fluktor -|||- study - office - newsletter May 18, 2004

The Straits Time MAY 18, 2004 TUE

The Yang and the restless
The Bob Dylan of China, bohemian folk rocker Yang Yi has travelled all over China collecting disappearing folk songs. He will be performing here next month [i.e. in singapur, m.a.]
By Clara Chow

EVERY winter, without fail, Chinese folk-rocker Yang Yi busks with his guitar outside the China National Art Museum in Beijing.

Sometimes, passers-by call him a beggar or madman. But it does not faze him. And nothing breaks the momentum of his songs.

He says in Mandarin, over the phone from his flat in Beijing: 'Their mouths are on their heads and they can say what they want. In China, they don't understand a lot of things.'

Considered one of the pioneering modern minstrels of China, he will be performing here for the first time on June 1 and 2, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival.

At his concert here - a doublebill with Shandong-born blues singer Hang Tian - he will perform 10 folk songs. With titles like Drawing On A Fan (hua shan mian), they allude to the turmoil of every age and the need to experience life to its fullest.

Fiercely anti-commercial, Yang, 35, has resolutely refused to sign on to any record label because of China's lax copyright laws.

Instead, he distributes his self-recorded albums wherever he busks. The first one was released in 2000, and there is an upcoming one next month. Both are called Internal Reference (nei bu can kao).

Born Yang Wanghong in Guangdong province to farmer parents, he is one of five children. He relocated to Beijing at the age of 23.

The first building he visited in the country's capital was the China National Art Museum.

After graduating from high school, he trained as a fine arts painter before deciding to pursue his childhood dream of being a musician.

He has since travelled all over China, collecting disappearing folk songs and recording them. In the process, he met a Shanbei farmer in his 60s named Li Shengcai with a wide knowledge of such songs. He visited him again last year.

To him, Chinese rock music is still stuck in the 1990s, when rocker Cui Jian burst onto the global scene with his Tiananmen protest anthem, Nothing To My Name (yi wu suo you).

Unless the country's political climate loosens up, Yang feels, such music will remain underground.

'I haven't bought a record in years,' he muses when asked about his record collection.

'Having no fixed address makes it inconvenient to store them.'

He reveals matter-of-factly that he leads a simple life on a modest income of 1,500 yuan (S$313) a month. His wandering lifestyle and bohemian image have led the Western media to dub him China's Bob Dylan, a tag he is ambivalent about.

He says: 'I like Dylan very much. When he was starting out, people compared him to folk legend Woody Guthrie. It's normal to be compared to your predecessor.'

'But I'm still Yang Yi.'

These days, the singer still busks outside the museum, which re-opened in July last year after 15 months of renovation.

But even though he used to visit its art exhibitions regularly, he does not venture in anymore. This is because the admission fee has risen from two yuan to 20, he claims, since the renovation.

'I just don't agree with them raising the price like that,' he says.

You just know that it is the kind of thing the principled musician would say.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/life/story/0,4386,251298,00.html

********************

china.org.cn 18.5.2004
Denkmalschutz im Kaiserpalast durch digitale Technik

Der Kaiserpalast in Beijing ist das bekannteste Museum in China und gleichzeitig der weltweit größte und am besten erhaltene Holzbaukomplex. Der Anstieg des Tourismus in den letzten Jahren setzt die Museumsleitung, die für die Ausstellung, das Managment und den Schutz der Kulturgegenstände des Museums zuständig ist, einem immer größeren Druck aus. Dank einer eigens für den Schutz des Kaiserpalastes angelegten elektronischen Datenbank hat man nun einen neuen Weg zur Lösung der Probleme gefunden.

Der Kaiserpalast von Beijing, auch als Verbotene Stadt bekannt, wurde 1406 gebaut und war 500 Jahre lang Residenz von insgesamt 24 Kaisern der Dynastien Ming und Qing. Der Palast, der zahlreiche kostbare Kulturgegenstände aus fünf Jahrhunderten aufbewahrt, wurde 1912 zum ersten Mal als Museum der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht. Das Palastmuseum verfügt zur Zeit über mehr als eine Million Gegenstände, darunter Waren aus Porzellan und Bronze, Malereien, Artikel aus dem Alltag des Kaisers sowie architektonische Besonderheiten des monumentalen Baukomplexes wie Reliefs und Wandmalereien.

