As you know, Beyond Chinatown does a weekly listing of current exhibitions and maintains an exhibition calendar. However helpful, they don’t tell much about what the show is about. To help you learn more about the exhibitions and to pique your interest, we’ll periodically compile and post a summary of exhibition reviews.
In this inaugural edition, we present at five exhibitions. If you’ve seen any of them, please share your thoughts in our comments section.
Tales of Two Cities: New York and Beijing
The New York Times calls the Bruce Museum’s exhibition that pairs artists from the two global contemporary art centers an “unusual cross-cultural dialogue”. The ten artists and their match-ups are:
- Michelle Fornabai (NYC) and Qin Feng (秦风 / 秦風) (Beijing)
- Joan Snyder (NYC) and Wei Jia (韦佳 / 韋佳) (Beijing)
- Alois Kronschlaeger (NYC) and Lin Yan (林延) (Beijing)
- Jorge Tacla (NYC) and Li Taihuan (Beijing)
- Simon Lee (NYC) and Chen Shaoxiong (陈劭雄 / 陳劭雄) (Beijing)
WAG praises it as a “provocative, richly textured show…about the dialogues and disorientation created by globalization” insightfully pointing out that the artists have not produced “collaborative works but pairings of complementary, parallel pieces”.
The museum keeps a blog for an ongoing discussion about the exhibition and its works.
Here are a few photos of works by Lin Yan (林延) and Wei Jia (韦佳 / 韋佳):
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- Lin Yan 林延 – City View – #3, 2012 Xuan paper and ink | 宣纸和墨 70 x 48 in. © 2014 Lin Yan 林延
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- Lin Yan 林延 – Circle圆 (detail), 2014 Ink, Xuan paper and Gannet Specimen | 墨、宣纸与鹧鸪标本 16 x 13 ft. Installation view at Bruce Museum © 2014 Lin Yan 林延
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- Wei Jia 韦佳 – No. 12139, 2012 Gouache, charcoal pastel and Xuan paper collage on canvas |布上水粉、 墨、炭笔和宣纸拼贴 48 x 68 in. © 2014 Wei Jia 韦佳
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- Lin Yan 林延 – Installation view at Bruce Museum, Left: To Beijing 4, 1998; Right: To Beijing 5 – A Note, 1998. 布鲁斯博物馆场景照,左:致北京 4,1998;右:致北京5-笔记,1998. Mixed media on paper | 纸上综合媒介 © 2014 Lin Yan 林延
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- Wei Jia 韦佳 – Installation view at Bruce Museum, Left: No. 0655, 2006; Right: 布鲁斯博物馆场景照,左:No. 0655, 1998;右:12136,1998. Gouache, ink, charcoal, and Xuan paper collage on canvas | 布上水粉、 墨、炭笔和宣纸拼贴 © 2014 Wei Jia 韦佳
Photos: Courtesy of Fou Gallery | 谢否画廊
On view at the Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT through August 14
“Flotsam” and “jetsam” are terms that refer to types of debris from shipwrecks. Flotsam is the wreckage of the ship or cargo not deliberately thrown overboard. Jetsam is material deliberately jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress.
Hyperallergic talks about Patty Chang and David Kelley‘s exploration of China’s physical and spiritual change and displacement. We Make Money Not Art shares some photos not seen on the MoMA and Hyperallergic sites.
On view at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., through August 15
Phoenix: Xu Bing at the Cathedral
For the Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s blog, Columbia University professor Lydia H. Liu looks at the two giant phoenixes suspended in the nave of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine from afar and up close and talks about their symbolism.
See photos of the exhibition at our Flickr page.
On view at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), through 2014
Art Fuse humanizes the exhibition’s fiberglass sculptures of migrant workers, and Vice profiles the artist Zhang Dali (张大力 / 長大力), once China’s most famous graffiti artists.
On view at the Klein Sun Gallery, 525 W. 22nd Street, through August 30
The New York Times loves the Ai Weiwei retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, calling it a “triumph” that is “more gripping than its original incarnation” at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and “brings many of Mr. Ai’s past efforts into focus as the juvenilia they often were, while making a persuasive case for his ability periodically to reconcile art and ideals and life — which in his case is usually, unavoidably, political — into a memorable balance.”
The New York Daily News, Complex, and Aesthetica Magazine‘s blog also like the exhibition.
On view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, through August 10
Title image: Andrew Shiue