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.