Die chinesische Hauptstadt selbst und das wegen seiner mysteriösen Farbe und Bauweise bekannte Wahrzeichen der Stadt haben in den letzten Jahren immer mehr Besucher in die Verbotene Stadt gelockt. Jedes Jahr werden ungefähr 10 Millionen Besucher registriert. Die antiken Bauten bestehen überwiegend aus Ziegeln und Holz, sind nicht wetterbeständig und daher sehr anfällig. Die riesigen Touristenmengen sind die größte Belastung für das Palastmuseum.

Yan Hongbin von der Museumsverwaltung hat bei einem Interview mit Radio China International seine Besorgnis geäußert: "Die Kulturgegenstände, die im Museum des Kaiserpalastes aufbewahrt werden, machen ein Zehntel aller Kulturgegenstände Chinas aus. Ein Fünftel der wertvollsten chinesischen Kulturgüter stammt aus dem Kaiserpalast. Einige Werke genießen internationalen Ruhm, wie z.B. die Bilder "Szenen am Flussufer beim Qingming-Fest" oder "Die Fünf Rinder". Bekannt ist auch das Bild "Buniantu". Es stellt den Tang-Kaiser Taizong dar, der anlässlich der Vermählung der Tang-Prinzessin Wencheng mit dem Tubo-König Sonzanganbu den Tubo-Botschafter empfängt. Die wachsende Besucherzahl hat verheerende Auswirkungen auf die Gegenstände. Das sehen wir natürlich sehr ungern."

Yan Hongbin meint, trotz verstärkter Schutzmaßnahmen im Kaiserpalast sei der Denkmalschutz noch ungenügend. Angesichts der Anfälligkeit der Kulturgegenstände im Kaiserpalast hat man nun damit begonnen, moderne Denkmalschutzmethoden anzuwenden.

Hu Chui, Vizedirektor des Informationszentrums im Kaiserpalast, sagt, die Hauptaufgabe des Zentrums bestehe darin, anhand von Digital- und Video-Technik Daten vor Verlust zu schützen und Akademikern ihre Studien zu erleichtern. Der Einsatz von Digitaltechnik zeige nun erste Ergebnisse: "Die alten Dokumente und Gegenstände werden beim Gebrauch jedes Mal im unterschiedlichen Maße beschädigt. So haben wir versucht, zahlreiche Studienmaterialien, einschließlich Bildern, in die Datenbank des Informationszentrums aufzunehmen. Durch die Anwendung der Datenbank wird der direkte Kontakt mit den Gegenständen vermieden. Kopien beispielsweise reichen für die meisten Studienzwecke völlig aus. Wir beschäftigen uns ferner mit der Einrichtung einer virtuellen Galerie, bei der man die Artefakte aus der Gesamtperspektive betrachten, aber auch die feinen Einzelheiten, wie z.B. die Beschaffenheit des Materials, deutlich erkennen kann."

Wie Hu Chui weiter mitteilt, ist die Datenbank des Kaiserpalastes mittlerweile den Mitarbeitern des Managements und Akademikern zugänglich gemacht worden. In Zukunft soll sie auch der Öffentlichkeit zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Auf der Website des Kaiserpalastes sind mittlerweile mehr als 4.000 Aufnahmen von Exponaten zu sehen. Außerdem arbeitet der Kaiserpalast beim Schutz der antiken Gegenstände zur Zeit mit einer japanischen Firma zusammen. Dabei werden die Daten der Bauwerke digitaltechnisch aufgezeichnet, um die Bauten im Falle einer Beschädigung oder Zerstörung nachbauen zu können.

