Tuesday, July 13, 2010
China: The Art Scene
I've been away from this blog for almost two months. Sorry. For half that time I was in China, where blogspot is blacked out, but for the rest of my absence here -- I've just had a hard time getting back into the world. So it goes.
It was a fantastic trip, visiting with my son and his family, and with Patricia for the first half of the trip. I hope to be posting a photo journal on that part of the trip before too long. But in this blog I want to concentrate on my impression of the art world in China, and specifically in Beijing. My interest is in contemporary oil painting, so I didn't survey the huge area of Chinese classical works involving calligraphy, brush and ink, or imperial art at all. My comments here certainly don't represent a balanced consideration of Chinese Art - they are strictly my own feelings, based on poking around Beijing for two and a half weeks looking for contemporary oil paintings. So, with that disclaimer:
One might expect the National Art Museum in Beijing to be a good place to start a survey. It is housed in solid building that reeks of Official Solidity. Think of a US City Post Office, circa 1935. Set well back from the street, surrounded by an iron fence with a guard post adjacent to the ticket office. About 13 large rooms inside for rather staid rotating exhibitions. The first time we went there it was closed for two days while they installed a new exhibition. Give it maybe a couple of hours on your tour.
It is much better to go to the 798 Art District. This is a large area that used to be heavy industry and warehousing, now redeveloped for artist studios, galleries, cafes, restaurants, sidewalk artists, sculpture, crafts shops, bookstores, and the University of Contemporary Chinese Art (UCCA). It has that loose feel of something unexpected and spontaneous happening, all a bit disorganized. It is a fun place to spend half a day - or a couple of days if you do want to get the sense of what's going on in the art scene. Of course some of the galleries there are showing atrocious stuff. But then, about the same percentage of galleries really have excellent and exciting exhibitions - I especially liked the Amilie, XYZ, UCCA, Astral and Hao Li (more about this one later) Galleries.
Generalities: I would describe what I found as falling into three groups. First, there are an awful lot of paintings that I think of as simply derivative, and poor. Oh look, that one was done by a Van Gogh wannabe. And this one by a Matisse wannabe. And that artist was channeling Modigliani - or Picasso - or Miro, or .... And this stuff is frequently found in reputable galleries and exhibitions, treated as worthwhile art - not only at 798 but also in other, long-established locations around the city.
On the other hand, there are quite a few Chinese and Tibetan artists doing a realistic style of portraits and figures that are simply amazing and breathtaking. As just one example, here is a painting titled "School of Project Hope - Good Student": 40 x50cm, 2001, that I scanned from the catalog of "Tibetan Oils by Yu Xiaodong.
And then, in the third group there are the contemporary artists who are doing exciting work, often a kind of mix of traditional styles or subject matter in ways that surprise and challenge the viewer. I especially liked some paintings by Duan Zheng Qu, who is a professor at the Fine Arts Academy of Capital Normal University (if I got all that right). His work uses rather a color field composition that I find rather reminiscent of our own Elizabeth Osborne. Here are his 2007 paintings, On Top of the Mountain (160 x130cm) and Boy on the Mountain (162 x130cm). Neat stuff, in my view:
But far and away, the highlight of my art exploration was finding the artist Hao Li and her Gallery. She paints figures and portraits in a style which I find very expressive and unique, and which yet maintains the feel of place, of China. I bought this painting to bring back with me (those are also her paintings behind us - you clearly get the sense of her style from these works):
Since I brought the painting home, I've been surprised at how closely it relates to the painting Senecio by Paul Klee, that I have always loved:
What made all this REALLY exciting is that I asked Hao Li if I could visit her studio. In turn, that led to our painting together, including painting (and trading) portraits of each other:
There is still other stuff that came out of this part of the trip, but I think this has gone on long enough for now. Have to leave some for my next posting. So stay tuned....
It was a fantastic trip, visiting with my son and his family, and with Patricia for the first half of the trip. I hope to be posting a photo journal on that part of the trip before too long. But in this blog I want to concentrate on my impression of the art world in China, and specifically in Beijing. My interest is in contemporary oil painting, so I didn't survey the huge area of Chinese classical works involving calligraphy, brush and ink, or imperial art at all. My comments here certainly don't represent a balanced consideration of Chinese Art - they are strictly my own feelings, based on poking around Beijing for two and a half weeks looking for contemporary oil paintings. So, with that disclaimer:
One might expect the National Art Museum in Beijing to be a good place to start a survey. It is housed in solid building that reeks of Official Solidity. Think of a US City Post Office, circa 1935. Set well back from the street, surrounded by an iron fence with a guard post adjacent to the ticket office. About 13 large rooms inside for rather staid rotating exhibitions. The first time we went there it was closed for two days while they installed a new exhibition. Give it maybe a couple of hours on your tour.
It is much better to go to the 798 Art District. This is a large area that used to be heavy industry and warehousing, now redeveloped for artist studios, galleries, cafes, restaurants, sidewalk artists, sculpture, crafts shops, bookstores, and the University of Contemporary Chinese Art (UCCA). It has that loose feel of something unexpected and spontaneous happening, all a bit disorganized. It is a fun place to spend half a day - or a couple of days if you do want to get the sense of what's going on in the art scene. Of course some of the galleries there are showing atrocious stuff. But then, about the same percentage of galleries really have excellent and exciting exhibitions - I especially liked the Amilie, XYZ, UCCA, Astral and Hao Li (more about this one later) Galleries.
Generalities: I would describe what I found as falling into three groups. First, there are an awful lot of paintings that I think of as simply derivative, and poor. Oh look, that one was done by a Van Gogh wannabe. And this one by a Matisse wannabe. And that artist was channeling Modigliani - or Picasso - or Miro, or .... And this stuff is frequently found in reputable galleries and exhibitions, treated as worthwhile art - not only at 798 but also in other, long-established locations around the city.
On the other hand, there are quite a few Chinese and Tibetan artists doing a realistic style of portraits and figures that are simply amazing and breathtaking. As just one example, here is a painting titled "School of Project Hope - Good Student": 40 x50cm, 2001, that I scanned from the catalog of "Tibetan Oils by Yu Xiaodong.
And then, in the third group there are the contemporary artists who are doing exciting work, often a kind of mix of traditional styles or subject matter in ways that surprise and challenge the viewer. I especially liked some paintings by Duan Zheng Qu, who is a professor at the Fine Arts Academy of Capital Normal University (if I got all that right). His work uses rather a color field composition that I find rather reminiscent of our own Elizabeth Osborne. Here are his 2007 paintings, On Top of the Mountain (160 x130cm) and Boy on the Mountain (162 x130cm). Neat stuff, in my view:
But far and away, the highlight of my art exploration was finding the artist Hao Li and her Gallery. She paints figures and portraits in a style which I find very expressive and unique, and which yet maintains the feel of place, of China. I bought this painting to bring back with me (those are also her paintings behind us - you clearly get the sense of her style from these works):
Since I brought the painting home, I've been surprised at how closely it relates to the painting Senecio by Paul Klee, that I have always loved:
What made all this REALLY exciting is that I asked Hao Li if I could visit her studio. In turn, that led to our painting together, including painting (and trading) portraits of each other:
There is still other stuff that came out of this part of the trip, but I think this has gone on long enough for now. Have to leave some for my next posting. So stay tuned....
