Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie @ Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Exhibition Overview

Monstrous Beauty 

A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

March 25 – August 17, 2025

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a major exhibition, Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie, which radically reimagine the story of European porcelain through a feminist lens. When porcelain arrived in early modern Europe from China, it led to the rise of chinoiserie, a decorative style that encompassed Europe’s pervasive fantasies of both the East and the exotic along with new ideas about women, sexuality, and race. This exhibition interrogates the ways in which this mutable, fragile material that shaped European women’s identities in the past also led to the construction of abiding racial and cultural stereotypes around Asian women. Shattering the illusion of chinoiserie as a neutral, harmless fantasy removed from the present, Monstrous Beauty casts a critical glance at inherited attitudes toward the style, exploring how negative stereotypes can be reclaimed as terms of female empowerment.

“Monstrous Beauty examines the multifaceted legacy of chinoiserie in 18th-century Europe,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By illuminating the beauty of the object and the power of this art form to reflect, distort, and dictate the ways in which women's identities have been shaped and perceived across time, this thought-provoking exhibition invites viewers to engage with the past in new ways."

Iris Moon, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met, said, “Monstrous Beauty is both a story of enchantment and a necessary unraveling of harmful myths from the past—myths about the exotic—that have a hold over the present. It is time to retell the history of chinoiserie.”

Bringing together nearly 200 historical and contemporary works, from 16th-century European works to contemporary installations by Asian and Asian American women artists, Monstrous Beauty illuminates how chinoiserie ornament actively constructed cross-cultural ideas of female desire and agency. Much sought after as the embodiment of Europe’s fantasy of the East in the 1700s, porcelain accumulated a variety of associations over the course of its complex history. Fragile, delicate, and sharp when broken, it became a charged metaphor for women.

Contemporary works by Asian and Asian American women artists counteract chinoiserie’s stereotypes of exoticism by reclaiming the monstrous as a source of artistic possibility. The exhibition’s central atrium draws viewers in with an installation of Yeesookyung’s porcelain vessels, which feature broken shards mended and turned into dazzling monsters using the kintsugi repair method. Viewers themselves form an active part of the exhibition, joining the conversation between works from the past and pieces by contemporary artists, including a new commissioned work by Patty Chang. Abyssal is a full-size massage table made of raw, unglazed porcelain punctured by holes. After the exhibition closes, the table will be sunk in the Pacific Ocean. Instead of a sturdy horizontal support for a passive body, Patty Chang’s massage table is reimagined as an uncanny object with orifices. Patty Chang writes, “The holes put the body in doubt.” Raising questions about who or what we choose to see, the work recalls the unseen labor of Asian women spa workers, such as the six women killed during the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. Abyssal is also about the possibility of afterlives, regeneration, and transformation. Underwater, the table will serve as a deposit for growing coral.

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie: Exhibition Overview

Through a lens of curiosity and critique, porcelain reemerges here as a politically charged material that changed women’s lives. Five thematic sections introduce a mix of unexpected protagonists into the story of porcelain: queens, mothers, monsters, starlets, shoppers, and cyborgs. The style’s inventive language gave voice to novel tastes and identities, but also created lasting stereotypes that are difficult to break. The works of contemporary Asian and Asian American women artists are strategically positioned throughout the five thematic sections to rupture the illusion of a seamless continuity between past and present.

The exhibition begins with porcelain’s arrival in Europe via maritime trade. Porcelain appeared as strange and marvelous, when blue-and-white plates from Asia began arriving by sea in the 16th century. Merchants used porcelain from China as ballast, its weight offering ships stability in rough seas, before realizing they could sell it to eager consumers. Soon, shiploads of porcelain were being auctioned off in Europe by the late 1600s, even as anxieties around shipwrecks, warfare, and colonial violence surfaced obliquely in monstrous decorative motifs.

The next section explores how Mary II, Queen of England, developed an obsession with Asian ceramics in the late 1600s, giving birth to a taste for chinoiserie that influenced generations of women collectors in Europe. Mary’s main role as queen of England was to birth an heir. Instead, she gave birth to a taste for porcelain, which functioned as a surrogate body, a way to reproduce her presence by filling residences with bright ceramics, textiles, and lacquer panels. This feminine, personal take on chinoiserie contrasted with the French monarchy’s uses of the exotic to assert absolutist power.

