgendwo klein zwei plaudernde Gelehrte in der Gebirgslandschaft zu finden, und eine Brücke schmiegt sich der Topographie der Landschaft an. Dieser Brauch dient nicht nur der Verdeutlichung der Proportionen; er signalisiert, daß diese Regionen trotz aller pittoresken Wildheit zivilisiert sind. Erst aus dem ruhigen Blick des Menschen auf sie entsteht Kunst; darum sind Gelehrte im Gespräch und Orte des Rückzugs vom Getriebe der Welt in der chinesischen Malerei so beliebt.

Im Grand Palais werden erfreulicherweise durch Ausleuchtung und Aufstellung der Vitrinen die Bedingungen für eine kontemplative Betrachtung geschaffen - ganz im Gegensatz zu den Berliner und Bonner Ausstellungen. Das rückt die Werke näher an das chinesische Ideal heran. Während aus Taipeh nach Deutschland ausnahmslos Meisterwerke entliehen wurden, ist die Pariser Schau selbst ein Meisterwerk.

Grand Palais, Paris, bis zum 28. Juni. Der exzellente Katalog kostet 45 Euro.

http://www.faz.net/s/RubEBED639C476B407798B1CE808F1F6632/Doc~EC94CB968E35E424AB42CE4ED6F802E97~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html#top

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artdaily.com, Thursday, April 22, 2004
Imperial Ming Dynasty Jewelery In New York

NEW YORK, NEW YORK.-It is the first time that Ming-dynasty imperial jewellery from the collection of the Nanjing Municipal Museum has been on view in New York and also the first time outside China. T he exhibition includes more than 100 pieces of jewellery from the Ming dynasty. Under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), China saw a great flourishing of the arts. Relics from Ming tombs in the ancient capital of Nanjing show the importance of China’s rich cultural past. The exhibition includes crown ornaments, bracelets, earrings, pendants and hairpins in jade, gold and precious stones. Symbolic decorative patterns including dragons, phoenixes, peony blossoms and spiders express a keen longing, as in all societies, for good luck, love, happiness and perfection.

The later period of Chinese feudalism covers 1360s through the 1640s, when Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan dynasty and established the Ming dynasty with its capital in Nanjing. During this period, he focused on restoring the social system of the Tang and Song dynasties, stabilising the society, developing production and strengthening the national economy which lead to a prosperous new ear. As the original capital of the Ming dynasty, Nanjing became the centre of national politics, economy and culture. Over the last 50 years, staff at the Nanjing Municipal Museum have devoted time to understanding this period in Chinese history. Through their work, a number of cultural sites have been protected and important historical material discovered, amongst which are some of the gold and jade aristocratic jewellery in this exhibition.

A fully illustrated colour, bi-lingual catalogue is available. The exhibition runs until 5 June at the China Institute Gallery, 125 East 65th Street, New York, tel. +1 212 744 8181. Hours: Mon, Wed and Fri, 10 am to 5pm, Tues and Thur to 8pm. Closed Sunday. Admission is US$5. Admission free on Tues and Thurs, 6-8 pm, email info@chinainstitute.org, www.chinainstitute.org.

http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=10036

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xinhua, www.chinaview.cn 2004-04-23 09:20:53

Artist finds self through East-West fusion

BEIJING, April 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The term "Bridging the East and the West" has become an almost wearisome cliche for today's artists, art critics and art enthusiasts.

"Mellowness" by Chao Chung-hsiang, ink and acrylic on paper (file photo)
But an on-going retrospective exhibition of the works of master painter Chao Chung-hsiang (1910-91) at the National Art Museum of China in downtown Beijing offers much reassurance and fresh inspiration to those who are deeply concerned about the future of traditional Chinese painting, said the museum curator Yang Lizhou.

Jointly organized by the National Art Museum of China, Shanghai Art Museum, Alisan Fine Arts (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the grand retrospective show, titled "Love of the Cosmos," chronicles Chao's decades long endeavour to find his own voice, with well over 80 works of the artist in different styles.

The show, which ends on April 27 in Beijing, will begin a tour, first to the Shanghai Art Museum, from May 8 to 18; then to the Enrico Navarra Gallery in Paris, from June 10 to July 31; then to the Hong Kong Arts Centre, from October 5 to 26; and possibly to some major cities in North America, according to Alice King, curator of the exhibition.

