Tag: Chinese art

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art website

Exhibition: ‘Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China’ at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY

Exhibition dates: 7th February – 14th June, 2020

Curators: Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson, and Stacey Lambrow, curator of the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, with the assistance of Yuhua Ding, curatorial assistant for Asian art at the Johnson.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890) '[Actors]' 1870s from the exhibition 'Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China' at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, Feb - June, 2020

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Actors]
1870s
Albumen print
Collection of Stephan Loewentheil, Cornell JD 1975

Such a rare commodity (and I use the word deliberately) – an Indigenous photographer – in a world educated “in the colonial view of photography’s history that has privileged Western travel photographers.” And yet, Lai Fong buys into the photographic conventions of the day, based on Western ideals of ethnographic portraiture and documentary landscape photography, to sell his impressive product range. In a photograph such as [Group portrait near Fangguangyan Monastery, Fujian] (c. 1869, below) the positioning of the European figures could have come straight out of an Édouard Manet painting, complete with their air of posed insouciance. Even in the photograph of a brothel, a Canton boat which served only wealthy Chinese clients [Flower boat, Guangzhou] (1870s, below), the West encroaches, as can be seen by the funnels and sails of a ship that lurks behind the traditional floating pleasure den.

Only rarely do we glimpse Lai Fong’s individuality as an artist… the low camera position, long vanishing point and panoramic landscape of the two magnificent images [Ming Tombs, Beijing] (1879, below); or the sublime construction of the image in photographs such as [Piled Stone Peaks in Mount Wuyi] (c. 1869, below) with its reference to Chinese brush-and-ink landscape painting known as Shan shui.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Johnson Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition 'Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China' at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

Installation views of the exhibition Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University
Credit: David O. Brown, Johnson Museum

This exhibition introduces viewers to the work of Lai Fong, arguably the most ambitious and successful photographer of nineteenth-century China. He began practicing under the name Afong in Hong Kong in the 1860s, and over the next twenty years built a towering reputation on his illustrious clientele, his impressive product range, and a catalogue of views of China “larger, choicer, and more complete… than any other in the Empire,” according to his advertisements. His photographs of Chinese cities, monuments, people, and land – however shaped by the desires of his cosmopolitan clientele – stand as records of places that have changed often beyond recognition, and of his own artistry, exuberance, and entrepreneurial brilliance. Managed by his son and daughter-in-law after his death, his studio persisted into the 1940s, an instance of remarkable longevity in a famously difficult field.

“Despite the historical fame of Lai’s studio and the reach of his photographs, which exist today in collections worldwide, Lai remains little known outside of specialist circles,” said Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson Museum. “His work is understudied and rarely exhibited, the result in part of a colonial view of photography’s history that has privileged Western travel photographers over indigenous practitioners. Lai Fong: Photographer of China is not only the first exhibition dedicated to Lai, but to any Chinese photographer working in the initial decades of photography’s global proliferation.”

The exhibition brings together almost fifty images, many of which have never been previously published or exhibited, suggesting them as emblematic of one of the nineteenth century’s most significant, and significantly overlooked, photographic careers. They are drawn primarily from the singular collection of Stephan Loewentheil, JD ’75, who over three decades has assembled one of the world’s foremost collections of early photographs of China. Other lenders to the exhibition include the Cornell Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Getty Research Institute.

Of special note is the Ming Tombs album from Cornell Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. This album of ninety-five photographs of Beijing has been in the collection of the Cornell Library since 1940. In 2019, the photographs were attributed to Lai by Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson, as part of ongoing research on the university’s collections of Asian photographs. The album is a remarkable compendium, the most complete collection of Lai’s images of the Chinese capital yet discovered. At least nineteen of them may have been entirely unknown previously; they do not appear in the only catalogue of Lai’s photographs reconstructed to date, by the historian Terry Bennett.

This exhibition was curated by Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson, and Stacey Lambrow, curator of the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, with the assistance of Yuhua Ding, curatorial assistant for Asian art at the Johnson. It is supported in part by the Helen and Robert J. Appel Exhibition Endowment.

Press release from the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890) '[Itinerant barber]' 1870s from the exhibition 'Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China' at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, Feb - June, 2020

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Itinerant barber]
1870s
Albumen print
Collection of Stephan Loewentheil, Cornell JD 1975

Genre images like these, along with views of monuments, cities, and natural scenery, were central to the Chinese photography market. Lai created them both at home and on expedition, setting up makeshift studios where necessary. The photographs feature people who may or may not have actually inhabited the traditional roles they play for the camera: Lai had a talent for summoning natural postures and expressions from subjects he had costumed and arranged.

Lai’s photographs certainly appealed to Chinese buyers but, like most nineteenth-century photographs of China, they were largely produced for export. They left Hong Kong as souvenirs with the international officials, merchants, missionaries, and tourists who began to enter Chinese cities in great numbers in the 1860s, after successive incursions by the British military forced the Qing dynasty to expand foreigners’ access to the country.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Flower boat, Guangzhou]
1870s
Albumen print
Collection of Stephan Loewentheil, Cornell JD 1975

For hundreds of years, floating brothels existed on the Pearl River Delta, part of a river scene that grew alongside maritime trade between China and Europe in the eighteenth century. The boats in most harbours were open to men from any nation, but the Canton boats served only Chinese clients, primarily the wealthy elite. Called flower boats, they were places of lavish entertainment. They could be exquisitely constructed and outfitted, and were often romantically depicted in souvenir paintings.

Despite the boats’ glamorous reputation, the industry turned on slavery. The women and girls working aboard were the property of the boats’ owners, purchased as children and trained in appealing to men of high society. When age or disease rendered them no longer lucrative, they were sold or discarded. Such cruelty was increasingly reviled as the century wore on. The last boats disappeared in the 1930s.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Beijing]
1879
Albumen print
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Ming Tombs, Beijing]
1879
From an album of albumen prints
Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

This album of ninety-five photographs of Beijing has been in the collection of the Cornell Library since 1940. In 2019, the photographs were attributed to Lai by Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson Museum, as part of ongoing research on the university’s collections of Asian photographs. The album is a remarkable compendium, the most complete collection of Lai’s images of the Chinese capital yet discovered. At least nineteen of them may have been entirely unknown previously; they do not appear in the only catalogue of Lai’s photographs reconstructed to date, by the historian Terry Bennett.

Lai traveled to what was then Peking in 1879, possibly on the invitation of the foreign diplomats whose portraits are included in the album. Alongside these portraits are views of the monuments of the ancient city, including temples, pagodas, the observatory, the Summer Palace, and the Ming Tombs. As here, many of these monuments are pictured from a distance. Lai makes the approach to the subject as central to the picture as the subject itself.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
Part of the Bund, Shanghai
1870s
From an album of albumen prints
Getty Research Institute, Clark Worswick collection of photographs of China and Southeast Asia

Contrary to accounts first propagated by its early European and American inhabitants, Shanghai had not been an inconsequential place – a “fishing village on a mudflat,” as one famous city guide put it – before it was opened to foreign settlement and trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. In fact, for centuries it had been an important point along trade routes between China and Southeast Asia, and by the 1830s it had a quarter of a million inhabitants. Nonetheless, its growth after 1842 was explosive. By the start of the new century its physical size had more than doubled, its population quadrupled, and it had become a global commercial capital.

The landmarks of the early decades of this era – the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Shanghai Club, many of the important mercantile hongs, or trading houses – were clustered along the Shanghai Bund. This waterfront embankment district reached the International Settlement at one end and the French Concession at the other.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Group portrait near Fangguangyan Monastery, Fujian]
c. 1869
Albumen print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection
Purchase, Robert Rosenkranz Gift, 2005

Around 1869, Lai was invited by foreign residents of Fuzhou to record a private excursion by boat to the Fangguangyan Monastery, a “hanging temple” known for its spectacular location and design. Lai posed the group for photographs at several spots along the route.

The rather illustrious expedition party included Charles Sinclair, the British Consult of Fuzhou, who sits on the stool at left; Sinclair’s wife, who leans against the rock wall; Baron de Méritens, an Imperial Maritime Customs Service commissioner, who perches on a rock at center; Prosper Giquel, Director of the Fuzhou Arsenal, who stands by Sinclair’s wife; and Francis Temple, an accountant at the Shanghai branch of the Oriental Bank, who is stretched out informally in the foreground. The man adopting a similar pose in the background remains unidentified.

Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839-1890)
[Piled Stone Peaks in Mount Wuyi]
c. 1869
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection
Purchase, Robert Rosenkranz Gift, 2005

Shan shui was a traditional form of Chinese brush-and-ink landscape painting that followed a complex set of compositional and conceptual rules. Lai refers to it in his images of magnificent natural forms, but photography grounded his representations in the observed, external world – a key difference from the idealism of shan shui pictures.

In his picture of Mount Wuyi, Lai monumentalises the Danxia landform that characterises the mountain, located in the southern suburb of Wuyishan, Fujian. Danxia comprise isolated hills and steep layered rocks of red sandstone that have been shaped by eons of weathering and fluvial erosion. Lai was among the first Chinese photographers to photograph Mount Wuyi’s marvellous stone peaks.

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Bridal Carriage
1870s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Courtesy of the Loewentheil Collection

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Chinese Junks, Hong Kong
1870s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Courtesy of the Loewentheil Collection

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Dragon Boat Race, Guangzhou
1870s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Courtesy of the Loewentheil Collection

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Waterfall in the Dinghu Mountains
1870s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Courtesy of the Loewentheil Collection

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Portrait of an Official
1870s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Courtesy of the Loewentheil Collection

Attributed to Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Culling Tea
c. 1869
Albumen silver print from glass negative
6 15/16 × 9 3/8 in. (17.6 × 23.8cm)
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Robert Rosenkranz Gift, 2005
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain

Lai Fong (Chinese, 1839-1890)
Portrait of a Merchant
c. 1870
Albumen print
29 cm x 22cm
Loewentheil Photography of China Collection

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University, 114 Central Avenue,
Ithaca, NY 14853

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday, 11am – 4pm
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

Peabody Essex Museum website

Exhibition: ‘A Lasting Memento: John Thomson’s Photographs Along the River Min’ at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem MA

Exhibition dates: 1st June, 2019 – 17th May, 2020

Curator: Sarah Kennel, PEM’s Byrne Family Curator of Photography

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) 'The Island Pagoda' 1873 from the exhibition 'A Lasting Memento: John Thomson's Photographs Along the River Min' at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem MA, June 2019 - May 2020

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
The Island Pagoda
1873
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum. Photography by Ken Sawyer

Greetings from Australia.

Since we can’t go travelling ourselves at the moment let us travel, virtually, through time – back to the 19th century – and space, to journey with Scottish-born travel photographer up the River Min to the Chinese city of Fuzhou (Foochow). Let us wonder at these European colonial photographs, reflections of pagoda, bucolic landscapes, Eastern temples, Western churches and dangerous rapids. Thomson “portrayed a halcyon land, with romanticised vistas that reference the ethereal atmosphere of Chinese paintings and the sweeping panoramas of European paintings.”

Let us luxuriate, then, in these stunning carbon prints – their rich colour, their stillness – as lasting mementos of a vanished land, as memory objects reanimated in our imagination, so that we can travel beyond our current confinement.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Peabody Essex Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

As far as travel souvenirs go, few can beat John Thomson’s leather-bound photo album Foochow and the River Min. From 1870 to 1871, the Scottish-born photographer traveled 160 miles up the River Min to document the area in and around the city of Fuzhou (Foochow), an important centre of international trade and one of the most picturesque provinces in China. Thomson sold his book by advance subscription to the foreign residents of Fuzhou – tea planters, merchants, missionaries and government officials 0 who wanted a way to share their experiences with friends and family back home.

Fewer than 10 of the original 46 copies of this album survived, and the Peabody Essex Museum is privileged to own two of them. A Lasting Memento: John Thomson’s Photographs Along the River Min presents this rare collection of photographs for the first time at PEM. The exhibition also features 10 works by contemporary Chinese photographer Luo Dan.

Installation view of the exhibition A Lasting Memento: John Thomson’s Photographs Along the River Min at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem MA

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Foochow and the River Min
1870-1871
Leather-bound photo album
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) 'Pagoda Island' 1870-1871 from the exhibition 'A Lasting Memento: John Thomson's Photographs Along the River Min' at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem MA, June 2019 - May 2020

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Pagoda Island
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) 'Yuen-Fu Rapid' 1870-1871 from the exhibition 'A Lasting Memento: John Thomson's Photographs Along the River Min' at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem MA, June 2019 - May 2020

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Yuen-Fu Rapid
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Yen Ping Rapid
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Rocks in the Rapids
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
A Reach of the Min
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
A Rapid Boat
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

Photographic Journeys Past and Present Show China in a New Light

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents a voyage into 19th-century China through one of PEM’s photographic treasures, John Thomson’s rare album Foochow and the River Min. More than forty striking landscapes, city views, and portrait studies will be on view, captured by Thomson as he travelled in the Fujian province in Southeast China from 1870 to 1871. These prints are complemented by a selection of photographs by contemporary artist Luo Dan, who was inspired by Thomson to undertake his own journey in southwestern China in 2010. A Lasting Memento: John Thomson’s Photographs Along the River Min is on view at PEM from June 1, 2019 through May 17, 2020.

From 1870 to 1871, Scottish-born photographer John Thomson traveled 160 miles up the River Min to document the area in and around the city of Fuzhou (Foochow), one of the most picturesque regions in China. Thomson gathered eighty photographs from this voyage into an album titled Foochow and the River Min which was sold by advance subscription to the foreign residents of Fuzhou – tea planters, merchants, missionaries and government officials – who wanted a way to share their experiences with friends and family back home. Of the 46 copies originally published, fewer than 10 survive today and PEM is privileged to own two of them, both of which are featured in the exhibition.

“Many people have a conception of China as very industrialised and modern, even sterile, but these photographs complicate that notion and reveal the country’s incredible beauty and geographic diversity,” says Sarah Kennel, PEM’s Byrne Family Curator of Photography. “The roots of China’s rapid modernisation go back to the 19th-century and are part of a larger history of maritime culture, trade, and globalisation that are also entwined with PEM’s origin story. This exhibition affirms how photography can bring us back to another place in time and can change the way we see the world.”

Thomson was a renowned photographer, focusing on fine art, landscape, and architectural photos, and was often credited with being one of the first photographers to use pictures in conjunction with journalistic commentary. Foochow and the River Min is accompanied by introductory text, presenting a pictorial journey featuring the character of the growing city of Fuzhou, the beauty of the landscapes surrounding the River Min, as well as Thomson’s studies of the people he encountered there.

Documenting Eastern culture

Thomson is considered one of the first photographers to document East and South Asia. Born in Scotland, he learned photography while still in school, working as an apprentice to a maker of optical and scientific instruments. In 1862, he joined his older brother William, also a photographer and watchmaker, in Singapore, where they established a studio. Thomson spent the next several years photographing throughout Asia, including Cambodia, India, and Thailand. By 1866, he had joined the Royal Ethnological Society of London, was elected a Fellow member of the Royal Geographic Society, and styled himself as an expert on Eastern cultures. In 1868, he established a studio in Hong Kong, a burgeoning centre of photography and trade. For the next four years, Thomson traveled and photographed throughout China before returning in 1872 to Britain, where he remained until his death in 1921.

The exhibition follows Thomson’s journey up the River Min, from the city of Fuzhou to Nanping. “Thomson’s extraordinary gifts as a photographer are evident in his compositions, including his famous view of the floating island pagoda,” says Kennel. “You can look at these as merely beautiful pictures, but if you unlock them a little bit they tell the story of an important moment of economic trade, cultural exchange, and political tension.”

Among the works on view are an extraordinary series on the Yuen Fu monastery, tucked high up a steep, rocky ravine. A strain of wistful romanticism is present, particularly in landscape photographs that incorporate a solitary figure.