Viele der sehr wertvollen und empfindlichen Exponate des Kaiserpalastes stehen unter strengem Denkmalschutz. Selbst die Lageristen dürfen die Gegenstände nicht nach Belieben berühren. Deshalb ist die Sammlung der Daten bisher sehr mühsam gewesen. Die digitale Aufnahme aller Informationen wird noch lange dauern. Dazu noch einmal Hu Chui: "Der Kaiserpalast ist eine riesige Schatzkammer von Kulturgegenständen. Die digitale Archivierung befindet sich erst in ihrer Anfangsphase. Bislang sind über 400.000 Exponate visuell und digital archiviert worden, das ist die Hälfte aller Kulturgegenstände im Kaiserpalast. Wir bemühen uns, in zwei bis drei Jahren alle Informationen zur Sammlung, Zirkulation und Ausstellung der Gegenstände in unsere Datenbank aufzunehmen."

Die chinesische Regierung stellt seit dem vergangenen Jahr jährlich 100 Millionen Yuan zur Restaurierung des Kaiserpalastes zur Verfügung stellt. Das Restaurierungsprojekt sei auf 20 Jahre angelegt. Dabei werde die Digitalisierung eine wichtige Rolle spielen, so Hu.

(CRI/China.org.cn, 17. Mai 2004)
http://www.china.org.cn/german/113826.htm

**********************

Lost phoenix returns to its nest
(China Daily) Updated: 2004-05-15 14:18

The Chinese started to worship the phoenix as the guardian spirit of the nation more than 3,000 years ago, even before they began to adore the dragon.

However, it was believed that only two bronze vessels in the shape of phoenixes had been unearthed in the country, which are both said to be in collections in the United States.

But a third "phoenix" appeared on Thursday, with Beijing's Poly Art Museum showing it to the public after buying it from an overseas collector early this month and having it appraised and treated for preservation by leading Chinese experts on bronze artifacts.

The extremely beautiful vessel, 49 centimetres tall and 41 centimetres long, is almost three times the height of the two thought to be in the United States, which are both apparently only 17.5 centimetres tall.

It is included in an ongoing exhibition of major bronze artifacts in the museum's collection, many of which have been appraised as national treasures.

Jiang Yingchun, curator of the museum, admitted the museum, affiliated with the State-owned Poly Group, paid a great price for the return of the "phoenix."

"The wine vessel, or zun, cost more than the four famous 'animal heads' added together," he said, declining to give the exact price.

The copper sculptures of an ox, monkey, tiger and swine head were lost with another eight animal heads that graced Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace), when invading British and French troops looted the palace in 1860.

After wandering around the world for more than 140 years, the four came home to the collection of the Poly Art Museum respectively in 2000 and 2003 at an overall price speculated to be more than 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million).

The "phoenix" is more expensive because it's really ancient, said Jiang.

It can be dated back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), said Li Xueqin, director of the ancient Chinese history research centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Judging from its looks, it must have been unearthed in the past few years from an aristocrat's tomb in northern China, probably in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, or Central China's Henan Province, before finding its way out of the mainland," he added.

"It's pure luck to have tracked it down," said director Jiang.

He heard from a friend of the appearance of "a phoenix" in a Hong Kong antique shop, but didn't believe at the time that it was an authentic piece, as he thought it unlikely that a vessel of such size could be genuine.

"But the moment I saw it in Hong Kong I knew it wasn't a fake," Jiang said excitedly.

"No modern man could make a fake bronze vessel of such delicacy, with no regard to the cost in time or money. We are all too busy in our era," he explained.

The bronze wine vessel, about three millenniums old, is in the shape of a phoenix standing with its head raised, eyes opened wide, wings and tail spread.

The "phoenix" has a crest in the shape of a blooming flower on the top of its "head."

And on its "back" there is a smaller "phoenix" standing leisurely with its wings nestled against its "belly."

The smaller bird functions as a handle on the top of the vessel's cover, which is part of the large bird's back.

On the inner side of the cover there is an inscription of eight characters in two lines, reading "Pengji zuo zukao baozunyi" (Members of the Peng family had this precious wine vessel made to offer sacrifices to their ancestors).

Complex and exquisite patterns, including dragons, cover the two birds' bodies.

After discussions with the overseas collector, the Hong Kong shop allowed Jiang and his staff to bring the vessel to Beijing before making payment.

Ma Chengyuan, former curator of the Shanghai Museum, Zhu Fenghan, curator of the National Museum of China, and Li Xueqin made appraisals and decided that "it's a real phoenix," said Li.