Tea became ingrained in European culture, and the following section explores how this exotic beverage was turned into a potent symbol of civility that set Europe apart from the “savage” territories it exploited as well as the women who were in charge of cultivating a world of politeness in the home. Porcelain objects gained strong associations with women at a moment when public debates aired collective anxieties around their growing voices as consumers, tastemakers, and citizens.

Through the porcelain figurines that proliferated in 18th-century Europe, porcelain shaped notions of womanhood in unexpected ways. A shifting cast of goddesses, mothers, monsters, and performers, often clothed in gaudy costumes and adopting exaggerated poses, appeared. A starting point for later stereotypes surrounding the Asian woman, these figurines also put pressure on the fixed European vision of womanhood. These small, toylike objects paired with the period’s dazzling painted export mirrors serve as vehicles for reflecting on women’s self-perceptions—on how they wanted to see themselves versus the images imposed on them.

The exhibition closes with the long afterlives of chinoiserie into the 20th century and beyond. This was a period when modern Asian women directly grappled with the stereotypes created by the legacy of a historical style that conflated Asian femininity with traditional luxury objects and European consumption. The American imagination reshaped the style through film and photography. Like porcelain, these media provided a glossy substrate upon which fantasy images of the Asian woman could be projected and reproduced, and also contested.

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie is curated by Iris Moon, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition:

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Author: Iris Moon

256 pages, 172 illustrations

Paperback, 7 1/4" x 10 1/2"

ISBN: 9781588397928

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

www.metmuseum.org

Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900 @ Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC & Shanghai Museum

Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

February 28 – September 28, 2025

Shanghai Museum 

November 12, 2025 – March 16, 2026

Incense burner in the form of a goose, China, 

Ming dynasty (1368–1644), early 15th century. Bronze

H. 14 1/2 in. (36.8 cm); W. 18 3/4 in. (47 6 cm)

Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift, 2020 - 2020.335a, b

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Water dropper in the form of a rhinoceros

China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 15th century, Bronze

H. 2 1/8 in (5.4 cm); W. 5 in. (12.7 cm); D. 1 7/8 in. (4.8 cm)  

Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift, 2015 - 2015.294

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Taihe" bell, note "Jiazhong"

China, Song dynasty (960–1279), ca. 1105, reinscribed ca. 1174

Bronze, H. 9 in. (22.8 cm)

Courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing

In ancient China, bronze vessels were emblems of ritual and power. A millennium later, in the period from 1100 to 1900, such vessels were rediscovered as embodiments of a long-lost golden age that was worthy of study and emulation. This “return to the past” (fugu) was part of a widespread phenomenon across all the arts to reclaim the virtues of a classical tradition. An important aspect of this phenomenon was the revival of bronze casting as a major art form. Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900 aims to be the most comprehensive study of Chinese bronzes during this period. This exhibition, co-organized by The Met and the Shanghai Museum, where it will open following its display in New York, presents the new aesthetic represented by these creative adaptations of the past, while exploring their cultural and political significance throughout China’s long history.

“While bronze as an art form has long held a significant role throughout China’s history, this exhibition explores an often-overlooked time period when a resurgence of craftsmanship and artistic achievements revitalized the medium,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Bringing together major loans from institutions in China alongside works from The Met collection, this exhibition offers viewers an important opportunity to better understand the lasting aesthetic and cultural impact of bronze objects.”

The exhibition is divided into five thematic and chronological sections that explicate over 200 works of art—an array of bronze vessels complemented by a selection of paintings, ceramics, jades, and other media. Some 100 pieces from The Met collection will be augmented by nearly 100 loans from major institutions in China, Japan, Korea, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States to present the most comprehensive narrative of the ongoing importance of bronzes as an art medium throughout China’s long history. Featured in the exhibition are around 60 loans from institutions in China, including major works such as a monumental 12th-century bell with imperial procession from the Liaoning Provincial Museum, documented ritual bronzes for Confucian temples from the Shanghai Museum, and luxury archaistic vessels made in the 18th-century imperial workshop from the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Vase with archaistic design

China, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), 14th century

Bronze, H. 15 1/2 in. (39.4 cm) ; Diam. 8 in. (20.3 cm); 

Diam. of rim 4 3/8 in. (11.1 cm); Diam. of foot 5 5/8 in. (14.3 cm) 

Purchase, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 2014 - 2014.449

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ritual vessel (xizun)

China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), 

Qianlong mark and period (1736–95)

Bronze, H. 15 3/16 in. (38.6 cm);

Diam. 4 5/16 in. (11 cm); Wt. 36,4 lb (16.5 kg)

Courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing

The exhibition begins with the section “Reconstructing Ancient Rites,” which introduces how emperors and scholar-officials commissioned ritual bronzes from the 12th to the 16th century as part of an effort to restore and align themselves with antique ceremonies and rites. The exhibition continues with “Experimenting with Styles,” illustrating how the form, decoration, and function of ancient bronzes were creatively reinterpreted from the 13th to the 15th century. The next section, “Establishing New Standards,” explores further transformations in both the aesthetic and technical direction of bronze making from the 15th to the 17th century. The fourth section, “Living with Bronzes,” features a display in the Ming Furniture Room (Gallery 218) to demonstrate how bronzes were used in literati life from the 16th to the 19th century. The last section, “Harmonizing with Antiquity,” examines how the deep scholarly appreciation of archaic bronzes during the 18th and 19th centuries led to a final flourishing of bronze production.

Pengliang Lu, Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art at The Met, said: “This exhibition attempts a long-overdue reevaluation of later Chinese bronzes by seeking to establish a reliable chronology of this art form across the last millennium of Chinese history. The exhibition will also distinguish outstanding works from lesser examples based on their artistic and cultural merits.”

This exhibition provides visitors with a captivating experience as they follow the shifting cultural roles and evolving canons of beauty represented in later bronzes.

Installation view of Recasting the Past: 

The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900, 

on view February 28 – September 28, 2025 

at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Photo by Paul Lachenauer, courtesy of The Met

Installation view of Recasting the Past: 

The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900, 

on view February 28 – September 28, 2025 

at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Photo by Paul Lachenauer, courtesy of The Met

Installation view of Recasting the Past: 

The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900, 

on view February 28 – September 28, 2025 

at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Photo by Paul Lachenauer, courtesy of The Met

Later Chinese bronzes have long been stigmatized as poor imitations of ancient bronzes rather than being seen as fundamentally new creations with their own aesthetic and functional character. This exhibition redresses this misunderstanding by showcasing their artistic virtuosity, innovative creativity, and wide cultural impact. Through archaeologically recovered examples and cross-medium comparisons to a wide range of objects, the exhibition demonstrates the ongoing importance and influence of bronzes as well as how they inspired the form and function of works in other media.

Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900 is curated by Pengliang Lu, Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. A beautiful and very interesting book!

Recasting the Past

The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900

by Pengliang Lu

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Distributed by Yale University Press

304 pages, 9.50 x 11.20 in, 300 color illus.

Hardcover, 9781588397904, 15 April 2025

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

The Met Fifth Avenue, Galleries 209-218

www.metmuseum.org

SHANGHAI MUSEUM

www.shanghaimuseum.net

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Through April 6, 2014 

Zhang Huan, Chinese, born 1965

张洹家谱

Family Tree, 2001

Nine chromogenic prints

Sheet (each): 21 × 16 1/2 in. (53.3 × 41.9 cm)

Lent by The Walther Collection

Photo © Yale University Art Gallery

A major loan exhibition of contemporary Chinese art presenting works by 35 artists born in China is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Featuring 70 works in various media—paintings, calligraphy, photographs, woodblock prints, video, and sculpture—that were created during the past three decades, Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China demonstrates how China’s ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path. Although all of the artists have transformed their sources through new modes of expression, visitors can recognize thematic, aesthetic, or technical attributes in their creations that have meaningful links to China’s artistic past. The exhibition is organized thematically into four parts and includes such highlights as Xu Bing’s dramatic Book from the Sky (ca. 1988), an installation that fill an entire gallery; Family Tree (2000), a set of vivid photographs documenting a performance by Zhang Huan in which his facial features—and his identity—are obscured gradually by physiognomic texts that are inscribed directly onto his face; and Map of China (2006) by Ai Weiwei, which is constructed entirely of wood salvaged from demolished Qing dynasty temples.  

Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Asian Art, stated: “A unique feature of this landmark exhibition is the way in which it positions contemporary art from a non-Western culture within an encyclopedic art museum. Instead of being presented by the Metropolitan’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Ink Art is curated by members of the Department of Asian Art and displayed in the Museum’s permanent galleries for Chinese painting and calligraphy, featuring artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China’s traditional culture. While these works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, the curatorial argument is that, by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these creations.” 