Life-long pursuit

"Chao was an artist who questioned the centuries-old traditions of Chinese painting, working consciously to bring the genre into the modern world," said King.

But she also pointed out that "during his lifetime, Chao was a much ignored, much misunderstood 'controversial' artist."

Chao Chung-hsiang poses for a photo at an exhibition of his works in New York in 1977. (file photo)
Chao once said: "Stubborn, I am. Studying painting gives me immense freedom and joy. I am neither insane nor intoxicated. On the contrary, my senses are in the most sober of states. I am as happy as if I had freed myself from certain bondage. I rejoice at having such occasional moments of happiness in the journey of my life."

Chao was born into a family of intellectuals in Taikang, a small town in Central China's Henan Province.

From an early age, Chao was exposed to the basics of Chinese philosophy, poetry, calligraphy, and painting.

By the age of 15, he had already mastered the fundamentals of traditional Chinese painting.

"At that time, I had a clear understanding of human relations and of the fact that art is a vital part of human life," he recalled late in his life.

Chao then studied for three years in the Art Department of Henan Normal School.

Under the guidance of such great masters as Lin Fengmian (1900-1991) and Pan Tianshou (1898-1971), he spent the following four years at the Painting Department of National Academy of Arts, now called the China Academy of Fine Arts, in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province.

During the 1930's when Chao was a student there, the academy was considered the most liberal art school in China and played an important role in introducing modern concepts into Chinese art.

While there, Chao was exposed to Western techniques and was encouraged to develop his own style.

During that period, Chao also devoted much of his time to studying the various schools of ancient Chinese philosophy.

This equipped him with a thorough understanding of the heritage of Chinese culture - the doctrines of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism and also the philosophies of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi.

"All my studies served as a base for the formation of my own philosophy of life and broadened my understanding of such fundamental human concepts as life, death, waxing, waning, wealth, honour, sex and passion," Chao once said.

"My frame of mind has therefore been profoundly influenced by an unbiased, 'middle-of-the-road' outlook, and my emotions abound with natural expressions of my 'love' for all things in the universe.

"I submit that one's life can only be evaluated by the love one gives in one's lifetime, which also happens to be the final objective pursued by philosophers, theologists, and artists of the Western world."

In the midst of the social and political upheaval in 1949, Chao moved to Taiwan, where he worked as an art professor.

In 1956, he travelled to Barcelona, in Spain, on a scholarship from the Spanish Government. So successful was he there that he was made a Permanent Member of the National Art Association of Spain in 1957.

Two years later, he settled down in New York.

Chao died in 1991 in Taiwan, where he had just returned after living abroad for more than 30 years.

Two traditions

Surrounded by Western art, Chao experienced culture shock, but he did not retreat. In his own writings, he stated that he was strongly attracted by the paintings of Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung and especially Franz Kline, whom he met after moving to New York.

"He was attracted, but he was not consumed. Instead, during the following decades, there appears a special quality in Chao's art that oscillates between and even at times combines Eastern and Western traditions," pointed out Roger Goepper, an art researcher with the University of Cologne, in Germany.

Arriving in New York when Abstract Expressionism was in its heyday, Chao was very much intrigued by this artistic movement.

Although Chao became friends with Franz Kline and experimented with abstract art as well as European Surrealist techniques, he managed to develop his own style.

Trained in Chinese painting and living in New York at a time when it was the leading centre of Western art, Chao chose to combine the two.

Chao said his goal was to create a balance of East and West in his works.

The outcome was an art of his own unique style. Chao believed that for diligent and earnest artists, "there is no such thing as right or wrong in art. It is the artist's experience, learning and cultivation that make the difference."

In Chao's view, "art in the past was a unilateral activity, whereas modern art encourages interaction. In order to achieve self-realization and self-enlightenment, the former imported expression for the painter whereas the latter exports inspiration for the viewer."

And Chao himself proved to be a successful example of the latter.

For years, his unconventional art works have been highly valued by both Eastern and Western art lovers.

To the former, his works embody the rhythmic vitality and conception of traditional Chinese ink painting; to the latter, they possess the lucidity and gravity of modern oil painting and the mystery and uncertainty of Abstract Expressionism, art critics say.