"And the magical 'bird' is one of the best preserved bronze artifacts of such a great age," he added.

Buddhist sculpture

Jiang also told China Daily on Thursday that the severed heads of two 1,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures from the Longmen Grottoes of Luoyang in Henan, which have been outside the country for 80 years, will finally have the chance to rest again on their own shoulders within months as the result of collective efforts of a number of concerned organizations, including the museum.

The Longmen Grottoes, a World Cultural Heritage Site, contain one of the largest and most impressive collections of Buddhist sculptures of the Northern Wei (AD 386-534) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties to be found in the country.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-05/15/content_331016.htm

*********************

What would Mao say? This cultural revolution is a playful artistic romp
By Hamish McDonald, Herald Correspondent in Beijing
May 15, 2004

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In the middle of a defence industry complex in Beijing this week, workmen were erecting a 10-metre-high replica of the Long March rocket and Shenzhou space vehicle that took China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, into orbit last October.

But look closer. The replica is covered in small white ceramic tiles, the kind commonly found in public toilets. The panels set into the side of the rocket turn out to be porcelain urinals. Literally, it is an artistic piss-take on the part of its conceptualiser, Wang Boyi.

That kind of irreverence is to be expected at Factory 798, a colony of avant-garde artists, galleries and super-cool bars that for the past two years has precariously occupied a niche bizarrely located at Dashanzi, in the city's north, amidst military laboratories still producing electronic and laser gear for the armed forces.

Here, exhibition spaces retain some of the 1950s lathes and winding machines used when the factory turned out radio equipment for the military, and walls still show faded slogans of the era, such as "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts".

In a studio, Chang Xin has one of his trademark paintings showing the artist assuming the clothes of a famous subject, who is left in just underwear. In this case, Ruhollah Khomeini shivers in a loincloth, while Chang wears the late ayatollah's robes and turban.

A similar foothold has been gained by non-establishment artists in Shanghai, where Li Liang's pioneering Eastlink Gallery moved six months ago into a vacant textile factory on a stretch of the city's Suzhou creek, and a number of individual artists have set up their studios.

Eastlink recently showed huge images made of photographs of manhole covers, an installation artist is connecting electrical wires to shoes embossed with human faces, and Qu Guangci, a plastics artist, has laid out symbolic figures in miniature perspex coffins. Ai Weiwei, a photographer, presents a panorama of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, looking across to the Zhongnanhai leadership compound - with a raised middle finger in the foreground.

This month, with its leases on Factory 798 due to expire at the end of the year, the Beijing colony is holding its first international festival, which includes experimental films and documentaries from France, Japan and Australia, light shows and installations, so-called new photography, and performances that include a Chinese group playing free-form music non-stop for 24 hours.

The festival director, Huang Rui, who is also an artist with his own studio in the factory, hopes it will reinforce the community's case for an extension of the leases. Hopeful signs have been a resolution passed in March by the Beijing People's Congress, calling for demolition to be halted, and several visits by senior city officials.

Adding to the colony's appeal is the strange accident of Factory 798's design. The building and its former equipment were a gift of the former communist regime in East Germany, and its architects drew heavily on the Bauhaus school that flourished in Germany between the wars. Its sweeping simplicity of structure, plain functional surfaces and strong natural lighting make it a delight to walk through.

"It's a classic example, like SoHo in New York, of artists moving into a shitty dump and turning it into something else," said Ray Hughes, who has been taking contemporary Chinese art to his Surry Hills gallery for many years.

Li Liang moved back to Shanghai in 1999 after 10 years in Australia, where he practised his own painting in old factories across Balmain and Glebe that were closed by redevelopment. "Now it is happening here," he said. But while his Eastlink gallery gets a growing stream of students and teachers from official art schools, and will be part of Shanghai's next big arts biennale this autumn, Li also relishes his life on the fringe.

