NYC Chinese Cultural Events and Art Exhibitions: March 10 – March 16, 2017

UPCOMING EVENTS

1) Masterpieces of Chinese Photography – Opening Reception – This Asia Week exhibition brings together 30 original photographs by the greatest figures in nineteenth-century photography of China. These rare early photographs are from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection, the largest privately held collection of historical photographs of China.

The exhibition brings together work from many of the significant photographers of the time, both Western and Chinese. Among the great photographers represented are Lai Fong, Felice Beato, John Thomson, Thomas Child, William Saunders, Pun Lun, Tung Hing, and many others. The exhibition contains works by these masters as well as by less well-known but highly accomplished photographers.

Friday, March 10, 6 PM
PRPH Books, 26 East 64th Street, 3rd floor

+++++

2) How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power: Author Howard French in Conversation – Howard W. French, former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China’s Second Continent, will speak with Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, about his book on China’s historical path that has led it to become an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy.

For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, argues French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China’s present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become—and to interact wisely with a future peer.

One cannot fully understand China’s new global ambitions without a knowledge of its history of defeat and decline and how that bitter experience now plays into its often very grandiose designs for a new global standing. Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, French’s new book gives us a truly insightful glimpse into what is now animating China’s global advance.

Tuesday, March 14, 6:30 PM, livestream available here
Asia Society

+++++

3) Ten Restaurants that Changed America – In his new book, Ten Restaurants that Changed America, Paul Freedman reveals how the history of our restaurants reflect nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled The Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone’s, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé’s Le Pavillon, Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation.

In conjunction with MOCA’s exhibit Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy: Stories of Chinese Food and Identity in America, join co-curator Kian Kho Lam joins Freedman in conversation about his book and on how Cecilia Chiang’s restaurant The Mandarin influenced American’s palate and craving for Chinese food.

Wednesday, March 15, 6:30 PM
Museum of Chinese in America

+++++

4) Why the Seven Sages? – The Seven Sages have been a recurring theme in Chinese art since the Six Dynasties period and they have continued to inspire artists for generations. In her lecture “Why the Seven Sages?” Willow Weilan Hai, Director of China Institute Gallery, Chief Curator of Art in a Time of Chaos: Masterworks from Six Dynasties China, 3rd-6th Centuries will explore archaeological findings among other artworks through the dynasties and decipher the significance of the Seven Sages as cultural symbols in Chinese art.

Wednesday, March 15, 6:30 PM
China Institute

+++++

5) Once Upon a Time in China 《黄飞鸿》 – Set in late 19th century Canton this martial arts film depicts the stance taken by the legendary martial arts hero Wong Fei-Hung (1847-1924) against foreign forces’ (English, French and American) plundering of China. When Aunt Yee arrives back from America totally westernised, Wong Fei-Hung assumes the role of her protector. This proves to be difficult when his martial arts school and local militia become involved in fierce battles with foreign and local government. As violence escalates even Aunt Yee has to question her new western ideals, but is it possible to fight guns with kung fu? (Michele Wilkinson, IMDB)

Introduced by Raymond Tsang, Doctoral Candidate in Cinema Studies at New York University.

Part of the five film series Film Art Set in Times of Chaos: Chinese Martial Arts Films

Thursday, March 16, 6:30 PM
China Institute

+++++

6) The Chinese Art Market-Trends, Pitfalls and Opportunities – Nick Wilson from China Guardian (HK) Auctions talks about the state of the Chinese art market. China Guardian is China’s oldest art-auction firm and one of the top leaders in the Chinese art auction market.

Thursday, March 16, 6:30 PM
China Institute

+++++

7) The Summer is Gone 《八月》– Dalei Zhang’s atmospheric debut feature is a portrait of a family in Inner Mongolia in the early 1990s that doubles as a snapshot of a pivotal moment in recent Chinese history. As the country settles into its new market economy, 12-year-old Xiaolei stretches out his final summer before beginning middle school, while his father contends with the possibility of losing his job as a filmmaker for a state-run studio, and his mother, a teacher, worries about her son’s grades and future. Beautifully shot in shimmering black-and-white, The Summer Is Gone is intimate and far-reaching, creating ripples of uncertainty from the microcosm of one family’s everyday life.

Screens as part of the New Directors/New Films 2017 series.

Thursday, March 16, 9 PM
Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Center

ONGOING FILMS, SHOWS, AND EVENTS

The Queens World Film Festival screens Patrick Chen’s The Last Tip on March 14 and Amelie Wen’s Fata Morgana on March 16.

