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Dezember 21, 2013
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(English) 798 and beyond

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf Amerikanisches Englisch verfügbar.

Dezember 12, 2013
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Beijing: 14th Forum on International Cultural Industries

In Beijing wird am 11. und 12. Januar das 14. Forum zu Cultural Industries (2014第十一届中国文化产业新年论坛) stattfinden. Das Generalthema ist 文化的力量：社会设计与公共创意 – also: “The Power of Culture: Social Design und Public Creativity”, wobei die offizielle Übersetzung etwas davon abweicht: “The Power of Culture: Cultural Market and Reformation Dividend”. Es werden ein Hauptforum zum Generalthema, ein “Gipfel” über 文化集聚：资源活化与创意城乡 (Culture Building: Resource Activation and Urban-rural Creativity) und fünf Diskussionen zu folgenden Themen stattfinden: 文化科技：媒介融合与数字创意 (Culture Technology: Media Convergence and Digital Creativity), 文化金融：艺术市场与衍生开发 (Culture Finance: Art Market and the Development of Cultural Derivatives), 理论创新：人才培养的开放性与专业性 (Theoretical Innovation: The Openness and Professionalism of Personnel Training), 故事驱动：两岸经典与华人创意 (Story Drive: Cross-strait Classics and Chinese Originality) sowie 文化推广：对外贸易与国际推广 (Culture Inheritance: The Sustainable Development Mechanism of Cultural Heritage).

Die Veranstaltung wird vom Kulturministerium und der General Administration of Press and Publication, Radio, Film and Television organisiert und findet an der Peking University statt. Das Forum wurde 2003 gegründet und will die Kommunikation zwischen Regierung, Unternehmen und Forschung vertiefen und versucht, “learning and reality, an innovation in strategy and development” zu verbinden.

http://www.fici.org.cn/eleventh/

Dezember 3, 2013
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It is he who drinks tea that will truly find greatness

Remember my previous posts on tea?

In Two Leaves and a Bud I talked about some basics
and in Poetically Tea I featured a wonderful poem by Huang Fuzeng:
Saw Lù Yǔ off to Pick Tea.

To continue with info on my favourite drink:
The World of Chinese hast posted information on some of the ost known tea specialities:
Chinese Tea: 10 of the Best

Iron Goddess, Silver Needles, Pu Erh, Lapsang Souchong – you will find it all there!
Together with some short notes on health effects and hints for preparation.

Further bits:
Two Leaves and a Bud.
Poetically Tea.
The World of Chinese.
Tea (wiki, a quite comprehensive introduction).

November 12, 2013
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TOP 10!

Are there Chinese artists represented in international auction sales? Of course! How many of them are among the Top Ten? You won´t believe it: 5 out of 10! And you may be staggered by the names…

Source: http://www.deshow.net/cartoon/zhang-daqian-chinese-painting-901.html

The most recent ranking by artprice.com according to auction sales in 2012:

1)    Andy Warhol, € 239.000.000
2)    Zhang Daqian, € 207.900.000
3)    Pablo Picasso, € 207.200.000
4)    Qi Baishi, € 195.600.000
…
6)    Xu Beihong, € 127.500.000
7)    Li Keran, € 121.000.000
…
10) Fu Baoshi, € 110.100.000

Art Market 2012_en Artprice´ report “The Art market in 2012 – A Dialogue between East and West” focusing on China´s art market, describing China´s specific collection culture, shows numbers for Chinese auction houses, gives details in Chinese Top Ten painters in 2012 (all of them already deceased!) und last not least features an interesting interview addressing questions such as “How does the Western art market view the development of Contemporary Chinese works in ink and wash?” , “Can you help Westerners better understand how and artwork and its financial value are related in China” or “What is the Chinese market’s best asset?“

Further bits:
Previous blog-post on rankings “Who´s the best?“.
Report “the_art_market2012_online_en” (pdf).
artprice.
atprice: art market insight.

Oktober 21, 2013
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Yin & Yang

The myriad creatures carry on their backs the Yin
and hold in their arms the Yang,
taking the Chi in between as harmony

Oktober 16, 2013
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The Global & The Arts

Discussion with the curator of the Chinese pavilion, Wang Chunchen, during the preview of the Venice Biennial: Does globalisation – which began as a merely economic development – have an impact upon the various spheres of artistic production and reception?

Curator Wang Chunchen; photo: Hu Zhiheng 2013

Do we see the beginning of a mainstreaming in art production, the emergence of a global iconography? Does this development on the other hand imply an equal participation of artists around the world in the processes and structures of the art market and raise the visibility of non-Western art? If one takes a closer look at the predominant structures of the art market, galleries or big exhibitions: still, most of the international key players are from a Western background. This becomes relevant when thinking about the (already vanishing?) “curatoriat” (John Clark), a term describing the power of selecting contemporary artworks and thus determining access and establishing international canons. Could the visibility of any non-Western art depend upon the artists ability to speak a visual language that is easily understood in a global context.

Entrance to the China Pavilion, Venice Biennial 2013

The Global and the Contemporary
Artists work in a local context while at the same time longing for international reputation. To be outstanding within the global art world one may need to take recourse to the regional culture, to the local iconography as a space of authenticity. Artworks are not global themselves, but stem from a location, travel the world and create local reactions. It should be emphasized that The Global is not a style rather it is a condition. These trends on a global scale require new approaches of being analysed, conceptualized, presented, valued – be it in academia, in art projects, in exhibitions etc.

