Modern Chinese Art

Essay from Catalogue " Walasse Ting, the Flower Thief" . Exhibition held at Musee Cernuschi, Paris, October 2016-February 2017.
In the article I try  to understand how such an important artist, actively engaged with some of the most celebrated post-war art mouvements could become so unvisible in the narrative of both Chinese and Western contemporary art historiographies.

Catalogue entry on collective artists book 1 Cent Life, edited by Walasse Ting, Sam Francis and Eberhard Kornfeld in 1964 .From the English version of the catalogue Walasse Ting, the Flower Thief, Musee Cernuschi, 2016.
The book is a collection of lithographies by some of the most important American and European artists of the time.

Lim Hak Tai played a critical role in Singapore's visual arts developments in the the early and mid-20th century. Apart from his accomplishments as an artist, he was also founding principal of Singapore's longest-running art school Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. This essay examines his artistic practice and ideology, in the wider context of art historical developments in China and Singapore. This essay was written for the catalogue for Crossing Visions – Singapore and Xiamen: Lim Hak Tai and Lim Yew Kuan Art Exhibition 传承与开拓- 林学大及林友权美术作品展 organised by Xiamen Art Museum and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in  2011.

This article explores the impact of the reformed bird-and-flower painting on Chinese artist Chen Shuren (1884-1948) and his work, Leaping Carp. In the current scholarship on the three pioneers of the Lingnan School, Chen Shuren has received much less attention than Gao Jianfu and Gao Qifeng. However Chen's formal art education in Kyoto from 1908-1912 makes him a more suitable case study to investigate the changing Sino-Japanese art relationship during this period. For example, Chen's work, Leaping Carp, was actually based on an earlier Japanese painting in the same title Leaping Carp (1912) by Imao Keinen (1854-1924). Comparing the two raises important questions: Why did Chen choose this work? What did this work mean to him and the future of Chinese painting? To answer these questions, this article examines the changing motif of leaping carp in Japanese visual culture from Edo to Meiji and the three major school and the Kyoto Zoo, as well as the emergence of of the exhibition system. I argue that Chen's work had multiple meanings not only for himself but also his ambition to reform Chinese painting. Through Chen's Leaping Carp, this article sheds lights on the importance of bird-and-flower genre painting in modern Japan and its potential inspiration for Chinese artists.

The first monograph devoted to women artists of the Republican period, The Golden Key recovers the history of a groundbreaking yet forgotten force in China's modern art world. Through its detailed examination of the lives and careers of six female artists—Guan Zilan, Qiu Ti, Pan Yuliang, Fang Junbi, Yu Feng, and Liang Baibo—this book argues that women were central to the emergence of modernist art in early twentieth-century China and to the nation’s larger modernization project. Amanda S. Wangwright’s analysis of a wealth of primary sources demonstrates how these women constructed public personas, negotiated space within art societies, applied feminist thought to their artistic praxis, and surmounted obstacles to their careers—wielding art as the “golden key” to professional advancement and gender equality.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Born in Guangzhou in 1898, Hwang Chun Pi (Huang Junbi, 1898-1991) was best known for his landscape paintings. Although Hwang was considered a traditionalist, he encouraged the modernization of Chinese painting through the incorporation of elements of Western art and advocated that traditional Chinese painting should change along with time. With his well-to-do social background, Hwang, exerted a far-reaching influence on the art scene in postwar Taiwan, leading to his followers being called "The School of Clouds and Water." More importantly, Hwang's powerful brushworks were of great use for the Nationalist Government when carrying out its political ideas and reinstating its legitimacy.

Chinese ink art and calligraphy has heavily influenced Western abstract painting. However, it is possible to talk about a pure abstraction in China  only after

Chinese art is mostly presented at foreign exhibitions from a different perspective and abstraction is represented modestly or completely absent. However, abstract art, which to a greater or lesser extent based on the roots of Chinese semi-abstract tradition, finds its firm place in the works of Chinese artists in different countries or regions.
After giving a fundamental analysis of the possible inspiration for abstract ink painting from Chinese art history, and modernist art movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the 1960s, which had a significant influence on the formation of modernism in mainland China, and the historical overview of Chinese avant-garde, such as the New Wave 85, the author focusses on abstract ink art in mainland China. As far as the situation in abstract painting is concerned, all important movements, exhibitions are preceded chronologically. Artists' opinions on abstract painting, their contradictions and the questions that this work raises, are observed, too.
Abstract ink painting began to develop with the influx of ideas of modernism in the 1980s, and it was in important factor during the movement of Experimental ink and wash movement in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. This movement has organised exhibitions, conferences, publishes catalogues dedicated to the work of its representatives. Then the attention turns to other movements and individual artists devoted to abstract ink art. Some of the artists come to a greater extent from tradition; others try to escape the limitations of ink painting, more or less adhere to traditional Chinese art or calligraphic strokes and techniques. Some of them are more influenced by Western techniques or are attempting to synthesise. What is essential is that they create works that are often of a high standard and in their search, open new ways for Chinese ink painting in general. Special attention deserves the artists standing at the birth of the movement and to those who have so far significantly influenced the whole atmosphere in Chinese art world.

Wu Guanzhong is one of the most significant Chinese artists of the 20th century, well-known for his synthesis of Chinese and Western painting traditions. This essay examines his role as a philanthropist and the reasons behind his decision to donate many of his works to Singapore in 2008. This essay was part of the Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection catalogue published by the National Gallery Singapore in 2015.

This essay was written for 'Convergences – Chen Wen Hsi Centennial Exhibition" organised by the Singapore Art Museum in 2006. Chen Wen Hsi was one of Singapore's most significant and influential modern artists of the 20th century. The essay examines the development of his artistic practice and interests against the wider context of art historical developments in China and Singapore.