Liu Wei, Chinese, born 1965

刘炜花儿 (detail)

Untitled No. 6 "Flower", 2003

Accordion album of twenty-four leaves with silk brocade cover; pencil, acrylic, ink, and watercolor on paper

Image (each leaf): 9 5/8 × 6 1/2 in. (24.5 × 16.5 cm)

Lent by a private collection, New York

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Section 1: The Written Word

Writing is China’s highest form of artistic expression as well as its most fundamental means of communication. Valued for both its semantic content and aesthetic significance, the written word conveys personal as well as public meaning. Given the inherent power of this universal medium, the written word—particularly brush-written calligraphy—has been a rich terrain for artistic exploration in China. The exhibition features key early works by Xu Bing (b. 1955), Gu Wenda (b. 1955), Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969), and Zhang Huan (b. 1965)—all of whom have found ways to subvert the semantic and aesthetic functions of language.

Section 2: New Landscapes

For more than one thousand years, landscape imagery has been used to convey values and moral standards, both of individuals and of society as a whole. Today, as China is being transformed by modernization, artists continue to mine the symbolic potential of landscape imagery to comment on the changing face of China and to explore the “mind landscape” of the individual. A rich selection of paintings, photographs, videos, and films in this section highlighted the diverse ways in which contemporary artists have drawn inspiration from earlier compositions and themes. On view are works by Ren Jian (b. 1955), Liu Dan (b. 1953), and Yang Yongliang (b. 1980), all of whom have revived and transformed the monumental handscroll format with powerful new imagery. This section also displays works by Ai Weiwei (b. 1957), Shi Guorui (b. 1964), and Xing Danwen (b. 1967) that offer stark commentaries on the impersonal nature of China’s expanding urban landscapes; and works by Fang Lijun (b. 1963), Yang Fudong (b. 1971), and Qiu Anxiong (b. 1972), who use woodblock printing, film, or video to explore man’s increasing disconnection from the natural environment. 

Yang Fudong, Chinese, born 1971

杨福东 留兰

Still from Liu Lan, 2003

Single-channel video, 35mm black-and-white film transferred to DVD, with sound; 14 min.

Lent by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Photo courtesy the artist

Section 3: Abstraction

Abstraction is at the heart of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Because the brush mark has always been recognized as a record of the artist’s hand, in addition to performing a descriptive or semantic role, both painting and calligraphy have been valued for their abstract expressive potential. Benefitting from such a rich tradition of exploiting the abstract and symbolic qualities of painting and writing, contemporary Chinese artists have been able selectively to adopt Western notions of nonfigurative art to augment and expand their expressive goals. The work by classically trained calligrapher Wang Dongling (b. 1945) included in this section exemplify those artists who have used their command of traditional techniques to create large-scale abstractions emphasizing the dynamic gestural qualities of calligraphy while divorcing the work from any suggestion of semantic signification. Two examples on view from the Divine Light series by Zhang Yu (b. 1959) feature circular or rectilinear forms that evoke cosmic events—an exploding star or a planet coalescing from a sphere of gaseous elements—that are at once beautiful and terrifying. 

Wang Dongling, Chinese, born 1945

王冬龄 守白

Being Open and Empty, 2005

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Image: 87 1/4 × 57 in. (221.6 × 144.8 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the artist, 2013

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Section 4: Beyond the Brush

A final component of the exhibition introduces works that neither fit into the above three thematic categories nor derive their primary identity from traditional forms of ink art; yet they exhibit an ink art aesthetic through their rich associations with Chinese literati pastimes or patronage. Highlights in this section are two performance-related pieces: an album by Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957) that envisions his plan for Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10, presented together with a three-channel video of the actual event; and Huang Yongping’s (b. 1954) 43-foot-long handscroll documenting his installation pieces from 1985 to 2001. Other works on view includes scholars’ rocks made from silicone or stainless steel by Zhang Jianjun (b. 1955) and Zhan Wang (b. 1962) and a dragon robe made of polyvinyl chloride by Wang Jin (b. 1962). 

Ai Weiwei, Chinese, born 1957

艾未未浪

The Wave, 2005

Glazed ceramic

H. 6 1/8 (15.7 cm); W. 16 7/8 in. (42.9 cm); D. 14 3/4 in. (37.6 cm)

Lent by a private collection, New York

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Zhan Wang, Chinese, born 1962

展望假山石

Artificial Rock #10, August 8, 2001

Stainless steel; wood stand

H. 29 1/2 in. (75 cm); W. 17 11/16 in. (45 cm); D. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2006

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will present a full-day public symposium with talks by leading scholars of Chinese contemporary art on February 21 and a Sunday at the Met program on February 23, as well as gallery talks, a studio workshop, an artist demonstration of calligraphy techniques, and a teen program called Ink Experiments.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.  