In order to make his negatives, Thomson used the wet-collodion process. This required him to set up a large camera on a tripod and prepare the photographic plate on the spot by dipping it into light-sensitive chemicals in a makeshift darkroom, putting it in a plate holder and making the exposure within five minutes. He experimented with these processes while traveling by boat or ascending very steep hills and traversing rough terrain with a coterie of Chinese employees who not only hauled his equipment but also sometimes carried Thomson himself. Missionary and business colleagues helped facilitate introductions and provide access to unique locations so that Thomson could make his landscapes and portraits. The albums were printed using the carbon process, which imbues them with a rich, purplish tonality.

Inspired by Thomson

Contemporary Chinese photographer Luo Dan’s work focuses on the impact of modernisation and globalisation in China. Inspired by Thomson’s example, Luo traveled to the remote Nu River Valley in southwestern China, where he lived with and photographed the Lisu and Nu Christian ethnic minority communities for nearly two years, using the same hand-made wet-collodion process that Thomson had employed some 150 years earlier. Luo was especially interested in what he perceived as the villagers’ connection to local cultural traditions. A Lasting Memento features 10 works by Luo that reflect on and reverberate with the spirit and enterprise of Thomson’s 19th-century project.

Press release from the Peabody Essex Museum website

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Foochow Church
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Foochow and the River Min (Yuen Fu monastery)
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) 'Right Shoulder of Cave' 1870-1871

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Right Shoulder of Cave (view from the building above looking down to the left)
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
A Small Temple at Ku-Shan
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Road to the Plantation
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

“In an eerie parallel to today, the late 1800’s represented an international inflection point, with rampant Western industrialisation spurring expansive global trade, cultural exchange and attendant political tension. The invention of photography in 1839 enabled our earliest photographs of faraway lands and exotic cultures, most often brought back by wealthy amateurs (many of those images are held in the rich archives of the PEM.) Not so with John Thomson, a renowned professional photographer who garnered capital through pre-paid subscriptions to his album “Foochow and the River Min.” Thomson photographed the project on a two-year journey, traveling 160 miles up the River Min, from the city of Fuzhou (Foochow) to Nanping, considered one of the most picturesque regions in China.

In this scenic southeast region of China, a new British tea trade was flourishing. Thomson’s album catered to the interests of foreign tea planters, merchants, missionaries and governmental officials. These ex-patriots clamoured to share with their European family and friends Thomson’s skilfully crafted documentary photographs of the Chinese land and people who shaped their new lives. Interestingly, Thomson did not photograph much industry or commerce. Rather, he portrayed a halcyon land, with romanticised vistas that reference the ethereal atmosphere of Chinese paintings and the sweeping panoramas of European paintings. …

Thomson’s carbon prints are technically awe-inspiring. Utilising the cumbersome wet-plate collodion method of creating negatives on large, delicate glass plates that must be exposed while still wet in a hefty view camera on a tripod, Thomson then created his photographic prints on paper with the tricky but stable carbon method in his studio. I imagine this undertaking bore similarities to Hannibal crossing the Alps and that Thomson must have been a robust and determined 33 year-old. Perhaps he was also a perfectionist, because Thomson’s prints from the 1870’s are impeccably pristine. Come see, it is uncanny.”

Elin Spring. “Images of China, Then & Now,” on the What Will You Remember? website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Part of Lower Bridge
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
A Military Mandarin (detail)
1873
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives, 1972

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Hired Labourers
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Mode of Dressing the Hair
1870-1871
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum
Photography by Ken Sawyer

John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)

John Thomson (14 June 1837 – 29 September 1921) was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer, and traveller. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artefacts of eastern cultures. Upon returning home, his work among the street people of London cemented his reputation, and is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism. He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881. …

Travels in China

After a year in Britain, Thomson again felt the desire to return to the Far East. He returned to Singapore in July 1867, before moving to Saigon for three months and finally settling in Hong Kong in 1868. He established a studio in the Commercial Bank building, and spent the next four years photographing the people of China and recording the diversity of Chinese culture.

Thomson traveled extensively throughout China, from the southern trading ports of Hong Kong and Canton to the cities of Peking and Shanghai, to the Great Wall in the north, and deep into central China. From 1870 to 1871 he visited the Fukien region, travelling up the Min River by boat with the American Protestant missionary Reverend Justus Doolittle, and then visited Amoy and Swatow.

He went on to visit the island of Formosa (modern-day Taiwan) with the missionary Dr James Laidlaw Maxwell, landing first in Takao in early April 1871. The pair visited the capital, Taiwanfu (now Tainan), before travelling on to the aboriginal villages on the west plains of the island. After leaving Formosa, Thomson spent the next three months travelling 3,000 miles up the Yangtze River, reaching Hupeh and Szechuan.

Thomson’s travels in China were often perilous, as he visited remote, almost unpopulated regions far inland. Most of the people he encountered had never seen a Westerner or camera before. His expeditions were also especially challenging because he had to transport his bulky wooden camera, many large, fragile glass plates, and potentially explosive chemicals. He photographed in a wide variety of conditions and often had to improvise because chemicals were difficult to acquire. His subject matter varied enormously: from humble beggars and street people to Mandarins, Princes and senior government officials; from remote monasteries to Imperial Palaces; from simple rural villages to magnificent landscapes.

Thomson returned to England in 1872

See the full Wikipedia website entry

Luo Dan (Chinese, b. 1968)
Simple Song No. 4 (Yang Du Lei and Her Sister Yang Hua Lin, WaWa Village)
2010
Inkjet print from collodion negatives
© Luo Dan, Courtesy of M97 Gallery

Luo Dan (Chinese, b. 1968)
Simple Song No. 7 (Jin Ma Wei, Lao Mu Deng Village)
2010
Inkjet print from collodion negatives
© Luo Dan, Courtesy of M97 Gallery

Luo Dan (Chinese, b. 1968)

Luo Dan was born in Chongqing, China, in 1968 and graduated from the Sichuan Fine Art Academy in 1992. He currently lives and works in Chengdu, China.

On another trip, Luo Dan found a remote village, in the Nu River valley in the western part of Yunnan Provence that still remained authentic to a simple agricultural life. This was a predominantly Christian village, the Lisu (a Chinese minority nationality), who were converted to Christianity by missionaries many years before. Luo Dan was attracted to their lifestyle and beliefs.

Luo Dan returned to photograph the villagers with a wooden box camera that he had found in Shandong. The camera was really a museum piece with a lens from 1900 that was slightly soft in its focus. Luo Dan decided to use a wet plate collodion process. This process was first used in the 1850s, using glass plates to make a negative. The process required the photographic material to be coated, sensitised, exposed and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field. Luo Dan converted a minivan to a travelling darkroom.

Luo himself says,

“As photography grew ever more technologically complete, it drifted ever farther from its earliest starting point. External factors entered in, and its purity was gradually lost. …

The collodian process is from the earliest times of photography and although laborious, produces remarkable detail and a sense of timelessness that comes from the historic nature of the process. This area is very remote and has almost been forgotten by the modern world. In his photographs, titled “Simple Song”, Luo Dan wishes to show something of the human condition that goes beyond the preoccupations of modern China; materialism, urban development and economic growth. China’s economic achievements are remarkable but on other levels there are many gaps and voids in human experience due to this rapid development. Luo Dan’s work holds a mirror to show that there is an alternate view, one that may have a more spiritual value.

Luo Dan photographs his subjects with a very clear, steady gaze with an awareness of placement and composition. The collodion process makes very slow exposures and the subject must hold the position for up to a minute depending on the light. Often the images are slightly soft due to the movement of the subject or the surroundings. There is also a limited depth of field at times that selectively isolates the subject in front of the softer focus of the background.

His interest in this place and its people has some reference to anthropology in his scrutiny, however the photographs are so much more than an anthropological or ethnographic study by an outsider. The photographs document the lives of the Lisu people through their daily activities, their possessions and traditional costumes. The people are often posed in their Sunday best. They have a timelessness, a ‘difficult to place’ sense of being from the past but also the present and the future. The villagers could continue with this traditional lifestyle for many years to come. There is some concern however, that China’s demand for power will result in dams for hydropower, forever changing this region. Luo Dan stayed in the villages for about twelve months while making this series and he keeps returning.

The wet-plate process necessitates a very hands-on approach by the photographer. It reaches back to the basic fundamentals of photography; the effect of light on silver halide crystals that results in an image. Luo Dan’s photographs show the collodion process through the peeling and painterly edges of the prints, the marks and imperfections and the incredible detail of the collodion. The final works are the result of scanning the glass plates and printing the works to a larger scale on Ilford gold silk fibre paper. They are incredibly beautiful and capture a moment in time with great sensitivity. For some photographers who use this process it becomes all about the technique, however this is not the case. Luo Dan uses the wet-plate collodion technique as a way to return to a handcrafted skill of the past that mirrors the primitive tools and farming methods of the villagers. He is an alchemist in the way he creates ‘magic’ with his wooden box, glass and chemicals. The immediacy of the technique enables the villages to share this magic in the making of the glass plates. He is an authentic cultural observer.

In his words, “I travelled a long road, saw a lot of things, and in the end realised that all differences are actually similarities. And so I stopped, and looked in a single place for something unchanging, tried to figure out why this place had the power to stand still in time.”

Anonymous text from the China Photo Education website [Online] Cited 31/03/2020

Luo Dan (Chinese, b. 1968)
Simple Song No. 28 (Sha Yi Hai with His Crossbow, Shi Di Village)
2010
Inkjet print from collodion negatives
© Luo Dan, Courtesy of M97 Gallery

Luo Dan (Chinese, b. 1968)
Simple Song No. 62 (Door)
2012
Inkjet print from collodion negatives
© Luo Dan, Courtesy of M97 Gallery

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Review: ‘Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 22nd June, 2019 – 27th January, 2020

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Writing the body politic / broken

Ho hum, ho hum.

The exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria is an extension of the 2008 exhibition Body Language: Contemporary Chinese Photography with many of the same photographs being shown again, with new additions to the collection.

Nothing much seems to have changed in the last 12 years. Contemporary Chinese photography still concentrates on limited narratives based around the performing body, the body positioned in time and space in relation to history, memory, tradition, culture and consumerism. What the “turning points” are in the title of this exhibition remains unclear. Turning points for who? The art, the artists, the stories they tell, or the restrictive nature of contemporary Chinese culture.

Certain things remain constant: an emphasis on the performing body, (its) theatrical style, (in) elaborate tableaux, contemporary consumer society, urban reconstruction, and tradition and change. The body is usually isolated against contextless backgrounds, free floating, paired with a rather stilted iconography derived from Chinese culture – coins, calligraphy, statues, spirits, tattoos as traditional historical painting, calligraphy, buildings, revolution – focusing on “the dismantling of tradition during a period of rampant consumerism and modernisation.”

Even while these artists apparently possess, “an urgent desire to explore individual and social identity in a time of unprecedented change … that reflect the tensions in Chinese society as the processes of social change meet traditional culture and expectations head-on”, no/body mentions the elephant in the room – the repressive and aggressive nature of the Chinese government, it’s suppression of dissent both internally and externally, its appalling human rights record and its expansionist policy in the South China Sea. The paradox is that while, “Hai Bo’s paired portraits illustrate the cultural shifts that have occurred over forty years as people in China have become increasingly able to show their individuality”, that individuality is closely controlled by the State. Step out of line, as many artists have found to their peril, and you are soon done for.

No mention here of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the current democracy protests in Hong Kong, or the recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which contains a damning essay on China’s “global threat” to human rights. No other government “flexes its political muscles with such vigour and determination to undermine the international human rights standards and institutions that could hold it to account.” The HRW report cites a slew of violations ranging from the mass detention of Uyghur Muslims in the far-western autonomous region of Xinjiang, to increased censorship, to the use of technologies for mass surveillance and social control. Nothing to see here!

The work of most of the artists in this exhibition seems insular, inward looking – chained to the country’s past and present, memory and history, culture and its re/constitution. Addressing its constitution through supplication. Addressing the representation of institutional power in socialist regimes through images with heroic overtones. It’s almost as if these artists are painting symbols, painting a monosyllabic mythology of how their country was and is now with no turning point in sight. Parsing on ancient and modern to no great effect.

The only two artists who really lay it on the line, who confront the dragon, are Rong Rong’s photographs of a performance by artist Zhang Huan titled 12 square metres (1994, below) in which the artist sat naked, smeared in honey and fish oil in a local public toilet for an hour before cleansing himself in a polluted pond; and Sheng Qi’s Memories (Mother), Memories (Me) and Memories (Mao) (2000, below) in which the artist was deeply affected by the changed political climate following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and uses his disfigurement “as the backdrop for a series of self-portraits that juxtapose his past and present.”

These are the photographs that I will remember. The others, stolid, prosaic, are lost.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the images in the posting. All installation images are © Dr Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria and proceed in a clockwise direction around the exhibition. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Cang Xin (Chinese, b. 1967) Six photographs from the Communication series (1996-2006)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Cang Xin (Chinese, b. 1967) 'Communication' 1996-2006 from the exhibition 'Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, June 2019 - January 2020

Cang Xin (Chinese, b. 1967)
Communication
1996-2006
Type C photograph ed. 10/10
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
© Courtesy of the artist

Cang Xin is a celebrated performance artist who uses photography as an adjunct to his practice. In these photographs he is documenting a ritualistic performance in which he licks various objects that have a symbolic resonance for him. Each object has a link to China and its history, although those meanings remain intentionally obscured and subjective. The artist literally experiences the objects through a sense of taste and a physical action; the intimate act of licking becomes a gesture of communication or communion with the past.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at left, Qiu Zhijie (Chinese, b. 1969) Tattoo no. 7 (1994); at second left, Rong Rong (Chinese, b. 1968) East Village Beijing no. 15 (1994); and at middle right, Zhang Huan (Chinese, b. 1965) Shanghai family tree (2001)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Qiu Zhijie (Chinese, b. 1969)
Tattoo no. 7
1994
From the Tattoo series 1994
Type C photograph, ed. 8/10
101.6 x 76.2cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

In his Tattoo series, Qui Zhijie overlays self-portraits with drawings, images and objects, such as the coins shown here. Discussing this series, he writes, ‘The Tattoo series focuses on the problematic relationship between an image and its background … In this series the two find common ground. The substance of the subject, the weight of the person, and the physicality of the figure all dissolve … This series is a response to the futility and drowning of the individual brought about by the onslaught of the Chinese media culture which began to develop during the 1990s’.

Rong Rong (Chinese, b. 1968)
East Village Beijing no. 15
1994
Gelatin silver photograph, coloured dyes
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016

Rong Rong is well known for his images that show the lives and activities of the avant-garde Beijing East Village artistic community during the 1990s. This photograph is one of a series created to document a famous performance by fellow artist Zhang Huan, during which Zhang covered his naked body with honey and fish oil and sat on a stool in a public toilet, allowing flies to swarm over his body. Rong Rong’s photographs, made throughout the performance, form a crucial record of this performative action that was intended to comment on the squalid conditions in which the artists were living.

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Zhang Huan (Chinese, b. 1965) Shanghai family tree (2001)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Zhang Huan (Chinese, b. 1965)
Shanghai family tree
2001
Type C photographs ed. 25/25
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Jason Yeap and Min Lee Wong, 2008
© Zhang Huan Studio

The faces of the two young men and the young woman in Zhang Huan’s suite of nine photographs are used like the blank pages in a book carrying an increasingly oppressive weight of words. The Chinese characters inscribed on their faces gradually obliterate their features and identities. In the final photograph, the trio are shown in front of a new housing development in Shanghai. Their features are totally obscured, suggesting a parallel between the loss of personal identity and the rapid pace of development that is rendering the city unrecognisable.

In 1999 the internationally renowned Chinese performance and video artist, sculptor and photographer Zhang Huan wrote of his distinctive approach to his practice: ‘The body is the only direct way through which I come to know society and society comes to know me. The body is proof of identity. The body is language’. The complex tangle of history and tradition that can override the individual appears as a theme in much of Zhang Huan’s avant-garde performances and photographs and, as seen in this work, is frequently expressed through the use of language. In Shanghai family tree Zhang Huan (to the left) poses with a man and woman, their faces becoming increasingly obscured by Chinese characters. This work seems to suggest the importance of language which, while it can overwhelm the individual, undoubtedly also helps define a person’s relationship to society.

