Dan Eckstein's Picture China

Dan Eckstein is documenting his six-week journey through China. His photos are not the usual snapshots by some tourist passersby. You can see his deeper understanding of the culture through his "Beijing Hutongs" including this one.

Pompidou centre to open site in Shanghai

The Paris-based centre, which is Europe's biggest contemporary art museum, told AFP it could confirm that "discussions were very advanced on setting up in Shanghai". "China is destined to become a major player on the world artistic scene," the centre said in a communique. Art from the 20th and 21st centuries is due to be exhibited at the Chinese branch of the Pompidou centre with works from the Paris museum as well as other exhibits which are more specific to China.

Wang Jin: PVC Robe (phoenix)

This piece is part of a series called "Chinese Dream". For Wang Jin, the combination of the perfect contemporary material with an iconic shape from Chinese tradition, the Beijing opera robe, represents the path that tradition takes. In contemporary society, tradition is often shunned when actually every minute that passes becomes part of tradition. The flow of tradition through contemporary life is inevitable and important. Wang Jin is almost indifferent to the fact that plastic is transparent, he chose plastic because it is plastic and has substance, contemporary substance.

Xiangluying Fourth Lane I, Chun Shu, Xuanwu District, Beijing

History Images by Sze Tsung Leong, including 22 photographs that show the dramatic urban changes that have transformed cities in China, are part of an ongoing exhibition "New Photography" at the High Museum in Atlanta. Leong states that “these photographs are of cites caught in the tenuous period after the end of one history and at the beginning of another history.” Photographed with a large-format view camera in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi’an, Fengdu and Pingyao, these highly detailed images portray the nationwide process of destroying built history and its replacement with a radically different urban reality.

Leong is, according to himself, "American and British, born Mexico City 1970. Currently lives and works in New York. " His artist statement about the History Images can be found here.

Van Gogh From the Sweatshop

Spiegel Online has published an article by Martin Paetsch, entitled "CHINA'S ART FACTORIES - Van Gogh From the Sweatshop". The article focused on China's southern city Dafen, "Dafen has become the leading production center for cheap oil paintings. An estimated 60 percent of the world's cheap oil paintings are produced within Dafen's four square kilometers (1.5 square miles). Last year, the local art factories exported paintings worth $36 million. Foreign art dealers travel to the factory in the south of the communist country from as far away as Europe and the United States, ordering copies of famous paintings by the container." An article worths reading. Thanks to Joerg Colberg of Conscientious for mentioning the article.

Michael Kenna's Lijiang River

Photo Review says: "Michael Kenna's quiet approach to the environment provides a glimpse into the provocative and subtle serenity of landscape photography. Michael creates dream-like scenes by combining innovative and traditional photographic techniques. The results are soft, stark, enigmatic views of gardens, industrial sites, land, and seascapes from around the world. Water may become a sea of mist or the geometry of human intervention contrasted with a wispy cloud-filled sky. His photographs suggest contemplation and a poetic vision."

Lijiang River provides Michael Kenna a perfect environment to create his images with subtle serenity, dream-like scenes, contemplation and a poetic vision. The irony is, however, those words are so rarely reflected in Chinese contemporary photography and art at large...

Book: Art Photography Now by Susan Bright

Susan Bright's Book Art Photography Now is in paperback now. This contemporary art photography survey presents the work of seventy-six of the most important and best-loved artist-photographers in the world today. Chinese photographer Wang QingSong is featured in the book.

Cai Guo-Qiang

Internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang is having a solo exhibition in Shawinigan, Quebec. The show, Cai Guo-Qiang: Long Scroll, on view at Shawinigan Space, will include three expansive sculptural installations as well as a large projection, multi-panel gunpowder drawings and other works, including the one above - Reflection. Cai is known for his ambitious explosion projects and large, theatrical sculptures and installations. The exhinbition will go on until Until 1 October 2006.

Private collector pays record amount for painting

San Francisco Chronicle published an article entitled "For collectors with deep pockets, China is fast becoming the place to buy new art", citing a painting by Xu Beihong fetched 33 million yuan ($4.1 million) at an auction earlier this summer. It was the highest amount ever paid for a Chinese oil painting. The buyer was an unnamed local private collector. The author cited William Wu, art historian and collector, and former professor of Chinese art at Dartmouth and Mills colleges, saying one of the central questions of contemporary Chinese art is, "Who is the artist painting for?" Many, he says, paint to satisfy buyers whose pockets bulge with euros and dollars. If that's the only reason, he says, "The Chinese artist will lose his essential Chinese-ness." However, Victoria Lu, the California-educated creative director of the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, disagrees, while she acknowledges that money plays a role in the current art scene, it by no means defines Chinese art. Like everything else in China, the sheer high number of artists promises diversity.

Diversity indeed, the above photograph is Zhu Ming's work "To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, 1995", as just one example of contemporary Chinese art.