His works find a balance between narrative and abstract forms, meaning and the absence of meaning.

Chao's works maintain the intrinsic forms of both Chinese and Western culture in a pluralistic and composite structure.

The visual effects derived from the interposing, juxtaposing, complementing, and contrasting of images are a key factor in the artistic charm of his work, said Taiwan art researcher Lu Fusheng.

Using both Eastern and Western media (Chinese ink on rice paper as well as acrylic and canvas), Chao combined Eastern philosophy with Eastern and Western symbols to create something unique.

Chao once said: "It was set forth in the ancient canons that 'poetry should possess the quality of painting and painting that of poetry.' This applies also to abstract painting. Only works with profundity reach the summit of art."

Under Chao's brush, traditional Chinese images, such as birds, bamboo and fish, are overlaid with colourful and sometimes shocking fluorescent squares, dots, circles, splashes or runs.

The bold shapes in his paintings are not just abstract forms but also symbols of Taoism, a philosophy that Chao strongly believed in and lived by.

This is further exemplified by the various Yin and Yang (negative and positive) symbols that appear in his paintings.

From the late 1960s, Chao used concentric circles for 25 years nearly always to represent the warm sun, thus infusing his paintings with the emotional tension of human experience. In that sense, Chao differed greatly from most of his contemporaries who treated the circle as merely an elemental shape.

Absoluteness is the key to success in artistic creation. It is the most powerful form of spiritual representation. Placing a simple image against a void helps enhance the image's simplicity. A profound and inspiring work does not necessarily have elaborate images, claimed Chao.

In Chao's view, "A painter is not just someone who is able to paint and sketch directly from nature. Nor is he simply an illustrator of historic places and monuments for tourist brochures. He makes use of his works to gain a thorough understanding of the intrinsic value of nature, and through them gains the ultimate goal of love and perfection."

Window-scene painting has been part of Western art for hundreds of years and was a solution to the problem of linking the foreground with a distant background.

The Post-Impressionists altered this concept by putting closed windows in their paintings, which were seen first hand by some Chinese artists studying in France at the beginning of the 20th century.

Again, Chao used this concept in his individual way, for instance in his "The Early Bird Catches the Worm," where he reverses the perspective, painting the window from the outside.

"Although there are only a few examples of such paintings among Chao's works, it proves once again that he was very much a unique and eccentric artist," said Taiwan art researcher Chuang Shen.

Chao's paintings also capture the dimension of time. He captures different aspects of time. For example, there is the pronounced momentary effect that occurs when Chao splashes liquid colour, often a bright shining green, over the surface of a painting that seems to have already been completed.

Reviewing his own artistic pursuit, Chao once wrote: "My whole life, time, space, outer and inner soul are totally immersed in Eastern and Western arts. A driving aspiration has inspired me to redouble my efforts to create so as to meet this new challenge and to achieve my own spiritual paradise. Hardship has given me a firm conviction that I shall continue to struggle ahead.

"In the process of my creativeness, I make use of the very best qualities of the arts of the two worlds and incorporate them as the backbone of my own creativeness."

(China Daily)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-04/23/content_1436196.htm

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art museum network news, FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2004

Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video
Friday, June 11, 2004 — Sunday, September 5, 2004

Asia Society and Museum

NEW YORK, (amnnews.com) — Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, the first comprehensive look at the innovative photo and video art produced since the mid-1990s in China, will be presented jointly at the International Center of Photography and the Asia Society and Museum from June 11 to September 5, 2004.

Featuring 130 works by 60 Chinese artists, many of whom will be exhibiting for the first time in the United States, the exhibition reflects the enthusiastic adoption of media-based art by younger Chinese artists. Their works, often ambitious in scale and experimental in nature, reflect a range of highly individual responses to the unprecedented changes now taking place in China’s economy, society and culture. In addition to introducing a remarkable body of work to American audiences, the exhibition will also provide insights into the dynamics of Chinese culture at the start of the 21st century.

Organized by ICP and the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, and presented in association with Asia Society, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China is curated by Wu Hung, professor of Chinese Art History at the University of Chicago and consulting curator at the Smart Museum, and ICP curator Christopher Phillips.

