For the festival, Carnegie Hall has partnered with select New York art galleries for China In Chelsea and Beyond, an event celebrating Chinese contemporary visual arts and exhibiting work by some of today’s leading Chinese artists. Participating galleries are Arario Gallery, AW Asia, Chambers Fine Art, ChinaSquare, Goedhuis Contemporary, Max Protetch Gallery, and Stux Gallery, with featured artists including Yue Minjun, Qi Zhilong, Tan Dun, Sun Xun, and many more. (See below for details and specific dates of each gallery’s exhibition.)
Also, beginning October 21, Carnegie Hall will present Harmonic Visions, an exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography in Zankel Hall, sponsored and curated by Chambers Fine Art. China boasts more than 5,000 years of history, the presence and influence of which can be felt in many aspects of its society and culture. The visual artists featured in this exhibition combine their experiences of living in contemporary China with the country’s rich and diverse traditions. Artists featured are: Hong Hao, Hong Lei, He Yunchang, Qiu Zhijie, Rong Rong, Weng Fen, Wang Tiande, Yin Xiuzhen, Song Dong, and Zhang Huan. The exhibit will be open to Zankel Hall concertgoers through December 31.
Other visual arts events, presented by festival partners, include a panel discussion, China Art(s) Today, on November 2 at the Asia Society, moderated by Asia Society Director Melissa Chiu and featuring avant-garde artist Wenda Gu and award-winning composer and artist Tan Dun; and Silk and Bamboo: Music and Art of China, an exhibition of Chinese instruments and art, presented by The Metropolitan Museum of Art through February 7, 2010. On October 18, the museum presents “Sunday at the Met—A Chinese Celebration,” an event related to the exhibition, featuring performance and discussion.
In conjunction with Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, Carnegie Hall has launched a special web site: carnegiehall.org/chinafestival. This online companion features the most up-to-date information on festival events, video interviews and performance excerpts from featured musicians, and insights into Chinese culture and festival programs.
Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture is made possible by a leadership gift from Henry R. Kravis in honor of his wife, Marie-Josée.
China In Chelsea and Beyond
Arario Gallery — Yue Minjun: Smile-isms
October 29, 2009 – January 16, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 29, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
521 West 25th Street, 2nd Floor
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
www.arariogallery.com
This exhibition of 28 original prints by painter Yue Minjun (born 1962 in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province) beautifully illustrates the iconic laughing face and figure of the artist as seen manifested in various states of solitary play and fantastical camaraderie. The gallery will also be showcasing sculptures as well as paintings in this exhibition. Yue Minjun is a leading contemporary artist and key figure in the Cynical Realism movement, which emerged in response to the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989. Yue Minjun’s joyful, smiling figures offer an ironic commentary on the concept of personal freedom and happiness in modern Chinese society. He is widely considered one of the most important contemporary Chinese artists working today. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and his oil paintings have set records at auction. Yue Minjun’s first U.S. retrospective was presented at the Queens Museum of Art in New York in 2007. He lives and works in Beijing. Caption for image: Yue Minjun “Untitled (Smile-ism No. 1)” (2006) Lithography on paper.AW Asia — Half the Sky: New Works by Qi Zhilong
October 29 – December 11, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 29, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
545 West 25th Street
Hours: Call 212-242-3700
www.awasiany.com
AW Asia is pleased to present a new exhibition of recent paintings by contemporary Chinese artist Qi Zhilong (born 1962 in Inner Mongolia). The show includes a new series of portraits which will be presented alongside a selection of vintage Chinese propaganda works, primarily from the Cultural Revolution period. Seen against examples of this original propaganda, Qi Zhilong’s latest “Female Liberation Army Girls” imagery takes on a haunting historical resonance, which is one of the hallmarks of much contemporary Chinese art created by Qi Zhilong’s generation of artists. Drawn from the iconography of the Cultural Revolution, Qi Zhilong’s bold, bright portraits of female soldiers have earned him an international reputation, and he is widely recognized as one of the leading artists in China’s Political Pop movement. His works have reinvented and subverted the classic female army “look,” transforming it from a revolutionary “plain Jane” into a contemporary symbol of Chinese beauty. Depicting young women as part pin-up model, part girl-next-door, these works explore the changing face of Chinese society through the female image. In his earlier work, Qi Zhilong painted canvases filled with playful women in brash swimwear, the figures often doubled and posed against flat backgrounds of color. Since the early 1990s, however, the Red Army girl has been his exclusive focus. Qi Zhilong has exhibited his works in museums such as the Galeri Nasional, Indonesia (2009), the Museum Bern, Switzerland (2005), and the Beijing Art Museum (1996). He has also exhibited at international galleries in China, Australia, Europe, and the United States. His works can be found in a number of private collections. He lives in Beijing. Caption for image: Qi Zhilong “Untitled” (2009) Oil on canvas.Chambers Fine Art — Tan Dun’s Organic Music