Humanism in China – A Contemporary Record of Photography

Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, exhibition opens until August 27, 2006. Drawing on 590 documentary shots taken by Chinese photographers over the last 50 years, the exhibition presents people in China against the background of social modernization. The exhibition addresses four major topics: Existence, Relationship, Desire and Time. The show is now going on display outside China for the very first time since it went on show in the Guangdong Museum of Art in 2003 and in the Shanghai Art Museum in 2004. A review by Tilman Spengler can be found here.

Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120 (1998)

An anonymous bidder paid $979,200 for "Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120" (1998), one of Zhang Xiaogang's first large-scale single portraits, setting a record for the artist at Sotheby's auction in March. Zhang's other work can be found here and here.

Yue Minjun’s Lions, 1998

Yue Minjun’s painting Lions, 1998, identical or similar to the above, sold to an anonymous bidder for $564,800 at Sotheby’s in New York in April. Some of his other work can be seen here and here. An article, by Monica Dematte, describing the artist and his art can be found here.

Wang Qingsong won award at Rencontres d'Arles photography festival

Chinese photographer Wang Qingsong won the Outreach Award for "Glorious Life," a series of surreal, Photoshopped fantasies exploring the physical and psychological spaces occupied by the people of his rapidly changing country. Wang's images can also be found on artnet.

Fleshbot images on China Daily

More and more people are noticing that there are a great number of explicit images showing up on official Chinese media websites. The latest example reported by danwei.org is that the state-owned China Daily carrying images from Fleshbot, the porn-watching blog of the New York based Gawker Media. Go figure.

Contemporary Chinese Photography on Conscientious

Conscientious has one of its categories dedicated to Contemporary Chinese Photography. Works of quite a few photographers are included, like this one by Song Chao.

Gao Xingjian: La Montagne de Reve (Ink on paper)

The Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature (2000) Gao Xingjian is also a painter. A small sample of his work can be found here. Gao believes that the world cannot be explained and that artistic creation offers the only way to escape into meaning. His images convey these aspects of an inexplicable world-the black-and-white inner world that underlies the complexity of human existence. Two collections of his paintings, Ink Paintings by Gao Xingjian, and Return to Painting, can be found in the bookstores.

3,300 years-old artwork

Photo taken on July 12, 2006 shows an enlarged sculpture whose prototype is a jade article unearthed at the ruins of ancient China's Shang Dynasty capital in Anyang City. The site was inscribed into the World Heritage List on July 13, 2006 by the 30th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in VILNIUS, Lithuania. The full report can be found here.

Pei Jing: To Serve the People (watercolour)

One of the popular themes of Chinese contemporary art is to show the irony by mixing the motif of contemporary life with the "revolutionary" elements from the 60's of last century. That probably is a pretty accurate reflection of the current Chinese psyche. You can find Pei Jing's other work here.

Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages

It turned out there is at least another site that is dedicated to the Chinese Propaganda Posters. Stefan Landsberger has brought together quite a nice collection of some 1,900 titles, spanning more than five decades of Chinese poster production. What's unique on this site is that the collection includes much newer posters as the one about SARS, as well as the ones of the Great Leap Forward. An earlier post on PictorialChina mentioned Maopost.com.

China's first "MBA monks"

ChinaNews.cn proudly reported (2006-06-30 15:28:23) that China's first "MBA training course for monks" held a graduation ceremony at the Antai College of Economics & Management of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The piece went on to call monks taking MBA courses "unprecedented". INDEED. Wait until SNL's Tina Fay gets hold of it.

10 Wonders of the New China

BusinessWeekOnline featured a story on DECEMBER 23, 2005 (in case you have not read it) about "China's current building boom ... creating a stage for some of today's boldest architecture and engineering", showing 10 of the most intriguing examples, including the Olympic Stadium, Beijing.

Mei Mei - Little Sister

Mei Mei - Little Sister: Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage, by photographer Richard Bowen, available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Contemporary Chinese Photography on Conscientious

Conscientious has Contemporary Chinese Photography as one of the categories listed on the blog site. That category contains some very interesting entries. So check it out.

Maopost.com -- China propaganda posters

Maopost is a site dedicated to vintage Chinese propaganda posters. The site has a sizable collection. You can browse by category or period. You can also view the enlarged individual images. However, according to Maopost, "Our posters are not for sale. They are only here to please your eyes and your mind. However, if you fall in love with one of them, you can contact us. We may be able to unearth another original for you."

Maleonn's photography

Tension and anxiety expressed through theatrical treatment of the subjects and surroundings. The photographer's portfolio can be found on usefilm, photoseen, and altphotos. Maleonn's solo exhibition "Wonderland" was reported by smartshanghai. He was quoted saying "My photography...is just like life: unpredictable and full of hints, but no answers... we are trying to understand the deeper meaning of our culture."