Priceless treasures on show in Beijing
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-23 16:43:36

BEIJING, April 23 -- More than 200 Chinese cultural relics will be
exhibited in Beijing's China Millennium Monument.

This is the first time these precious cultural relics will be shown
to the public.

The collection includes, sarira, the most treasured Buddist relic
discovered in northwest Gansu Province, jade clothes sewn with gold
thread, and a 2000-year-old dragon-shaped jade pendant unearthed in
Jiangsu, which is estimated to cost 1 million US dollar.

Also on display are many important recent archeological discoveries.

The exhibition of China's most important cultural relics will be
held every four years.

The exhibition opens on April 26 and runs until June 15.
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)
[with 3 images]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-04/23/content_2868334.htm

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taipei times, Friday, Apr 22, 2005
Art reaches out despite handicaps
By Susan Kendzulak

[image] Lin Hong-wen's sculpture peers out of a lotus pond at KMFA.
PHOTOS: SUSAN KENDZULAK
Despite sparse funding and the lack of a vigorous market for
contemporary art, Taiwan is rich and abundant in visual and contemporary
art.

A must-see exhibition recen-tly opened at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine
Arts. The Intertidal Zone Art Monitoring Station on view until May 29 is
one of the six exhibitions that received a production grant for curators
from The National Culture and Arts Foundation. The three curators Lu
Ming-te (???), Chang Sin-pi (???) and Hsu Su-chen (???) also
are exhibiting their own art.

Of course having more than one curator for an exhibition can be a bit
like having too many cooks spoiling the broth.

However, the environmentally themed exhibition with southern-based
Taiwanese artists and Birmingham-based British artists moves logically
from thought to thought, coalescing into a marvelous reverie about being
alive and how we connect with other species.

One highlight is the interactive installation by Hsiao Sheng-chien (??
?) that is creepy and highly erotic at the same time. A large, round
projection of a blinking and watching eye triggered by movement sensors
hovers near and follows the viewer.
[image] The Embassy of Wetogether at Utopia fo Togetherness.

The exhibition also shows that Hsu Su-chen is an incredible cultural
entity as she perfects her dual role as artist and curator. Her project
with the Pingtung Wildlife Sanctuary is a documentation of once-captive
animals who show the signs of psychological stress disorders. She was
recently nominated for the Taishin Art Awards for two of her
exhibitions: a curated show combining theater and fine art and a solo
art exhibition exploring the subject of conjoined twins.

The Taishin Art Awards created by the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts
and Culture awards an NT$1 million prize, inspiring people to realize
their creative goals.

The Special Jury Award went to the Beautiful New Horizon Arts Involved
Planning Hai-An Road, the one-year project on Tainan's Haian Road, where
the sides of buildings on this famed road are canvases for art. The
Visual Arts Award went to Shy Gong's Pilgrimage in Labyrinth, an
exhibition of his neon-blinking betel-nut stands that was on view at the
Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

According to the guidelines, the Taishin Art Awards competition is also
open to artists who are not citizens of Taiwan but who have valid ARCs.
However, none of the nominees were ARC-holders, and this makes one
wonder when, or if, this allowance will ever be put into effect.

Are the Taishin Art Awards a platform for only promoting Taiwanese
culture or will it recognize contributions of creative residents?

One highlight of the ceremony was when the presenter of the Performing
Arts Award, Cloud Gate founder Lin Hwai-min (???) looked straight at
Chen Chi-nan (???), the Minister of the Council of Cultural Affairs,
and admonished the government's minimal financial support of the arts,
expressing the ernest sentiment of those involved in the arts. Lin
stated that if Taiwan wants to take a seat on the international stage,
one strategy is to support and promote the arts as a type of cultural
diplomacy. After the ceremony, many of those who work in the arts said
they agreed with Lin's comments.

As the Tainan award-winning project shows, public-art projects are one
way to make art seem less elitist and as a way to bring the art directly
to the masses. Currently on view until May 7 is the Utopia of
Togetherness, a walking art tour in Taipei that begins at the Yuan Shan
MRT station and includes 21 individual art projects. So from North to
South, there are plenty of wonderful -- and free -- art exhibitions to see.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2005/04/22/2003251504

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welt, Sa, 23. April 2005
Asia Week in New York

New Yorks "Asia Week" im März bot mit sieben Auktionen, zwei Messen und
einer stetig wachsenden Zahl von Galerien reichlich Gelegenheit, sich
dicker Bündel von Dollars zu entledigen. Die höchsten Umsätze seit
Jahren sorgten für gute Laune: Christie's steigerten ihr Ergebnis vom
September auf 26,3 Mio. Dollar (83 Prozent nach Wert, 82 nach Losen),
Sotheby's summierten die Zuschläge auf 17,8 Mio. Dollar (nach Wert 81,
69 Prozent nach Losen). Aber: Seit September verhandelt die US-Regierung
mit der VR China über Einfuhrbeschränkungen bei chinesischer Kunst.
Westliche Händler sind sicher, daß der Schutz des Kulturgutes vom
Paläolithikum bis zum Ende des Kaiserreichs (1911) unter Berufung auf
die UNESCO-Konvention von 1970 nur als Vorwand für wirtschaftliche
Dominanz dient. "Importe werden künftig vielleicht nur gegen einen
saftigen Aufpreis möglich sein. Auf jeden Fall kann damit gerechnet
werden, daß die Preise bald um 30 Prozent steigen werden", so Händler
Douglas Schneible.