The temporary quarters mean his costs are low, enabling him to show artists whose work is not very commercial.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/14/1084289891303.html

____________________

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

Phone: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 75
Fax: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 39

http://www.chinaresource.org
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www.fluktor.de
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	May 18, 2004: [achtung! kunst] yang yi in concert - palastmuseum mit hightech - return of the phoenix - factory 798

	The Straits Time MAY 18, 2004 TUE The Yang and the restless The Bob Dylan of China, bohemian folk rocker Yang Yi has travelled all over China collecting disappearing folk songs. He will be performing here next month [i.e. in singapur, m.a.] By Clara Chow EVERY winter, without fail, Chinese folk-rocker Yang Yi busks with his guitar outside the China National Art Museum in Beijing. Sometimes, passers-by call him a beggar or madman. But it does not faze him. And nothing breaks the momentum of his songs. He says in Mandarin, over the phone from his flat in Beijing: 'Their mouths are on their heads and they can say what they want. In China, they don't understand a lot of things.' Considered one of the pioneering modern minstrels of China, he will be performing here for the first time on June 1 and 2, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival. At his concert here - a doublebill with Shandong-born blues singer Hang Tian - he will perform 10 folk songs. With titles like Drawing On A Fan (hua shan mian), they allude to the turmoil of every age and the need to experience life to its fullest. Fiercely anti-commercial, Yang, 35, has resolutely refused to sign on to any record label because of China's lax copyright laws. Instead, he distributes his self-recorded albums wherever he busks. The first one was released in 2000, and there is an upcoming one next month. Both are called Internal Reference (nei bu can kao). Born Yang Wanghong in Guangdong province to farmer parents, he is one of five children. He relocated to Beijing at the age of 23. The first building he visited in the country's capital was the China National Art Museum. After graduating from high school, he trained as a fine arts painter before deciding to pursue his childhood dream of being a musician. He has since travelled all over China, collecting disappearing folk songs and recording them. In the process, he met a Shanbei farmer in his 60s named Li Shengcai with a wide knowledge of such songs. He visited him again last year. To him, Chinese rock music is still stuck in the 1990s, when rocker Cui Jian burst onto the global scene with his Tiananmen protest anthem, Nothing To My Name (yi wu suo you). Unless the country's political climate loosens up, Yang feels, such music will remain underground. 'I haven't bought a record in years,' he muses when asked about his record collection. 'Having no fixed address makes it inconvenient to store them.' He reveals matter-of-factly that he leads a simple life on a modest income of 1,500 yuan (S$313) a month. His wandering lifestyle and bohemian image have led the Western media to dub him China's Bob Dylan, a tag he is ambivalent about. He says: 'I like Dylan very much. When he was starting out, people compared him to folk legend Woody Guthrie. It's normal to be compared to your predecessor.' 'But I'm still Yang Yi.' These days, the singer still busks outside the museum, which re-opened in July last year after 15 months of renovation. But even though he used to visit its art exhibitions regularly, he does not venture in anymore. This is because the admission fee has risen from two yuan to 20, he claims, since the renovation. 'I just don't agree with them raising the price like that,' he says. You just know that it is the kind of thing the principled musician would say. http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/life/story/0,4386,251298,00.html ****************** china.org.cn 18.5.2004 Denkmalschutz im Kaiserpalast durch digitale Technik Der Kaiserpalast in Beijing ist das bekannteste Museum in China und gleichzeitig der weltweit größte und am besten erhaltene Holzbaukomplex. Der Anstieg des Tourismus in den letzten Jahren setzt die Museumsleitung, die für die Ausstellung, das Managment und den Schutz der Kulturgegenstände des Museums zuständig ist, einem immer größeren Druck aus. Dank einer eigens für den Schutz des Kaiserpalastes angelegten elektronischen Datenbank hat man nun einen neuen Weg zur Lösung der Probleme gefunden. Der Kaiserpalast von Beijing, auch als Verbotene Stadt