October 24, 2009 – January 9, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
522 West 19th Street
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. or call 212-414-1169
www.chambersfineart.com
Tan Dun’s Organic Music is an exhibition devoted to a site-specific exploration of the Academy Award-winning composer’s deep attachment to the sounds and materials of the natural world. Although there has always been a pronounced visual aspect to the performance of music by Tan Dun (born 1957 in Simao, Hunan Province), it was only in 2004–05 that he began to conceive of exhibiting installations derived from his performance works in a gallery space. With this new development in his multi-faceted career, Tan Dun joins the small but distinguished lineage of 20th century composers who have gravitated towards visual expression at a significant stage in their careers. Arnold Schoenberg painted his haunting series of Expressionist portraits and self-portraits early in his career. John Cage who studied with Schoenberg in the 1930s produced hundreds of prints, drawings, and watercolors towards the end of his life. Strongly influenced by John Cage when he arrived in New York in 1985, Tan Dun continues this tradition, not only with the visual beauty and precision of his musical scores but increasingly with installations and their by-products.The current exhibition comprises three installations, highlighting Tan Dun’s use of sounds derived from paper and water. Paper Quartet is an installation based on Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra (2003). A new video installation Water Rock’n Roll utilizes the traditional format of a hanging Chinese scroll as recipient for a dynamic display of water-based imagery rather than the peaceful landscapes that are normally displayed in this manner. Water Passion after St. Matthew (2000) is based on the work that was commissioned by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S.Bach. Caption for image: Tan Dun “Organic Music.”
ChinaSquare — persistence of vision
October 29 – November 30, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 29, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
102 Allen Street
Hours: Call 212-255-8886
www.chinasquareny.com
ChinaSquare advocates the idea that Chinese contemporary art is relevant to every collector of contemporary art. This group exhibit will feature work by artists Ai Jing, Cai Zhisong, Cui Guotai, Duan Jianghua, Xu Weixin, Ye Yongqing, and Zhong Biao.
Ai Jing (born 1969, a native of Shenyang in Liaoning Province) is a singer-songwriter who has produced five albums of her own music as well as a number of EP albums and singles. During the 1990s, Ai Jing’s unique sound was popular throughout Asia. Her Mandarin songs broke records for overseas sales and she staged several successful concert performances in Japan and other countries. In 1999, Ai Jing took up painting, and in 2007 she began to take part in art exhibitions as a professional artist. She held her first solo individual exhibition at the Today Art Museum in Beijing in 2008, and in 2009 she participated in a joint art exhibition at the 102 Images Gallery in New York. Caption for image: Ai Jing “Darling, I Love You” (2008) acrylic on canvas.Cai Zhisong (born 1972 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province) graduated from the Central Academy of Arts (Sculpture Department) in 1997 and earned a post-graduate diploma from the Central Academy of Arts in 2001. In addition to his first solo US show with ChinaSquare, Cai has had solo exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai and has been included in group exhibitions in Beijing, Washington, D.C., Miami, Paris, Germany, and San Francisco, among other cities.
Cui Guotai (born 1964 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province) is a graduate of the Northeast Normal University, Ginghua University, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Cui currently lives and works in Beijing. His work has been shown extensively throughout China and was in the 2nd Beijing Biennial as well a solo show at Beijing’s National Art Museum of China. His work is currently on view in Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Duan Jianghua (born 1963 in Hunan Province) is a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Oil Painting department and is the director of the China Oil Painting Society. Duan’s expressionist-style paintings struggle with the ramifications of power: power worshipped, pursued, lost, redeemed. Duan’s violent and strong strokes, dark and dense, question the space between man and his surroundings, the present and past, things plundered and revered.
Xu Weixin (born 1958 in Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Region) is a graduate of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts and the Zhejiang Academy of Art. He is currently a professor at the Xu Beihong School of Arts at Renmin University, and his examination of the Cultural Revolution is considered a milestone in Chinese art. Xu’s monumental portraits force the viewer to challenge the conventional wisdom of forgetting the Cultural Revolution, ultimately making one acknowledge, confront, and reflect on such events.
