Qi Yun, a contemporary art show
A few weeks ago Myles and I tried twice to find an art venue called the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal. We wandered unsuccessfully around a section of Shenzhen called Overseas China Town for hours looking for it one day, but we went back a week later and wandered in other directions from before and eventually found it. I don't know if I will ever find it easily.
The gallery itself is in an older (for Shenzhen) industrial neighborhood that is now being transformed into a hipper, funkier art-themed neighborhood. So far the transformation looks and sounds like the rest of Shenzhen. Not yet finished, with the hum of drills and nail guns constant.
There are more than one art gallery as well as some coffee/wine bars going in this part of OCT.
The Contemporary Art Terminal was presenting a group show of several contemporary Chinese abstract artists. The title of the show was "Qi Yun," a term that refers to free and harmonious movement and a key word in classical Chinese art. It was used here to try to cast these contemporary artists as part of a great line of Chinese artists. Nice try, was my first thought as we wondered through the show. I don't think it is a coincidence that most of the artists included in this exhibit either have lived or currently live in the United States. Even trying to show the Chinese artistic pedigree of the artists themselves or their art, the biographical notes read (to me )so often how much more New York or San Francisco or wherever may have mattered to some of these artists than Beijing.
Of the artists shown, we of course had our favorites. Lin Yan is one that Myles and I both liked. Her father and her grandfather were both famous artists, and she originally comes from Beijing. However today she lives and works in...New York. She does use some traditional Chinese materials, like rice paper and ink, in her work. The pieces that are included in this group show were several recent works that were constructions of rice paper. Some are assembled to look as though they have been riveted, like sheet metal on the outside of an airplane or a ship. Like this one, "Echoes in Silence" found here at the China 2000 Fine Art website.
I really liked the play between the obvious weightlessness of the paper with the apparent heft that would require rivets instead of pins or something more fitting to the fragile paper. Myles liked them because they moved in the air drafts. Artists like Lin Yan make me ask myself if I am more interested in the final product or the process. Like my fascination with American artist Jil Weinstock, I am as interested in how the art is made as I am looking at it. Maybe more.
Another interesting painter included in the show is Shanghai and San Francisco-based Qiu Shihua. Myles wasn't exactly thrilled with his paintings, but I think that might have had to do the extreme minimalism of the art. Qui I would describe as High-Church Minimalism. Looking closely at his canvases I couldn't tell if any paint had even been applied to them. The curatorial notes describe him as understanding "the meaning of vacant time and space." Looking at them I couldn't help but compare the maybe-it's-there-maybe-it-isn't feeling I got looking at a Qiu painting with some of the more subtle James Turrell light sculptures (like one at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh where you stare at a dark wall and wonder if you see anything). At the time I thought I was silly and amateurish making this connection, but then trying to find images for the blog I read that his New York gallery has also connected the painter with the light sculptor. The images themselves aren't made for internet reproduction and are better seen in person, but for the curious, this gives you an idea of what one of his paintings is like. Biographical information I've found through US sources mention that his oil painting career was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, and he lived in a rural coal mining town painting movie posters until 1984. And now his paintings are increasingly of nothing.
I realy like Liu Zhijuan's ink paintings. They are swirly and dream-like, bits of recognizable objects rendered in photo-realistic precision mixed in with washed out parts of other things. He is a professor at Shenshen University. For a few moments Myles took an "I spy" approach to these. This wasn't included but is representational of the work included in the show.
Bring on the abstract expressionists! I said to myself. What's a show of abstract art without the hard-core painterly painters? For these we have Wang Chuan, Chihung Yang, and Zhou Li. Wang and Chihung both live in New York. Zhou, the lone women among these three, actually lives in Shenzhen (after some years in France). They gave me everything I look for in an abstract expressionist---deliberate and exciting color and the conspicuous evidence of paint.
For instance, "The Cursive Calligraphy of Autumn" by Chihung Yang
I really wanted to show Zhou Li's, but I can't find anything online.