bekannt, wurde 1406 gebaut und war 500 Jahre lang Residenz von insgesamt 24 Kaisern der Dynastien Ming und Qing. Der Palast, der zahlreiche kostbare Kulturgegenstände aus fünf Jahrhunderten aufbewahrt, wurde 1912 zum ersten Mal als Museum der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht. Das Palastmuseum verfügt zur Zeit über mehr als eine Million Gegenstände, darunter Waren aus Porzellan und Bronze, Malereien, Artikel aus dem Alltag des Kaisers sowie architektonische Besonderheiten des monumentalen Baukomplexes wie Reliefs und Wandmalereien. Die chinesische Hauptstadt selbst und das wegen seiner mysteriösen Farbe und Bauweise bekannte Wahrzeichen der Stadt haben in den letzten Jahren immer mehr Besucher in die Verbotene Stadt gelockt. Jedes Jahr werden ungefähr 10 Millionen Besucher registriert. Die antiken Bauten bestehen überwiegend aus Ziegeln und Holz, sind nicht wetterbeständig und daher sehr anfällig. Die riesigen Touristenmengen sind die größte Belastung für das Palastmuseum. Yan Hongbin von der Museumsverwaltung hat bei einem Interview mit Radio China International seine Besorgnis geäußert: "Die Kulturgegenstände, die im Museum des Kaiserpalastes aufbewahrt werden, machen ein Zehntel aller Kulturgegenstände Chinas aus. Ein Fünftel der wertvollsten chinesischen Kulturgüter stammt aus dem Kaiserpalast. Einige Werke genießen internationalen Ruhm, wie z.B. die Bilder "Szenen am Flussufer beim Qingming-Fest" oder "Die Fünf Rinder". Bekannt ist auch das Bild "Buniantu". Es stellt den Tang-Kaiser Taizong dar, der anlässlich der Vermählung der Tang-Prinzessin Wencheng mit dem Tubo-König Sonzanganbu den Tubo-Botschafter empfängt. Die wachsende Besucherzahl hat verheerende Auswirkungen auf die Gegenstände. Das sehen wir natürlich sehr ungern." Yan Hongbin meint, trotz verstärkter Schutzmaßnahmen im Kaiserpalast sei der Denkmalschutz noch ungenügend. Angesichts der Anfälligkeit der Kulturgegenstände im Kaiserpalast hat man nun damit begonnen, moderne Denkmalschutzmethoden anzuwenden. Hu Chui, Vizedirektor des Informationszentrums im Kaiserpalast, sagt, die Hauptaufgabe des Zentrums bestehe darin, anhand von Digital- und Video-Technik Daten vor Verlust zu schützen und Akademikern ihre Studien zu erleichtern. Der Einsatz von Digitaltechnik zeige nun erste Ergebnisse: "Die alten Dokumente und Gegenstände werden beim Gebrauch jedes Mal im unterschiedlichen Maße beschädigt. So haben wir versucht, zahlreiche Studienmaterialien, einschließlich Bildern, in die Datenbank des Informationszentrums aufzunehmen. Durch die Anwendung der Datenbank wird der direkte Kontakt mit den Gegenständen vermieden. Kopien beispielsweise reichen für die meisten Studienzwecke völlig aus. Wir beschäftigen uns ferner mit der Einrichtung einer virtuellen Galerie, bei der man die Artefakte aus der Gesamtperspektive betrachten, aber auch die feinen Einzelheiten, wie z.B. die Beschaffenheit des Materials, deutlich erkennen kann." Wie Hu Chui weiter mitteilt, ist die Datenbank des Kaiserpalastes mittlerweile den Mitarbeitern des Managements und Akademikern zugänglich gemacht worden. In Zukunft soll sie auch der Öffentlichkeit zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Auf der Website des Kaiserpalastes sind mittlerweile mehr als 4.000 Aufnahmen von Exponaten zu sehen. Außerdem arbeitet der Kaiserpalast beim Schutz der antiken Gegenstände zur Zeit mit einer japanischen Firma zusammen. Dabei werden die Daten der Bauwerke digitaltechnisch aufgezeichnet, um die Bauten im Falle einer Beschädigung oder Zerstörung nachbauen zu können. Viele der sehr wertvollen und empfindlichen Exponate des Kaiserpalastes stehen unter strengem Denkmalschutz. Selbst die Lageristen dürfen die Gegenstände nicht nach Belieben berühren. Deshalb ist die Sammlung der Daten bisher sehr mühsam gewesen. Die digitale Aufnahme aller Informationen wird noch lange dauern. Dazu noch einmal Hu Chui: "Der Kaiserpalast ist eine riesige Schatzkammer von Kulturgegenständen. Die digitale Archivierung befindet sich erst in ihrer Anfangsphase. Bislang sind über 400.000 Exponate visuell und digital archiviert worden, das ist die Hälfte aller Kulturgegenstände im Kaiserpalast. Wir bemühen uns, in zwei bis drei Jahren alle Informationen zur Sammlung, Zirkulation und Ausstellung der Gegenstände in unsere Datenbank aufzunehmen." Die chinesische Regierung stellt seit dem vergangenen Jahr jährlich 100 Millionen Yuan zur Restaurierung des Kaiserpalastes zur Verfügung stellt. Das Restaurierungsprojekt sei auf 20 Jahre angelegt. Dabei werde die Digitalisierung eine wichtige Rolle spielen, so Hu. (CRI/China.org.cn, 17. Mai 2004) http://www.china.org.cn/german/113826.htm ****************** Lost phoenix returns to its nest (China