Background

China has undergone a series of profound transformations in the decades since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Starting in the late 1970s, a new generation of Chinese leaders initiated a series of reforms that aimed at experimenting with a market economy within a centralized political system, and a managed “open door” approach to foreign investment and external cultural influences. By the mid-1990s, the consequences of these changes began to be fully evident.

Many of the changes in the world of Chinese experimental art are related to these national developments. Starting in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s, a large number of experimental artists relocated from the provinces to major urban centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, reinventing themselves as independent artists working for international exhibitions and a global art market. Using a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to video and photography, China’s experimental artists have explored the dynamics of an emerging “modernity with Chinese characteristics” in a country where the forces of tradition still retain enormous power. By examining these artistic efforts, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China will contribute to a new understanding of the different ways that China’s artists have come to perceive themselves and their communities on a personal, regional, national, and even global scale.

Photography and video art have become increasingly important means of artistic expression in China. While photography was largely reduced to a propaganda tool during the first thirty years of the People’s Republic, it has gradually developed into an important vehicle of individual expression. Unofficial photography exhibitions began to be mounted in 1979-80, immediately attracting a huge audience.

In the 1980s, the major schools and masters of Western photography were introduced and gained popularity in China. The Western masters’ techniques, as well as their social and artistic aspirations, influenced a generation of young Chinese photographers, who began to produce photographs reflecting the reality of life in contemporary China. At the same time, the artistic exploration of video as an expressive medium began in earnest.

In the mid-1990s, Chinese photography entered a new phase, becoming closely linked to an ongoing avant-garde art movement. Since then, a brand of image-making often referred to by Chinese artists and critics as “experimental photography” (shiyan sheying) has grown into a broad trend. Its sustained development has been characterized by non-stop invention, abundant production, multifaceted experimentation and cross-fertilization with other art forms. Photography now plays a key role in contemporary Chinese art, permeating various kinds of art practice. In many ways, the medium’s versatility and instantaneous nature have become synonymous with the rapidity of change in China.

The exhibition will focus primarily on this last, and most exciting, phase of photo- and video-based art in China, spanning the years from the mid-1990s to the present.

Exhibition Sections

The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections, with two sections presented at ICP and two at Asia Society.

History and Memory at Asia Society

The works in this section explore the contemporary legacy of China’s past. Some artists, for example, update motifs drawn from the rich heritage of Chinese art. Still others examine the consequences of such recent historical moments as the Cultural Revolution, a period of traumatic upheaval that many of the artists experienced in their childhood.

Highlights:

-Ma Liuming, Fen Ma Liuming Walks on the Great Wall (1998). A member of the artistic generation that developed in Beijing in the mid-1990s, Ma Liuming adopted the performance identity of “Fen Ma Liuming,” a lithe, androgynous creature. His nude walk on the Great Wall, presented in the exhibition as both a photo work and a video, contrasts the solidity of the Wall—the paramount symbol of China’s historic power—with the fragility and ephemeral presence of the individual.

-Song Dong, Breathing (1996). On a frigid New Year’s Eve, Song Dong carried out a performance in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, for a century the site of historic public gatherings and demonstrations. For 40 minutes he lay face-down, breathing onto the pavement until a thin layer of ice formed beneath his mouth—a symbolic attempt to “breathe new life” into a locale associated with the bloody events of June 1989. Presented as a large-scale lightbox-mounted color transparency, this work is accompanied by an audiotape of the artist softly breathing.

Reimagining the Body at Asia Society

In this section, many works document performances that use the human body to fashion sometimes disturbing metaphors for the violent changes that have swept through every corner of Chinese life in recent decades.

Highlights:

-Rong Rong, Twelve Square Meters (1994). This photo work documents a celebrated performance by Beijing artist Zhang Huan. Trained as a painter at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Zhang Huan won recognition as a performance artist by subjecting himself to violent sensory assaults. In Twelve Square Meters, whose title refers to the size of the squalid public toilet in the artist’s impoverished neighborhood, Zhang Huan coated himself with honey and spent an hour in the foul-smelling toilet, with flies slowly covering his body. At the end of the period he walked into the water of a nearby pond. The performance enabled him, he said, to imagine his “essential existence” reduced to the level of waste. Rong Rong’s photograph creates an unforgettable symbol for maintaining one’s composure in a hellish environment.