Installation view of the exhibition 'Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Installation view of the exhibition 'Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing a photograph from Zhuang Hui's 'One and Thirty' series (1996)

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing two photographs from Zhuang Hui’s One and Thirty series (1996)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Zhuang Hui (Chinese, b. 1963)
Untitled
1996
From the One and Thirty
Type C photograph, ed. 3/3
61.0 x 51.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh in honour of Tony Ellwood, Director NGV, 2018
© Courtesy of the artist

The series title of these photographs, One and Thirty, is didactic. There are ‘thirty’ portraits in the sequence and ‘one’ figure who appears in each image, the ever-smiling figure of the artist. Each photograph shows Zhuang Hui posed with an individual he has selected as the representative of a particular vocational or social group. In one of the works shown here Zhuang is photographed seated beside an older man holding a baby on his knee, a classic doting grandfather; in the other image he is photographed with a smartly dressed, young professional woman.

Wang Qingsong (Chinese, b. 1966)
Standard family
1996
Type C photograph, ed. 8/30
48.2 x 124.4cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2017
© Courtesy of the artist

Wang Jinsong’s Standard family project investigates contemporary Chinese culture and the effects of the one-child policy, which was introduced in China in the 1970s as a means of curbing population growth. Without any clear agenda or critical stance, Wang invited families to participate in photo shoots where the parents invariably elected to pose flanking their lone child. When the images are repeated and presented in a grid, the ‘standard’ nature of the family unit becomes evident, allowing for a reading of generic poses and expressions across the various families, and inviting speculation and commentary on the effects of collectivism when imposed on social structures.

Wang Qingsong (Chinese, b. 1966) 'Standard family' 1996 (detail)

Wang Qingsong (Chinese, b. 1966)
Standard family (detail)
1996
Type C photograph, ed. 8/30
48.2 x 124.4cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2017
© Courtesy of the artist

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Qiu Zhijie’s Standard Pose series (1996-1998)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Qiu Zhijie (Chinese b. 1969)
Fine series A
1996-1998
From the Standard Pose series 1996-1998
Type C photograph, ed. 9/10
58 x 61cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

In common with many photographers working in China in the 1990s, Qiu Zhijie uses the performing body in his images. Throughout his career he has combined performance, video and photography to create works that explore ideas of history, individuality and identity in contemporary China. The four photographs from the Standard Pose series reference propaganda images produced during the Cultural Revolution and consider the failure of the future that they promised. Photographed in a simple studio setting and wearing contemporary clothes, the models, with their overly dramatic poses and facial expressions, appear comical rather than heroic.

Qiu Zhijie (Chinese b. 1969)
Fine series C
1996-1998
From the Standard Pose series 1996-1998
Type C photograph, ed. 9/10
58 x 61cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Qiu Zhijie (Chinese b. 1969)
Fine series D
1996-1998
From the Standard Pose series 1996-1998
Type C photograph, ed. 9/10
58 x 61cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China explores the work of established and emerging photo-artists working in a time of rapid social and economic change.

In the 1990s, Chinese photography became one of the most dynamic and exciting areas in contemporary international art. Artists in China increasingly began to use photography to not only to document their lives but to question and challenge the status quo. The ‘first generation’ of contemporary Chinese artists included here – those born in the 1960s – examined the societal impact of the Cultural Revolution, and reflected on their own and their families’ personal experiences. The next generation of photographers, born in the 1980s and later, bring not only different life experience, having come of age in the twenty-first century, but are actively engaged with the global community in ways that were not possible in previous decades.

The works included in this exhibition offer commentaries on individuality and identity, cultural change, the transformation of Chinese cities, and the impact of consumerism and globalisation on contemporary society.

The National Gallery of Victoria began to collect contemporary Chinese photography in 2004, and in 2008 presented the exhibition Body Language: Contemporary Chinese Photography. Since that time the Gallery has continued to build this aspect of the collection.

More recently, in 2016 and 2017, the NGV photography collection was transformed through the generosity of Larry Warsh. An American collector, publisher and founder of AW Asia, a private organisation and exhibition space in New York, Warsh presented a suite of twenty-nine contemporary Chinese photographs as a gift to the Gallery. His donation comprises works by some of the most important Chinese photographic artists working in the 1990s and early 2000s, including Hong Lei, Rong Rong and Wang Qingsong. Warsh’s presentation effectively doubled the NGV’s holdings of contemporary Chinese photography, and this exhibition, which includes a number of works from this important gift, was made possible because of his generosity.

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria website [Online] Cited 23/12/2019

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at left, Wang Qingsong’s City walls (2002); at second left bottom Zhang Dali’s 2001 42A (2001) from the Demolition and Dialogue series; at centre, Chi Peng’s Apollo in transit (2005); at centre right, Yang Yongliang’s Eclipse (2008); and at right Huang Yan’s Chinese landscape – Tattoo (1999)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Wang Qingsong’s City walls (2002)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Wang Jinsong’s photograph shows aspects of the architecture and history of Beijing, drawing attention to the abandonment of time-honoured buildings, homes and ways of living. City walls comprises a grid of 360 images of buildings in Beijing. The great majority of the photographs are of generic concrete constructions, printed in a grey monotone. Interspersed among these are richly coloured images showing traditional architecture. The placement of the photographs in a grid creates an immediate visual link to the idiosyncratic brick construction of the older buildings, which are rapidly being replaced by new, uniform reinforced concrete structures.

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at top, Weng Fen’s On the wall: Guangzhou (4) (2002) and at bottom, Zhang Dali’s 2001 42A (2001)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Zhang Dali (Chinese, b. 1963)
2001 42A
2001
from the Demolition and dialogue series
type C photograph
63.5 × 114.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

This photograph, showing a partially demolished wall emblazoned with a large-scale painted outline of the artist’s head and his pseudonym, AK-47, brings together several aspects of the practice of multidisciplinary artist Zhang Dali. Zhang went into self-imposed exile from China in 1989 and when he returned to Beijing six years later, he found his home was in the midst of rapid change. Zhang wanted to protest the loss of traditional buildings, document the ruined remnants before they were swept away, and convey his sense of the loss of history and identity that was a consequence of those changes.

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Chi Peng’s Apollo in transit (2005)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Chi Peng’s works often contain naked figures spiriting or running through ‘history’, while refusing any start or ending of their visual narrative. Unravelling like a traditional Chinese scroll, the red brick wall surrounding the Forbidden City extends the length of this digitally altered panoramic image. The artist has inserted repeat images of himself running left to right alongside the wall, in front of a variety of onlookers. A metaphor for East / West relations, this theatrical image brings together potent symbols of traditional and contemporary life in China.

Yongliang Yang (Chinese, b. 1980)
Eclipse
2008
From the On the quiet water, heavenly city series 2008
Inkjet print 73.0 x 200.0cm (image) 81.6 x 208.2cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented by the Mering Corporation Pty Ltd through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2012
© Yang Yongliang

Yongliang Yang (Chinese, b. 1980) 'Eclipse' 2008 (detail)

Yongliang Yang (Chinese, b. 1980)
Eclipse (detail)
2008
From the On the quiet water, heavenly city series 2008
Inkjet print 73.0 x 200.0cm (image) 81.6 x 208.2cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented by the Mering Corporation Pty Ltd through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2012
© Yang Yongliang

Yang Yongliang creates an optical illusion by combining elements of a traditional Chinese shānshuǐ (mountain-water) landscape painting with imagery from modern Shanghai life. From afar, the work appears to be a watercolour on paper, representing misty mountains and an ethereal sea stretching to the horizon. Upon closer inspection, the ghostly formations are revealed as digitally constructed collages of apartment blocks, buildings, construction sites and giant cranes. The built metropolis becomes indistinguishable from the natural landscape, highlighting the insidious modernisation, construction and environmental degradation characteristic of contemporary existence.

Installation views of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Huang Yan’s Chinese landscape – Tattoo No. 4 and Chinese landscape – Tattoo No. 1 (1999)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Huang Yan (Chinese, b. 1966)
Chinese landscape – Tattoo (Number 1)
1999, printed 2004
Type C photograph, ed. 2/12
80.1 x 108.0cm irreg. (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 2004
© Huang Yan, courtesy of Red Gate Gallery, Beijing

Prior to commencing his photography practice in the 1990s, Huang Yan trained as a painter. His recent work combines the centuries-old, traditional style of landscape painting with new technology; the images are contemporary while also affirming traditional Chinese culture and values. The artist alludes to complex traditions in this ‘self-portrait’ in which his bare chest is painted with a traditional shānshuǐ (mountain-water) landscape painting. The title of the work implies permanence, yet the scenes painted on the body are ephemeral, suggesting the fragility of the natural environment and the transience of the body.

Hong Lei (Chinese, b. 1960)
After Zhao Ji’s loquat and birds (Song dynasty)
1999
Type C photograph, ed. 9/10
60.9 x 76.2cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Hong Lei (Chinese, b. 1960)
Autumn in the Forbidden City
1998
Type C photograph, ed. 7/10
60.9 x 76.2cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Wang Qingsong (Chinese, b. 1966)
Last supper
1997
Type C photograph, ed. 3/20
30.5 x 100.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Last supper was one of a number of photographs commissioned for the exhibition Christian Dior and Chinese Artists that opened at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, in 2008. The work references the iconography of Western paintings of Christian subjects, in particular depictions of the Last Supper; however, in place of the twelve disciples Wang presents fashion models, and the simple meal traditionally depicted in Western art has been replaced with a feast of digitally enhanced, oversized, unnaturally perfect fruit and vegetables. The result is an image of affluence and excess.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at centre, Wang Qingsong’s Preincarnation (2002) and at right, Shi Guowei’s Cactus garden (2016)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing one image from Wang Qingsong’s Preincarnation (2002)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Wang Qingsong works in a theatrical style, constructing and photographing elaborate tableaux in which his models play the roles of characters from traditional Chinese stories and paintings, popular culture and Western historical painting. In the foreground of this work, men carry tools to vandalise or disassemble giant sacred ‘sculptures’ standing atop lotus thrones. The title suggests that the man has been reborn into the past, and upon arriving in Chinese pre-history, is set to destroy it in his relentless pursuit of materialism. This work alludes to China’s relationship with its early history, and the dismantling of tradition during a period of rampant consumerism and modernisation.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Shi Guowei’s Cactus garden (2016)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Shi Guowei (Chinese, b. 1977)
Cactus garden
2016
Gelatin silver photograph, colour dyes
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2017

Shi Guowei’s subtly coloured image is created through the application of layered pigment to the surface of the photograph. In some areas of the work, the colour is applied with lifelike precision, in others it registers as being ‘not quite right’. His palette recalls that of early colour photographs in which the colour fades or shifts over time, creating a nostalgic quality; however, it also creates an awareness of the artificiality inherent in the scene. Although the planting in this cactus garden is ‘naturalistic’, it is clearly a constructed landscape, and not the wild arid landscape it would seem at first glance.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at top, Sheng Qi’s Memories (Mother), Memories (Me) and Memories (Mao) (2000)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Sheng Qi was a key member of the ’85 New Wave art movement in China that championed freedom of expression in the arts over state-approved Social Realism. He was deeply affected by the changed political climate following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and responded in a physically direct and shocking way. He cut off the little finger of his left hand, buried it in a flowerpot, and went into self-imposed exile in Rome. When he returned to Beijing a decade later, he used his disfigured hand as the backdrop for a series of self-portraits that juxtapose his past and present.

Sheng Qi (Chinese, b. 1965)
Memories (Me)
2000, printed 2004
Type C photograph, ed. 2/5
119.1 x 80.5cm irreg. (image) 126.9 x 86.9cm irreg. (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 2004
© Sheng Qi, courtesy of Red Gate Gallery, Beijing

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing at left in the top image, Wang Qingsong’s Another battle no. 3 (2001) and at right, Hong Hao’s My things no. 2 (2001-2002)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Wang Qingsong (Chinese, b. 1966)
Another battle no. 3
2001
Type C photograph, ed. 1/20
100 x 66cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Wang Qingsong

Wang Qingsong works in a theatrical style, constructing and photographing elaborate tableaux in which his models play the roles of characters from traditional Chinese stories and paintings, contemporary life, popular culture, and Western historical painting. In this work he shows a wounded soldier, trapped behind the battlelines, caught between gunfire and razor wire that is littered with soft-drink cans, one of the most common forms of litter found globally. In this highly theatrical image Wang has taken imagery from popular cinema and used it to highlight the challenges presented by Western-style consumerism.

Hong Hao (Chinese, b. 1965) 'My things no. 2' 2001-2002

Hong Hao (Chinese, b. 1965)
My things no. 2
2001-02
Type C photograph, ed. 6/15
59.6 x 101.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Completely filled from edge to edge with ordinary, domestic objects, this image is a visual archive of things used by the artist in everyday life. Describing his creative process, Hong Hao writes, ‘Day by day, I put my daily consumed objects into a scanner piece by piece, like keeping a visual diary. After scanning the original objects, I’ll save them in digital forms and categorise these digital files into different folders [on] my PC, in order to make a collage of them later on. This task, like a yogi’s daily practice, has become a habit in my day-to-day life as well as a tool to observe the human condition in contemporary consumer society’.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Wang Jinsong’s One hundred signs of demolition #1980 (1998)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Wang Jinsong (Chinese, 1963)
One hundred signs of demolition #1980
1998
Type C photograph ed. 22/30
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Wang Jinsong (Chinese, 1963)
One hundred signs of demolition #1995
1998
Type C photograph ed. 22/30
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

The two photographs from the series One Hundred Signs of Demolition show the Chinese character ‘chai’, meaning ‘demolition’, that is commonly painted on the walls of buildings earmarked for destruction. For Wang Jinsong it has become a symbol of the inexorable push for urban reconstruction. In his photographs ‘chai’ came to stand for the loss of the ancient city, where buildings were once on a domestic scale and constructed to facilitate interaction in communal space, and their replacement with more socially isolating multistorey tower blocks.

Hai Bo (Chinese, b. 1962)
I am Chairman Mao’s Red Guard
2000
Type C photograph, ed. 9/18
40.6 x 60.9cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

Hai Bo’s paired portraits illustrate the cultural shifts that have occurred over forty years as people in China have become increasingly able to show their individuality. In this image, a photograph of a young woman proudly wearing the uniform of the student paramilitary movement, known as the Red Guard, and holding Mao’s Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (commonly known as the Little Red Book) is shown counterpointed by a contemporary picture of the same person, now a smiling middle-aged woman wearing a floral dress. Such a garment would have been unthinkable – and unattainable – forty years earlier.

Installation view of the exhibition Turning Points: Contemporary Photography from China at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne showing Hai Bo’s Wood horse (1999)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Hai Bo (Chinese, 1962)
Wood horse
1999
Gelatin silver photograph ed. 16/20
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Larry Warsh, 2016
© Courtesy of the artist

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Exhibition: ‘Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 24th May – 13th October, 2019

Censer 灰陶熏炉 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE from the exhibition 'Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May- October, 2019

Censer
灰陶熏炉
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Xi’an Museum, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

The best thing about this exhibition were the beautiful lidded containers, flasks, everyday vessels and censers; cows, sows, goats, mythical creatures and smaller soldiers. The female attendant was divine.

Other than that I refrain from comment for fear of incriminating myself!

(perhaps a yawn would suffice)

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All photographs are iPhone images © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Epic accounts of China’s ruling dynasties, philosophies, inventions and social customs during ancient times have been passed down through the centuries in the writings of philosophers, imperial scribes and military strategists. However, it was not until archaeologists in the twentieth century unearthed evidence – masterful bronzes, delicately crafted jades and boldly decorated ceramics – that the advanced levels of civilisation, artistry and refined aesthetics that existed in the past were more fully revealed. This provided a greater understanding of the rituals, social customs, preparation for the afterlife and quest for immortality that remained central to Chinese culture.

