Power, identity and antiquarian approaches in modern Chinese art

The pursuit of antiquity was important for scholarly artists in constructing their knowledge of history and cultural identity in late Imperial China. Following various publications by Bi Yuan 畢沅 (1730-1797), Wu Yi 武億 (1745-1799) and Qian Daxin 錢大昕 (1728-1804) in the 18th century, the study and collecting of rubbings of Northern Wei stone inscriptions and steles was popular. Such spread of interest in jinshi, inscriptions on metal and stone, also formed a base for studying seal carving, epigraphy and archaic painting. While traditional antiquarians would cherish inscriptions which enabled them to correct mistakes in the transmitted historical texts and the Classics, however, much of the antiquarian activity was adapted to mere literary exercise or connoisseurship, for instance, to supplying materials which could provide models for seal-carving and calligraphy. Examples could be seen in the calligraphy works and seal carvings of the Xiling bajia 西泠八家 (Eight Masters of Xiling, i.e. Hangzhou), also known as Zhe School of Calligraphy and Carving. Their keen interest in seeking inspiration from steles for their artistic presentations has been recorded in their writing and painting. In addition, the way the scholar-collector of the 19th and early 20th centuries mounted the rubbings, seals, inscriptions, paintings, letters and textual evidence studies into one album shows a changing ideology: rubbings were not only for scholarly study in classical learning, but were regarded as part of the art form and were appreciated on various social occasions. The antiquarian movement ultimately served as a tool for re-writing art historiography in modern China. This paper aims to address the phenomenon and formation of the jinshi painting that dominated in late Imperial and early modern China. Through case studies of three important jinshi societies in Shanghai, I will investigate in what way literary taste from the southern region gradually replaced imperial patronage which was in decline after the Qianlong emperor’s reign, and how the shift of the cultural centre from Beijing to the southern regions from the mid-19th century onwards became a reflection of changing power and identity for cultural leaders and their perspectives in history and the history of objects

Humorous Field - Field to Humour = 幽默地誌 - 地致幽默

This is an experiment in spatial humour, and this assumption of humour can be applied to any urban space. Since this project starts with Lingnan University’s support of its Artist-in-Residence Program, it would seem appropriate to base the experiment around the university campus. Two straight lines were laid on the map of Tuen Mun. The lines extend to East-West through the ridge. The line to the South stretches across the valley and ends on the South coast. Two transects span a wide variety spaces and urban life in Tuen Mun. They would become the premises of this experiment. Exploring the two fixed paths, the artist observes and discovers potential humour along the route. This methodology was adapted from census data collection of marine life, in which marine biologists follow a selected transect across the sea floor and record the species of plants and sea animal encountered. 這是一個關於「空間幽默」的實驗，場所可以是任意的城市空間。 感謝嶺南大學給予藝術家駐校的機會。此實驗以大學為中心，在地圖上劃出縱橫線。縱線由北面泥圍起，途經大學、新墟街市、屯門河、蝴蝶邨等，伸延至南面海岸終。橫線由東面山脊始，途經虎地、兆康西鐵站、小坑村等，到西面山脊止。兩條直線貫穿之地大致包含了屯門社區各種空間及社群。藝術家遊走於這兩條指定路線，並嘗試運用自己的觀察及想像，發掘社區中的空間幽默。（此實驗方式效法海洋生態普查實驗：在海底拉出一條五十米長直绿，觀察和記錄所經之處的魚類品種及大小）。https://commons.ln.edu.hk/vs_artist_catalog/1019/thumbnail.jp

Exploring How Interactive Technology Enhances Gesture-Based Expression and Engagement: A Design Study

The interpretation and understanding of physical gestures play a significant role in various forms of art. Interactive technology and digital devices offer a plethora of opportunities for personal gesture-based experience and they assist in the creation of collaborative artwork. In this study, three prototypes for use with different digital devices (digital camera, PC camera, and Kinect) were designed. Subsequently, a series of workshops were conducted and in-depth interviews with participants from different cultural and occupational backgrounds. The latter were designed to explore how to specifically design personalised gesture-based expressions and how to engage the creativity of the participants in their gesture-based experiences. The findings indicated that, in terms of gesture-based interaction, the participants preferred to engage with the visual traces that were displayed at specific timings in multi-experience spaces. Their gesture-based interactions could effectively support non-verbal emotional expression. In addition, the participants were shown to be strongly inclined to combine their personal stories and emotions into their own gesture-based artworks. Based on the participants’ different cultural and occupational backgrounds, their artistic creation could be spontaneously formed