-Xu Zhen, I Am Also Very Blurred (2000). In this installation work by Shanghai artist Xu Zhen, photographs of a range of different body parts are printed onto small Post-It’s and densely clustered on a long gallery wall. From this proliferation of fragments, which museum visitors are free to rearrange, a recognizable whole can never emerge.

People and Place at ICP

In the past two decades, China’s urban life has been completely transformed. A massive building program has created sprawling skyscraper cities, and at the same time tens of thousands of city dwellers have been displaced from the inner city to the outskirts. These conditions have brought about a growing alienation between the city and its residents: they no longer belong to each other. The works in this section both reflect and respond to the new textures of China’s metropolitan culture.

Highlights:

-Zhang Dali, Demolition: World Financial Center, Beijing (1998). Zhang Dali’s work traces the course of Beijing’s massive urban transformation of the past decade. Identifying buildings that are scheduled for demolition, he spray paints graffiti-style heads on their walls and later uses a chisel to knock out a similarly shaped void. The photographs that he makes of these scenes emphasize the dramatic contrast between the vanishing and the emerging architecture of the Chinese capital.

-Liu Zheng, Two Rich Men, New Year’s Eve, Beijing (1999). Influenced by the earlier work of August Sander and Diane Arbus, Liu Zheng has created an extensive series of contemporary portraits that reflect a dark vision of the people of mainland China. In these works, he seeks to isolate archetypal traits of his countrymen as revealed in unusual situations. Acutely sensitive to what he calls the “unhappy, tragic elements” of Chinese culture, Liu says, “When I am shooting pictures ostensibly depicting moments of relaxed leisure, I am really aiming to show that the persons in these scenes are neither relaxed nor happy.”

Performing the Self at ICP

Arising from a culture that has traditionally been marked by the subordination of the individual to the collective, these works all reflect the emergence of hybrid new conceptions of selfhood and personal identity in contemporary China.

Highlights:

-Lin Tianmiao, Braiding (1999/2004). Since 1998, Lin Tianmiao has executed a series of hauntingly pale photographic images of herself on canvas, hanging them like semi-transparent screens in exhibition spaces. In this 12-foot-tall installation work, the soft gray tones of the images are softened further by stitches that run randomly across the work’s surface, each one with its thread trailing out behind running down to accumulate on the floor below. These threads are meant as metaphors for all the tiny habits and customs that make up culture, and which can be experienced as bindings from which it requires great strength to break free.

-Li Tianyuan, Tianyuan Space Station, December 12, 2000. For an art and science exhibition in Beijing, the painter Li Tianyuan contributed a series of unusual self-portraits. To create these tripartite works, satellites, cameras and microscopes were employed, with technological assistance provided by the Institute of Remote Sensing and the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In each triptych, the first picture was shot from a satellite 800 kilometers above the earth at a designated time; the second at ground level by an ordinary camera; and the third with a microscope that enlarges by 500 times some bodily substance—tears, for example. By putting the three pictures together, Li says, he intends to convey a sense of the frailty of human beings in the sweep of nature.

Video Screening Programs

In-gallery video screenings, corresponding to the four sections of the exhibition, will amplify the main themes. Included in regularly rotating programs will be approximately 30 video works by such leading artists as Cui Xiuwen, Qiu Zhijie, Song Dong, Wang Gongxin, Wang Jianwei, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Zhenzhong, and Cao Fei, among others.

Publication

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated 232-page catalogue published by the Smart Museum of Art/ICP/Steidl. It will contain essays by Wu Hung and Christopher Phillips; interviews with many of the artists by Melissa Chiu of the Asia Society, Lisa Corrin of the Seattle Museum of Art, and Staci Boris of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; artists’ biographies and a full bibliography. Since many of the works in the exhibition will be introduced to an American public for the first time, the catalogue will serve as a scholarly reference that will benefit art historians and students of contemporary Asian culture as well as a broad general-interest audience.

Public Programs

“New Photography/New Video from China: An Artists Roundtable” will be presented at Asia Society on Saturday, June 12 at 2:00 p.m. Exhibition curator Wu Hung will be joined by four of the exhibition’s participating artists for a discussion of recent directions in Chinese photography and video. Invited artists include Xing Danwen, Lin Tianmiao, Hu Jieming and Qiu Zhijie.