The greatest discovery of all was in 1974, when local farmers digging an irrigation well in Lintong district, Xi’an, unearthed fragments of the terracotta warriors. With this astounding discovery the legends of ancient China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, were confirmed. In their size and number, the terracotta warriors are unique in world history and signify Qin Shihuang’s quest for immortality, his affiliation with China’s mythical rulers, and his supreme imperial mandate as the son of heaven.

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria website

Lacquered vessel, Ding 陶胎漆鼎 Warring States period, 475 - 221 BCE from the exhibition 'Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May- October, 2019

Lacquered vessel, Ding
陶胎漆鼎
Warring States period, 475 – 221 BCE
Lacquer on earthenware
Shangluo City Museum, Shangluo
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Lidded container, He (left) 彩绘陶盒 Han dynasty, 207 BCE - 220 CE from the exhibition 'Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May- October, 2019

Lidded container, He (left)
彩绘陶盒
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Ganquan County Museum, Yan’an

Lidded container, He (right)
彩绘陶盒
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Ganquan County Museum, Yan’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jar for storing grain (left)
彩绘陶仓
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Ganquan County Museum, Yan’an

Jar for storing grain (right)
彩绘陶仓
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Ganquan County Museum, Yan’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ceramic ware with boldly painted decoration became widely used as substitutes for bronze vessels during the Qin (221 – 207 BCE) and Han (207 BCE – 220 CE) dynasties. The spontaneous and energetic decoration indicates they were produced in large numbers and therefore affordable to the general public. Vessels like these were used as utensils in daily life as well as modest tomb ware to contain provisions for the afterlife, like grain, wine and other foods. Ceramic ware like water pourers or incense burners also served as affordable utensils used in ceremonies and rituals.

Wall text from the exhibition

Flask, Hu
彩绘陶壶
Spring and Autumn period, 771 – 475 BCE
Earthenware, pigments
Longxian County Museum, Baoji
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

These Han dynasty ceramic vessels maintain the elegant shapes and decorative features of Zhou dynasty bronze vessels produced 1000 years earlier. Free-flowing painted designs reference nature motifs and auspicious subjects like clouds and dragons. The Four-sided flask displays ringed handles in solid relief on either side in a direct reference to identically shaped bronze vessels from the Zhou dynasty.

Wall text from the exhibition

Hollow brick with snake and tortoise
玄武纹空心砖
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Maoling Museum, Xingping
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

The Qin state capital city changed location on numerous occasions before establishing its grandest city and ultimate capital at Xianyang in 350 BCE. Vast palaces were constructed with wooden structures and clay-tiled roofs. Palaces were decorated with magnificent murals that featured geometric and floral designs as well as figures and animals. At the fall of the Qin empire in 207 BCE, the palaces were destroyed, with the grandest of them, Epang Palace, so large it reportedly burned for more than three months. Today, nothing but foundations remain; however, an idea of their grandeur and decoration can be gained from bricks and roof tiles. Four of the bricks display the four protective spirits representing each of the cardinal directions: the turtle (north), dragon (east), vermilion bird (south) and tiger (west).

Wall text from the exhibition

Flask, Hu
彩绘陶壶
Spring and Autumn period, 771 – 475 BCE
Earthenware, pigments
Longxian County Museum, Baoji
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ritual objects and ancestral treasures

Before the establishment of a nationally unified state by Emperor Qin Shihuang in 221 BCE, China had a long history of opposing kingdoms, self-governing territories and dynasties whose customs, beliefs and refined artisanship influenced the Qin dynasty and its creativity. Family prestige, social harmony and a belief in immortality and the afterlife were central to the creation of auspicious and ceremonial objects used for burial rituals, ancestor worship and encouraging good fortune. This gallery displays some of the most exquisitely crafted of these objects, produced from the beginning of the Zhou dynasty to the end of the Han dynasty (1046 BCE – 220 CE).

Jade was believed to possess magical powers that could maintain the human life force of air or breath after death, and beautifully carved jade objects would often accompany bodies in burial to help purify the deceased’s soul for its journey to the afterlife. Bronze objects with decorative motifs and inscriptions were created to represent a symbolic connection to China’s earliest dynasties and a ‘mandate from heaven’ to rule. Gold is thought to have been introduced to China from Central Asia and was mostly used for decoration on clasps, buckles and ceremonial objects.

Wall text from the exhibition

Belt plaque
金牌饰
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Gold, jade, agate, turquoise
Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In contrast to jade, which symbolised wealth and spiritual purity, and bronze, used to produce ritual objects, gold was used to a lesser extent and served a primarily decorative purpose. The tradition of using gold for personal adornment is believed to have come to China from Central Asia, and gold became a favoured material from the Spring and Autumn period (771-475 BCE) onwards. Objects that represented personal status, such as belt hooks, belt plaques and personal adornments, were usually cast in solid gold and often featured stylised geometric dragon motifs and inlaid semiprecious stones like turquoise and agate.

Wall text from the exhibition

Door ring holder in the form of a mythological beast, Pushou
四神兽面纹玉铺首
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Jade
Maoling Museum, Xingping
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

This impressive door ring holder (pushou) in the form of a taotie mythological beast mask would support a large ring from its lower section and be positioned in the centre of doors or gateways. Its size is evidence of the grandeur of the palace or mausoleum building it once adorned. Its fierce appearance, with bulging eyes, was believed to ward off evil spirits, and its curling motifs ingeniously incorporate the four protective spirits in each corner. The four holy creatures are (clockwise from top left) the white tiger, the azure dragon, the vermilion bird and the black tortoise.

Wall text from the exhibition

In a dual presentation of Chinese art and culture past and present, the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series at the National Gallery of Victoria will present China’s ancient Terracotta Warriors alongside a parallel display of new works by one of the world’s most exciting contemporary artists, Cai Guo-Qiang, at NGV International, May 2019.

Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality is a large-scale presentation of the Qin Emperor’s Terracotta Warriors, which, discovered in 1974 in China’s Shaanxi province, are regarded as one of the greatest archaeological finds of the twentieth century and widely described as the eighth wonder of the world. The exhibition will feature eight warrior figures and two life-size horses from the Imperial Army, as well as two half-size replica bronze chariots, each drawn by four horses.

These sculptures will be contextualised by an unprecedented Australian presentation of more than 150 exquisite ancient treasures of Chinese historic art and design lent by leading museums and archaeological sites from across Shaanxi province. These include priceless gold, jade and bronze artefacts that date from the Western Zhou through to the Han dynasties (1046 BC – 220AD). Illuminating more than a millennium of Chinese history, the exhibition will showcase the magnificence and authority of the once-entombed figures and reveal, through the intricate display of accompanying objects and artefacts, the sophistication that characterised the formative years of Chinese civilisation.

Presented in parallel, Cai Guo-Qiang: The Transient Landscape, will see contemporary artist, Cai Guo-Qiang, create all new art works inspired by his home country’s culture and its enduring philosophical traditions, including a monumental installation of 10,000 suspended porcelain birds. Spiralling over visitors’ heads, the birds create a three-dimensional impression of a calligraphic drawing of the sacred Mount Li, the site of the ancient tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, and his warriors. Cai will collaborate on the exhibition’s design, creating breathtaking immersive environments for the presentation of both his work and the Terracotta Warriors.

Drawing on Cai’s understanding of ancient Chinese culture and his belief that a dialogue with tradition and history can invigorate contemporary art, he will also create a monumental porcelain sculpture of peonies, placed at the centre of a 360-degree gunpowder drawing.

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV said: ‘Thirty-six years ago, in 1982, the National Gallery of Victoria presented the first international exhibition of China’s ancient Terracotta Warriors only several years after their discovery. History will be made again in 2019, when the Qin Emperor’s Terracotta Army will return to the NGV for the 2019 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition series – this time in a sophisticated dialogue with the work one of China’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Cai Guo-Qiang.’

Of the parallel presentation, Cai said: ‘They are two rivers of time separated by two millennia, each creating a course at their own individual speed across a series of shared galleries. The ancient and the contemporary – two surges of energy that crisscross, pull, interact and complement each other, generating a powerful tension and contrast, each attracting and resisting the other.’

Jeff Xu, Founder and Managing Director, Golden Age Group said: ‘This exhibition will inspire Australian and international audiences to delve deeper into the many rich and diverse facets of China’s heritage. As Principal Partner, Golden Age is pleased to support such an ambitious world-exclusive showing in Victoria, demonstrating our commitment to Melbourne as the cultural capital. We believe this exhibition will leave a lasting impression on this city for decades to come.’

This exhibition was organised by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in partnership with Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, Shaanxi History Museum, Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Centre, and Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum of the People’s Republic of China.

Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria [Online] Cited 14/07/2019

Armoured general 铠甲将军俑 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE

Armoured general
铠甲将军俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

This general, the largest of the terracotta warriors in the exhibition, has a distinguished beard and moustache and displays a stance of importance. His position of authority is indicated by his headdress, which is the same style as that of the adjacent unarmoured general, and is further enforced by decorative tassels on his chest and back that act as insignias of rank. Generals and other high-ranking officers wore long armoured tunics that tapered from the waist to a triangular shape at the front, protecting their vital organs.

Wall text from the exhibition

Armoured military officer 中级铠甲军吏俑 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE

Armoured military officer
中级铠甲军吏俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Standing warriors weigh between 150 and 300 kilograms and usually consist of seven different parts: a plinth, feet, legs, torso, arms, hands and head. Clay was kneaded by foot, and the torso section was built up with a coil layering technique. Other parts were created by pressing soft clay into moulds, in a process similar to making roof tiles or drainage pipes. To give each warrior a unique appearance, different moulds were used and the position of fingers and arms was manipulated while the clay was soft. Folds of clothing or armour plates were added to the torso, and head features were developed with additional small pieces of clay to define the cheekbones, chin, ears, nose and hair.

Wall text from the exhibition

Standing archer 立射俑 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE

Standing archer
立射俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

The release of energy and sense of movement at the moment of firing an arrow results in archers displaying the most elegant and dramatic stances of all the terracotta warriors. The standing archer’s feet are slightly parted for balance, and he stares intently into the distance as if following the flight of an arrow just released from his bow. Displaying the topknot and braiding of a warrior, he wears a simple gown that allows freedom of movement. When created, the warriors were painted in bright colours and coated with lacquer, but this colouring had mostly been lost by the time of their excavation. New techniques of colour preservation are currently being developed at the terracotta warriors site.

Wall text from the exhibition

Unarmoured infantryman
战袍武士俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Unarmoured or light infantrymen are distinguished by their hair gathered in a top knot and their absence of armour. Their simple robes and low-slung belts give them a less military appearance; however, their half-closed right hand would have originally held a sword. We can clearly see that this figure has been reconstructed from many small broken parts. Of more than 2000 warriors unearthed to date, none have been discovered intact. It is speculated that shortly after their completion at the fall of the Qin dynasty, the victorious Han entered the terracotta warriors’ underground passages, smashed the contents and set the wooden passages on fire.

Wall text from the exhibition

Terracotta warriors

The discovery of the terracotta warriors, one of the most significant archaeological finds of the twentieth century, was made by chance. In March 1974, seeking water during a period of drought, local farmers began digging an irrigation well in Lintong district, Xi’an. Little more than a metre below ground, they unearthed fragments of the terracotta army, including a warrior’s head and a group of bronze arrowheads. Had the farmers commenced their digging a metre to the east, the warriors may have remained undetected.

The enormous tomb mound of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, is located 1.5 kilometres from the terracotta warriors. While this has been the Qin emperor’s recognised tomb site over the centuries, astoundingly the creation of the warriors who guarded it was never recorded and knowledge of their existence was lost over time. It was recorded that the emperor employed and conscripted up to 700,000 workers to construct his mausoleum, the terracotta army and other buried items, making it the largest and most ambitious mausoleum construction in China’s history. To date, approximately 2000 of an estimated 8000 warriors have been excavated, and the pieces on display here represent the variety of individuals created, their positions within the army and their styles of apparel.

The first emperor’s mausoleum, according to the grand historian

Han dynasty historian and scribe Sima Qian (145 – 86 BCE) wrote a detailed account of the construction and interior of Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum in his text Records of the Grand Historian – Basic Annals of Qin:

‘In the ninth month, the First Emperor was interred at Mount Li. When he first came to the throne, the digging and preparation work began. Later, when he had unified China, 700,000 men were sent there from all over the empire. They dug through three layers of groundwater, and poured in bronze for the outer coffin. Palaces and scenic towers for a hundred officials were constructed, and the tomb was filled with rare artefacts and wonderful treasure. Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at anyone who entered the tomb. Mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow River, and the great sea, and set to flow mechanically. Above were representations of the heavenly constellations, below were the features of the land. Candles were made from fat of “man-fish”, calculated to burn and not extinguish for a long time. The Second Emperor said: “It would be inappropriate for the concubines of the late emperor who have no sons to be out free”, [and] ordered that they should accompany the dead, and a great many died. After the burial, it was suggested that it would be a serious breach if the craftsmen who constructed the mechanical devices and knew of its treasures were to divulge those secrets.

Therefore after the funeral ceremonies had completed and the treasures [had been] hidden away, the inner passageway was blocked, and the outer gate lowered, immediately trapping all the workers and craftsmen inside. None could escape. Trees and vegetation were then planted on the tomb mound such that it resembles a hill.’

Wall text from the exhibition

Armoured military officer
中级铠甲军吏俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Civil official 文官俑 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE

Civil official
文官俑
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

In preparation for the afterlife, Emperor Qin Shihuang not only produced a terracotta army for his protection, but also ceramic administrators to look after government and civil affairs. This terracotta figure was discovered at a site adjacent to the emperor’s tomb, more than a kilometre from the terracotta army. Twelve civil officials were discovered, as well as the bones of twenty actual horses, one chariot and one charioteer. The officials all feature moustaches and a small tuft of chin hair and wear small hats believed to symbolise their status as officials or public conveyances. The attire of some civil officials includes baggy robes and a belt from which a pouch (presumably carrying a sharpening stone) and knife (to inscribe bamboo slats used for record keeping) hang.

Wall text from the exhibition

Chariot horse 车马 Qin dynasty, 221 - 207 BCE

Chariot horse
车马
Qin dynasty, 221 – 207 BCE
Earthenware
Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Horses were fundamental to the strength of Chinese rulers and sacrificial horse burials had been practised since the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE). This is particularly notable at the tomb of Duke Jing of Qi (reigned 547 – 490 BCE), which contained a pit with the remains of over 600 horses. At several separate excavation sites in the vicinity of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb, the remains of real horses and chariots have been discovered. However, the first emperor is significantly noted as the first to create life-sized horse replicas as an integral part of the terracotta army’s military formation. While the adjacent horse features a hole on each side to prevent cracking during firing, this example was ventilated through its detachable tail.

Wall text from the exhibition

Tomb gate 画像石 Eastern Han dynasty, 25 - 220 CE

Tomb gate
画像石
Eastern Han dynasty, 25 – 220 CE
Stone, pigments
Suide County Museum
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

This graphically decorated tomb gate depicts animated events and scenes of daily life typical of the Qin (221 – 207 BCE) and Han (207 BCE – 220 CE) dynasties. The lintel displays a hunting scene with men on horseback galloping at full speed – some with lances and others shooting arrows – in pursuit of wild animals. The inner left and right supports feature images of people wrestling, playing instruments, nursing children, performing acrobatics, walking with a horse, carrying goods or climbing stairs. Mythical birds, creatures and people are pictured on the rooftops and on the curling vines of the outer supports.

Wall text from the exhibition

Mythical creatures
石兽
Eastern Han dynasty, 25 – 220 CE
Stone
Xi’an Beilin Museum, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Large stone beasts lined ‘spirit paths’ leading to the tombs of emperors, royals and aristocrats to protect them in the afterlife. These two magnificent Han dynasty examples stride forward with teeth displayed and powerful tails gracefully balanced behind. The female rests her front paw on a playful infant beast, representing natural harmony, and the male beast places his paw on a ball, representing his supremacy.