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China is curated by Maxwell K. Hearn. 

The exhibition is featured on the Museum’s website: www.metmuseum.org

Beauty Revealed: Images of Women in Qing Dynasty Chinese Painting at BAM/PFA, Berkeley, California

Beauty Revealed: Images of Women in Qing Dynasty Chinese Painting 

University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive - BAM / PFA 

September 25 - December 22, 2013 

Beauty About to Bathe, China, 18th century 

Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk; 61 x 34 ¼ in. 

Private collection: Ferdinand M. Bertholet, Amsterdam 

Photo courstesy BAM / PFA 

Featuring nearly thirty works, Beauty Revealed: Images of Women in Qing Dynasty Chinese Painting is the first to bring together a genre of Chinese painting known as meiren hua, or paintings of beautiful women. Situating the works within the social and economic contexts of the High Qing period (midseventeenth to the late eighteenth century), the exhibition challenges the prevailing opinion that these subjects are high status women—either members of the court or other privileged women. By reading the visual codes embedded in the images, Beauty Revealed instead makes the case that these women are courtesans.

Borrowing seldom-before-utilized techniques from the West, including one-point perspective and heavy opaque colors, the artists, many of them unknown professional painters who painted on demand and for a fee, pursue a realism not previously seen in Chinese painting. Rather than the willowy beauty shown in a garden setting or surrounded by family among luxurious furnishings typical of earlier periods, these paintings generally feature a single, near life-size figure, often in a brazenly unladylike posture. Their garments tend to be low cut and transparent, and their bound feet exposed. 

For example, the direct gaze of the woman in Putting out the Lamp, addressed to the (presumably male) intended viewer, offers a suggestive undercurrent of greater intimacy, one of the hallmarks of this genre. Other codes of accessibility include the woman’s relaxed posture with right leg drawn up under left, the open sleeves that reveal her arms, and the highly stylized extension of her right hand in a controlled gesture reaching to snuff out the light. Her expression engages the audience in a way never before seen in Chinese figure painting. 

Putting Out the Lamp, China, late 18th century (detail) 

Hanging scroll, ink and colors on paper; 65 x 24-5/8 in. 

University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Gift of James Cahill and Hsingyuan Tsao 

Photo courstesy BAM / PFA 

The backdrops further draw viewers into the women’s world, conveying significant information about their wealth, taste, learning, and accomplishments. The women are depicted surrounded by everyday objects packed with erotic symbolism. The art has an immediate impact, inviting viewers to enter and enjoy another world, one perhaps longed for and unattainable. 

In addition to several paintings from BAM/PFA’s own collection, Beauty Revealed features loans from institutions and private collections from around the US and Europe. It is organized into distinct sections that explore the intimate life of women within the garden, home, bath, and brothel. Curated by Senior Curator for Asian Art Julia M. White in collaboration with UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus James Cahill, the exhibition is accompanied by an exquisitely illustrated catalog with essays by Cahill, White, and noted historian Sarah Handler. The catalog entries are by Chen Fongfong, with contributions by Nancy Berliner and White. Published by UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Distributed by D.A.P. , 126 pages; 67 color illustrations.

Colloquium, November 22, 2013: In tribute to James Cahill's fundamental insights regarding Chinese experiments with perspectival representation during the late-imperial period, the Institute for East  Asian Studies will host a symposium on perspective in Chinese painting to accompany Beauty Revealed. Participants will include Eugene Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art, History of Art & Architecture, Harvard University; Richard Vinograd, Christensen Fund Professor in Asian Art, Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University; and Nancy Berliner, Curator of Chinese Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive - BAM / PFA

Museum's website: bampfa.berkeley.edu

Chen Jiagang: Abandoned Fable. A retrospective exhibition at Han Art Gallery, Montreal, Québec

Chen Jiagang Retrospective: Abandoned Fable, Han Art Gallery, Montreal (Westmount), Québec, November 4 - December 3, 2011
 

CHEN JIAGANG was born in 1962 in Chongqing, Sichuan, China. The artist lives and works in Beijing. Han Art Gallery in Westmount (Québec) presents a retrospective exhibition featuring fifteen photographic works by Chen Jiagang. As one of today’s most renowned Chinese contemporary artists, Chen Jiagang is featured at the 12th Annual Toronto International Art Fair (TIAF 2011) through October 31, 2011 before his debut at Han Art Gallery.  Abandoned Fable opens on November 4th and concludes on December 3rd, 2011 