Exhibition Tour

June 11-Sept. 5, 2004 ICP and Asia Society, New York
Oct. 2, 2004-Jan. 16, 2005 Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Feb. 10-May 15, 2005 Seattle Art Museum
March-May, 2006 Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Summer 2006 Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Related Events in New York City

Opening April 20 and running through the summer, The New School University and Parsons School of Design Photography Departments will co-sponsor an exhibition at New School University featuring the work of Chinese photographers. The show, which will be the inaugural exhibition at the University's Tishman Gallery (55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor), will display images by photographers who are mapping the social and mental terrain in China over the last 40 years. Gu Zheng, professor of photography at Fudan University in Shanghai, is the curator of the show.

On Tuesday April 20 from 6:00-7:00 pm in the Tishman Gallery, Gu Zheng will present a lecture entitled "Social Life & Memory in Chinese Photography." Admission is free.

>From June 10 to July 17, 2004, the Storefront for Art and Architecture (97 Kenmare Street, New York, NY) will present the exhibition Sze Tsung Leong: History Images. Mr. Leong teaches architecture at Beijing University, and collaborated with Rem Koolhaas on the book Great Leap Forward: Harvard Design School Project on the City (2001). His large-scale color photographs examine the changing urban fabric of Chinese cities. His works will also be shown in Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China.

>From June 23 to July 31, 2004, China Institute (125 East 65th St., New York, NY) presents a pair of photographic exhibitions that examine two of the most dynamic eras in recent Chinese history. Documenting China: Contemporary Photography and Social Change records the post-Mao reform era through the eyes of seven Chinese photographers; photographs by American China specialist Sidney D. Gamble taken between 1917 and 1927 present the lives of ordinary Chinese against a backdrop of tumultuous historical events.

Collaborating Institutions

International Center of Photography (New York)

Founded in 1974, the International Center of Photography strives to foster the appreciation of photography as an artistic and educational endeavor and to encourage the use of photography as a medium for improving understanding among people. As the only museum and school in New York City devoted solely to photography, ICP serves as a center where the issues facing the photographic field are defined through exhibitions, collections, publications, and educational programs. It is the synergy created by these complementary activities that makes ICP unique among photographic institutions. ICP mounts around 15 exhibitions annually in its New York City galleries, which are attended by upwards of 200,000 people. ICP’s collection holdings include nearly 100,000 images by more than 1,000 photographers. Web site: www.icp.org

Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

Founded in 1974 and located on the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus, the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of over 9,000 objects, spanning five centuries of both Western and Eastern civilizations. The scope of its permanent collections, combined with groundbreaking special exhibitions, a focus on research and teaching by University of Chicago scholars, and distinguished outreach and educational programs geared to both adults and school age children, make the Smart Museum one of the nation’s leading university art museums. The museum has collaborated with Wu Hung on two groundbreaking exhibitions of contemporary Chinese culture: “Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century” (1999) and “‘Canceled’: Exhibiting Experimental Art in China” (2000), both accompanied by substantial publications. Web site: www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

Asia Society (New York)

Asia Society is America's leading institution dedicated to fostering understanding of Asia and communication between Americans and the peoples of Asia and the Pacific. A national nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization, the Society provides a forum for building awareness of the more than thirty countries broadly defined as the Asia-Pacific region: the area from Japan to Iran, and from Central Asia to New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Through art exhibitions and performances, films, lectures, seminars and conferences, publications and assistance to the media, and materials and programs for students and teachers, the Asia Society presents the uniqueness and diversity of Asia to the American people. Since the early 1990s, the Asia Society and Museum has taken a leadership role in promoting contemporary Asian and Asian American artists. Major projects include the groundbreaking exhibitions Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Art In Asia (1996) and Inside Out: New Chinese Art (1998). Web site: www.asiasociety.org

Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago)

One of the nation's largest facilities devoted to the art of our time, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) offers exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art created since 1945. The MCA boldly interweaves exhibitions, performances, collections, and educational programs to excite, challenge, and illuminate our visitors and to provide insight into the creative process. As a compelling center of contemporary art, the MCA has presented major exhibitions of a number of significant living artists in recent years including Lee Bontecou, Kerry James Marshall, Hiroshi Sugimoto, John Currin, and Gillian Wearing. The MCA aspires to engage a broad and diverse audience, create a sense of community and be a place for contemplation, stimulation, and discussion about contemporary art and culture. Web site:www.mcachicago.org