Wall text from the exhibition

Female attendant
粉彩女俑
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Excavated from the Yangling tomb of the fourth Han emperor, Jing, this female attendant displays the rounded shoulders typical of a Han dynasty beauty. She wears multi-layered robes with wide sleeves and the splayed lower section fashionable among women of the time. The position of her hands, concealed in her sleeves, elegant stance and gentle expression suggest that she is waiting to attend the imperial household members.

Wall text from the exhibition

Standing soldiers
彩绘步兵俑
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Xianyang Museum, Xianyang
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Large cavalrymen 彩绘骑马俑 Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE - 9 CE

Large cavalrymen
彩绘骑马俑
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware, pigments
Xianyang Museum, Xianyang
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

A terracotta army of more than 2400 horses with riders and standing figures was discovered in 1965 by villagers levelling land at Yangjiawan, approximately twenty-two kilometres north-east of Xi’an. Due to the large number of military objects found, the site is believed to be a satellite tomb in the burial complex of the first Han emperor, Gaozu, associated with the military generals Zhou Bo and his son Zhou Yafu. Each standing warrior carries a shield and wears a loose rove, and one has painted armour. Colour remains visible on these figures and provides a good indication of their original appearance.

Label text from the exhibition

Goat
陶山羊
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Han Yangling Museum, Xianyang
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Cow
陶牛
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Han Yangling Museum, Xianyang
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Wild male dog 陶狼犬（公）Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE - 9 CE; Domestic female dog 陶家犬（母） Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE - 9 CE

Wild male dog
陶狼犬（公）
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Han Yangling Museum, Xianyang

Domestic female dog
陶家犬（母）
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Han Yangling Museum, Xianyang
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sow
陶母猪
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Group of ten soldiers
男武士俑–十人组
Western Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 9 CE
Earthenware
Han Yangling Museum, Xianyang
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

More than 40,000 small-scale terracotta warriors were discovered and excavated during the 1990s from pits adjacent to the Han Yangling tomb of Emperor Jing. Created seventy years after Qin Shihuang’s life-sized terracotta warriors, they served the same purpose as tomb guardians but were of a scale that could be more practically produced. The torsos, legs and heads were moulded separately then joined with moist clay before firing. Arms, made from wood, clothing, made from cloth, and armour, made from leather, have all perished during their 2000 years underground. The variety of faces produced from different moulds suggest a multicultural nation and the many regions and ethnicities present in the Han dynasty army.

Label text from the exhibition

Wellhead
绿釉陶井
Han dynasty, 207 BCE – 220 CE
Glazed earthenware
Xi’an Museum, Xi’an
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

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Review: ‘Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 11th December 2015 – 24th April 2016

In collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, USA

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Mao (Facing Forward)
1986
Oil on canvas
233.6 x 193.0cm
Private collection
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Time lapse

This mega-exhibition has been a popular success for the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, with over 300,000 visitors during its run. But does that make it an interesting, or even memorable, exhibition? Personally, I think this is an exhibition based on a curatorial concept, an interesting concept, that does not then lead to a memorable exhibition. I will explain why.

The idea behind the exhibition, to compare and contrast the work of Andy Warhol (one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century) and the work of Ai Weiewei (that denizen and superstar of contemporary art and free speech, in China and around the world) is sound but in reality, on actual viewing, the relationship between the ideas of both artists seems rather forced.

While the synergy of ideas between both artists is present – “a vocabulary which celebrates freedom of speech and, at the same time, the wisdom of pop culture” – evidenced through the symbology of popular culture and the specificity and uniqueness of the original, the installation of the work does neither of the artist’s work justice.

In this game of comparisons (where Andy Warhol’s photographs of New York sit opposite those of Ai Weiwei’s, where Andy Warhol’s portraits of Chairman Mao sit diagonally opposite Ai Weiwei’s) neither artist’s work can be contemplated as a whole… and it is Warhol’s work that comes out a poor second best in this artistic exchange.

Why?

Mainly because both artist’s are talking about completely different things from completely different eras and it is Ai who dominates the conversation. As Monica Tan observes in an article on the Guardian website, “In their art, Ai aggressively engages with politics and current affairs… while Warhol was forever occupied with consumerism, pop culture iconography and celebrity.”1

With regard to the work of Ai Weiwei there is the key word, aggressively. His brazen installations simply overwhelm the sophistication of the work of Andy Warhol, and this should never have happened, should never have been allowed to happen. The exhibition does not do Warhol’s work justice.

Ai Weiwei comments, “We’re dealing with different societies, Andy Warhol and I. We are involved with very different social and political circumstances. But we’re both trying to face out reality honestly and to give a better illustration of our time.”2

While the last sentence is true, facing out reality honestly does not mean that both mens work can be understood or compared in the same breath, which is what happens in this exhibition. For each artist’s work I felt there was no space to breathe in the whole eight galleries. The visitor needs at least three hours, and a couple of visits, to get through all of the work and at the end of it all you feel is rather exhausted and only a little enlightened.

After the forced curatorial concept of the whole exhibition, this is my second major criticism of the show: the unnecessary “noise” of the installation. Everything and the art kitchen sink (preferably teamed with an ancient Chinese sink with ceramic flowers growing out of it) has been thrown at the installation of the exhibition, not necessarily to its benefit.

Susan Sontag despairs of the “ambience of distraction” that pervades contemporary museums – less room to contemplate, more rooms for noise.

The NGV seems particularly adept at this distraction and this exhibition is just another example of the phenomenon. Room after room is filled to the brim with artefacts which are then placed on more noise – busy, repetitious wallpaper!

Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portraits of Mao (1972) are hung on his Mao Wallpaper (1974, reprint 2015), on the exterior of Ai Weiwei’s Letgo room (2015) meaning that you can’t really “read” the colours of the silkscreens properly as they are subsumed amongst this mass of wallpaper noise. A similar thing happens with Warhol’s Electric Chairs (1971) silkscreens and his Electric Chair (1967) painting which are hung on Warhol’s Washington Monument Wallpaper (1974, reprint 2015). This means that the luminosity of the colours of the silkscreens and painting completely loose their impact if you were viewing the works against a plain wall. They just blend into the gallery wall.

It’s as though the curators at the NGV are frightened of empty wall space, both in the number of objects in a room and the lack of negative space (plain coloured walls) behind the art works. And this is not a singular occurrence of this phenomenon at the NGV… the exhibition David McDiarmid: When This You See Remember Me featured this installation technique while the exhibition Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great was nearly ruined by garish wall colourings and patterned floors. Less is more.

Speaking of which, some of superstar of the contemporary art world Ai Weiwei’s work was, dare I say it, woeful. When he hits the mark, such as in bodies of work like the photographic series Study of Perspective (1995-2011, below), his incisive commentary on freedom and surveillance With Flowers (2013-2015) or his installation of S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes (2011), which depicts scenes from the detention cell where he was held without charge by the Chinese government for eighty-one days – he is masterful as an artist, in complete control of his visual and symbolic language.

But then you have pieces of work such as the dire Letgo (2015) (focusing on Australian activists, advocates and champions of human rights and freedom of speech) made of pseudo-LEGO which is just a hideous and ugly art work that has very few redeeming features. There also seems no logical reason to remake the famous photographic triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995, below) in children’s building bricks. To no particularly good effect, why is this statement, this re-imagining being made?

Similarly, when Ai remakes a pair of handcuffs in jade and wood, Handcuffs (2015), other than the historic qualities of the materials in relation to the history of China and issues of freedom of speech, where does the work actually take you? Not very far. Noise, noise and more noise, just a symptom and comment on our social media society.

The third major criticism of this exhibition and the most crucial to its failure to be a memorable exhibition: is its lack of TIME.

Lumping both Warhol and Ai Weiwei side by side, cheek by jowl, gives neither artist’s work the time to breathe and the viewer no time to contemplate, to IMAGINE, the relationship between the two artists. Two artist’s from different eras separated by time. Here, time (and space) is conflated as though the intervening period between them never existed. My idea was this: first, have the first four gallery rooms full of Warhol’s work so that you could understand the ambience of his colour and subtlety, yes subtlety, of his visual language. Then a dark passageway before emerging into four galleries of Ai Weiwei’s work. In this way, you could have understood each artist’s work independently of each other in a holistic way, and then made you own linkages between the two artist’s works… instead of, oh look, here’s Warhol’s photographs of NY and, oh, there’s Ai Weiwei’s photographs of NY!

This simplistic, popularist, comparative curatorial strategy never allows these major artists work room to breathe or the time and space to exist in the sphere and realm of each other. Warhol’s work is denuded by Ai’s aggressive, contemporary take on politics and freedom of speech. Warhol did not deserve that. A sense of TIME and SPACE is what this exhibition needed in its installation in order for the viewer to be able to fully contemplate and IMAGINE the relationship between the two artists. To trust the intelligence of the viewer to make the connections, not treat them as some number walking through the door. Less noise and more imagination.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Word count: 1,313

Footnotes

1/ Monica Tan. “Ai Weiwei interview: ‘In human history, there’s never been a moment like this’,” on The Guardian website, 10th December 2015 [Online] Cited 23/03/2016.

2/ “Max Delany in conversation with Ai Weiwei,” in Gallery magazine, January-February 2016. National Gallery of Victoria, 2016, p. 29.

Many thankx to the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Gao Yuan
Ai Weiwei
2012
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio

This major international exhibition features two of the most significant artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, developed by the NGV and The Andy Warhol Museum, with the participation of Ai Weiwei, explores the significant influence of these two exemplary artists on modern art and contemporary life, focusing on the parallels, intersections and points of difference between the two artists’ practices. Surveying the scope of both artists’ careers, the exhibition at the NGV presents more than 300 works, including major new commissions, immersive installations and a wide representation of paintings, sculpture, film, photography, publishing and social media.

Presenting the work of both artists, the exhibition explores modern and contemporary art, life and cultural politics through the activities of two exemplary figures – one of whom represents twentieth century modernity and the ‘American century’; and the other contemporary life in the twenty-first century and what has been heralded as the ‘Chinese century’ to come.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei premieres a suite of major new commissions from Ai Weiwei, including an installation from the Forever Bicycles series, composed from almost 1500 bicycles; a major five-metre-tall work from Ai’s Chandelier series of crystal and light; Blossom 2015, a spectacular installation in the form of a large bed of thousands of delicate, intricately designed white porcelain flowers; and a room-scale installation featuring portraits of Australian advocates for human rights and freedom of speech and information.

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria website

“Marilyn Monroe, the electric chair, Mickey Mouse, Mao Zedong, wallpaper, disasters, comic books, the Empire State Building, dollar bills, Coca-Cola, Einstein – no one knows how many works he left behind; they are varied and miscellaneous, touching upon almost all the important personalities and things of his time, and encompassing almost any possible means of expression: design, painting, sculpture, installation, recordings, photography, video, texts, advertising … Andy Warhol’s creations have rebelled against traditional, commercial, consumerist, plebeian, capitalist and globalised art… no matter when or where he was he was always taking photographs and recording; he was several decades ahead of his time. …

Andy Warhol was a self-created product, and the transmission of that product was a characteristic of his identity, including all of his activities and his life itself. He was a complicated composite of interests and actions; he practiced the passions, desires, ambitions and imaginations of his era. He shaped a broad perception of the world, an experimental world, a popular world, and a non-traditional, anti-elitist world. This is the true significance of Andy Warhol that people aren’t willing to accept, and the reason that he is still not recognised as a true artist by everyone.”

Ai Weiwei. “Ai Weiwei: A tribute to Andy Warhol,” in Gallery magazine, January-February 2016. National Gallery of Victoria, 2016, pp. 31-32.

“Warhol is someone I think of as a unique treasure from the past century, which I call the ‘American Century’. His work has all the qualities of that time and reflects all its mythologies. Warhol’s value has always been underrated. He was many evades ahead of his time. I think, even today, he is still one of the most important figures in contemporary art.”

Ai Weiwei quoted in “Max Delany in conversation with Ai Weiwei,” in Gallery magazine, January-February 2016. National Gallery of Victoria, 2016, p. 27.

Ai Weiwei in conversation with Virginia Trioli

Icons and iconoclasm

Andy Warhol is among the most influential artists of the twentieth century. He was a leading figure in the development of Pop Art, and his influence extended to the worlds of film, music, television and popular culture. Warhol created some of the most defining iconography of the late twentieth century through his exploration of consumer society, fame and celebrity, media and advertising, politics and capital.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist, social activist and one of today’s most renowned contemporary artists. His provocative work encompasses diverse fields, including visual art, architecture, curatorial practice, cultural criticism, social media and activism. Ai’s practice addresses some of the most critical global issues of the early twenty-first century, such as the relationship between tradition and modernity, the role of the individual and the state, questions of human rights and the value of freedom of expression.

In this gallery we are introduced to the artists through their engagement with self-portraiture and self-representation, and through some of their most iconic, performative and iconoclastic works. These works not only attest to both artists’ transformation of aesthetic value through artistic innovation and experimentation, but also reference their shared interest in cultural heritage and vernacular expression in the United States and China, respectively.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Mao
1972
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
208.3 x 154.9cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center for the Arts
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

The source image for Warhol’s numerous portraits of Mao Zedong is the frontispiece to the Chairman’s famous Little Red Book of quotations. Mao’s image was in the media spotlight in 1972, the year US President Richard Nixon travelled to China, and his official portrait could be seen on the walls of homes, businesses and government buildings throughout the country. It was also extremely popular among literary and intellectual circles in the West. Warhol’s repetition of the image as pop-cultural icon underlines the cult of celebrity surrounding Mao, and the ways in which the proliferation of images in media and advertising promotes consumer desire and identification.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Cultural revolutions

Andy Warhol’s Mao paintings, based on a photograph of Mao Zedong taken from his famous Little Red Book of quotations (1964-1976), adopt the subject matter of totalitarian propaganda to create pop portraits of the communist leader. Created in 1972, the year US President Richard Nixon travelled to China – signalling a thawing of relations between the two nations after almost three decades of intense political rivalry – Warhol’s paintings address the cult of personality surrounding Mao. Warhol’s Mao paintings, prints and wallpaper highlight not only the status and influence of the Chinese leader at the height of the Cold War, but also the instrumental role the repetition of images played in establishing his fame.

In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, avant-garde artists in China embraced a wide range of aesthetic positions, including Pop and postmodern critiques of Socialist Realism, sometimes known as cynical realism, to recalibrate historical Chinese images and propaganda. These deadpan critiques of official state imagery are apparent in Ai Weiwei’s large-scale, hand-painted images of Mao produced in the mid 1980s in New York. Ai’s representations of Mao subject the communist leader to various distortions familiar from television signals and screens and painterly gestural abstraction.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait with Skull
1977
Polaroid™ Polacolor Type 108
10.8 x 8.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Gao Yuan
Ai Weiwei
2009
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei studio

This self-portrait was shot by Ai in an elevator while being taken into police custody in 2009. On the night before the trial of a fellow political activist in Chengdu Ai was preparing for, Chinese police officers forced their way into his hotel room around 3 am and arrested him. This candid, documentary-style snap plays on the tradition of the ‘selfie’ in contemporary social media, transforming the form into a political tool. Illumination is a defiant expression of personal autonomy.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Gun
1981-1982
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
177.8 x 228.6 x 3.2cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Images of death and disaster were a recurrent theme for Warhol from the early 1960s onwards – a preoccupation fatefully realised at a personal level in 1968 when he was shot and seriously injured by the radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas. The gun in the painting is similar to the .22 pistol that Solanas used. While it may be read as autobiographical, Warhol’s Gun series can also be considered in the tradition of still life. It reflects on the ubiquity of violence in popular culture and the media, as well as the role of guns in US culture.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Jackie
1964
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
50.8 x 40.6 x 1.9cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Cat in Front of Church
c. 1959
Ink, graphite, and Dr. Martin’s Aniline dye on Strathmore Seconds paper
57.5 x 45.1cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Cat Collage (from 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy)
c. 1954
Ink, Dr. Martin’s Aniline dye, and collage on Strathmore paper
73.7 x 58.4cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Julia Warhola (American, 1892-1972)
So Happy
1950s
Ink, graphite and aniline dye on paper
24.8 x 31.8cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Early drawings

Andy Warhol’s and Ai Weiwei’s practices, like those of many artists, began with a strong interest in drawing. Following art school at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Warhol relocated to New York and worked as a commercial illustrator throughout the 1950s. His professional success was largely due to a simple yet sophisticated style and his ability to create art quickly using the ‘blotted line’ technique – a signature style which combined drawing with very basic printmaking. One of his best known advertising campaigns in the 1950s was for I. Miller Shoes; other clients included book publishers, record companies and fashion magazines. These early drawings are of a more personal nature and reveal Warhol’s interest in themes explored in later paintings, screen-prints and films, such as beauty, celebrity, commodities and urban life.