Wang_Chunchen_Yishu2013 (pdf, download) published in Yishu. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, September 2013

Oktober 6, 2013
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Exhibitions Everywhere!

Wherever you are going in Europe there may be some Chinese artists on display at the moment…

Yu Likwai – Opening on Oct 10, Gmunden/Austria

Yu Likwai, High Shine 2, 2012-13, pigment print mounted on aluminium

Shuffling the Cards – the 5^th Round by Alexandra Grimmer featuring inter alia Hong Kong artist Yu Likwai who so far has been especially known for being a cinematographer.
October 9, 2013 – November 9, 2013
Hipp Halle Gmunden, Theresientalstraße 68, 4810 Gmunden
Previous blog post: Shuffling The Cards

Frieze Art Fair – Until Oct 20, London/UK
On display inter alia HU Xiangqian, XU ZHEN by MadeIn Company, XU Zhen, GUO Fengyi, YANG Shaobin, ZHAN Wang, LIU Wei, ZHU Yu, WANG Sishun.

Yang Shaobin, Blue Room 21, 2010, oil on canvas. http://www.longmarchspace.com/exhibition/list_283_imagedetail.html?locale=en_US

Oct 17, 2013 – Oct 20, 2013
Frieze Art Fair, Regent’s Park, London

Istanbul Biennial – Until Oct 20, Istanbul/Turkey
Unfortunately, there is only one Chinese artists featured there: the famous Wang Qingsong.

Wang Qingsong, Follow You, 2013. http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php

13^th Istanbul Biennial

Zhao Zhao – Until Oct 27, Berlin/Germany
Game Of Thrones features the mise-en-scène of a Chinese Emperor’s Throne from the collection of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Kangxi Period, 1662-1722). Konstantin Grcic, Kirstine Roepstorff, Simon Starling, and Zhao Zhao present different contexts for an exhibition arranged into a seemingly absurd juxtaposition of four throne rooms.
Humboldt Lab Dahlem, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin

Momentum – Until Oct 27, Berlin/Germany

Miao Xiaochun, Restart, 2008-10, 3D computer animation. http://momentumworldwide.org/exhibitions/current-exhibition/

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times Revisited: Selected Videos From The 1st Kiev Biennale, group exhibition featuring inter alia Miao Xiaochun with Restart and Yang Fudong´s Yejiang/The Nightman Cometh.
Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin

Wang Haiyang – Until Nov 2^nd, Paris/France

Wang Haiyang, Freud Fish and Butterfly, Video. http://www.galerieparisbeijing.com/artists/wanghaiyang/

Press Release: “Wang Haiyang is far removed from the dominant currents of contemporary Chinese art, which are often characterized by social content and political metaphors. His work explores the various states of the subconscious and our twisted relationships with our desires. Faced with his canvases and videos, we are moved not so much to understand or explain them as to let ourselves be carried away by the unbridled imagination of the artist: the bodies transform and metamorphose, while enigmatic images put us face to face with disturbing emotions.”
Galerie Paris Beijing, Paris

September 29, 2013
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Bus::Stop

Vorarlberg, the most Western province of Austria, is quite famous for its architecture, especially for its alliance between tradition and innovation, between timber constructions and contemporary design.

festspiel kongresshaus bregenz, marco-mathis-archiv-vorarlberg-tourismus. source: www.austria.info/oesterreich/architektur-vorarlberg.html

This spring they have started another astonishing initiative: people on the countryside waiting for the public bus touring through Bregenzerwald – a small region in Vorarlberg especially known for its regional cheese making dairies – do not have to wait just at the roadside.

In cooperation with local architects and craftsmen, a range of seven international architects is going to design the bus shelters for this public transportation – amongst them Wang Shu, Chinese Pritzker Laureat 2012, and Japanese Sou Fujimoto.

How can the province afford this construction project? According to official news the fee for each of this reknown architects is…. – a free week of holiday in Vorarlberg.

Wang Shu is in rather great demand: he is also jury member for the Aga Khan Award Architecture as well as for the Austrian Wienerberger Brick Award.

Further bits:
Previous blog post on Wang Shu: And the Winner is…
Bus::Stop Project Info.
BUS::Stop, official newsticker (only in German language).
Wang Shu (wiki).
Wang Shu´s studio.
Suo Fujimoto (wiki).
Architecture in Vorarlberg (only in German language).
Aga Khan Award Architecture.
Wienerberger Brick Award.

September 19, 2013
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Shanghai Cinema

In the West, when it comes to Chinese films or movies we typically think about martial art cinema (Wuxia) and movies such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by Ang Lee with their fantastical fighting scenes. Also, Shanghai-born Wong Kar-Wei and his films are very well known.
Shanghai has always been the gateway for any kind of Western influence. Accordingly, in China motion pictures were firstly introduced in Shanghai by the end of the 19^th century, beginning of the 20^th century respectively. To further build on this tradition and to re-energise the city’s contemporary film programming the Shanghai Film Museum recently opened its doors. “According to the museum spokeswoman, the new museum is part of the Chinese government’a efforts to encourage more museums as well as the film industry; “ further details in Lisa Movius´article for The Art Newpaper.