+++++

1) The Great Wall -In this action-fantasy epic set in 11th century China, two mercenaries from the West (Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal) are captured by a military organization that are headquartered in a fortress on the Great Wall. In time, the duo get caught up in a battle between the Chinese warriors and a supernatural menace that the Great Wall was built to repel. Jing Tian, Andy Lau, Zhang Hanyu, Willem Dafoe, and Eddie Peng co-star. Directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), this collaboration with Hollywood is the most expensive Chinese film to date. (Jack Rodgers, Rovi)

The film is accused of white washing or white knighting (spoiler alert) and having a threadbare story but is beautiful and a lot of fun.

At multiple theaters

CURRENT ART EXHIBITIONS

Asia Art Week runs from March 9 – 18.  The fair showcases art from across Asia presented by international dealers, galleries, auction houses, museums, and institutions.  All participating dealers will host open houses Saturday and Sunday, March 11 – 12, and exhibitions will continue through Saturday, March 18.

Overwhelmed?  See our listing of highlights which include Chinese-inspired works by Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg at China 2000 Fine Art; INK Studio’s China Now: New Literati Art, an exhibition of rare 19th century photographs of China by western and Chinese photographers; Beili Liu at FitzGerald Fine Arts; and Guo Hua: Defining Contemporary Chinese Painting at M. Sutherland Fine Arts

Running parallel from March 10 – 18 is Asia Art Fair New York whose exhibitors are primarily galleries from around the United States.

Opening and Newly Added:

1) Red Attack (Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, 2/25 – 4/29) – When both sides woke up from the Cold War, artists realized that, despite apparent differences, Communism and Consumerism shared crucial similarities. In the West, Pop Art iconized consumerism. In the Soviet system, the masses were fed political icons in place of consumer goods. Both the political icons and consumer goods acted as a kind of subliminal wall-paper, ubiquitous, strident, tendentious and often luridly naive. In both, faux-egalitarianism flattered the viewer with the message that he or she belonged to a collective identity as embodied in the icon. Andy Warhol loved Coke because Kings and Queens could enjoy it as much as the pauper. In both commercial and political Pop, artificial populism pretending to arise from the masses themselves in fact came from propagandists on Madison Avenue and in the Kremlin. Each side created populist icons to evangelize citizens for their own system to function. That aesthetic myth-making is examined in Red Attack at Ethan Cohen Gallery through the work of 22 artists – Russian, Chinese, Korean and American – who illustrate the disparate yet shared themes of Pop Art around the world.

Includes works by Han Xin, Huang Yan, Li Daiyun, Liu Xiaohui, sui Jianguo, Tang Hui, Wu Junyong, Wu Shanzhuan, Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, Yuan Yunsheng, Zhang Dali, Zhang Hongtu, Zhang Zhaohui

Installation image showing works by Tang Hui and Wu Junyong, and Ai Weiwei.  Image courtesy of ECFA

+++++

2) Shen Shaomin: Keep Upright (Klein Sun Gallery, 3/4 – 4/29) – Delving into the “pre-installation” condition of art, Shen Shaomin presents his latest paintings—referred to as The MoMA Series—in this exhibition. Rendering the paintings as if they were wrapped in protective plastic packaging, ready to be shipped, Shen Shaomin further expands the trompe l’oeil, reproducing iconic paintings from influential artistic movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Impressionism. As indicated by the title, paintings from this series are drawn from MoMA’s extensive collection. “Removing” the paintings from the renowned collection, Shen Shaomin then “repacks” and transfers them into the physical space and the context of a gallery, highlighting the economic circulation of art. Copying the famous paintings in art history acquired by major museums, the artist issues an institutional critique where he challenges the preservation of the classics, as well as the promotion by institutions of “celebrity” art works.

Shen Shaomin – ‘Handle with Care – MoMA No. 4’, 2017. Oil on canvas, 45 5/8 x 32 in. (116 x 81.4 cm)

+++++

3) REWOVEN: Innovative Fiber Art (QCC Art Gallery CUNY, 3/16 -6/20) – An international collaboration between the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan, QCC Art Gallery, and the Godwin Ternbach Museum presents twenty-four Taiwanese artists, whose extraordinary creativity and commitment to nature and environmental issues are addressed in a convergence of painted, woven, netted, sewn, assembled, and installed artworks. This exhibition is curated by Tseng Fangling, Chien Cheng-yi, Luchia Meihua Lee, Amy Winter and Faustino Quintanilla.