Ye Yongqing (born 1958 in Kunming, Yunnan Province) graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and has been shown throughout China, Europe, and the United States. Through Ye’s clever stroke, the poetic impression of his birds unites the dreams and mythologies the world over. Recreating the immediacy of his sketches, in large sweeping gestures, Ye develops a style that is both traditional and new.
Painter Zhong Biao (born 1968 in Chongqing, Sichuan Province) graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Arts in 1991 and is currently Associate Professor at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China. Zhong has had solo exhibitions in Beijing, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Brussels, Paris, and Hong Kong and has been included in group exhibitions in Seoul, Hong Kong, Moscow, Beijing, Madrid, New York, and Chicago, among other cities worldwide.
Goedhuis Contemporary — Landscapes
October 21 – November 20, 2009
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 21, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
42 East 76th Street
Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00 a.m. &#!50; 6:00 p.m.
www.goedhuiscontemporary.com
Artists in this exhibition are Fang Jun (born 1943 in Guanyun, Jiangsu Province), Ge Guanzhong (born 1977 in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province), Li Xubai (born 1940 in Fuzhou, Fujian Province), Wan Qingli (born 1945 in Beijing), and Zhu Daoping (born 1949 in Huangyan, Zhejiang Province). The ink paintings selected for this exhibition all contain the central theme of landscape and as such are inevitably linked to the great Chinese tradition of monumental landscape painting that reached its peak during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD). Chinese painting over the past hundred years has risen heroically to the critical challenge facing Chinese cultural life generally: how to renew and reinvigorate a civilization that has the longest continuous artistic tradition in the world. Inherent in this restless quest for relevance to the modern world is the need to counteract the tenacious persistence of tradition and the limitations to change that it imposes on contemporary China. However the contemporary ink painters—the New Ink Painters—have been called by one of the leading art historians in the field, Britta Erickson, “among the most idealistic and intellectually daring of Chinese artists.” It is precisely because of their deep knowledge and respect for the classical canon that they have been able, in a variety of different ways, to convert that visceral understanding into works that are relevant and meaningful to contemporary society. Caption for image: Fang Jun “Mountain Dwelling by a Flowing River” (2007) Ink on paper.Max Protetch Gallery — Sun Xun
November 7 – December 23, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 7, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
511 West 22nd Street
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
www.maxprotetch.com
The first US gallery exhibition for Beijing-based artist Sun Xun (born 1980 in Fuxin, Liaoning Province) will feature new work, including animations, sculpture, and drawing. Sun Xun's animations are made up of thousands of meticulously drawn images in a variety of media, often encompassing text and images from world history, politics, the natural sciences, and his own personal iconography. His work can be seen as a response to the continuously tumultuous development of Chinese culture, but also as a more universal critique of historical posturing and the implementation of absolute truths. Sun Xun studied at the China Academy of Fine Arts, Print-making Department, and graduated from this program in 2005. He has had public solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, the United Kingdom, and Beijing. Sun Xun currently lives and works in Beijing. Caption for image: Sun Xun “THE NEW CHINA” (STILLS) (2008) Installation and DVD.Stux Gallery — On Love? On War? : Prominent Contemporary Chinese Artists
October 22 – November 14, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 29, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
530 West 25th Street
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
www.stuxgallery.com
Stux Gallery, in collaboration with Carrie Clyne, is pleased to present, On Love? On War? : Prominent Contemporary Chinese Artists. Featuring the work of Fan Xiaoyan, Feng Zhengjie, Qu Guangci, Guo Wei, Ling Jian, Liu Jianhua, Su Xinping, Yang Shaobin, Zhang Huan, Zhang Xiaotao, and Zhong Biao, the exhibition highlights the recent art of 14 contemporary Chinese artists who use representational imagery to explore seemingly contradictory states of existence. China has gone through enormous changes over the past quarter century, and its art has moved at warp speed to remain one critical step ahead of the cultural, political, and economic developments that are shaping the country at the turn of the 21st century. An upshot of art’s rapid evolution during this aesthetic and intellectual renaissance is the predominance of binary themes that represent how artists are conceptualizing a quickly shifting contemporary life. East and West, man and woman, tradition and technology, growth and decay, love and war: these are some of the dualities inherent in the artworks in On Love? On War? They are not opposites in opposition, rather they reflect how artists in China have become adept at combining what were previously considered interchangeable states. The artists in this exhibition create narratives that convey the individual's odyssey of both creation (love) and destruction (war). On Love? On War? proposes that this twofold identity is not only a symptom of society in rapid flux, but also represents a state of poise and unity. Caption for image: Zhong Biao “Empire Dynasty” (2005) Oil on canvas.Zankel Hall Exhibition – Harmonic Visions
