798 District Blog

The Creators Project started its world tour in June in New York City, and has since made footprints in London, Sao Paulo and Seoul.
This weekend, from September 17 to 19, the Creators Project comes to Beijing, bringing together nearly one hundred artists, filmmakers and musicians to display their works and performances at 798 Art District.
Things kick off on Friday at 10pm, with Tresor. Beijing transforming one of 798’s disused factory buildings for a night of techno and other electronic sounds from German DJs. Entry is RMB 50. The Rose Bud, 706 North 1st Street, 798 Art District. Please note the Tresor event listed in this week’s 7 Days Newsletter for Saturday is in fact a panel discussion – the party is on Friday only.

On Saturday there will be a series of displays and exhibitions of artistic multi-media interactive works. Visitors will witness the Beijing debut of many current masters’ works from around the world, including award-winning artist Mira Calix, interactive music makers Radical Friend and United Visual Artists who have designed visuals for leading global acts such as Massive Attack, U2 and the Chemical Brothers. As for their Chinese counterparts, they will be represented by creative pioneers such as Li Hui, Peng Lei, Vega Wang, Xu Wenkai and Xu Feng.

Music is no doubt the highlight of the party, and the lineup includes Major Lazer feat Diplo, Delorean, New Pants, Re-tros, Queen Sea Big Shark and White+, as well as a few electronic artists and DJs such as Sulumi, B6, DJ Wordy, Dead J and Nick Catchdubs.

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The largest solo mainland show of works by Ju Ming, arguably Taiwan’s most influential sculptor, is currently running at the National Art Museum of China. On view are 150 larger-than-life pieces of his Living World series, works Ju has produced over the past 30 years in a wide range of media, including wood, stone, ceramics, bronze, sponge, styrofoam and stainless steel.

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Pablo Picasso was the 20th century’s most important artist. Picasso’s many-faceted personality is reflected in the wide array of creative paths he chose — his forms, colors, and the materials he used. The Picasso Story invites you to meet Picasso, the man, and to delve into his life and creative world, to walk in his footsteps, to discover him, and like him, to embrace your internal creative spirit, and to leave a legacy for the world. The Picasso Story has been on display in Berlin’s Humboldt Carré since November 1, 2009. At the heart of the exhibition is a collection of Picasso’s ceramics and graphic art, complemented by the incredible images of Edward Quinn, who accompanied Picasso as a photographer for decades.

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BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhuanet) — As far as the distance is between China and Chile, it turns out that art is the perfect way to unite the two nations at opposite ends of the planet. Let’s take a look at an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art that has opened in the Chilean capital Santiago.

From the realistic depiction of Chinese coal miners, to the abstract handling of figures in traditional Chinese operas, the 83 works unveil a panorama of contemporary Chinese art in mediums including oil paintings, sculptures, and installations.

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Date: Apr 29–Aug 31, 2010

Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan

‘Alternative Humanities’ is a large-scale exhibition devoted to Jan Fabre and Katsura Funakoshi – two of today’s most influential artists.

Born in Belgium, Fabre remains attuned to the religious paintings of 15th and 16th century Flanders, while exposing the contradictions of human existence through pictures drawn with his own blood and sculptures employing stuffed animals, animal bones, and other organic materials.

The figurative sculptures that Funakoshi carves from camphor wood speak eloquently of the interior landscape of people in our times. They also resonate with the complex emotions visible in images of the Kannon Bodhisattva of the late Edo/early Meiji period – a major turning point in Japanese culture.

Gathering some 190 works in a meeting of East and West, past and present, the exhibition will transcend time and place to inquire into state of the human spirit today.

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Collectors spent big money at Christie’s postwar and contemporary art auction on Tuesday, led by Jasper Johns’ pop art painting “Flag” from a collection that had belonged to best-selling author Michael Crichton, which sold for a record $28.64 million.

The $232 million total from the auction, including commission, marked the third consecutive night at which Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s met or exceeded pre-sale estimates for the annual spring sales. Of the 79 lots on offer, only five failed to sell.

Crichton’s collection, one of the season’s star estate sales, soared to $93.3 million — half again the pre-sale estimate — and achieved the highest ever total for a post-war collection, officials said.

While foreign buying has helped drive the market’s recovery, nearly three-quarters of the buyers were American, as expected for what Christie’s described as “a quintessentially American sale.”

Amy Cappellazzo, Christie’s international co-head of post-war and contemporary art, said the market, seemingly well on its way to recovery, now seemed “more sober.”

“There’s not this irrational exuberance,” she said, comparing it to the late years of the boom before the economic crash in 2008. “It’s strong, but selective.”

Well-heeled collectors showed enthusiasm, and readiness to pay, for rare works like Johns’ “Flag” and Andy Warhol’s “Silver Liz,” which fetched more than $18 million.

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A rare Song Dynasty hand scroll, classified as a grade one cultural relic of the State, fetched 79.52 million yuan ($11.6 million) on Saturday at China Guardian’s Spring Auction.

The scroll by an anonymous painter of Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1127-1279), entitled A Copy of Guo Zhongshu’s Four-Hunter Painting, vividly portrays four nomadic horsemen who are respectively riding to the field, training an eagle, hunting and resting.