Chin Chih Yang – ‘123 Pollution Solution’, 2006-2015. Strips cut from aluminum cans, 75 x 93 x 10 inches.
Courtesy of Chin Chih Yang.

+++++

4) The Endless and Mobile Beautiful Collapsible Labyrinth (Flux Factory, 3/3 – 3/17) – An interactive sculptural installation which includes artists Yan Zhou, Marie Koo, and Fei Li.  Sculpture, video, sound and performance will inhabit a serpentine maze of track-mounted rolling walls, a kaleidoscopic reimagining of rolling library stacks. It will certainly rival MoMA and the Louvre, elevating Flux among the most well endowed hosts of exhibition-ready wall space per sq ft on Earth. Visitors are invited to roll through the “stacks” to discover the works, moving the walls in and out of place. This process will damage, activate, expand or alter the artworks, challenging the preciousness of the art object and creating a playful interactivity.

+++++

Closing soon:

Tales of Our Time 故事新编 (Guggenheim Museum, 11/4/16 – 3/10/17)

Willem de Kooning | Zao Wou-ki (Lévy Gorvy Gallery, 1/19 – 3/11)

David Diao: HongKong Boyhood (Postmasters Gallery, 2/4 – 3/11)

Vestigial Future (Gallery 456, 2/17 – 3/17)

The Endless and Mobile Beautiful Collapsible Labyrinth (Flux Factory, 3/3 – 3/17)

Renqian Yang: Complementary Colors (Fou Gallery, 1/14 – 3/19)

Art In a Time of Chaos: Masterworks from Six Dynasties China, 3rd – 6th Centuries (China Institute, 9/30/16 – 3/19/17)

Construction and Contemplation: Noa Charuvi, Li Gang (Art100 Gallery, 2/16 – 3/31/2017)

+++++

Current shows:

Visit the exhibition calendar for details for the current shows listed below. Check the museum or gallery’s website for hours of operation.

Whereto (CP Projects Space, 2/23 – 3/3)

Tales of Our Time 故事新编 (Guggenheim Museum, 11/4/16 – 3/10/17)

Willem de Kooning | Zao Wou-ki (Lévy Gorvy Gallery, 1/19 – 3/11)

David Diao: HongKong Boyhood (Postmasters Gallery, 2/4 – 3/11)

Vestigial Future (Gallery 456, 2/17 – 3/17)

The Endless and Mobile Beautiful Collapsible Labyrinth (Flux Factory, 3/3 – 3/17)

Renqian Yang: Complementary Colors (Fou Gallery, 1/14 – 3/19)

Art In a Time of Chaos: Masterworks from Six Dynasties China, 3rd – 6th Centuries (China Institute, 9/30/16 – 3/19/17)

Construction and Contemplation: Noa Charuvi, Li Gang (Art100 Gallery, 2/16 – 3/31/2017)

Ho Sintung: Surfaced (Chambers Fine Arts, 2/2 – 4/1)

Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant (Museum of Food and Drink Lab, 11/11/16 – 4/2/17)

Shen Wei: Between Blossoms (Flower Gallery, 3/2 – 4/22)

Shen Shaomin: Keep Upright (Klein Sun Gallery, 3/6 – 4/29)

Red Attack (Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, 2/25 – 4/29)

REWOVEN: Innovative Fiber Art (QCC Art Gallery CUNY, 3/16 -6/20) 

Celebrating the Year of the Rooster (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1/25 – 7/4/2017)

Infinite Compassion: Avalokiteshvara in Asian Art (Staten Island Museum, 10/22/16 – 9/25/17)

Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy: Stories of Chinese Food and Identity in America (Museum of Chinese in America, 10/6/2016- 9/10/17) 

Hung Yi – Fancy Animal Carnival (Garment District pedestrian plazas on Broadway from 36th to 41st Streets, 9/20/16 – 4/15/17)

Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10/29/16 – 8/6/17)

Cinnabar: The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer, 14th – 19th Century (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6/25/16 -10/9/17)

From the Imperial Theater: Chinese Opera Costumes of the 18th and 19th Centuries (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6/25/16 – 10/9/17)

Colors of the Universe: Chinese Hardstone Carvings (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6/25/16 – 10/9/17)

Lead image: Carrying bamboo scaffolding.  Photo by Andrew Shiue.