Ai’s early drawings display the poetic sensibility of a young artist whose childhood was largely spent in western Xinjiang Province, a remote desert area where his father, the eminent poet and intellectual Ai Qing had been sent for manual labour and ‘re-education’ during the Cultural Revolution. Made in the late 1970s, when Ai became involved in burgeoning democracy movements and the avant-garde artists’ collective the Stars group, the drawings – while classical in appearance – are marked by an individualistic world view and artistic experimentation at odds with the officially sanctioned aesthetics of Socialist Realism.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
You’re In
1967
Spray paint on glass bottles in printed wooden crate
Crate: 20.3 x 43.2 x 30.5cm
Bottles (each): 20.3 x 5.7cm
Diameter: 18.7cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Neolithic Pottery with Coca Cola Logo
2007
Paint, Neolithic ceramic urn
27.94 x 24.89cm
Private collection
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Three Marilyns
1962
Acrylic, silkscreen ink, and graphite on linen
35.6 x 85.1cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Warhol’s paintings of Marilyn Monroe were made from a production still from the 1953 film Niagara, and are among his first photo-silkscreen works. Warhol recalls that he began using this process in August 1962: ‘When Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make silkscreens of her beautiful face – the first Marilyns’. The repetition of Monroe’s image can be read as a memorial for the deceased American icon as well as a reflection of the media’s insatiable appetite for celebrity and tragedy.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait No. 9
1986
Synthetic polymer paint and screenprint on canvas
203.5 x 203.7cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the National Gallery Women’s Association, Governor, 1987
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

It is perhaps surprising, in view of his self-consciousness and fondness for the anonymity of silkscreen printing, that Warhol produced many self-portraits over a twenty-year period. In Self-Portrait No. 9 his gaunt, disembodied image floats against a starry black background, partially concealed by a fluorescent camouflage pattern – an eloquent reflection on the nature of fame and privacy in an age of mass media. Produced only months before Warhol’s death from surgical complications, this haunting self-portrait is sometimes interpreted as a postmodern death mask.

Nine months before his untimely death due to complications after gall bladder surgery, Warhol undertook a large series of iconic self-portrait paintings. Many viewers and critics alike regard these gaunt staring faces as memento mori, or reminders of human mortality. Each work centres on a levitating head surrounded by a halo of spiky hair. Monumental in scale, the works have a melancholic, haunting quality created in part by the use of dark tones and a dense black ground, and in part by variations across the series in the ghostlike negative photographic reproduction.

Text from exhibition wall panels

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Silver Liz [Ferus Type]
1963
Silkscreen ink, acrylic, and spray paint on linen
101.6 x 101.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

The first series of Warhol paintings on a silver background – the Electric Chairs and Tunafish Disasters of 1963 – suggest that the artist’s silver paintings are related to death. Even in the Liz paintings, which appear to highlight Elizabeth Taylor’s Hollywood career, there is an underlying theme of mortality. Warhol created this portrait when Taylor was at the height of stardom, but also very ill with pneumonia. He later recalled: ‘I started those a long time ago, when she was so sick and everyone said she was going to die. Now I’m doing them all over, putting bright colours on her lips and eyes’.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Fabis Statue of Liberty
1986
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
127.0 x 177.8cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Warhol returned to the Statue of Liberty image many times during his career, repeatedly adapting the iconic form from different stylistic angles. In this work, Warhol focused on Lady Liberty’s face to produce a heroic celebrity portrait. The painting was created in 1986 – 100 years after the statue arrived in New York as a gift from France. The Fabis logo in the painting’s left corner is that of a French cookie company. Warhol played with all sorts of brands and logos in large-scale paintings of this period, often juxtaposing brands on top of images in contradictory and humorous ways.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
2006
From the Study of Perspective series 1995-2011
Type C photograph
Various dimensions
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

The Study of Perspective series of photographs depicts Ai defiantly raising his middle finger to architectural monuments symbolic of state and cultural power. Measuring the distance between the artist and his subject, the composition of these works invokes the spatial relationship between the individual and the state while also echoing the unforgettable image of a lone demonstrator blocking the path of a military tank at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China
1995
From the Study of Perspective series 1995-2011
Type C photograph
Various dimensions
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Christopher Makos (American, b. 1948)
Andy Warhol in Tiananmen Square
1982
© Christopher Makos 1982, makostudio.com

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the NGV maps out where the two artists intersect. Works such as Ai’s neolithic urn defaced with a Coca-Cola logo seem to echo Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. But it would be reductive to call Ai “the Andy Warhol of 2015”. He says the show is interesting because it simultaneously highlights how close but also “so far away, so far apart” the artists are in their respective cultural backgrounds.

In their art, Ai aggressively engages with politics and current affairs (such as his moving roll call of the more than 5,000 students that died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake) while Warhol was forever occupied with consumerism, pop culture iconography and celebrity.

A frisson is created by their respective portrayals of Mao Zedong hung in tandem. Ai says Warhol was a “very keen and very sensitive” artist, but portrayed the chairman as “no different to Marilyn Monroe or a Coca-Cola sign – purely a sign or signature of that time.”

The Chinese artist has a very different relationship to the ruthless political leader who he says was “very responsible” for damaging the nation, the destruction of so much Chinese tradition and so much personal, family crisis (Ai’s father, the notable poet Ai Qing, was exiled to Xinjiang as part of the late 1950s anti-rightist campaign).

In another room Warhol’s photographic impressions of China during a 1982 visit face Ai’s photos of his life in New York. Ai finds it strange Warhol visited the country since it was “every bit” the opposite of what he believed. “He said China was not beautiful because it didn’t have McDonald’s yet.”

Extract from Monica Tan. “Ai Weiwei interview: ‘In human history, there’s never been a moment like this’,” on The Guardian website, 10th December 2015 [Online] Cited 23/03/2016.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait
1981
Polaroid™ Polacolor 2
3 3/8 x 4 1/4 in. (8.6 x 10.8cm)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Edward Wallowitch (American, 1933-1981)
Andy Warhol Holding Kitten
1957
Gelatin silver photograph
13.3 x 17.5cm (sheet)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.3.2810)
© 2015 Estate of Edward Wallowitch, all rights reserved

Edward Wallowitch (American, 1933-1981)
Andy Warhol with Siamese Cat
c. 1957
Gelatin silver photograph
14.9 × 21.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 Estate of Edward Wallowitch, all rights reserved

AW: Contemporary art always changes its own form; it is always questioning its own condition. Social media is a way to connect and, for me as an artist, it is also a way to connect to reality and search for new expressions and ways to communicate. This has become essential because contemporary art is not a series but a practice. It is connected to our inherent human need to express our inner world, and to make that association possible with others. Social media is the best for this purpose.

MD: Warhol’s Polaroids and portrait paintings not only document his social milieu but also constitute a form of history painting. You recently embarked upon two major portrait projects, including Trace, 2014, and Letgo, 2015, focusing on Australian activists, advocates and champions of human rights and freedom of speech. Can you expand on the relationship between portraiture, celebrity, dissidence and political authority?

AW: These things differ a lot and they form different sections of human expression. As humans, our feelings relate to our desires, fears, anxieties or inner needs for justice and fairness. Above all, we have the idea of right or wrong, but we also make aesthetic judgements about proportion, light, colour, shape and sound. All these aspects have to work together to express ourselves.

Our values are not abstract. They are really about out wellbeing as humanity. We’re dealing with different societies, Andy Warhol and I. We are involved with very different social and political circumstances. But we’re both trying to face out reality honestly and to give a better illustration of our time.

Ai Weiwei quoted in “Max Delany in conversation with Ai Weiwei,” in Gallery magazine, January-February 2016. National Gallery of Victoria, 2016, p. 29.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick [ST308]
1965
16mm film, black-and-white, silent, 4.6 minutes at 16 frames per second
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved

Steve Schapiro (American, 1934-2022)
Andy Warhol Under the Silver Cloud Pillow, New York
1965
© Steve Schapiro; Andy Warhol artwork
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

A major international exhibition featuring two of the most significant artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei – will open at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, in December 2015, and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, in June 2016.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, developed by the NGV and The Warhol, with the participation of Ai Weiwei, will explore the significant influence of these two exemplary artists on modern and contemporary life, focussing on the parallels, intersections and points of difference between the two artists’ practices. Surveying the scope of both artists’ careers, the exhibition at the NGV will present over 300 works, including major new commissions, immersive installations and a wide representation of paintings, sculpture, film, photography, publishing and social media.

Presenting the work of both artists’ in dialogue and correspondence, the exhibition will explore modern and contemporary art, life and cultural politics through the activities of two exemplary figures – one of whom represents twentieth century modernity and the ‘American century’; and the other contemporary life in the twenty-first century and what has been heralded as the ‘Chinese century’ to come.

Ai Weiwei commented, “I believe this is a very interesting and important exhibition and an honour for me to have the opportunity to be exhibited alongside Andy Warhol. This is a great privilege for me as an artist.”

Ai Weiwei lived in the United States from 1981 until 1993, where he experienced the works of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, among others. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) was the first book that Ai Weiwei purchased in New York, and was a significant influence upon his conceptual approach. Ai Weiwei’s relationship to Warhol is explicitly apparent in a photographic self-portrait (taken in New York in 1987) in which Ai Weiwei poses in front of Warhol’s multiple self-portrait, adopting the same gesture.

Each artist is also recognised for his unique approach to notions of artistic value and studio production. Warhol’s Factory was legendary for its bringing together of artists and poets, film-makers and musicians, bohemians and intellectuals, drag queens, superstars and socialites, and for the serial-production of silkscreen paintings, films, television, music and publishing.

The studio of Ai Weiwei is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach, post-industrial modes of production, engagement with teams of assistants and collaborators, and strategic use of communications technology and social media. Both artists have been equally critical in redefining the role of ‘the artist’ – as impresario, cultural producer, activist, and brand – and both are known for their keen observation and documentation of contemporary society and everyday life.

Andy Warhol (born Pittsburgh 1928 – died New York 1987) was a leading protagonist in the development of Pop Art, and his influence extended beyond the world of fine art to music, film, television, celebrity and popular culture. Warhol created some of the most defining iconography of the late twentieth century, through his exploration of consumer society, fame and celebrity, media, advertising, politics and capital.

The NGV will present over 200 of Warhol’s most celebrated works including portraits, paintings and silkscreens such as Campbell’s Soup, Mao, Elvis, Three Marilyns, Flowers, Electric Chairs, Skulls and Myths series; early drawings and commercial illustrations from the 1950s; sculpture and installation, including Brillo Boxes 1964, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Boxes 1964, and Silver Clouds 1968; films such as Empire 1964, Blow job 1964, and Screen Tests 1965, among others from Warhol’s extensive filmography; music and publishing; alongside a selection of previously unseen work. The exhibition will also bring together a wide range of photography including over 500 Polaroids documenting Warhol’s friends, colleagues, artistic and social milieux.

Ai Weiwei (born Beijing 1957) is an artist and social activist who is among the most renowned contemporary artists practicing today. One of China’s most provocative artists, his work encompasses diverse fields including visual art, architecture, publishing and curatorial practice, cultural criticism, social media and activism. Ai Weiwei’s work addresses some of the most critical global issues of the early twenty-first century, including the relationship between tradition and modernity, the role of the individual and the state, questions of human rights, and the value of freedom of expression.

For the NGV exhibition, a suite of major commissions will be premiered, including a new installation from the Forever bicycles series and a new monumental work from his Chandelier series, among others. These will be presented alongside key works by Ai Weiwei from his early drawings in the 1970s, readymades of the 1980s, and painting, sculpture and photography of the 1990s and 2000s. New and recent installations, including new configurations of major works such as S.A.C.R.E.D. 2013 and Trace 2014, will sit alongside a wide range of photography, film and social media from over the past four decades. It will be the most comprehensive representation of the artist’s work in Australia to date.

Three major illustrated publications

The Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei exhibition will be accompanied by a suite of three dynamic and visually-led publication formats: a deluxe collectors’ book in a presentation case, including an original limited-edition print by Ai Weiwei; a prestigious hardback edition; and sumptuous paperback volume. The major publications will explore the conceptual, formal, strategic and historical resonances between both artists’ work.

Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria

Andy Warhol’s expanded cinema and multimedia performance the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI), featuring legendary rock group The Velvet Underground and Nico, debuted in April 1966 at The Dom, a Polish meeting hall in New York City. In the context of Warhol’s own practice, the EPI evolved from his work as a filmmaker, the social environment of his studio and earlier performances known as Andy Warhol, Up-Tight, in which members of Warhol’s entourage antagonistically confronted the audience while The Velvet Underground played onstage.

The EPI was a sensory assault – an immersive sound-and-light environment involving numerous collaborators. Warhol shot new footage that was projected simultaneously with older films as part of the show. Danny Williams helped orchestrate light effects, including strobes, spotlights and assorted coloured gels and mattes; Jackie Cassen created psychedelic slides; Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov, and Ingrid Superstar staged dance routines with sadomasochistic theatrics; and The Velvet Underground performed their proto-punk songs and avant-garde rock improvisations at ear-splitting volume.

This evocation of the EPI is the result of detailed research by The Andy Warhol Museum into the original performances. It includes films that were projected during the shows, digitised copies of the slides, mattes that were used and live recordings of the Velvet Underground and Nico.

Text from exhibition labels

Steve Schapiro (American, 1934-2022)
Andy Warhol Blowing Up Silver Cloud Pillow, Los Angeles
1966
© Steve Schapiro; Andy Warhol artwork
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Ai Weiwei at National Gallery of Victoria exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, 11 December 2015 – 24 April 2016
Ai Weiwei artwork © Ai Weiwei
Photo: John Gollings

Ugo Mulas (Italian, 1928-1973)
Andy Warhol, Gerard Malanga and Philip Fagan in New York
1964
Image courtesy Ugo Mulas Archive
© Ugo Mulas Heirs. All rights reserved. Courtesy Archivio Ugo Mulas, Milano – Galleria Lia Rumma, Milano/Napoli; Andy Warhol artwork
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Coloured Vases
2006
Neolithic vases (5000-3000 BC) and industrial paint
Dimensions variable
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

In Ai’s series of Coloured Vases, ongoing since 2006, Neolithic and Han dynasty urns are plunged into tubs of industrial paint to create an uneasy confrontation between tradition and modernity. In what might be considered an iconoclastic form of action painting, Ai gives ancient vessels a new glaze and painterly glow, appealing to new beginnings and cultural change through transformative acts of obliteration, renovation and renewal.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Campbell’s Soup II: Tomato-Beef Noodle O’s
1969
Screen print on paper
88.9 x 58.4cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Warhol’s paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans were first exhibited at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1962, and he returned to the subject repeatedly throughout his career. The works’ readymade commercial imagery, mechanical manufacture and serial production ran counter to prevailing artistic tendencies, offering a comment on notions of artistic originality, uniqueness and authenticity. The familiar red-and-white label of a Campbell’s Soup can was immediately recognisable to most Americans, regardless of their social or economic status, and eating Campbell’s Soup was a widely shared experience. This quintessential American product represented modern ideals: it was inexpensive, easily prepared and available in any supermarket.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
1983
From the New York Photographs series 1983-93
Silver gelatin photograph
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Brillo Soap Pads Box
1964
Silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
43.2 x 43.2 x 35.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

First created in late 1963, Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Box recasts the Duchampian readymade through the lens of American popular culture. Warhol produced approximately 100 of these boxes for his exhibition at Stable Gallery, New York, in March 1964, where they were tightly packed and piled high in a display reminiscent of a grocery warehouse. Unlike Duchamp’s use of real objects as readymade works of art, Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Boxes are carefully painted and silkscreened to resemble everyday consumer items. For philosopher Arthur C. Danto, Warhol’s Brillo boxes marked the end of an art-historical epoch and represented a new model of how art could be produced, displayed and perceived.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Forever Bicycles
2011
Installation view at Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

The assembly and replication of readymade bicycles in Ai’s Forever Bicycles series, ongoing since 2003, promotes an intensely spectacular effect. ‘Forever’ is a popular brand of mass-produced bicycles manufactured in China since the 1940s and desired by Ai as a child. Composed from almost 1500 bicycles, this installation suggests both the individual and the multitude, with the collective energy of social progress signalled in the assemblage and perspectival rush of multiple forms.