Kaiserzeitliches steht in der Gunst der Käufer obenan, bei Sotheby's
wurde frühe Keramik favorisiert. Eine makellos erhaltene birnenförmigen
Langhalsflasche mit rotem Unterglasurdekor aus der Periode von Hongwu,
des ersten Kaisers der Ming-Dynastie (1368-99), wurde von Giuseppe
Eskenazi gegen japanische Konkurrenz bis zu 1,8 (0,3-0,5) Mio. Dollar
verteidigt. Schlichte und elegante Keramik aus der Song-Dynastie
(960-1279) ist besonders beliebt. Auch Kunst vom Hofe Kaiser Qianlongs
(1736-96), der Europäisches besonders schätzte, wird hoch bezahlt.

Christie's prunkten mit einer Offerte von 88 Snuffbottles aus der über
600 Stücke umfassenden Sammlung von James Li, Direktor der Snuff Bottle
Society. Ein kalifornisches Händlerduo obsiegte. Das mit Qianlong-Marke
und -Periode gesiegelte oktogonale Glasfläschchen brachte den Rekord von
580 000 (250-300 000) Dollar. Rekorde hagelte es auch bei Chistie's
südostasiatischer Kunst mit 7,24 Mio. Dollar, Toplos wurde der fein
modellierte Khmer-Sandsteintorso einer Göttin, Baphuon Stil (11. Jh.)
für 420 000 (250-350 000) Dollar.

Die wahren Höhepunkte galt es aber in den über die Stadt verteilten
Galerien und bei 139 Messehändlern zu erlaufen: Zum 10. Mal fand sich
die "Asian Art Fair" an der Park Avenue ein. Aktuelle chinesische Kunst
wurde verstärkt angeboten. "Schönheit, die einem Vogel lauscht" (2005)
von Chen Yifei kostete bei Marlborough 175 000 Dollar.

Für Preiswerteres und Ungewöhnliches suchte man die "Arts of the Pacific
Asia" Show auf. Zwölf illustre Aussteller versammelten sich im
Fuller-Galeriengebäude an der 57. Straße. Rossi & Rossi (Mailand)
verkauften 21 von 26 vergoldete Skulpturen aus der Schule des
bedeutendsten mongolischen Künstlers und religiösen Führers Zanabazar
(1635-1723, bis 200 000 Dollar). Barbara R. Kutscher

http://www.welt.de/data/2005/04/23/708440.html

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canada.com, April 21, 2005
Couple's $37M gift a record
Mactaggarts' collection of Chinese works rivals those of top museums
Jodie Sinnema, The Edmonton Journal

[image] ENTER THE DRAGONS AT U OF A: This Tibetan silk dancing robe from
China's 17th-century Qing Dynasty is among more than 700 rare and unique
Chinese artworks and garments donated to the University of Alberta by
Sandy and Cecile Mactaggart, above. Ed Kaiser, The Journal

EDMONTON - When Fiona Mactaggart remembers her childhood, she thinks of
her mother in the evenings, dressed in ancient Chinese and Tibetan robes
decorated with dragons, phoenixes and flowers.

She recalls the smell of the silk and the glamour of her mother, Cecile,
who, along with her husband, Sandy, made a stunning gift Wednesday of a
$37-million Chinese art collection to the University of Alberta.

The collection, including most of her mother's silk robes, is one of the
finest in North America and the largest gift to the U of A by a single
donor in the university's history.

"She was always very glamorous and different," Fiona, 40, said of her
mother, who began collecting Chinese art soon after her marriage in
1959. The robes "were beautiful and they were stunning and they were
just her. That is what she wore."

The robes, including a dowager robe embroidered with gold phoenixes from
the late Qing Dynasty (1850-1912), are among more than 700 pieces of
ancient and modern Asian artworks and textiles donated to the U of A.

The collection of hanging scrolls, calligraphy, engravings and paintings
rivals those of the top 10 Chinese art collections in museums in North
America, including the Royal Ontario Museum and museums in Boston, New
York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco, said Maxwell Hearn,
who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as curator for
Chinese painting and calligraphy.