CHEN JIAGANG, Bridges, 2008. Photograph from The Great Third Front series. Courtesy and ©2008 Chen Jiagang. Courtesy  Han Art Gallery, Montreal

Chen Jiagang is a distinctive contemporary artist who consistently weaves a phenomenal historical analogue into his imagery.  In allowing time itself to disappear from space, Chen Jiagang composes a visual language full of complexity and contradiction that adds to this historical contemporary fable - a spatial narratology and an art form that relies on the cultural inheritance. His works narrate the impact of power and politics on environment, human inhabitation, gender balance and family development - all social perspectives that are systematically disseminated into the peoples’ spiritual realm of senses.  The artist utilizes language between certainty and uncertainty to rebel against dogmatic mainstream perspectives in a society where images are becoming increasingly standardized, to discard with the trend of commercialization in art, and to obtain independence with direction.   

In the past few years, the artist made many trips to the factories, mines and small villages in the mountains and in the valleys of Yuanan, Guizhou and Sichuan.  These provinces in particular, which once served as a strategic epicenter of industry in the 1960s determined by Chinese national politics, now find themselves in a vastly different circumstance. 

Trained as an architectural designer, Chen Jiagang regards memories as the most authentic source in human life and believes that images act to preserve these memories.  Aside from bringing to attention intensely social and political issues, his works explore these issues from various perspectives, taking a distanced standpoint to explain history, enabling him to express his aesthetic need on the basis of an intensely personal experience.     

In regards to technique, Chen Jiagang often chooses to capture his images when the sun has just set, immediately after the clouds have emitted the last rays of light and warmth over the deserted and abandoned space.  It is common for him to portray a powerful contrast between subject and space, as demonstrated in his depiction of young women dwarfed by industrial ruins from the past. For example, in one of his works, a woman is portrayed pacing back and forth, seeming reluctant to leave the place she finds herself. Sinking into the darkness and disappearing into her surroundings, the woman is a subtle sign and yet a vibrant creature who breathes life into the remaining walls and majestic ruins filled with traces of the past. The corner store is now deserted, and the path leading towards the space serves only as a football field. These oft-frequented places of the past now remain abandoned and forlorn. Chen Jiagang uses this imagery to compose the bitter sound of a mournful elegy without emitting a single sound. A period which would otherwise be forgotten as history is captured in a moment where people and space observe one another silently with indignation. 

In a country that is presently experiencing one of the highest rates of development in the world, it is not surprising that the works of Chen Jiagang prompts the viewer to question the usefulness and absurdity of this mad race towards development that humanity has been pursuing for decades. His works are deeply entrenched in the new preoccupation of Contemporary Chinese artists, preoccupations that are social, political, and environmental.  As a successful architect and contemporary art collector from the start, Chen Jiagang now exhibits his most recent accomplishments - a monumental photographic product that is entrenched in a powerful aesthetic and conceptually loaded with meaning and inquiry. 

The works of Chen Jiagang have been exhibited in renowned museums and galleries across the globe—including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, and the Art Gallery of Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing.  His works have been consistently purchased by private collectors throughout his career.  Most recently, Chen Jiagang’s works were featured in the Red Flag exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. A landmark exhibition, Red Flag served as the first show to bring Contemporary Chinese Art and Quebecois aesthetic together under one roof.  During this exhibition, Chen Jiagang’s works were featured alongside some of the most well-known Contemporary Chinese artists, including Gu Wenda, Ai Weiwei, Zhang Huan, Xu Bing, Wang Tiande and the Gao brothers.  

In this retrospective solo exhibition at the Han Art Gallery in Québec, fifteen major works have been selected to showcase the essential and integral value of Chen Jiagang’s creativity in the first several chapters of his career. 

HAN ART GALLERY
Westmount, Québec, Canada  H3Z 1P6www.hanartgallery.com

Chen Yujun – The Empty Room – Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing

Chen Yujun, The Empty Room
Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing 
Through 5 December 2010

On view in Beijing, at Boers-Li Gallery, a solo exhibition of recent work by the artist Chen Yujun produced since 2008 in a project entitled The Empty Room.