Forever Bicycles disconnects the bicycles from their everyday function – reconfiguring them as an immense labyrinth-like network. The multi-tiered installation also achieves an architectural presence, much like a traditional arch or gateway to the exhibition.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Flowers
1970
Screen print on paper
91.4 x 91.4cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Experimenting with decoration – one of modernist painting’s most controversial subjects – Warhol’s Flowers prints were exhibited in tight grids at his first show at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City, in 1964. A subsequent series was exhibited in Paris, where more than 100 works were hung almost edge to edge, mimicking the decorative effect of wallpaper. The source photograph, taken by Patricia Caulfield, appeared in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine. Caulfield sued to maintain ownership of the image, and while the suit was settled out of court, the issues of authorship and copyright it raised remain relevant to contemporary art debates.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Flowers

Flowers in Western art history have symbolised love, death, sexuality, nobility, sleep and transience. In Chinese culture flowers also carry rich and auspicious symbolic meanings; from wealth and social status to beauty, reflection and enlightenment. The flower is a repeated motif in Andy Warhol’s work, from his earliest drawings and commercial illustrations to his Pop paintings and prints, first shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, in 1964. While the production of Warhol’s Flower paintings and silkscreens through the 1960s and early 1970s coincided with the burgeoning Flower Power movement, their bold plasticity, mechanical reproduction and seriality also suggested a more commercial undercurrent to the counterculture.

Flowers feature repeatedly in the work of Ai Weiwei, from his celebrated Sunflower Seeds, 2010, to a new installation, Blossom, 2015, composed of thousands of delicate white flowers created in the finest traditions of Chinese porcelain production. Along with poetic ideals of beauty, remembrance and renewal Ai directs the symbolism of flowers towards political ends in projects such as With Flowers, 2013-15, a daily act of placing fresh flowers in the basket of a bicycle outside Ai’s studio, for the benefit of surveillance cameras trained upon it. The act was a form of protest against the Chinese authorities’ confiscation of the artist’s passport and restriction of his right to travel freely.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Debbie Harry
1980
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
106.7 x 106.7cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait
1966-67
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
55.9 x 55.9cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Ai Weiwei (Chinese 1957- )
At the Museum of Modern Art
1987
From the New York Photographs series 1983-93
Silver gelatin photograph
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei; Andy Warhol artwork © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

New York / Beijing

Andy Warhol fanatically recorded his everyday life on audiotape, celluloid and photographic film. He moved effortlessly between underground, avant-garde and glamorous social circles and his photographs of the 1970s and 1980s provide an intimate insight into his social world. They also show his keen observation of the urban life, architecture, advertising, popular culture and personalities of his adopted New York City. When Warhol visited China in 1982, he turned his photographic gaze to the people and significant sites of a culture in transition.

Ai Weiwei lived in New York for a decade from 1983 onwards, and his New York Photographs document the young artist’s social context as part of the city’s Chinese artistic and intellectual diaspora community. The images also show his participation on the margins of the New York art world; his commitment to social activism; his involvement with influential poets, such as Allen Ginsberg; and his identification with the work of Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns and Warhol.

In one photograph, taken at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987 – the year of Warhol’s death – Ai, in his late twenties, identifies himself explicitly with Warhol by adopting a Warholian pose in front of the Pop artist’s multiple Self-Portrait of 1966.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Electric Chair
1967
Synthetic polymer paint screenprinted onto canvas
137.2 x 185.1cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1977
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

This stark, singular image of an empty electric chair is one of Warhol’s most austere works. It is based on a 1953 death chamber photograph taken at New York’s notorious Sing Sing Prison, where the convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been executed in January 1953 at the height of the Cold War. Warhol used this image for all of his Electric Chair paintings and prints, varying the cropping and background colours. As Warhol noted: ‘You’d be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background colour matches the drapes’.

The Electric Chairs series of prints from 1971 employ imagery first developed in Warhol’s paintings of 1967. The repeated single image derives from a photograph of the electric chair in New York’s Sing Sing Penitentiary released by the press service Wide World Photo on the day two Soviet spies were executed in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. Warhol’s treatment, using pastel decorator colours applied in a painterly manner, contrasts with the macabre scene devoid of human presence.

Text from exhibition wall panels

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
S.A.C.R.E.D. (detail)
2011-13
6 dioramas; fibreglass, iron
377.0 x 197.0 x 148.4cm (each)
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Ai’s major installation S.A.C.R.E.D., [is] a series of architecturally scaled dioramas depicting scenes from the detention cell where he was held without charge by the Chinese government for eighty-one days in 2011. The work consists of six parts to which its acronymic title refers: Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy and Doubt. The maquettes serve as archaeological evidence of the denial of personal freedom and dignity that Ai and many other dissidents have experienced, and cast him in the dual roles of rebel and victim of oppression.

Text from exhibition wall panel

The individual and the state

The relationship between individual freedom and state power is a relevant subject for both Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei. Warhol began exploring the electric chair as a motif in 1963, and the image remains a potent symbol of state disciplinary power. The artist’s celebrated Death and Disaster series – including representations of political assassinations, guns and knives, the hammer and sickle and most-wanted men – also explores the glamorisation of violence in the United States. These works, as well as the spectacular images of capital itself in Warhol’s Dollar Signs series, might be seen as a grand narrative of his time.

As an artist and human rights activist committed to freedom of expression, Ai Weiwei has been a longstanding advocate of individual acts of resistance against state, political or corporate power. Ai’s irrepressible impulse to defy the authority of the state is illustrated through his art and political activism. Vocal criticisms of Chinese government policy made by Ai on his blog led to its shutdown by authorities in 2009, and he was detained without charge for eighty-one days in 2011. Ai regained the right to travel only recently, in July 2015, when his passport was reinstated.

Text from exhibition wall panel

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
1995
3 silver gelatin photographs
148.0 x 120.0cm each (triptych)
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (details)
1995
3 silver gelatin photographs
148.0 x 120.0cm each (triptych)
Ai Weiwei Studio
© Ai Weiwei

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Elvis
1963
Synthetic polymer paint screenprinted onto canvas
208 x 91cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

Warhol’s full-length portraits of Elvis Presley were first shown in 1963, accompanied by a series of portraits of film star Elizabeth Taylor. These large-scale screen-printed paintings show Warhol’s innovative painterly approach in the early 1960s. The image of popular American singer and actor Elvis Presley – derived from a publicity still for the film Flaming Star (1960) – captures him at the height of his acting career. The painting references the power and transience of fame while also highlighting violence in the cultural mythology of America.

Text from exhibition wall panel

NGV International
180 St Kilda Road

Opening hours for exhibition
10am – 5pm daily

Exhibition: ‘Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Part 1

Exhibition dates: 11th December 2015 – 24th April 2016

Marcus photographing the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Nick Henderson

A monster posting of installation images of the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, in chronological order. Thoughts to follow. See my review of the exhibition.

Marcus

Many thankx to the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to take and publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Ai Weiwei talking to the media in front of his installation Forever Bicycles (2015) at the opening of the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Forever Bicycles (installation details)
2015
Stainless steel bicycle frames
Courtesy Ai Weiwei and Lisson Gallery, London
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei at the opening of the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the first room including Andy Warhol’s Dollar Sign (1981) and screen prints from his Campbell’s Soup II series (1969), with Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (2015) made of LEGO-style plastic bricks at back left with, on the floor, his Coloured Vases (2015).
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the first room including Andy Warhol’s screen prints from his Campbell’s Soup II series (1969), with Ai Weiwei’s Coloured Vases (2015, detail)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the first room including Andy Warhol’s Dollar Sign (1981), with Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (2015) made of LEGO-style plastic bricks, with on the floor his Coloured Vases (2015, detail)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Coloured Vases (installation details)
2015
Synthetic polymer paint, Neolithic earthenware jars
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (installation views)
2015
Plastic
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (installation details)
2015
Plastic
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai’s photographic triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, which shows the artist holding, releasing and smashing a Han dynasty vase, is one of the artist’s most iconic works and demonstrates his critical engagement with China’s violent cultural tradition. Drawing attention to the desecration of cultural heritage, the artist’s performative action is presented matter-of-factly, with the viewer left to contemplate the event and what might be salvaged from the destruction. Ai has recreated the image here in children’s building blocks, in pixelated form, attesting to the distribution of images by digital technologies.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Neolithic Pottery with Coca-Cola Logo (installation view)
2007
Metallic paint, earthenware jar
Collection of Larry Warsh, New York
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Bringing together a readymade cultural artefact (after Marcel Duchamp) and pop-cultural imagery (after Andy Warhol), Ai’s painted Neolithic vase presents a rich albeit uneasy confrontation of elements. The Coca-Cola logo – emblem of American capitalism and brand identity – adorns an ancient, revered Chinese artefact. In branding a unique handcrafted object with a product of mass-consumption, Ai delivers a nuanced cultural comment, candidly invoking the conflicted contemporary identity of Chinese cultural heritage, socialist government and capitalist economics.

Installation views of second room including at centre, Ai Weiwei’s Pillar through Round Table (2004-2005) with Ai’s black and white photographs behind

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Pillar through Round Table
2004-2005
Elm, ironwood
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Purchased 2006
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Pillar through Round Table is constructed from a pair of elmwood half-tables bisected horizontally by an ironwood pillar. It is one of an extensive body of works by Ai composed of furniture and architectural fragments from the Qing dynasty period (1644-1911) which have been dismantled and painstakingly reassembled with the assistance of highly skilled carpenters to create new and often confounding arrangements. Ai’s reinvention of historical forms serves to enliven traditional crafts and skills, while his disavowal of modern industrial production processes also acts as a counterpoint to contemporary models of productivity and efficiency in Chinese industrial production.

Installation views of Ai Weiwei’s Pillar through Round Table (2004-2005, details) with Ai’s black and white photographs at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation views of second room including, at centre, Ai Weiwei’s Pillar through Round Table (2004-2005) with a group of Andy Warhol’s black and white photographs behind at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Passageway between second and third rooms at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation views of the third room including at centre, Ai Weiwei’s Tonne of Tea (2006) and And Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964) at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Tonne of Tea
2006
Compressed pu’er tea, wood base
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing

Ai’s Tonne of Tea is a readymade object redolent of the artist’s cultural context and heritage. Ai’s compressed cube of Pu’er tea – a staple of Chinese life, trade and custom – recalls not only the commercial aesthetics of Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Box but also the minimalist sculpture of postwar American artists such as Donald Judd, while introducing a specifically Chinese historical reference and cultural narrative into the readymade tradition.

Installation views of the third room including Ai Weiwei’s Tonne of Tea (2006) and And Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964) and You’re in (1967) at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Brillo Soap Pads Box
1964
Silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
You’re in
1967
Spray paint, glass bottles, printed wooden crate
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Warhol was interested in the democratic cultural significance of mass-produced consumer goods. Popular grocery items distributed in vast quantities worldwide, at an affordable price, represented the best and brightest of American consumer society. Warhol’s first paintings of Coke bottles appeared in 1961. Here the artist turned to readymade objects as source material, coating the actual softdrink bottles with silver paint. Three years later Warhol went a step further by filling 100 silver bottles with a perfume he rakishly labelled ‘You’re In’ / ‘Eau d’Andy’. Not surprisingly, the Coca-Cola Company responded with a cease and desist letter.

A major international exhibition featuring two of the most significant artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei – opened at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, on 11 December 2015.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, developed by the NGV and The Warhol, with the participation of Ai Weiwei, explores the significant influence of these two exemplary artists on modern art and contemporary life, focussing on the parallels, intersections and points of difference between the two artists’ practices. Surveying the scope of both artists’ careers, the exhibition at the NGV presents over 300 works, including major new commissions, immersive installations and a wide representation of paintings, sculpture, film, photography, publishing and social media.

The exhibition explores modern and contemporary art, life and cultural politics through the activities of two exemplary figures – one of whom represents twentieth century modernity and the ‘American century’; and the other contemporary life in the twenty-first century and what has been heralded as the ‘Chinese century’ to come. Ai Weiwei commented, “I believe this is a very interesting and important exhibition and an honour for me to have the opportunity to be exhibited alongside Andy Warhol. This is a great privilege for me as an artist.”

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei premieres a suite of major new commissions from Ai Weiwei, including an installation from the Forever bicycles series, composed from nearly 1500 bicycles; a major five metre-tall work from Ai’s Chandelier series of crystal and light; Blossom 2015, a spectacular installation in the form of a large bed of thousands of delicate, intricately designed white porcelain flowers; and a room-scale installation featuring portraits of Australian advocates for human rights and freedom of speech and information.

Ai Weiwei lived in the United States from 1981 until 1993, where he experienced the works of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, among others. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) was the first book that Ai Weiwei purchased in New York, and was a significant influence upon his conceptual approach. Ai Weiwei’s relationship to Warhol is explicitly apparent in a photographic self-portrait, taken in New York in 1987, in which Ai Weiwei poses in front of Warhol’s multiple self-portrait, adopting the same gesture.

Each artist is also recognised for his unique approach to notions of artistic value and studio production. Warhol’s Factory was legendary for its bringing together of artists and poets, film-makers and musicians, bohemians and intellectuals, ‘drag queens’, ‘superstars’ and socialites, and for the serial-production of silkscreen paintings, films, television, music and publishing.

The studio of Ai Weiwei is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach, post-industrial modes of production, engagement with teams of assistants and collaborators, and strategic use of communications technology and social media. Both artists have been equally critical in redefining the role of ‘the artist’ – as impresario, cultural producer, activist and brand – and both are known for their keen observation and documentation of contemporary society and everyday life.

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the fourth room including, at centre, Ai Weiwei’s Blossom (2015) with his Grapes (2011) rear left, and Andy Warhol’s Flowers (Hand Coloured) (1974) on the wall behind at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Blossom (installation view details)
2015
Porcelain
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Blossom is a new installation in the form of a garden bed, comprising thousands of flowers made from fine white porcelain. In response to the Flowers for Freedom movement which grew out of the artist’s With Flowers project, Blossom serves as a memorial to people who live in restricted conditions because of their fight for freedom of speech or human rights. The work was fabricated in collaboration with the finest craftspeople from Jingdezhen, whose predecessors once produced the highest quality porcelain for emperors of the past. Because of its size, the technical aspect of manufacturing this work was highly complex.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Grapes (installation view details)
2011
Qing Dynasty stools
Collection of Larry Warsh, New York
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

By reassembling Qing Dynasty furniture, which was constructed by traditional joinery techniques without glue or nails, Ai transforms the meaning and function of these cultural artefacts. Here he reconfigures a collection of wooden stools into a group resembling an organically formed cluster of grapes. The arrangement serves as a metaphor for the relationship between the individual and the collective, signifying the deferral of personal interests to those of the community and state characteristic of China’s socialist history. The linked structure of Grapes also recalls the idea of networks and communication, which are recurrent motifs in the Ai work. Manufactured by skilled craftsmen, this type of three-legged stool was used for centuries in China by all kinds of people – the rich and the poor, in towns and in the country. Every family had one, and they were passed on through many generations.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
With Flowers (installation view detail)
2013-2015
Bicycle, flowers, digital print on paper
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

In 2011 Ai was detained by Chinese authorities for eighty-one days without being charged. Upon his release, Ai’s passport was revoked and his studio placed under constant surveillance. With Flowers saw the artist place a fresh bunch of flowers in the basket of a bicycle outside his studio on a daily basis in a poetic protest against restriction on his right to travel. Images of the flowers were posted to Ai’s social media feeds, and an internet movement called Flowers for Freedom emerged. The project concluded upon the return of Ai’s passport in July 2015.