October 21 – December 31, 2009
Curated by Chambers Fine Art
China boasts more than 5,000 years of history, the presence and influence of which can be felt in many aspects of its society and culture. Just like many of the musicians performing in Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, the visual artists featured in this exhibition combine their experiences of living in contemporary China with the country’s rich and diverse traditions. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, they experienced the dramatic changes that transformed the country at political, social, and cultural levels. This exhibition in Zankel Hall, which runs from October 21 to December 31 and is open to Zankel Hall concertgoers, includes photographs by contemporary Chinese artists from this remarkable generation sponsored and curated by Chambers Fine Art, including Hong Hao, Hong Lei, He Yunchang, Qiu Zhijie, Rong Rong, Weng Fen, Wang Tiande, Yin Xiuzhen, Song Dong, and Zhang Huan. Caption for image: Zhang Huan “Seeds of Hamburg” (2002) C-Print on Fuji Archival Paper.Festival Partner Events featuring Visual Art
Silk and Bamboo: Music and Art of China: Through February 7, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Curated by J. Kenneth Moore, Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge, Department of Musical Instruments, and James C. Y. Watt, Brooke Russell Astor Chairman of the Department of Asian Art, Silk and Bamboo: Music and Art of China celebrates the diverse musical heritage of China, one of the oldest continuously documented traditions with roots reaching back more than 8,000 years. With about 60 objects drawn largely from the Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition features a wide variety of musical instruments and art, including a rare Ming dynasty ivory-covered pipa (lute) and lacquered qin (zither), extraordinary bells from the fifth century B.C., and Han dynasty pottery figures in the shapes of dancers and musicians. The Museum will also present an event on Sunday, October 18, “Sunday at the Met—A Chinese Celebration” that is free with museum admission. For more information on tickets and hours of operation, please visit metmuseum.org. Presented by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
China Art(s) Today: November 2 at 7:00 p.m., Asia Society
Melissa Chiu, director of the Asia Society Museum, moderates a panel discussion with avant-garde artist Wenda Gu and award-winning composer Tan Dun. Two of China’s most provocative artists discuss their work and ponder future directions for themselves and for contemporary Chinese art(s). The very process of creating artwork has become increasingly fluid and complex for these artists, who are addressing the intersection of national identity and global culture. Tickets: $10 Asia Society members / $15 non-members. For more information call 212-517-ASIA or visit tickets.asiasociety.org. Presented by the Asia Society.
About Ancient Paths, Modern Voices
Ancient Paths, Modern Voices features performances by leading international musicians, including some artists traveling outside China for the first time. Festival performances will feature many genres of music—from Western symphonic and chamber music influenced by Chinese culture to Chinese traditional folk music and contemporary music, including premieres by internationally recognized Chinese composers. The festival exploration also includes a wide variety of other offerings on each coast, including traditional marionette theater, dance, film screenings, calligraphy, panel discussions, and art exhibitions, offering insights into a world that mixes the ancient and the modern, the traditional and the cutting-edge.
With over 30 events, the reach of Ancient Paths, Modern Voices in New York will be extended throughout the city through partnerships between Carnegie Hall and other prestigious cultural institutions: Asia Society, China Institute, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Joyce Theater, The Juilliard School, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Chinese in America, and The Paley Center for Media, as well as through a series of free Neighborhood Concerts presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute in the community venues of Flushing Town Hall in Queens as well as Abrons Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement and The Performance Project @ University Settlement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The California line-up for Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and supported by presenting sponsor South Coast Plaza, will feature performances by major artists and ensembles appearing at Carnegie Hall as well as new programming created through the Philharmonic Society’s relationships with Orange County Performing Arts Center, Orange County Museum of Art, South Coast Repertory Theatre, the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, and other Southern Californian cultural institutions. This relationship between Carnegie Hall and Segerstrom Center for the Arts marks the first time that Carnegie Hall festival programming will be offered to audiences outside New York City.
Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture is made possible by a leadership gift from Henry R. Kravis in honor of his wife Marie-Josée.
Sponsored, in part, by Deloitte LLP
Additional funding from Roche, China Merchants Bank, Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, New York, and Agricultural Bank of China.
Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall.