Art & Culture

Stone-Faced Buddha ~ Longmen Grottoes

Longmen Grottoes

Took a little trip to the Luòyáng , China this past weekend as part of a culture trip hosted by the University!

Pronounced something like “loi yahng,” this beautiful home to the National Peony Festival (I’ll add an update on the Peony Garden later) is one of the “cradles of Chinese Civiliazation” and one of the ancient capital cities of China (Henan has 2 of them! – Luoyang and Xinzheng). The city itself is amazingly clean and open, the streets are unlittered and it’s pretty modern.

The best part of my visit by far though was the Longmen Grottoes and the Peony Garden. This week was part of the 2 week festival they have each year for the Peony festival, so people were everywhere despite the rain.

The Longmen Grottoes themselves are absolutely mind-blowing ~ an amazing feat of human design and capability. To imagine that such intricate design, specific carvings, and gentle touch art were feasible so many centuries ago is one of those things that always stops me in my tracks. I know a lot of people aren’t as interested as I in history and stone statues (several of the teachers I was with were fairly denigrating about spending so much time in a “Stone Garden). But to me, standing on the same ground, touching the rocks they touched, seeing the art they created, glimpsing pieces of hearts long past. It’s simply miraculous.

The Grottoes are home to thousands and thousands of carvings on the stone faces of the mountain cliffs. Most are of Buddha or his followers, some are pagodas, buildings, and other designs. The varying stone colors used to frame and decorate the statues, each one different from the rest. Carved over a period of centuries (5th – 15th Century AD), each set was designed by a different artist, many from completely different times. You can trace the changes, both in religion and philosophy (skinny to fat Buddhas for example) and in art styles.

One of the other reasons the grottoes is so stunning is the River Yi (pron. ee) that runs alongside the valley in front of the rocks. The river is clean and beautiful, sweeping along a lovely walkway as antique-style dragon boats float up and down. Stone bridges line the view, criss-crossing over to the other side that offers views of antique buildings lining the mountain paths.

It’s just a beautiful way to spend a day

Exhibition honors Vietnamese female soldiers in Vietnam War

“Exhibition honors Vietnamese female soldiers in Vietnam War”

by Minh Hung via “Thanh Nien News”

The Southern Vietnam Women Museum has launched an exhibition of profiles and keepsakes of Vietnamese women who migrated from the north to the south in 1959 to fight for the liberation of southern Vietnam. Photos: Minh Hung

The exhibition, which opens until June 30 and for free at 202 Vo Thi Sau Street, District 3 has attracted foreign visitors on the first day (April 7). Another exhibition is being held at the same place to honor Vietnamese women’s contribution to the country’s workforce.

Water bottle and medical instrument kit that Labor Hero Do Kim Hong used when searching for the remains of her comrades who died in the Vietnam War.

A scarf that Hong used in her searches for the remains of her comrades. Besides the items, the museum also display hundreds of photos, keepsakes of Vietnamese female soldier who migrated from the north in 1959 to fight for the south’s liberation in a hope to find them or their relatives.

A foreign woman watching an item at the exhibition, placed near a statue of a mother armed with a gun while caring her two children and the slogan that reads: The enemies arriving at our home, even women will fight.

Mats displayed at the exhibition to honor Vietnamese women’s activeness at work.

Kenyans learn Chinese culture at festival in capital

“Kenyans learn Chinese culture at festival in capital”

via “Xinhua News Agency“

Kenyans learn Chinese culture at festival in capital

NAIROBI, April 19 (Xinhua) — Many Kenyans thronged a Chinese stand at the Third Nairobi Cultural Festival to learn more about the Chinese culture during the international event held Sunday.

China was represented at the festival held at the National Museum of Kenya by the Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi during the event that attracted 15 countries and two international organizations.

Guo Hong from the Confucius Institute led the staff in displaying Chinese traditional clothes, food, calligraphy, games, and masks among other exhibits.

“This is the first time China is taking part in the event, and we are in Kenya to teach people Chinese language and culture and let people know one another,” Guo told Xinhua.

Peter Kimura, a visitor at the festival, said he came to the stand to learn more about the Asian nation’s culture after reading in books about the diversity of Chinese culture. “As China and Kenya forge closer international relationship, it is important to learn some aspects of the Chinese culture,” Kimura said.

The festival, conceived in 2013 by the Liaison Manager of Research Institute of Swahili Studies of Eastern Africa at the National Museums of Kenya, Munira Mohammed, in a bid to promote the Swahili culture at first and finally becomes an annual event.

“In 2013, we attracted nine countries, whereas in the second year 12 countries participated and come next year we anticipate the figure to soar,” Mohammed told Xinhua.

Mohammed said the aim of this year’s event is to unite the world through heritage and diversity of cultures.

Other countries that participated at the event included the United States, Switzerland, Somalia, Philippines, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain and Indonesia.

Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Sports Culture and Arts, Hassan Wario, was welcomed at the Chinese stand by the choir from Confucius Institute that received him with a Chinese rendition of “Karibu Kenya” (Welcome to Kenya).

Wario emphasized the importance culture plays in life and promised to make the event a bigger carnival next year.

“Food and music are part of culture,” said Wario, adding one does not necessarily have to visit the respective countries to learn about other people’s culture. “You can even learn some aspects of customs from a forum like this.”

Coming Exhibition: Collectionism and Modernity

“Collectionism and Modernity:

Two Case Studies~ The Im Obersteg and Rudolf Staechelin Collections”

Pablo Picasso. Buveuse d’absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker), 1901. Oil on canvas, 81 x 60 cm. Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel. Photography: Mark Gisler, Müllheim

Who: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, The Phillips Collection, the Im Obersteg Foundation, the Rudolf Staechelin Foundation

When: Mar. 18, 2015 – Sept. 14, 2015 (View Hours Here)

Where:

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Calle Santa Isabel 52
Madrid, Spain 28012

How Much: (View Pricing Here)

More Information: Here

“

It was not the work of artists, critics and curators alone that made the development of modern and contemporary art possible. Another factor related to both economic and social concerns intervened as a catalyst in the process. This was art collecting.

This exhibition brings together two leading collections of early modernist art that now form part of the holdings of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland), the Im Obersteg Collection and the Rudolf Staechelin Collection, offering an opportunity to enjoy works by the most reputed early modernist masters, the vast majority of which have never before been seen in Spain. It is moreover a chance to explore the phenomenon of collecting, with a focus on its centrality to the formation of modern art.

Private collections of early modernism have traditionally been studied and exhibited with an emphasis on the contemplation of the works on display, neglecting the economic, social and political implications inherent to the activity of collecting in a context like that of Europe in the first decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, collecting is above all discursive, and may be studied as such. A collection of whatever kind is made up not only of the works it contains but also of the narratives it successfully generates. It was in this sense that Walter Benjamin regarded the collector in his Arcades Project, viewing the act of collecting as related to the desire to understand and organize theworld as a cosmos: “Perhaps in this way it is possible to concretize the secret motive that underlies collecting: the fight against dispersion. The great collector is perturbed from the outset by the dispersion and chaos that subsume everything in theworld.”

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Coming Exhibition: Beirut Art Fair

“Beirut Art Fair”

Who: ME.NA.SA

When: Sept. 17, 2015 – Sept. 20, 2015 (View Hours Here)

Where:

Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center
Downtown
Beirut, Lebanon

How Much: (View Pricing Here)

More Information: Here

“Since its inception in 2010, BEIRUT ART FAIR established itself on the international artistic scene with the vision of a ME.NA.SA. labeled art which shaped its identity and power of attraction. In tune with the centers of interest of international collectors, the fair displays the creation of this region which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia, in its wide diversity.

From 17 to 20 September 2015, organizers will receive at BIEL around fifty international modern and contemporary art and design galleries. Exhibiting artists represent all of the trends of current art and express themselves through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, design or performance… Confirmed and developing artists mingle and invite the viewer to share their visions of the world, their dreams or their positions.

BEIRUT ART FAIR confirms the position of Beirut as the cultural and intellectual capital of the Arab world, at the junction between the East and the West. It is part of the international fairs dedicated to art and serves as a window for the ME.NA.SA. creation which is open to the world.”