Playing cards with Cézanne : how the contemporary artists of China copy and recreate

textMy dissertation investigates the concepts and techniques of “copying” and appropriation in contemporary Chinese art, which, despite its phenomenal growth, has seldom been credited as original. Critics either condemn the Chinese artists’ willingness to appropriate from others as a lack of individuality, or declare it as a peculiarly “Chinese” quality. This paper, instead, argues that the Chinese artists deliberately adopt such “copying” as a visual strategy, in order to reexamine the traditions they “borrowed”, to reflect on their own cultural status in the modern world, and to challenge the conventional concept of originality--namely, to show that originality is not created by irreducible individuality or mystified inspiration, but by the author’s choice as well as manipulation of contexts. This strategy, I argue, is essential to the proper evaluation and interpretation of contemporary Chinese artworks. The first two chapters of my dissertation focus on laying out the context from which this art grows. I review how the ideas, styles and institutional structures of western modern art were imitated, questioned and redefined by the Chinese artists, from 1978 to the present; I then examine the conceptual complexity of originality and “copying” in the theories of modernism, postmodernism, postcolonialism and in traditional Chinese art. The next two chapters focus on, respectively, calligraphy and photography in contemporary Chinese art, both of which contain the paradox between originality and “copying” in their very nature. The works of four artists, Xu Bing, Qiu Zhijie, Hong Hao and Zhao Bandi, are discussed in details. Xu's site-specific reproduction of “pseudo characters” manage to engage its targeted audiences, psychologically and physically; Qiu's obsessive yet futile copying of a canon of calligraphy returns the act of writing to its essence--a physical pursuit of one's spiritual state of being; Hong's photographic emulation of an ancient masterpiece suggests that painting may excel photography in its ability to portray a grand cityscape; Zhao’s simulacrum of pop culture paradigms enables him to evade political censorship, and to have an substantial yet ironic impact in a broader public sphere. Each of these works has made a unique contribution to the redefinition of artistic originality.Comparative Literatur

The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies picture-scroll by Hironobu Kohara

An edited translation of Kohara Hironobu’s 2000 revision of his study, ‘Joshi shin zukan’ 〈女史箴図巻〉, about the painting attributed to Gu Kaizhi (c. 344-c. 406) in the British Museum, originally published Kokka 《国華》 nos 908 (Nov 1967), 17-31 (part 1) & 909 (Dec 1967), 13-27 (part 2)

The Water Mill: authentication and analysis of an ancient Chinese Jiehua painting

The Water Mill, currently held in the Shanghai Museum, is a famous jiehua painting which for a long time was believed to have been created by the Five Dynasties artist Wei Xian. At present, most scholars hold the view that it was created around the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). This dissertation tries to use a sociological approach, material culture study and iconographical analysis to illustrate the painting’s content, as well as research on the cultural biography of the whole handscroll, with the purpose of finding the potential artist and the time of creation. Alongside, with authentication, politics, economics and aesthetics are also discussed in the thesis to explore their effect on the development of jiehua and the specific theme of the water mill in the Chinese history of art. Through the analysis of the cultural biography of The Water Mill, which presents a full collection history of the handscroll since the Northern Song Dynasty, its authenticity could be proved. From historical records and a residual signature, the son-in-law of the Yingzong Emperor Zhang Dunli can be established as the artist of The Water Mill and the painting may have been created around 1068–1100. The interpretation of the painting image supports this conclusion and the hypothesis from the cultural biography – the construction, costumes, climate, culture, military system, etc. – all reflect the characteristics of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, The Water Mill can be seen as a representative architectural painting of the golden age of jiehua and an image representing Song culture. On this basis, this dissertation also researched the particular background to find the reasons why jiehua was popular during the 10th to 13th centuries, as well as why the water mill was a popular theme during the Song Dynasty. Further research is needed to identify faded seals in the handscroll and confirm the possibility that Zhang Dunli was the artist of The Water Mill