CHEN YUJUN was born in Putian of Fujian province in 1976, and the most basic motivation of his work comes from the culture of the Central Min diaspora. Because a branch of his family emigrated to Southeast Asia in 1900, many of his works are concerned with this lineage and the living environments of that alien territory. As young critic Lu Mingjun has summarized, this form of mental memory and life experience creates in his artistic practice a distinct anthropological aesthetic: for Chen Yujun, the foreign land of the South China Sea represents a space of possibility or experience of the unknown, and the communication of this experience becomes the original intention of his work. His mode of painting is simple and unadorned, consisting of hybrid visions of architecture and scene, a sensation of bland vicissitude and solitude that emerges through plants, decorations, and furnishings. Such images originate in the experiential world of the artist, but exceed this experience through a unique form of communication in painting. They consistently challenge the observational logic of the viewer, calling for explorations into the unknown.

Asian Geography is a new series initiated by the artist in 2009. For some time, the notion of Asia has been advanced as a community primarily through the cultural oppression of Eurocentric ideology, such that the cultural concept of Asia actually convinces us to ignore cultural differences within the continent. In Asian Geography, Chen Yujun attempts to produce an alien space of the other, a space of Asia at once both strange and familiar. In these works, apart from the appearance of bizarre furnishings, we find that readymade objects and space constructed through the extension of all manner of lines form a unique depth within a set of two-dimensional relationships. Observing such works, the disorder, vacuity, and fragmentation of space interfere with an understanding of our own identity and existence.

Asian Geography surpasses Chen Yujun's early imagination of Southeast Asia, placing the focus of this concept within an identification of history and identity. Within this series, the artist extends his domestic space such that it becomes the geographic space of Asia. As he says:

“The entire course of my practice unfolds through the history of migration of my family, appropriating this outward trajectory primarily in order to present my own secret experiences and imaginations. Through this specific spatial situation, I attempt to depict a singular domestic space and the alienated identity of its resident.”

BOERS-LI GALLERY - BEIJING - CHINA

11 November 2010 - 5 December 2010

www.boersligallery.com

Qiu Anxiong – Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing

Zoo - Qiu Anxiong’s solo exhibition
Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing
22 October - 21 November 2010

The exhibition includes QIU ANXIONG's new work in oil painting, sculpture, and video installation.

The exhibition as a whole revolves around the decaying scenes of the zoological garden. Animals once free to gallop and soar are here confined to a purportedly humane synthetic nature, held captive in the limited degree of freedom endemic to the zoo and certainly experiencing some degree of boredom. Such paintings exist here as a background to the exhibition, allowing the figure of the zoo to come to stand in for captivity itself within this new series. Alongside this conceptual development, Qiu Anxiong attempts to survey the broader meaning of captivity within more expansive spheres of culture, educational systems, and lifestyles, a discussion that originates with the phenomenon by which external control imperceptibly becomes habitual self-control, mirroring another process by which the object of control shifts from the animal to the human.

As a portion of this continuing exploration of culture and control, this exhibition employs models of the zoo and civilization to manifest mistaken understandings of history. Animals are here taken as gods, as in Heresy turned into food products, as in Revolution or observed as pets, as in Enlightenment. The artist here uses a method of Borgesian personification to reveal how, throughout the history of civilization, the various manifestations of collectivism have imprisoned and even extinguished the individual. Through the reverse of such personification, the artist concludes the exhibition by animalizing a domestic scene depicting consumer society, thus expressing the captivity of material consumption outside the spiritual realm.

Beginning with his widely known work New Classic of the Mountains and Seas I, Qiu Anxiong has drawn on a method in which mythical and existing animals are metaphorically drawn into reality in order to develop his analysis and critique of contemporary society. At the same time, the narratives and symbols present in his work continuously construct new forms of visual narrative in a relatively restricted system. The attraction of this work lies in its eccentric and abnormal quixotic pursuit, particularly in the artificial encyclopedic knowledge it spawns. This  unique narrative mode could be linked to those of Borges, but its spiritual quality is actually much closer to the critique of reality manifested in Orwell's Animal Farm.

QIU ANXIONG  was born in Chengdu in 1972. He has exhibited in the Shanghai Biennale in 2006, China Power Station Part 1 in 2007, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2009, and most recently the São Paulo Biennial in 2010. He also held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2007. His video work “New Classic of the Mountains and Seas II” and related print works have recently been acquired by the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

BOERS-LI GALLERY - BEIJING - CHINA

www.boersligallery.com

Zhang Huan: Hope Tunnel at UCCA Beijing

Zhang Huan: Hope Tunnel
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art - UCCA, Beijing
Through October 24, 2010

Zhang Huan’s Hope Tunnel is a curated social project related to the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province.