Daily) Updated: 2004-05-15 14:18 The Chinese started to worship the phoenix as the guardian spirit of the nation more than 3,000 years ago, even before they began to adore the dragon. However, it was believed that only two bronze vessels in the shape of phoenixes had been unearthed in the country, which are both said to be in collections in the United States. But a third "phoenix" appeared on Thursday, with Beijing's Poly Art Museum showing it to the public after buying it from an overseas collector early this month and having it appraised and treated for preservation by leading Chinese experts on bronze artifacts. The extremely beautiful vessel, 49 centimetres tall and 41 centimetres long, is almost three times the height of the two thought to be in the United States, which are both apparently only 17.5 centimetres tall. It is included in an ongoing exhibition of major bronze artifacts in the museum's collection, many of which have been appraised as national treasures. Jiang Yingchun, curator of the museum, admitted the museum, affiliated with the State-owned Poly Group, paid a great price for the return of the "phoenix." "The wine vessel, or zun, cost more than the four famous 'animal heads' added together," he said, declining to give the exact price. The copper sculptures of an ox, monkey, tiger and swine head were lost with another eight animal heads that graced Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace), when invading British and French troops looted the palace in 1860. After wandering around the world for more than 140 years, the four came home to the collection of the Poly Art Museum respectively in 2000 and 2003 at an overall price speculated to be more than 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million). The "phoenix" is more expensive because it's really ancient, said Jiang. It can be dated back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), said Li Xueqin, director of the ancient Chinese history research centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "Judging from its looks, it must have been unearthed in the past few years from an aristocrat's tomb in northern China, probably in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, or Central China's Henan Province, before finding its way out of the mainland," he added. "It's pure luck to have tracked it down," said director Jiang. He heard from a friend of the appearance of "a phoenix" in a Hong Kong antique shop, but didn't believe at the time that it was an authentic piece, as he thought it unlikely that a vessel of such size could be genuine. "But the moment I saw it in Hong Kong I knew it wasn't a fake," Jiang said excitedly. "No modern man could make a fake bronze vessel of such delicacy, with no regard to the cost in time or money. We are all too busy in our era," he explained. The bronze wine vessel, about three millenniums old, is in the shape of a phoenix standing with its head raised, eyes opened wide, wings and tail spread. The "phoenix" has a crest in the shape of a blooming flower on the top of its "head." And on its "back" there is a smaller "phoenix" standing leisurely with its wings nestled against its "belly." The smaller bird functions as a handle on the top of the vessel's cover, which is part of the large bird's back. On the inner side of the cover there is an inscription of eight characters in two lines, reading "Pengji zuo zukao baozunyi" (Members of the Peng family had this precious wine vessel made to offer sacrifices to their ancestors). Complex and exquisite patterns, including dragons, cover the two birds' bodies. After discussions with the overseas collector, the Hong Kong shop allowed Jiang and his staff to bring the vessel to Beijing before making payment. Ma Chengyuan, former curator of the Shanghai Museum, Zhu Fenghan, curator of the National Museum of China, and Li Xueqin made appraisals and decided that "it's a real phoenix," said Li. "And the magical 'bird' is one of the best preserved bronze artifacts of such a great age," he added. Buddhist sculpture Jiang also told China Daily on Thursday that the severed heads of two 1,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures from the Longmen Grottoes of Luoyang in Henan, which have been outside the country for 80 years, will finally have the chance to rest again on their own shoulders within months as the result of collective efforts of a number of concerned organizations, including the museum. The Longmen Grottoes, a World Cultural Heritage Site, contain one of the largest and most impressive collections of Buddhist sculptures of the Northern Wei (AD 386-534) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties to be found in the country. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-05/15/content_331016.htm ******************* What would Mao say? This cultural revolution is a playful artistic romp By Hamish McDonald, Herald Correspondent in Beijing May 15, 2004 Page Tools Email to a friend Printer format In the middle of a defence industry complex in Beijing this week, workmen were erecting a 10-metre-high replica of the Long March rocket and Shenzhou space vehicle that took China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, into orbit last October. But look closer. The replica is covered in small white ceramic tiles, the kind commonly found in public toilets. The panels set into the side of the rocket turn out to be porcelain urinals. Literally, it is an artistic piss-take on the part of its conceptualiser, Wang Boyi. That kind of irreverence is to be expected at Factory 798, a colony of avant-garde artists, galleries and super-cool bars that for the past two years has precariously occupied a niche bizarrely located at Dashanzi, in the city's north, amidst military laboratories still producing electronic and laser gear for the armed forces. Here, exhibition spaces retain some of the 1950s lathes and winding machines used when the factory turned out radio equipment for the military, and walls still show faded slogans of the era, such as "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts". In a studio, Chang Xin has one of his trademark paintings showing the artist assuming the clothes of a famous subject, who is left in just underwear. In this case, Ruhollah Khomeini shivers in a loincloth, while Chang wears the late ayatollah's robes and turban. A similar foothold has been gained by non-establishment artists in Shanghai, where Li Liang's pioneering Eastlink Gallery moved six months ago into a vacant textile factory on a stretch of the city's Suzhou creek, and a number of individual artists have set up their studios. Eastlink recently showed huge images made of photographs of manhole covers, an installation artist is connecting electrical wires to shoes embossed with human faces, and Qu Guangci, a plastics artist, has laid out symbolic figures in miniature perspex coffins. Ai Weiwei, a photographer, presents a panorama of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, looking across to the Zhongnanhai leadership compound - with a raised middle finger in the foreground. This month, with its leases on Factory 798 due to expire at the end of the year, the Beijing colony is holding its first international festival, which includes experimental films and documentaries from France, Japan and Australia, light shows and installations, so-called new photography, and performances that include a Chinese group playing free-form music non-stop for 24 hours. The festival director, Huang Rui, who is also an artist with his own studio in the factory, hopes it will reinforce the community's case for an extension of the leases. Hopeful signs have been a resolution passed in March by the Beijing People's Congress, calling for demolition to be halted, and several visits by senior city officials. Adding to the colony's appeal is the strange accident of Factory 798's design. The building and its former equipment were a gift of the former communist regime in East Germany, and its architects drew heavily on the Bauhaus school that flourished in Germany between the wars. Its sweeping simplicity of structure, plain functional surfaces and strong natural lighting make it a delight to walk through. "It's a classic example, like SoHo in New York, of artists moving into a shitty dump and turning it into something else," said Ray Hughes, who has been taking contemporary Chinese art to his Surry Hills gallery for many years. Li Liang moved back to Shanghai in 1999 after 10 years in Australia, where he practised his own painting in old factories across Balmain and Glebe that were closed by redevelopment. "Now it is happening here," he said. But while his Eastlink gallery gets a growing stream of students and teachers from official art schools, and will be part of Shanghai's next big arts biennale this autumn, Li also relishes his life on the fringe. The temporary quarters mean his costs are low, enabling him to show artists whose work is not very commercial. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/14/1084289891303.html ____________________ Matthias Arnold M.A. Digital Resources Institute of Chinese Studies University of Heidelberg Akademiestr. 4-8 69117 Heidelberg Germany Phone: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 75 Fax: ++ 49 - (0) 62 21 - 54 76 39 http://www.chinaresource.org http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de www.fluktor.de www.zhaomo.de.vu