Installation view of part of the fifth room showing Andy Warhol’s portraits of friends and celebrities at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Letgo room (installation view details)
2015
Plastic
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Composed of more than three million plastic building blocks, Ai Weiwei’s Letgo room is a new installation featuring portraits of Australian activists and champions of human rights and freedom of speech. Ai has chosen people who represent grassroots community activism and advocacy within the fields of international law and academia, social welfare and the rights of Indigenous people, asylum seekers, sex workers and the gender nonspecific, among other cultural contexts. Each subject was asked to provide a one-line statement reflecting their philosophy and views to accompany his or her portrait.

The work attests to Ai’s longstanding commitment to liberty, manifested in his work as an artist, social commentator, activist and public intellectual. Letgo room was intended to be constructed from LEGO blocks; however, the LEGO company declined to provide a bulk order of their product due to the purported ‘political’ nature of the proposed work. Instead, the installation is composed of building blocks manufactured in China, continuing the artist’s exploration of the copy and fake.

Installation view of part of the fifth room showing Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portraits of Mao (1972) hung on his Mao Wallpaper (1974, reprint 2015), on the exterior of Ai Weiwei’s Letgo room (2015) at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Mao
1972
Colour silkscreens on paper, ed. 162/250
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased, 1973

The source image for Warhol’s numerous portraits of Mao Zedong is the frontispiece to the Chairman’s famous Little Red Book of quotations. Mao’s image was in the media spotlight in 1972, the year US President Richard Nixon travelled to China, and his official portrait could be seen on the walls of homes, businesses and government buildings throughout the country. It was also extremely popular among literary and intellectual circles in the West. Warhol’s repetition of the image as pop-cultural icon underlines the cult of celebrity surrounding Mao, and the ways in which the proliferation of images in media and advertising promotes consumer desire and identification.

Installation view of part of the fifth room showing, on the far wall, Ai Weiwei’s portraits of Mao: Mao (Facing Right) (1986) and Mao (Facing Forward) (1986) at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the sixth room with, on the floor, Ai Weiwei’s S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes (2011) with Andy Warhol’s Electric Chairs (1971) silkscreens at left, and his Electric Chair (1967) painting at right, hung on Warhol’s Washington Monument Wallpaper (1974, reprint 2015) at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the sixth room with, on the floor, Ai Weiwei’s S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes (2011) and Andy Warhol’s Gun (1981-82) paint and silkscreen ink on linen work on the wall behind at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes (installation view details)
2011
Fibreglass
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

These maquettes are sculptural models for Ai’s major installation S.A.C.R.E.D., a series of architecturally scaled dioramas depicting scenes from the detention cell where he was held without charge by the Chinese government for eighty-one days in 2011. The work consists of six parts to which its acronymic title refers: Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy and Doubt. The maquettes serve as archaeological evidence of the denial of personal freedom and dignity that Ai and many other dissidents have experienced, and cast him in the dual roles of rebel and victim of oppression.

Installation view of Ai Weiwei’s Feet (2005) in the sixth room of the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Feet
2005
Set of 13 fragments of sculpture from the Northern Wei dynasty CE 386-535 and North Qi dynasty CE 550-77 on a table stone, wood
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Purchased, 2006

Ai Weiwei is a connoisseur of Chinese antiquity and Feet is an example of his practice of giving new life to found cultural artefacts. These stone feet are the remains of looted Buddhist statues dating from the Northern Wei (386-535 CE) and Northern Qi (550-577 CE) dynasties. Much destruction took place during periods of dynastic change in China as new regimes attempted to destroy the cultural and aesthetic achievements of former rulers. These fragments gathered by Ai demonstrate that the past cannot be erased that easily.

Installation view of Ai Weiwei’s Handcuffs (2015) in the sixth room of the exhibition with his Study of Perspective (1995-2011) series of photographs on the wall behind at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Handcuffs
2015
Jade
Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing

This pair of handcuffs sculpted in jade – the most precious stones in Chinese culture – replicate those worn by Ai during his imprisonment in 2011. Historically, the wearing of jade was reserved for high-ranking members of the imperial family, and today wearing jade jewellery is still believed to bestow good health and protection upon the wearer. Here Ai recasts this material and its historical cultural connotations in relation to the containment of dissident political expression in contemporary China.

Installation view of the seventh room of the exhibition featuring part of Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals (in Gold) (2010), with Andy Warhol’s silkscreen skulls on the wall behind at the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Circle of Animals (in Gold) (installation view details)
2010
Gilt-bronze
Private collection, New York
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals is based on twelve zodiac animal heads which functioned as a water clock-fountain in the European-style gardens of Yuanmingyuan palace, Beijing, designed in the eighteenth century by two European Jesuits for the Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong. In 1860 Yuanmingyuan was ransacked by French and British troops and the heads were pillaged. In reinterpreting these objects, Ai focuses attention on the ethics of looting and repatriation, the role of the fake and the copy and power relations between China and the West.

Installation view of part of room eight of the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. This room was based on interactivity with not much of interest photographically speaking, hence only one image.
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

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Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) website

Exhibition: ‘Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth’ at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane

Exhibition dates: 23rd November 2013 – 11th May 2014

Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Heritage
2013
99 life-sized replicas of animals, water, sand, drip mechanism
Installed dimensions variable
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Purchased 2013 with funds from Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation
Photograph: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

99 wolves a leaping
99 replicas of animals a drinking
31-metre suspended eucalyptus tree a leaning
170 tonnes of water a seeping
3,000 square metres of GOMA’s ground floor a taking
and not a partridge in a pear tree in sight…

FANTASTIC ART!

Many thankx to the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Thought-provoking and spectacular new installations inspired by Queensland landscapes will premiere in the first Australian solo exhibition of leading international contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, opening tomorrow at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA). Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth, on display from November 23 to May 11, 2014, builds on a longstanding working relationship between the artist and the Gallery, which dates back to Cai’s participation in the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibitions in 1996 and 1999.

For the first time ever, all 3,000 square metres of GOMA’s ground floor will be dedicated to an exhibition of work by a single living artist. Falling Back to Earth features installations of 99 replicas of animals drinking from a pristine lake; 99 wolves leaping en masse and colliding with a glass wall; a suspended 31-metre eucalyptus tree, creating a space for contemplation; and a tea pavilion where visitors can pause, drink tea, and find out more about the artist and the exhibition. There will also be an interactive installation for children and a chronological display of the artist’s career, with photographs, ephemera, and original art works selected by the artist.

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said Cai Guo-Qiang’s ground-breaking practice over 25 years used unexpected materials to create transformative event-based and social projects. “This exhibition is a significant evolution for one of today’s most compelling and highly respected global artists, realised with a level of ambition unprecedented for an Australian art museum,” Mr Saines said. “Cai is shifting his focus from the cosmos to the Earth and to humanity’s complex relationship with nature, while maintaining his keen eye on both the seen and unseen forces that impact life.”

Cai Guo-Qiang said the exhibition title Falling Back to Earth was inspired by fourth-century poet Tao Yuanming’s well-known prose poem, Ah, homeward bound I go! “The text captures the concept behind the exhibition, and expresses the idea of going home, returning to the harmonious relationship between man and nature, and re-embracing the tranquillity in the landscape,” he said.

Exhibition curator Russell Storer, Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA, said the new commissions drew on the striking beauty of Queensland landscapes and the exquisite imagery in historical Chinese painting and poetry, to express concerns regarding the ecological and social issues of our time. “Heritage 2013 is an installation of 99 replicas of animals including pandas, tigers, bears, giraffes and kangaroos, lowering their heads to drink water together from a lake that is surrounded by white sand, evoking the islands of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay,” Mr Storer said. “Seemingly a peaceful gathering of predator and prey, the menagerie of Heritage conveys an almost reverential solemnity, in a lyrical utopian vision loaded with uncertainty. It embodies Cai’s image of a ‘last paradise’ and his awareness of a sense of crisis in contemporary societies across the world.”

The first single artwork to take up the entire 1,100m2 of GOMA’s largest gallery space, Heritage presents animals drinking from a lake filled with 170 tonnes of water, which is viewable from a walkway that circles the entire installation. The Gallery will acquire Heritage thanks to a generous contribution from benefactor Win Schubert, through the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation with the assistance of the QAGOMA Foundation.

“Eucalyptus 2013, a 31-metre tree suspended along GOMA’s central Long Gallery, came from a plantation earmarked for clearing for urban community development. The work was inspired by the ancient trees of Lamington National Park, and creates a meditative, immersive experience for visitors,” Mr Storer said. “Drawing on his history of socially provocative projects, Cai presents Eucalyptus as an unfinished work to be completed by the audience, who are invited to draw and write their ideas on the tree’s past and future. A third major installation, Head On 2006 – Cai’s signature work of 99 life-size sculptures of wolves, which was commissioned by Deutsche Bank, Berlin – is appearing in Australia for the first time.”

In the free interactive installation, Let’s Create an Exhibition with a Boy Named Cai 2013, Cai Guo-Qiang and the QAGOMA Children’s Art Centre invite children to participate, using the artist’s working methods to create their own exhibition through hands-on and multimedia activities, which include an online ‘gunpowder drawing’ making program. An illustrated storybook written by the artist and created in collaboration with the Children’s Art Centre will be available from the QAGOMA Store.

The Tea Pavilion in the River Room invites visitors to pause, rest and reflect on the works in the exhibition. Visitors can sample Tie Guan Yin tea from Cai’s home province of Fujian and watch a documentary created especially for ‘Falling Back to Earth’ to learn more about the processes behind the exhibition. A detailed chronology of Cai’s work, including early works, ephemera, photographs and artefacts selected by the artist from his private collection and the QAGOMA Research Library, will be presented in the GOMA Foyer. The display will offer insights into the artist’s history with QAGOMA and the complexity and risk involved in Cai’s work. The exhibition will be fully documented in a major publication, available in January 2014. The book will feature photography of the new works and essays from leading curators, as well as reflections from Cai Guo-Qiang on his collaboration with children throughout his career.

Cai’s recent solo exhibitions and projects have included the retrospective Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 2008 and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2009. He was Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and his first exhibition in the Middle East was staged in Doha, Qatar, in 2011. In 2012, the artist appeared in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Hangzhou and Copenhagen. His first South American exhibition toured to Brasília, São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2013.

Press release from the Gallery of Modern Art website

Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Tea Pavilion
2013
Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata), wooden stools, Fujian Tie Guan Yin tea and video documentary
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Photo by Yuyu Chen, courtesy Cai Studio

Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Eucalyptus
2013
Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata), wooden stools, paper and pencils
Length: 3150cm (approx.)
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Photographs: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Cai Guo-Qiang (China b. 1957)
Head On
2006
99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass wall. Wolves: gauze, resin, and hide
Dimensions variable
Deutsche Bank Collection, commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG
Photographs: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)

The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) are located 150 metres from each other, on the south bank of the Brisbane River. Entrance to both buildings is possible from Stanley Place, and the river front entrance to the Queensland Art Gallery is on Melbourne Street. The Galleries are within easy walking distance to the city centre and South Bank Parklands.

Opening hours:
Daily 10.00am – 5.00pm
Closed Christmas Day, Good Friday, open from 12.00 noon ANZAC Day

Fotomuseum Winterthur website

Exhibition: ‘Ai Weiwei – Interlacing’ at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 28th May – 21st August 2011

Many thankx to Fotomuseum Winterthur for allowing me to publish the text and the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for another version of the image.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Profile of Duchamp, Sunflower Seeds
1983
From New York Photographs, 1983-1993
C-print
20 x 28.5cm
© Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei – Interlacing is the first major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei. It foregrounds Ai Weiwei the communicator – the documenting, analysing, interweaving artist who communicates via many channels. Ai Weiwei already used photography in his New York years, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has incessantly documented the everyday urban and social realities in China, discussing it over blogs and Twitter. Photographs of radical urban transformation, of the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented together with his art photography projects, the Documenta project Fairytale, the countless blog and cell phone photographs. A comprehensive book accompanies this exhibition.

Ai Weiwei is a generalist, a conceptual, socially critical artist dedicated to creating friction with, and forming reality. As an architect, conceptual artist, sculptor, photographer, blogger, Twitterer, interview artist, and cultural critic, he is a sensitive observer of current topics and social problems: a great communicator and networker who brings life into art and art into life.

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957, the son of the poet Ai Qing. Following his studies at the Beijing Film Academy, he cofounded in 1978 the artists’ collective The Stars, which rejected Social Realism and advocated artistic individualism and experimentation in art. In 1981 Ai Weiwei went to the USA and 1983 to New York, where he studied at Parsons School for Design in the class of the painter Sean Scully. In New York he discovered artists like Allen Ginsberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and, above all, Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp is important for him because he understood art as part of life. At this time, Ai Weiwei produced his first ready-mades and thousands of photographs documenting his life and friends in the Chinese art community in New York. After his father fell ill, he returned to Beijing in 1993. In 1997 he cofounded the China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW) and began from then on to deal with architecture as well. Ai Weiwei opened his own studio in 1999 in Caochangdi and set up the architecture studio FAKE Design in 2003. In the same year, he played a major role, together with the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, in the construction of the Olympic stadium, the so-called Bird’s Nest. Following its completion, it became a new symbol of Beijing. In 2007, 1001 Chinese visitors traveled, at his instigation, to Documenta 12 in Kassel (Fairytale). In 2010 the world marvelled at his large, yet formally minimal carpet of millions of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds at the Tate Modern.

Ai Weiwei deliberately confronts social conditions in China and in the world: Through photographically documenting the architectonic clear-cutting of Beijing in the name of progress, with provocative measurements of the world, his personal positionings in the Study of Perspective, with radical cuts in the past (made to found pieces of furniture) in order to create possibilities for the present and the future, and with his tens of thousands of blog entries, blog photographs, and cell phone photographs (along with many other artistic declarations). This first, large exhibition and book project of his photography and videos focuses on Ai Weiwei’s diversity, complexity, and connectedness, his “interlacing” and “networking” with hundreds of photographs, blogs, and explanatory essays.

The artist as network, as company, as activist, as political voice, as social container, as agent provocateur: at every moment – in the past, present, and future – every society on Earth needs outstanding unique figures like Ai Weiwei in order to stay awake, to be shaken awake, to be made to recognise their own obstinacy, and to be able to avoid tunnel vision. We are therefore deeply saddened that the completion of this book coincides with Ai Weiwei’s arrest which we deplore. We are extremely concerned about the artist. And we wish that this great thinker, designer, and fighter will remain a resistant public voice for all of us – and especially for China.

The exhibition and book were developed in close collaboration with Ai Weiwei. For reasons already mentioned, however, he was unable to be involved in completing the book. We continue to hope that he will be personally present for the installation of the exhibition.

Press release from the Fotomuseum Winterthur website [Online] Cited 06/07/2011 no longer available online

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
10/29/04, Hebei Carpet Factory, China
c. 2005-2009
From Blog Photographs
© Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Ai Weiwei. Williamsburg, Brooklyn
1983
From New York Photographs 1983-1993
C-print
29.2 x 20cm
© Ai Weiwei

Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45 CH-8400
Winterthur (Zürich)

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Wednesday 11am – 8pm
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