After viewing this show (which will stop in Beijing and New York City), Myles and I wandered again. We were actually looking for a bus stop, anything to get us back to Shekou, but we came upon a coffee bar. The wait staff just had to get their picture taken with Myles. Happens EVERYWHERE we go.
The gallery itself is in an older (for Shenzhen) industrial neighborhood that is now being transformed into a hipper, funkier art-themed neighborhood. So far the transformation looks and sounds like the rest of Shenzhen. Not yet finished, with the hum of drills and nail guns constant.
There are more than one art gallery as well as some coffee/wine bars going in this part of OCT.
The Contemporary Art Terminal was presenting a group show of several contemporary Chinese abstract artists. The title of the show was "Qi Yun," a term that refers to free and harmonious movement and a key word in classical Chinese art. It was used here to try to cast these contemporary artists as part of a great line of Chinese artists. Nice try, was my first thought as we wondered through the show. I don't think it is a coincidence that most of the artists included in this exhibit either have lived or currently live in the United States. Even trying to show the Chinese artistic pedigree of the artists themselves or their art, the biographical notes read (to me )so often how much more New York or San Francisco or wherever may have mattered to some of these artists than Beijing.
Of the artists shown, we of course had our favorites. Lin Yan is one that Myles and I both liked. Her father and her grandfather were both famous artists, and she originally comes from Beijing. However today she lives and works in...New York. She does use some traditional Chinese materials, like rice paper and ink, in her work. The pieces that are included in this group show were several recent works that were constructions of rice paper. Some are assembled to look as though they have been riveted, like sheet metal on the outside of an airplane or a ship. Like this one, "Echoes in Silence" found here at the China 2000 Fine Art website.
I really liked the play between the obvious weightlessness of the paper with the apparent heft that would require rivets instead of pins or something more fitting to the fragile paper. Myles liked them because they moved in the air drafts. Artists like Lin Yan make me ask myself if I am more interested in the final product or the process. Like my fascination with American artist Jil Weinstock, I am as interested in how the art is made as I am looking at it. Maybe more.
Another interesting painter included in the show is Shanghai and San Francisco-based Qiu Shihua. Myles wasn't exactly thrilled with his paintings, but I think that might have had to do the extreme minimalism of the art. Qui I would describe as High-Church Minimalism. Looking closely at his canvases I couldn't tell if any paint had even been applied to them. The curatorial notes describe him as understanding "the meaning of vacant time and space." Looking at them I couldn't help but compare the maybe-it's-there-maybe-it-isn't feeling I got looking at a Qiu painting with some of the more subtle James Turrell light sculptures (like one at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh where you stare at a dark wall and wonder if you see anything). At the time I thought I was silly and amateurish making this connection, but then trying to find images for the blog I read that his New York gallery has also connected the painter with the light sculptor. The images themselves aren't made for internet reproduction and are better seen in person, but for the curious, this gives you an idea of what one of his paintings is like. Biographical information I've found through US sources mention that his oil painting career was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, and he lived in a rural coal mining town painting movie posters until 1984. And now his paintings are increasingly of nothing.
I realy like Liu Zhijuan's ink paintings. They are swirly and dream-like, bits of recognizable objects rendered in photo-realistic precision mixed in with washed out parts of other things. He is a professor at Shenshen University. For a few moments Myles took an "I spy" approach to these. This wasn't included but is representational of the work included in the show.
Bring on the abstract expressionists! I said to myself. What's a show of abstract art without the hard-core painterly painters? For these we have Wang Chuan, Chihung Yang, and Zhou Li. Wang and Chihung both live in New York. Zhou, the lone women among these three, actually lives in Shenzhen (after some years in France). They gave me everything I look for in an abstract expressionist---deliberate and exciting color and the conspicuous evidence of paint.
For instance, "The Cursive Calligraphy of Autumn" by Chihung Yang
I really wanted to show Zhou Li's, but I can't find anything online.
After viewing this show (which will stop in Beijing and New York City), Myles and I wandered again. We were actually looking for a bus stop, anything to get us back to Shekou, but we came upon a coffee bar. The wait staff just had to get their picture taken with Myles. Happens EVERYWHERE we go.
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