“Hope Tunnel is conceptual art on a grand scale, a monument to hope, a space in which art becomes a vehicle for awareness, philanthropy and the public good. A towering display of destructive power frozen in time, it allows us to reflect on the scale of recent earthquake disasters, commemorate the victims and contemplate the possibility of reconstruction and the challenges that lie ahead.”

UCCA Director Jérôme Sans describes Hope Tunnel as being “conceived by an artist who believes that art has the power not just to move us emotionally, but to galvanize us into positive action. We may be dwarfed by the wreckage of freight train no. 21043 and humbled by the destruction wrought by nature, but as the title reminds us, we still have the power to help—and to hope.”

Artist Zhang Huan calls his train “a witness to history” that should be preserved. “At a time when the whole world is looking toward the future, preserving the past seems more important than ever. Reflecting on the disaster, investigating the causes, mitigating future dangers and finding ways to live in harmony with our environment rather than trying to conquer it—that’s where the real future is, the tunnel of hope that leads us to tomorrow."

Moving beyond “art for the sake of art”

Hope Tunnel is more than just a train, an installation piece or a Memento mori that recalls our own mortality. It is a multi-faceted philanthropic project and an experiment in using art to serve the public good.

“As a non-profit public arts center, UCCA is in a unique position to carry out curated social projects such as Hope Tunnel. Free of the artistic constraints and profit motives that restrict many traditional museums and galleries, UCCA possesses the resources, vision and innovation needed to harness the social and philanthropic power of art.”

“At UCCA, we are committed to engaging not just with the “art world” but with society in general and the world at large. Through exhibitions, films and educational events that reflect what is happening in Beijing, in China and around the globe, we seek to create a forum for dialogue and a place for developing innovative solutions. “

“Art should be about more than just making pretty things and putting on spectacles,” says UCCA Director Jérôme Sans. “It means caring about the world around you and giving something back to society.”

The long journey of freight train no. 21043

When the Sichuan earthquake struck on May 12, 2008, freight train no. 21043 was passing through a tunnel in the border region between Gansu, Sichuan and Shaanxi Provinces. Loaded down with grain and aviation fuel, the train collided with a boulder, caught fire and became trapped in the tunnel's inferno. It took workers six months to dig out the wreckage, clear the tunnel and reopen the railway line to earthquake-damaged areas of Sichuan.

When he heard the news reports and saw the photos of the Sichuan earthquake and the train disaster, Zhang Huan was badly shaken. Realizing that the train had both historical value and emotional resonance, he decided to try to preserve it for posterity. After a long and complicated process, the artist managed to obtain the wreckage and transport it to his studio in Shanghai for selective renovation.

When two large carriages of the train are installed in UCCA's largest exhibition hall amidst railway tracks and quake debris, visitors are able to examine the wreckage and watch a documentary that follows every step of the train’s journey from a salvage company in Xi’an to Zhang Huan’s workshop in Shanghai to UCCA in Beijing. A percentage of ticket sales will go to the Red Cross Society of China Jet Li One Foundation Project to fund disaster relief and reconstruction projects in Yushu, Qinghai Province.

In conjunction with Hope Tunnel, two of Zhang Huan’s large incense-ash sculptures are on display in the UCCA lobby: Military Officer and Cultural Officer.

BIOGRAPHY: ZHANG HUANG

Internationally acclaimed artist Zhang Huan was born in 1965 in Anyang, Henan. He currently lives and works in Shanghai. As an active member of the Beijing art scene in the 1990's, he was involved mainly in performance art and was considered one of the foremost avant-garde artists in China. After relocating to New York in 1998, he became a full-time artist working in a variety of different mediums and giving artistic performances in major cities worldwide.

In 2005, he returned to Shanghai and established the Zhang Huan Studio, where he continues his artistic work, expanding into new realms and developing new forms. The ash-painting technique he created has added another method of painting to the art history books. Zhang Huan has also pioneered a variety of other techniques, such as sculpting in ox-hide, wooden door carvings, and woodcuts with feather additions, to name just a few.

In 2009, Zhang Huan directed and stage-managed the lyric opera Semele, performed at the La Monnaie Royal Theatre in Belgium. He is the first Chinese modern artist to direct a lyric opera. In 2005, Zhang Huan and his wife founded the Gao An Foundation, which establishes "hope elementary schools" in impoverished areas of western China. They have also provided scholarships and study grants to ten major universities in China.

Curators: Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director
Project Coordinators：Paula Tsai, Joy Bloser

UCCA - ULLENS CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART - BEIJING - PR CHINA

www.ucca.org.cn