He said the Met would have loved to have the Mactaggart collection,
including a 22-metre-long hand scroll depicting Emperor Kang-xhi's 1698
boat voyage through southeast China. Only four institutions have scrolls
like it.

"This is a rarity and a great treasure," said Hearn, who would contact
the Mactaggarts when the Met was unable to purchase valuable Chinese art
pieces.

"You are benefiting from their passion. ... The challenge to the
university is now to bring the expertise to study it, to have a space to
exhibit it and to do the work to publish it."

That is Cecile Mactaggart's dream -- to have the world see the beauty in
her collection.

"I think if I lived another life, I was Chinese," said Cecile, who,
after 6 p.m. every day, shrugs off her western clothes and slips into
Asian robes.

"I think if I lived another life, I was Chinese," said Cecile, who,
after 6 p.m. every day, shrugs off her western clothes and slips into
Asian robes.

During her honeymoon, she and Sandy visited the Met in New York and
Cecile fell in love with a Chinese landscape painting, on display from
the Palace Museum in Beijing.

"I can remember standing in front of it and saying I would sell my
husband, my house, my children just for that one painting," Cecile said.
"And that was it. I was gone."

In the early years, the Mactaggarts -- not yet the philanthropists they
are now, made rich by the oil boom -- largely collected inexpensive but
valuable textiles, robes and costumes.

Cecile remembers going to Sotheby's auctions and seeing art dealers cut
off the gold buttons from the robes, pop them into their pockets, then
discard the robes on the floor. She and Sandy would sweep the costumes
into garbage bags and head home not a penny poorer.

Cecile, whose great-great grandfather helped bring the Met to New York
150 years ago, said: "Sandy was quite right. What he said was it might
not happen for 30 or 50 or 100 years, but one day China is going to come
into its own and then you'll have Michelangelos and Rembrandts and
Leonardo da Vincis that are Chinese.

"And if it does happen for Alberta, imagine how lucky to have that
treasure."

Sandy said he will receive a tax break worth about 25 per cent of the
collection, for his children's inheritance -- a paltry amount compared
to what he would have got by selling it to a collector in China. But the
Mactaggarts also chose to donate their collection to Alberta to help
build relations between China and Canada.

In two or three years the collection will bring a matching grant to the
university from the Alberta government through the province's $3-billion
Access to the Future endowment fund. That money will help build a
Chinese-Canadian centre on campus that will permit public exhibits of
the collection.

So far the collection is stored in environmentally protected rooms and
is available for viewing by small groups. While there isn't space yet
for it among the university's 35 museums it will be open to world
researchers, U of A students and faculty members by appointment this fall.

"The value of locating Canada's premier China institute, dedicated to an
understanding of what is fast becoming the most powerful country in the
world and locating it here in Edmonton at the University of Alberta,
cannot be underestimated," said Sandy, who set up an unrelated
$10-million endowment fund at the U of A in 1981 and donated a
40-hectare natural sanctuary to the university.

"We are launching an initiative with far-reaching possibilities, of
great importance to this province and to this country."

http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/story.html? id=4bfeaea7-3ab7-43d1-b1d7-709e3dbde561

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China Daily, Updated: 2005-04-20
Art district 798 to embrace int'l festival

[image] Dashanzi's designers have turned the district's Factory 798 into
a web of cool post-industrial art spaces while preserving traces of the
past. [China Daily]

Art dealers, architects and designers who helped create the freewheeling
Dashanzi Art District, where artists can meet the masses, are planning
to stage a festival to celebrate Beijing's emergence as a global
cultural centre.

Various events

Shannti Dinnoo, a young Belgian who is part of Dashanzi's multi-nation
promotion team, said the second Dashanzi International Art Festival
(www.diaf.org) will feature Chinese and African musicians, French
digital video directors, a German-Swedish contemporary dance troupe and
an aerial acrobat "who was trained in the French circus and now combines
acrobatics with dance."

The culture-fest, which runs through May 22, will also showcase digital
media artworks and new-millennium minstrels "who will stroll around the
art district telling their stories in different languages," she said.

Dinnoo adds that "the twin themes of the festival are language and legend."

She explains that the celebration will spotlight everything from a
British theatre group that uses hand-written signs and body gestures to
communicate to a multi-media show called Techno Orientalism which
includes Japanese animation artists and the Chinese-American laptop
music composers FM3.

Besides unveiling Beijing's burgeoning role as a new "world cultural
capital," the festival will highlight competing visions of the country's
future.

Dutch architects Neville Mars and Saskia Vendel, for example, will
create a model of Beijing as it undergoes hyper-speed urbanization over
the next decades.

Vendel said that as more rural people march into Chinese cities to join
the country's economic boom, "the urban population is likely to double
or even triple in the next 15 years."

The country will have to rapidly construct or expand cities on an
unprecedented scale.

