AFP, June 6, 2005. 8:26pm (AEST)
Myth of Tomorrow
[image] The central part of the world's largest mural Myth of Tomorrow, painted by Japanese contemporary artist Taro Okamoto in Mexico (AFP)

Giant anti-war mural rediscovered after 35 years

The largest mural by leading Japanese modern artist Taro Okamoto, an abstract anti-war work, has been discovered in Mexico 35 years after it disappeared and will go on display in Japan.

The 5.5 metre tall, 30 metre wide Myth of Tomorrow, represents the moment at which an atomic bomb explodes.

"Okamoto believed that the myths of the future develop at moments of cruelty and tragedy," the Taro Okamoto Memorial Foundation for the Promotion of Contemporary Art said in a statement.

"This mural speaks from his deepest thoughts, from his heart."

Japan is the only country that has suffered a nuclear attack, with the United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The mural was originally painted for a hotel lobby in Mexico City in the late 1960s and is considered a companion piece to his Taiyo no To, or Tower of the Sun, which featured at the Osaka World Exposition in 1970.

But the developer of the hotel fell into financial difficulties and the hotel was never finished. The mural was removed and eventually vanished.

The painting was discovered in 2003 in a yard for building materials in a suburb of Mexico City, and Toshiko Okamoto, the partner of the painter who died in 1996, went to Mexico to confirm the long-lost work.

After the foundation obtained the rights of possession earlier this year, it sent a technical team to Mexico to dismantle the mural and pack it for shipment to Japan.

The painting will be restored from July and shown to the general public at the end of next year at the earliest.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1385868.htm

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China Daily 06/10/2005
DISAPPEARING PRINTS
Li Shuo

Since his days as a middle school student, Pu Songnian began collecting woodprint nianhua (Spring Festival paintings) in 1948.

Although now reaching the age of 73, Pu continues to collect and study the works.

"Woodprint nianhua paintings may be the most popular and widespread form of art since the days of ancient China - every family used to hang up such paintings in their homes during the Chinese lunar New Year and everyone in every family appreciated them," said Pu, a retired professor with the China Central Academy of Arts. Pu's entire life was devoted to teaching Chinese Art History at the academy after his own graduation there.

Regarded as China's finest expert and scholar on woodprint nianhua, Pu has been a key player in the China Folklore Culture Heritage Rescue Project which was launched a couple of years ago. "Unlike Feng Jicai, founder of the project, who has a real influence in society and strong power to gather investment, I can only try my best to offer my ideas and suggestions on the subject," said Pu, who has visited almost all the 20 locations, which were nianhua painting bases, such as Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Wuqiang in Hebei Province, Taohuawu in Jiangsu and many other villages.

To Pu's disappointment, he found that the condition of the folk art is on the verge of extinction: both the old-aged masters and the art itself are slipping away with time.

Woodprint nianhua paintings are said to have first appeared during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). However, since the art form was not a high class cultural icon, it was not well-documented in history books of the time.

The skills of carving wood blocks for printing and painting as a way of complimentary perfection were handed down from masters to disciples over generations.

The art that resulted was images of immortal creatures that the common people hung in their homes to ward off evil spirits for safety, security and health, and later for wealth and offspring.

One of the most important events of the year, for people in those days, was to select, purchase and buy such new paintings for the home, Pu said.

People tended to seek auspicious signs for a brighter and bustling New Year, and hanging such woodprint Spring Festival paintings was a vital part of the festival.

The paintings were often placed on the front door to prevent evil spirits from entering the home. Then if they had more money, they put other pairs of paintings on other doors, some for wealth, some for more offspring, and some for happiness. If they had horse or cattle sheds or pig or sheep pens, relevant paintings would be put on the doors or walls of these sheds or pens, so that their livestock could be healthy and productive as well.

"The folklore art saw a decline during the 1930s in the anti-Japanese war, as the shipping of goods to buyers spread all across China was interrupted," Pu said. The paintings were rejected as a sign of superstition after the founding of New China in 1949, but in the countryside villagers still bought them to decorate their homes to convey their hope for a better and more prosperous life.