The encounter with Western art-with its own tradition, history and aesthetics-has long been a source of creative tensions for Chinese artists. Whilst some saw it to be alien, others found ways to reconcile and even synthesise with their own traditions. This was a particular preoccupation for early 20 th century Chinese artists who had learnt both Western and Chinese art in the art academies of Shanghai, Xiamen and Beijing. Amongst them was a group who had left China between the 1930s and 1940s for Nanyang, and eventually settled down in places such as Singapore and Malaya. This paper is a survey of some of the early modernist artists in Singapore who had brought their own understandings of the two traditions, and sought meaningful resolutions within the context of living and working on an island city-state in tropical Southeast Asia. This also marked the beginnings of modern art in Singapore.

This article examines how Chinese artists respond to the political and social changes in wartime China, with a focus on two leading figures of the 20th century Chinese artists, Pang Xunqin and Chang Dai-Chien, whose works are currently displayed in the exhibition “Pure Land Images of Immortals in Chinese art” in the Ashmolean Museum. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), with relocation of art schools and institutions to the wartime capital Chongqing, many artists journeyed to the west of the country and gained artistic inspiration from the historical heritage at Dunhuang and the living resources of the ethnic groups. This research takes approach of case study and explores a fundamental shift of focus in the practice of Chinese art. This paper first provides historical context for the art creation in wartime China. Then it discusses how the discovery of Dunhuang and the ethnographic investigation in the southwest regions have influenced the development of Chinese paintings. The case study on Pang Xunqin and Chang Dai-chien demonstrates a range of ways in which individual artists looked to the past for inspiration and developed their individual styles. An introduction to the history of collecting Chinese paintings, with a focus on the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Bequest in the Ashmolean Museum will also be given.

Catalogue of a retrospective exhibition of paintings by Hong Ling (b. 1955) at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London, from 14 July to 24 September 2016. The exhibition follows the artist's retirement in 2015 from the faculty of CAFA Beijing, where he taught oil painting since 1987, and takes place in SOAS's Centenary year, 2016-2017.

This paper examines the visual representation of the famous poem The Song of Everlasting Sorrow in modern China. Painted by Li Yishi in 1929, this sequential set of paintings was based on the Tang poet Bai Juyi's poem, written under the same title. First shown at the National Art Exhibition in Shanghai and then published as an illustrated book in 1932, Li's work rekindled public imagination of the tragic romance. Li's choice of subject, format, as well as style and its mixed reviews raise crucial questions regarding the notion of realism and the authenticity of historical representation. This paper argues that Li's work revealed new transmedia aesthetics and cross-cultural fascination with China's past that shaped the cultural identity of East Asia in the early twentieth century.

Questo volume rappresenta la prima sintesi esplicativa chiara e aggiornata sugli artisti cinesi affermati ed emergenti e raccoglie oltre duecento opere, alcune delle quali mai viste in Italia. Il taglio dato al testo è volutamente storico, oltre che critico, poiché gli autori hanno scelto di ripercorrere i processi culturali che hanno generato e via via influenzato la creatività contemporanea. I tre saggi che compongono il volume risalgono alle origini settecentesche degli interscambi tra Cina e Occidente, illustrano il ruolo dell'arte nella Cina di Mao e della Rivoluzione culturale, le correnti di pensiero imposte e dissidenti, il punto di svolta rappresentato dai fatti di Tiananmen, per giungere all'oggi, includendo tutte le forme artistiche multimediali e il cinema sperimentale.

A sketching trip to Mount Yandang in south-east China in 1931 prompted Yu Jianhua to formulate a new way of approaching landscape painting. The resulting albums combined brushwork that referred back to old masters with plein-air practice, which Yu argued had long-neglected Chinese
precedents.

Ce petit livre d'artiste est composé de reproductions de tableaux, de calligraphies chinoises et de poèmes français, disposés de façon à créer des potentialités de signification. En réinterprétant l'ancienne pratique d'ajouter un poème à un tableau, tracé « avec le même pinceau », l'auteure renouvelle le questionnement sur le rapport entre peinture et poésie, image plastique et métaphore poétique. La poésie du thé remonte à un usage millénaire et les anthologies traduites n'en montrent qu'une petite partie, mais le breuvage a été adopté partout et son nom est décliné dans toutes les langues. Cette tradition est reprise par une poétesse, qui a étudié les lettres à Hong Kong et les arts plastiques aux Beaux-Arts à Paris, dans une forme neuve où les couleurs lumineuses invitent au rêve, tandis que la calligraphie s'affanchit du noir et de l'encre. En revanche, le thème de l'exil est empreint de tristesse : la poétesse s'adresse d'abord à ceux qui sont toujours ailleurs, hors de leur pays, de leur langue, de leur mode d'expression. Prendre le thé est retrouver l'intimité du foyer. Ainsi est reliée l'actualité des migrations à l'antique hospitalité, la poésie moderne et la spiritualité du Tao. Dans cette étude, on s'attachera en particulier aux moyens formels qui sont mobilisés pour réaliser une telle synthèse.

A study about the artist boon of Chung-Hing "Odes to tea" in the French version, in particular as regards the esthetic composition between plastic art and poetic metaphors, chinese calligraphy and modern visiual poetry.

Folleto-programa del Curso Extraordinario de Verano "Arte Contemporáneo de Asia Oriental III: mujer, tradición y modernidad", en el que, a través de clases y talleres impartidos por especialistas en la materias españolas y asiáticas, nos ocuparemos de arte de los siglos XX y XXI en China, Japón, Coreas, Vietnam, Indonesia y Tailandia, especialmente sobre los ámbitos mencionados.
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