Mars said that "Chinese architects are 500 times as efficient as their
American counterparts," and will all be enlisted in the ongoing march
towards modernization.

But he adds that it is unclear whether a master blueprint can be drawn
up for this evolution.

During the festival, Mars and Vendel's Dynamic City Foundation
(www.dynamiccity.org) will display a futuristic Chinese cosmopolis
featuring cool, cloud-piercing cylinders that will serve as living
spaces, all interconnected with a web of elevated walkways and
subterranean trains.

The crystalline, smokestack-shaped buildings will maximize each
citizen's exposure to sunlight, provide optimal views of the evolving
city, and "accommodate 25,000 residents per square kilometre," said
Vendel. She said: "That is 10 times the density of present-day Manhattan."

Dashanzi's celebration of contrasting cultures and living concepts "is
the first independent arts festival ever to be held in Beijing," said
Els Silvrants, a Dutch impresario who is helping put the show together.

Silvrants adds that art salons, advertising outfits and publishers who
have set up shops in the Dashanzi district are overjoyed that they can
now count the French Embassy, the Netherlands' Government, the British
Council, and Sony as sponsors of the festival.

On May 4th, French and Belgian dancers will take centre stage at the
district's Daoyaolu Workshop to re-enact "myths of creation from all
over the word" in a performance entitled "Skene."

Threatened future

But behind the scenes, the "cultural creatives" who, since the turn of
the century, have begun leasing space at Dashanzi and collectively
transforming the one-time industrial complex might be more focused on
their threatened doom.

Dashanzi was originally set up as a vast, centrally planned factory
complex by Chinese and East German defence technicians in the 1950s.

Three decades later, Dashanzi's fortunes began sinking as Beijing
launched its twin policies of market reforms and opening up to the
outside world.

Yet the crumbling district found new life when its unique German
architecture and soaring smokestacks started attracting sculptors,
painters and fashion designers looking for cheap space to create a
cultural colony in the Chinese capital.

In the last few years, these leaders of China's nascent "creative class"
have re-engineered the entire district into a cool, post-industrial,
globalized space for art studios, clubs, experimental exhibition spaces,
eateries and bookshops.

But the complex's original owners now want to redevelop Dashanzi in an
ironic twist of fate.

Since new-age artists have flocked to the low-rent complex, the property
value of the area has skyrocketed. The developers would now like to
capitalize on this by forcing out those who engineered Dashanzi's
renaissance.

Already, these developers have blocked new or extended leases to artists.

A gigantic mechanical army of construction cranes and wrecking balls
seems to be waiting in the wings to level the new art district.

The news that Dashanzi will be put under commercial development began to
go around in early 2003, but did not receive enough attention from both
government and local media until early 2004 when Li Xiangqu, a professor
at the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University and a deputy to
the Beijing People's Congress, put forward a proposal appealing for
protection of the area.

Huang Rui, an artist/writer who helped sculpt Dashanzi's new-century
makeover and publicized its threatened destruction in a fantastic,
English and Chinese book "Beijing 798" (named after the Factory 798 that
lies at the heart of Dashanzi), said the district has won a three-year
reprieve.

"The Beijing government has issued an order that the Dashanzi Art
District be protected at least until the 2008 Summer Olympics set to be
staged in the Chinese capital," Huang said.

"Dashanzi is a symbol of artistic freedom and of China's new civil
society," and, as more leaders recognize its role as a global showcase
for China's new century cultural renewal, the space could survive long
after the Summer Games, he predicted.

A source from the Jiuxianqiao Subdistrict Office, the immediate
administrative authority of Dashanzi Area, partly confirmed that.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/20/content_435841.htm

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xinhua
Royal painter's art up for sale
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-20 11:28:35

BEIJING, April 20 -- About 270 traditional ink-wash paintings
created by a descendant of Qing Dynasty Emperor Dao Guang will go on
auction in the city at the end of June.

Fu Xinyu (1869-1963), the grandson of Yi Xin, brother of Emperor
Dao Guang (1782-1850), was a legendary figure in Chinese art history,
according to Ji Chongjian of the Shanghai Chongyuan Auction House. "He
was a royal descendant and at the same time he was also a renowned painter."

Fu spent his days after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in Taiwan, so
his fame has waned on the mainland.

"This is the first time that such a big collection of his works
appeared on the Chinese mainland," Ji said.

Living in the royal palace, Fu had easy access to ancient Chinese
masterpieces, which he imitated in many of his works. He absorbed the
different styles from the Song, Tang and Ming dynasties in his later
works.Fu also furthered his study in Germany when he was young.

"Perhaps he didn't have a distinguished art language himself," Ji
said. "But his painting skills exceeded those of his peers."
(Source: Shanghai Daily News)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-04/20/content_2853765.htm

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

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