"It was in the past two decades in the fast pace of globalization and economic growth that the art began disappearing at a record rate, falling nearly into extinction," said Pu. There are many forms of entertainment, and people's cultural tastes have changed, many are becoming more short-sighted, beginning to admire Western-style fast-food culture and the like, which have already been rejected by most Westerners. This constant push for advancement and change lays a hard hand on folk cultures such as woodprint paintings.

"Now when I go down to the countryside I find only one or two masters who can create and carve the wood blocks for printing. Old masters are ageing and many have already passed away, without finding young people to learn their skills, because of a scarce demands for such paintings," Pu said.

In the eyes of experts like Pu, such nianhua woodprint paintings are of pure and plain tastes, and more precious, because they are handmade, and based in the lives of China's masses.

"They also represent the best art of their time, reflecting the vivid life and colourful images in general people's lives," said Pu. Unlike the paintings created by Qing-Dyansty intellectuals, which were limited to a thinner range of themes such as plum blossoms, bamboo, orchids, and chrysanthemums, or river and mountain sceneries, woodprint paintings reveal much wider content vividly displaying Chinese people's real lives and loves.

Pu noticed that many foreigners started to show a keen interest in folk arts, some even coming over to study under him.

"The world has become a big village, and it will be more fun if each region keeps their own characteristics, so I believe with our combined efforts, both from home and abroad, we can see a comeback of woodprint nianhua paintings in China," Pu said.

A recent trend includes people reviving the folk arts for the sake of museums or tourism.

However, some of the artists simply create the paintings to sell them at high prices to foreigners, which is not the aim of the art, Pu said.

If such arts leave the soil, the local life and culture will soon follow, he said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-06/10/content_450245.htm

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Korea Times, 06-05-2005
Asian Female Artists Reflect on Women's Sexuality, Body
By Park Chung-a, Staff Reporter

A still from “But the Same Time,” a single-channel video by Kim Hwa-yong
Female artists from seven Asian countries will gather in Seoul to present works that deal with the issue of sexuality and the female body.

The Feminist Artist Network will hold the 3rd Women’s Arts Festival from June 16 to July 3 at Seongkok Art Museum under the title ``Fantastic Asia- New Relations Within the Invisible Borders.’’

The festival is timed with the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, which will run on June 19-24 at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. It is the first time for the congress to be held in Asia.

At the exhibition hall, 30 artworks including video, installation, and paintings from China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore will be presented. The participating artists are known for their consistent work on the theme of women and sexuality in their native regions. Seven of them are Korean women artists in their 30s.

Photographs, video works, installation works and paintings will show what effect social powers, social customs, traditions and conventions had on Asian women’s sexuality.

Artists freely address various forms of sexuality, including bisexuality, homosexual desires and sexual fantasies which are often neglected and shunned in conservative societies.

Kim Hwa-yong’s video works demonstrate an absurd situation in which communication among people becomes totally blocked due to differences in their values. Song Sang-hee’s photographs show women who are forced to keep silence while working as sex slaves in red-light districts of Tongduchon in Kyonggi Province.

Jung Eun-young’s photo installation work ``When Mother Dies’’ reveals her anguish of not being able to frankly show her aspect as a sexual being to her mother.

Queen Kong’s digital prints reflect her intimate memory of overcoming liver cancer which suddenly attacked her while trying to be a superwoman at home and at work.

Shimada Yoshiko’s unique work also attracts one’s attention. The audience is asked to write their own intimate sexual desires or secrets about their sexuality on a piece of paper and put it in the drawer of her installation work. The drawer already has pieces of papers collected from a Japanese audience, when she held the exhibition in Tokyo in January. Thus, the exhibit not only provides a chance for ``self-confession’’ but also a secret joy of seeing secret thoughts of others.

Suzuki Ryoko’s ``Anikora’’ is a collage work which implies men’s distorted sexual fantasy by attaching faces of celebrities on the body of a cute female character.