Paintings of the ethnic groups who lived on the vast grasslands of northern China, became a distinct category of painting in the late Tang dynasty (AD 618-907). The painting, part of the treasure trove of the Qing (1644-1911) royal court, was smuggled out of the palace by Emperor Puyi as a reward to his brother in 1922 and was later transported overseas.

Another royal treasure of the Qing court, Listening to Spring by Jin Tingbiao, sold for 45.13 million yuan ($6.6 million). The painting portrays a scholar sitting by a stone among pine trees. It was completed shortly after Jin served as a royal court painter.

Other items that came under the hammer at the auctions included a Qianlong Tibetan-Style Ewer with under-glazed blue and iron red dragon and cloud motif, which fetched 35.84 million yuan ($5.2 million), and Shi Chong’s oil painting Present Landscape that was sold for 26.09 million yuan ($3.8 million).

More than 6,600 lots of Chinese painting and calligraphy, oil painting, sculptures, antique, stamps and coins are going under the hammer at Guardian’s Spring Auctions, which last until Tuesday.

“Global auctioneering came to a standstill last year. But against that backdrop the Chinese auction market has achieved notable growth, and our annual proceeds established a new record,” says Wang Yannan, president of China Guardian Auctions.

Last year, three pieces of Chinese painting and calligraphy heralded the arrival of a 100 million yuan ($15 million) era for the classical Chinese art market, including one item Writings by Prominent Personage in the Song Dynasty on Attendant Xu’s Seal Character, featuring calligraphy by seven renowned scholars, such as Zhu Xi and Zhang Jingxiu, that was sold at Guardian’s autumn auction.

“As a warm-up for the spring auctions, our auctions in March yielded a turnover of 262 million yuan ($38.4 million). It further increased collectors’ confidence in the market,” Wang says.

One work that is expected to set a new record is Zhang Daqian’s Austrian Lake, a painting in a series inspired by the maestro’s two-day stay at the Achensee Lake in Austria, when he traveled through Europe with friends in 1965. The painting to be auctioned is widely believed to be one of the largest and most brilliant of the series.

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The reign of Alberto Giacometti’s emaciated Walking Man I as the world’s priciest trophy at auction is likely to be short-lived. The six-foot tall bronze, which fetched an outsized $104.3m in February at Sotheby’s, London, is expected to be overtaken by a painting of Picasso’s lusty, lilac-hued mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, coming up for sale on 4 May at Christie’s, New York.

The 1932 Nude, Green Leaves and Bust bears the largest pre-sale auction estimate in history: an “on request only” $70m to $90m. But dealers say the painting may well hammer down for over $100m. It is from the same series as casino owner Steve Wynn’s celebrated Le Rêve, also 1932, which was sold to hedge fund manager Steve Cohen in 2006 for $139m, before Wynn accidentally plunged his elbow through the canvas and called off the deal. Christie’s painting has a third-party guarantor, so someone, somewhere, has locked in a bid for at least $70m.

If the Picasso performs as expected, it will be the second time in four months—amid a painful global recession—that the record for a work at auction is smashed. Until the Giacometti sale, the previous record, Sotheby’s sale of Picasso’s sensitive Boy with a Pipe, 1905, in 2004 for $104.1m, had lasted for six years, through a boom. Now, as the recession drags on, experts predict another record sale. How could this be?

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SHANGHAI. As preparations for the World Expo in Shanghai (1 May-31 October) reach fever pitch, several new museums and cultural spaces are opening in readiness to welcome some of the 100 million visitors, which officials estimate will attend. Foreign journalists in Shanghai have estimated the total costs of the expo at around $45bn, not including off-site developments.

Leading the swathe of new cultural attractions is the Rockbund Art Museum, housed in a converted 1932 art deco building on Shanghai’s historic riverfront, restored and with interior design by British architect David Chipperfield. The building was previously home to the Royal Asiatic Society, and is next to the former site of the Shanghai British Consulate.

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LONDON.- Iniva presents new work by two contemporary Chinese artists at Rivington Place, with the European premiere of a film by Lu Chunsheng who showed in the Serpentine Gallery’s exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at Battersea Power Station. This is also the first solo exhibition in Europe, “Make Believe…”, by emerging artist Jia Aili. Both artists reflect on industrial progress, social corrosion and the individual’s struggle in the machine age.

Lu Chunsheng’s film, “The first man who bought a juicer bought it not for drinking juice”, mixes documentary and fantasy to theatrical effect. The characters in the film are both human and mechanical, and represent the consequences of the globalised era in their repetition of senseless acts. Orson Welles’ fictional account of an alien invasion in “The War of the Worlds” which was mistaken for a real news item, is the impetus for the film. It illustrates the influence of technology, mass media and the power of fear.

The two protagonists in the film are a reaper machine, used for harvesting grain, which is given Frankenstein-like characteristics, and a mechanic who cares for and repairs it. The film casts a relationship between man and machine in which humanity is denigrated to serve an alien species born from its own hands.

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