Sponsorship

Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China and related programs are generously supported in part by The Smart Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation, W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, Jeffrey A. and Marjorie G. Rosen, Marilynn Alsdorf, American Center Foundation, The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, Fred and Stephanie Shuman, The Blakemore Foundation, Helen and Sam Zell, Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A., Richard and Mary L. Gray, Rosenkranz Charitable Foundation, Virginia W. Kettering Fund of The Dayton Foundation, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, Inc., Dorie Sternberg, Sarina Tang, Mrs. Catherine G. Curran, JGS, Inc., and Jennifer McSweeney and Peter Reuss. Cultural Media Sponsor: Museums Magazines.

For a list of participating artists, please email info@icp.org or pr@asiasoc.org.

http://news.amn.org/press.jsp?id=2170

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BBC news, Published: 2004/04/22 10:29:04 GMT

Call for Taiwan to ban Chan film
Taiwan should ban the latest film by martial arts actor Jackie Chan over political comments he made, a government member has said.
Last month Chan called Taiwan's recent presidential elections "the biggest joke in the world".

President Chen Shui-bian won the March vote despite opposition allegations there were voting irregularities.

Senior official Parris Chang has called for Chan's film Around the World in 80 Days to be banned as punishment.

"We want to propose a motion at the legislature to ask the government to ban showings of Jackie Chan's new movie," Mr Chang, a senior member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said of the film, which opens on the island in June.

He also said that Chan should be banned from entering the country, and also called on Taiwanese people to boycott the star's home, Hong Kong.

'Freedom of speech'

Chan is a frequent visitor to the island because he is married to a Taiwanese actress, Feng Jiao-Lin.

But other members of the DPP did not welcome Mr Chang's comments.

"We do not agree with all statements by individual party members, but we can respect their freedom of speech," said DPP lawmaker Tsai Huang-lang.

Opposition Lien Chan, who made the allegations against the DPP, has provided little proof of the supposed irregularities.

He has suggested a shooting that lightly wounded Mr Chen on the eve of the 20 March election unfairly gave the president voters' sympathy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/3649089.stm

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German treasures to go on show in first for Palace Museum
2004/4/22 Jane Rickards, The China Post

Nineteenth-century German art treasures, such as a delicately-crafted table with hidden compartments and a lush oil painting created to celebrate a marriage between a Prussian princess and the Russian Czar, will be seen in Asia for the first time at Taipei's National Palace Museum.
The exhibition, starting in May, is both a landmark for Asia and for Taiwan. It is the first time for Berlin State Museum collections to visit Asia and also the first German art exhibition ever to be held in Taiwan.

"This is our honor," said National Palace Museum director Tu Cheng-sheng yesterday, while Ulrich Dreesen, the Director General of the German Institute, said the loan marked a new high in Germany's close ties with Taiwan.

"I think this is really a new cultural chapter for bilateral relations," Dreesen said.

The three-month exhibition, "A Century of German Genius: Masterpieces from Classicism to Early Modernism, Collections of the Berlin State Museums" features 193 works of art from six Berlin museums, including 110 paintings and 83 handicrafts and sculpture. It will also feature rare porcelain.

Collection curator Dr Agnete von Specht said that the loan is Germany's way of thanking Taiwan for lending its own Chinese treasures from the National Palace Museum to Germany last year.

The collection includes exhibits such as a sewing, playing and toilet table, made from mahogany and pine and dating from the 1820s.

Shaped like a mushroom, elegantly supported by a chestnut-colored carved stand adorned with eight black panels, the round-topped table was opened up by German Institute representative Sven Meier to reveal an endless series of compartments inside. First Meier opened it in half to reveal a chess board on one side and a games board one the other. Then Meier opened the games board to reveal a mirror on its other side, and further compartments, including a secret one. Its creator at the time, Johann Prestell, once said it was made this way to prevent objects stored inside from becoming disordered.