Taiwan’s Hsu Suchen has photographed and enlarged a woman’s most private part and Chinese Wang Xiao Hui has implicated sexuality through images of fruits and flowers, which reflect the current capitalist society that commercializes female body.

At 5 p.m. in the opening ceremony on June 16, feminist dancer Park Shin-ae will perform from 6 p.m., ``floor talk’’ will be held for the audience and artists to freely exchange their opinions on the works.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200506/kt2005060517190811700.htm

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The Epoch Times Jun 01, 2005
Well Known Chinese Painter Resigns From Communist Young Pioneers
By Xin Fei

[image] From the left: Tang Yuanjun, Yan Zhengxue, Hong Zhesheng
Mr. Yan Zhengxue, celebrated painter and director of the Yuanming Palace Atists’ Village Museum in Beijing, shared his reasons for publicly resigning from the Communist Young Pioneers (CYP).

“I joined the CYP when I was 9-year old. At that time I was filled with excitement and hope. Later on, my experiences made me realize that the CCP is totally different from what I thought. If I had known the truth about the CCP back then, I never would have joined in the first place. I hereby publicly resign from the CYP; I sever all ties with the CCP.

When I was a child my father was targeted as an anti-revolutionist. In the years that followed I felt the increasing chill that spread across Chinese society like a blanket of ice. People looked down on me for having a revolutionary father, a father in prison. In 1957 when the Anti-Rightist Movement took place I was just a teenager, but I remember vividly the persecution the people suffered under. My middle school teacher was tortured to death for crimes of thought and ideology, supposed mistakes that she refused to acknowledge. I remember wanting to save her some how and knowing that I could not. When I heard that she had died rather than go against her principles I was deeply moved by her faith. In 1962 I was admitted to Zhejiang Fine Arts College. While I was a student there one of my teachers was driven to suicide by the social pressures being placed upon her by the CCP. This incident had quite a deep impact on me.

As I matured I took it upon myself to study the written works of communism in great detail, books such as, “The Exposition of Communism.” The more I studied the more I found myself in disagreement with the theories put forth in theses books. I began to understand the pervasive evil nature of communism and I was filled with the urgent need to escape from the dark specter of communism before it could poison my soul.

In 1965 I decided to leave school travel the country as a wandering artist. My travels took me to the Xinjian Autonomous Area in Qinghai province as well as the Gansu Autonomous Area. My objective was to witness people’s lives - specifically the hardships they endured under the yolk of the CCP.

In 1978 I wrote a biographical account of my journeys entitled, The Long Journey, which was eventually published in 1989. It was my hope in making the book that it would awaken people to the enormous suffering that had become daily life for so many Chinese under the rule of the CCP.

After reading the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” recently published by The Epoch Times, I found that the book echoed many of my own conclusions about the inherent wrongness of the CCP. As a painter I have a special interest in Chinese traditional culture as it pertains to fine art, and I have seen how the CCP has tried to systematically destroy our millennia old artistic traditions.

For example, Dong Xiwen painted, “The Ceremony of the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China”. Liu Shaoqi, the former President of China, was represented in the painting. When Liu Shaoqi stepped down, the painting was modified. Changes like that have happened again and again. How can an artwork be changed? The CCP sees artists as regular workers and tools. The painters paint whatever they are told to. They are used to spread the CCP ideology. This is far from the traditional art culture of China, in which the artist attempts to represent the divine for the human world. In traditional Chinese art the artist’s endeavor is considered sacred and serves a purpose for human society that also transcends it. The CCP completely demeans our Chinese artistic traditions by turning artists and their creations into mundane tools to be used for political ends.

Resigning from the CCP is a necessary and righteous act. The CCP has done nothing but damage China, its people and its culture, since it came to power. It is unable to bring China forward towards democracy and freedom - these two ideas run contrary to its very nature. The CCP is a completely corrupt governing body and all would do well to completely distance themselves from it. All wise people should publicly renounce the CCP.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-6-1/29221.html

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

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

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