Asia

“Clearing Rain” – Poetry I Love

“Autumn in the Big City” by Spirosart

“Clearing Rain” by Du Fu (758)

The sky’s water has fallen, and autumn clouds are thin,
The western wind has blown ten thousand li.
This morning’s scene is good and fine,
Long rain has not harmed the land.
The row of willows begins to show green,
The pear tree on the hill has little red flowers.
A hujia pipe begins to play upstairs,
One goose flies high into the sky.

雨晴（一作秋霁）

天水秋云薄
从西万里风
今朝好晴景
久雨不妨农
塞柳行疏翠
山梨结小红
胡笳楼上发
一雁入高空

yǔ qíng（yī zuò qiū jì）
tiān shuǐ qiū yún báo
cóng xī wàn lǐ fēng
jīn zhāo hǎo qíng jǐng
jiǔ yǔ bù fáng nóng
sāi liǔ háng shū cuì
shān lí jiē xiǎo hóng
hú jiā lóu shàng fā
yī yàn rù gāo kōng

Artist takes Hit Show Dynamic Yunnan to the Capital Stage

“Artist takes Hit Show Dynamic Yunnan to the Capital Stage”

via “Xinhuanet“

BEIJING, Nov. 18 (Xinhuanet) — The well-loved dance musical, “Dynamic Yunnan” is returning to the Chinese stage on its 10th anniversary. Directed by one of China’s most celebrated dancers, Yang Liping, the show recreates the indigenous musical culture of Yunnan’s diverse minority groups that is slowly effaced by modern life.

Yang has been called the ‘Peacock Princess.’ A title that is far from an exaggeration. Born in China’s Yunnan province, Ms. Yang has created numerous dances inspired by both the rich natural life and ethnic diversity of the region. Yet, no matter what she dances, she’s always strong and poised, much like the spirit of the Peacock.

A peacock dancing to the full moon, one of the enduring images of “Dynamic Yunnan”.

Of course, the dancer isn’t Yang Liping, but one of her successors; Yang Wu. But Yang Wu is ethereal in her portrayal of a young Yang Liping, of many full moons ago.

At the age of 11, she was the youngest of eight dancers selected by Xishuangbanna Prefecture Song and Dance Troupe from her village, to tour the region with the troupe. This tour through the local minority groups, laid the foundation of her aesthetics and became the inspiration for many of her works later in life.

“The Spirit of the Peacock,” choreographed and performed by Yang Liping, is one of them. This dance brought the girl from a Yunnan village to prominence and remains one of the most memorable dances of the last century.

Meet China’s New Power Collectors (Part I): Three Influential Figures From The Art World

“Meet China’s New Power Collectors (Part I):

Three Influential Figures From The Art World”

by Alexandre Emera via “Forbes“

The busy months of October and November for the art world have been an opportunity to witness the omnipresence of a new wave of young and influential collectors from China. Whether it was in London for Frieze, in Paris for FIAC and the opening of the Inside China, an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo led by art patron Adrian Cheng (34, Chairman of the K11 Art Foundation, who just made his entry to the ArtReview Power 100 List), or in New York for the exhibition of Chinese artist Wang Jianwei at the Guggenheim Museum, this new group of Chinese collectors was very much in focus.

This week, many of them are meeting again in Shanghai, for the second edition of Art021, an art fair founded itself by two young collectors, and already attracting international names such as Marian Goodman, White Cube, and Perrotin, as well as leading galleries from China.

“Meet China’s New Power Collectors” is a three-part focus series, exploring who are these new collectors and what does their emergence mean for the international art scene.

In this first part, three leading figures of this generation are sharing with us their approach on collecting, their vision, and long term strategies. They are Kelly Ying, Lin Han, and Chong Zhou.

From left to right: Lin Han, Kelly Ying, Chong Zhou

Kelly Ying (KY)

I don’t think you can truly collect art without being involved in the other aspects of the industry

Young and active collector from Shanghai. Originally working in the fashion industry, Ying is now focusing entirely on art. She is the co-founder of Art021, and the wife of collector David Chau (Zhou Dawei), 29, who is himself much involved in the art scene in China, supporting galleries and other cultural institutions.

Chong Zhou (CZ)

Art collecting is 50% of my career

25, graduated with a degree of art history from UCLA. He is a second-generation collector, and made his first art purchase art in 2010. His family runs a large pharmaceutical group. Zhou is based in Shanghai, where he also owns a restaurant, “Macasa”, displaying his art.

Lin Han (LH)

We are breaking or revising a lot of boundaries

27, studied animation design at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. His first art purchase was a Zeng Fanzhi painting in 2013, which was the cover of Sotheby’s 40th anniversary day auction. Since then, he has opened the first private art museum in Beijing’s 798 Art District, the M Woods Museum, featuring more than 200 works. Lin is based in Beijing.

What motivated you to start collecting?

CZ: My family has been influential in this decision. They started collecting in 2001, a very early time for local Chinese collectors to buy contemporary art. My motivation today is to find and acquire influential young artists, including names like Sun Xun, Yang Yongliang, Gao Lei, Shi Zhiying, etc. I believe I have a strong sense of duty towards their development, since I am myself born in 1989. Trying to discover the next important artists is also motivating me, just like my family did in their time. . . .

Coming Exhibition: Future Returns

“Future Returns: Contemporary Art from China”

08 Jin Yangping, “The Mirror of City No.1”, oil on canvas, 200 x 265 cm, 2011

Who:

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum

Michigan State University

When: Oct. 28, 2014 – March 8, 2015 (Hours Vary)

Where:

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
547 East Circle Drive
East Lansing, Michigan 48824

More Information: Here and Here.

Over the past three decades China has experienced profound socioeconomic changes that have prompted calls to revisit, reconsider, and redefine the nation’s identity. Although there remains a strong local understanding of Chinese history and heritage, the homogenization of the country’s urban geography and the rapid dissipation of rural life have dramatically altered the cultural landscape. Future Returns: Contemporary Art from China explores the impact of these transformations by bringing together works by contemporary Chinese artists that address China’s metamorphosis from a traditional society into an ultra-modern nation-state.

The pertinent question in today’s China is whether the country’s distinct traditions and values can continue to play a role in its development. The future of China cannot be predicted, yet the psychology of “change, change, change” that pervades the everyday lives of the Chinese allows for a multitude of possibilities. Only in the pursuit of these new potentialities will China be able to build on its distinctive culture. The focused selection of paintings, photographs, installations, and digital art in this exhibition showcases the vision of both emergent and established practitioners who have contributed to China’s celebrated artistic community. Through their works, Future Returns highlights the emergence of a new China, one that is not constrained by closed readings of the past.

Artists and filmmakers featured in the exhibition include: Chen Weiqun, Dong Jun, Geng Yi, He Yunchang, Jiang Ji An, Jin Yangping, Jizi, Li Junhu, Lin Xin, Liu Lining, Meng Baishen, Miao Xiaochun, Pei Li, Qu Yan, Sui Jianguo, Su Xinping, Tian Bo, Wang Chuan, Wang Huangsheng, Wang Yang, Xia Xiaowan, Xu Bing, Zhang Yanfeng, Zhou Gang, and Zhou Qinshan.

New Broad Exhibit Showcases Range, Diversity of Art in China

“New Broad Exhibit Showcases Range, Diversity of Art in China”

by Matthew Miller via “Lansing Journal”

Broad Art Museum 4.jpg

“What’s wrong, I think, is the position of the dragon.”

Wang Chuan was gesturing at one of his own photographs, an image of a bright golden statuette of a dragon — a potent image in Chinese culture, a symbol of the nation itself — presiding over a collection of grimy soup pots.

“This is a stew,” he said, meaning the contents of those pots. “This is in a popular restaurant in a suburb of Beijing. It’s run by the farmers who don’t do farm work anymore. This is the wrong place.”

Wang’s dragon photos, part of “Future Returns,” an exhibition of Chinese contemporary art that opened last month at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, are on their face an exploration of the hapless fate of a cultural icon.

In one image, a long costume used in the traditional dragon dance sits crumpled on the back of a three wheeler. Another shows coins tossed for luck onto the image of a dragon at a temple, all of the smallest denominations.

But, in a broader sense, they are a mediation on the erasure of tradition in a fast-changing country.

“Gradually, people begin to care if the tradition is too quick to be erased by the modernization and the development of the economy and the incoming of the culture from the Western world,” Wang said. “The pace of vanishing of all the old things is shocking.”

The exhibition, which includes the work of more than two dozen artists, is the first brought to the museum by Wang Chunchen, a respected art critic and head of the Department of Curatorial Research at the CAFA Art Museum at the Central Academy of Fine Arts China in Beijing who is also an adjunct curator for the Broad.

“China is changed greatly in the past three decades,” Wang said, as he took a group of journalists, artists and translators through the exhibition last month. “So the art I selected her represents, stands for that kind of change, culturally, socially, psychologically.” . . . .