Another exhibit, an oil painting dating from the 1830s, was painted by Carl Blechen on the instructions of Prussian King Frederick William III, who wanted it to be a wedding present for his daughter Charlotte to the Russian Czar. The Prussian king was fond of palm trees and the painting, Das Innere des Palmenhauses, depicts one of the king's houses at Pfaueninsel, made of palm wood, overshadowed by palm trees. Its green and gold verdant colors and the thick, shiny textures of its glistening oil paints give the feel of a greenhouse.

Materials provided by the National Palace Museum said that the 19th century was an golden age in art for Germany, as its society abandoned feudal thinking and developed ideas about the European nation-state.

The exhibition is divided into five separate themes: Rome as an Archimedean Point of German Art History, the German Art Scene from Berlin to Vienna, Historicism-Idealism-Imperial period, Emergence of Modern Art: Stimulus from France and German Avante-garde: From Expressionism to Bauhaus.

Dreesen said that it took ten years work to persuade the National Palace Museum to lend its treasures to Germany last year, but the exhibition saw the first lady, Wu Shu-chen, travel to Germany.

Since then, Dreesen said, German-Taiwan ties were closer than ever and President Chen Shui-bian had told him two weeks ago that he felt the exhibition to be important.

Dreesen said the significance of the exhibition reflected that the Taiwan and Germany shared many common values, including a commitment to democracy and an open society. Economically, Taiwan is Germany's third-largest trading partner with South Korea, he said, and Germany is Taiwan's most significant trading partner in Europe.

The exhibition will be held in the Library Building of the Special Exhibition Hall, and will run from May 1 to August 1.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/p_detail.asp?id=48066&GRP=B&onNews=

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peoples daily, Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 04, 2004

Imperial palace over 2,000 years old unearthed in Xi'an
After six months' excavation, archaeologists claim that the imperial palace site they discoveredlast October in Xi'an, capital of west China's Shaanxi Province isof great significance to the study of the imperial palaces of the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24).

The unearthed ruins of the imperial palace, covering an area of 2,000 square meters, is located in a northern suburb of Xi'an, once the capital of the Western Han Dynasty and known as Chang'an then. And it lies in the northwestern part of the palace group of the Changle Palace, the imperial palaces of the Western Han Dynasty.

At the center of the terrace which did not exist any longer, an underground palace was discovered, the main body of which is 24 meters west-to-east and 10 meters wide north-to-south.

"The palace was probably a two-story one comprising both the above ground and the underground part," said Liu Zhendong, a research member with the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who leads the archaeological team investigating the Chang'an city site.

Relics of the palace are over one meter from the earth's surface. More than 40 base stones of palace columns were orderly arranged with the space between adjacent columns only two meters.

>From signs of the palace relics, it can be judged that the mainhall was exquisitely furnished. The floorboard of the main hall and its northern and southern passages is made of wood and is 50 to 60 kilometers over the earth to prevent it being affected by dampness.

At the eastern part of the terrace, there are six connected rooms. The largest room is a square one of more than 40 square meters, the floor of which was painted in bright red. To the northof the room, sidesteps whose surface was painted in bright red were discovered too.

"It conforms to the historical record that the red-surface sidesteps is of the highest rank and only could be used by the emperor," said Liu.

Over ten pieces of fresco fragments were discovered at the palace site. All of them are the size of a large palm with bright colors including red, cyan, purple, yellow and white, and the patterns are mostly of geometrical design.

"This is the first time for us to discover frescos in the palace of the Han Dynasty, although we had read about them in the historical records before," Liu said.

"This discovery filled the blank in the research of the frescosin the Han palace," Liu said.

Wells, boundary walls and drains were discovered at the west ofthe site.

According to Liu, the main hall is the place where the emperor and his officials handled the government affairs while houses at the east of the site are the residential region of the emperor andhis royal family.

"The imperial palace was probably built in the early time of the Western Han Dynasty while destroyed in war at the end of the Western Han Dynasty," Liu said.

"The discovery of the imperial palace will provide valuable clues for the research of the layout and architectural techniques of the imperial palaces of the Western Han Dynasty," said Liu.

____________________

Matthias Arnold M.A.
Digital Resources
Institute of Chinese Studies
University of Heidelberg
Akademiestr. 4-8
69117 Heidelberg
Germany

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