Make time on your calendar for this week’s cornucopia of events: Xu Bing’s directorial debut and Zhao Tou at the New York Film Festival; Yang Jiechang and Lin Tianmiao visit their current exhibitions at Chambers Fine Art and Galerie Lelong to talk about their works; Taiwanese America Professionals’ New York Chapter’s Mid-Autumn soiree; Tiger Cai’s sisyphean-toned films; Min Xiao-Fen’s release party concert for her new album that captures her personal connection to jazz; Metrograph screens films starring early film star Anna May Wong; a documentary on pioneering Chinese art collector Uli Sigg; a talk about Asia Art Archive’s archiving practice and current key projects; two Taiwanese films; Michael Meyer talks about his experiences in China beginning in 1995; a bunch of Ai Weiwei related events; six new exhibition listings; and more.
Additionally, Asian Contemporary Art Week begins October 5 and continues through October 26 with exhibitions, talks, and other events, including its thought-provoking Field Meeting. Metrograph continues its series Imaginary Chinatown which explores Hollywood’s flawed ascination with Chinatowns around the country.
We add talks, films, performances, exhibitions, featuring or relating to Chinese, Taiwanese, diasporic artists and topics to our event and ongoing exhibition calendars as we learn of them.
We post frequently on our Facebook page. So check the page for links we share and get a heads up on events before we include them in these weekly posts. For art, images, and other instances of Chineseness we see, follow our Instagram page.
We’re looking for contributors! If you’re interested in writing an article, contributing photos or artwork to be featured with our weekly events and exhibitions listing, letting us know about an event, send a pitch at beyondchinatown@gmail.com.
UPCOMING EVENTS
1) The Worldly Cave – Anonymous figures are diminished against unforgiving environs, both natural and man-made, in Zhou’s expansive cross-continental diary, featuring monumental views of the Incheon Sea, the Balearic island of Menorca, and the Sonoran Desert that serve to visualize the infinitesimal stature of the human race.
Dir. Zhou Tao
China, 2017, 48 min
Know more about the film from the director’s own words.
Screens as part of the New York Film Festival.
October 6 – 10, 12 PM and 9 PM
Ampitheater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St
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2) Panel Discussion with Yang Jiechang – Yang Jiechang and Martina Köppel-Yang will be at the gallery for a conversation with curator Xin Wang and art historian David Sensabaugh, where they will speak about Jiechang’s work in our current exhibition and how it relates to his works that will be part of the Guggenheim exhibition Theater of the World. Martina will introduce her book I Often do Bad Things | Yang Jiechang, Texts and Works, the newly published overview of the artist, and there will be signed copies available for purchase.
Friday, October 6, 5 PM
Chambers Fine Art, 522 W. 19th St.
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3) Girlfriend Boyfriend 《女朋友男朋友》 – In the late 1980s, three rebellious high school students see their adolescent antics turn into unrequited love. When they leave their hometown to pursue their lifelong dreams in the big city, their relationships start to face the pressures of real life as the Taiwanese sociopolitical reformation movement unfolds around them and Martial Law is explosively lifted.
Dir. Yang Ya-che
Taiwan, 2012, 105 min.
Screens as part of Martial Law and After: Reflection of the 30th Anniversary of the End of Martial Law in Taiwan Cinema
Friday, October 6, 7 PM
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, 1 E. 42nd Street
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4) Mao, Monk and Me with Min Xiao Fen – In celebration of the 100th birthday of Thelonious Monk, join MoCA for Min Xiao-Fen’s new solo album release concert.
Hailed by The New York Times as “a pipa player like no other” and the Village Voice as an artist who “has taken her ancient Chinese string instrument into the future,” Min Xiao-Fen is known for her virtuosity and fluid style. Born in the ancient capital of Nanjing, Min’s interweaves Chinese folk music, regional operas and Taoist music with the sounds of John Cage, jazz and blues. Her works transcend borders with their own brand of cutting-edge fusion. Min’s latest solo set, “Mao, Monk and Me,” features her treatments of jazz standards by Thelonious Monk mixed with their historical Chinese counterparts. As a young girl coming of age during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the reformed Beijing Operas and folk songs she heard from the many regions were dedicated to the workers and soldiers. After moving to the United States, she was inspired once again – this time by Thelonious Monk.
After the concert, Min Xiao-Fen will autograph her new CD.
Friday, October 6, 8 PM
Museum of Chinese in America
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5) Zhaoze US Debut – 沼泽 Zhaoze (literally “Swamp” in Chinese), is a progressive post-rock band based in Guangzhou, China. It is the first and only band that blends post-rock with Guqin — the most iconic Chinese traditional instrument.
Zhaoze is best known for the exquisite fusion of poetic elegance and profound melancholy in their melodies. Their work builds up on a uniquely imaginative sound spectrum, rendering a mindful and ethereal world inspired by Chinese traditional aesthetics.
With parallel undercurrents of traditionality and originality, Zhaoze is ready to submerge your body and soul with never-ending waves of sound.
Friday, October 6, 8 – 11 PM
American Beauty NYC, 251 W. 30th Street
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6) Yang Jiechang Film Premiere + Artist Talk – As part of Asia Contemporary Art Week, INK studio is proud to premier “Let Us Make Our Appeal to the Infinite”, a short film by Dr. Britta Erickson, Ph.D., which documents Yang Jiechang’s creation of two paintings that present a fraught subject in a revolutionary manner. Using his brush in a new way, Yang represents the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, on June 4, 1989. The painting is personal, and dynamically narrative; the finished works of art may appear abstract, but they in fact tell a heart-raceingly grim tale.
The screening will take place at INK studio SoHo amidst a selection of the artist’s earliest avant-garde calligraphic paintings (see below). Yang Jiechang will be present to discuss the evolution from these seminal works to his latest calligraphic works in the context of the ‘85 New Wave movement and the larger trajectory of contemporary Chinese art development, providing guests with an engaging dive into the artist’s practice.
Saturday, October 7, 10 AM
INK studio SoHo, 565 Broadway, #8W
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7) Shanghai Express – Wong was never so sensually photographed as she was when playing an imperious courtesan here, very nearly upstaging her companion and the film’s leading lady, Marlene Dietrich, who re-encounters former lover Clive Brook on an express train rolling through civil war-wracked China in this riot of delirious chinoiserie artifice and sculpted shadowplay. Wong’s show of frank sexuality here scandalized the newspapers back in China, while going a long way toward assuring her screen immortality.
Dir. Josef Von Sternberg
1932, 82 min.
Screens as part of the series Ann May Wong: Empress of Chinatown
Saturday, October 7, 12:45 PM
Sunday, October 8, 5 PM
Metrograph
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8) Toll of the Sea – Anna May Wong in color! The earliest surviving two-color Technicolor feature stars Wong, seventeen years old and playing her first lead, as “Lotus Flower,” a Chinese woman abandoned by her white American husband, in a Sinophile reworking of the tragic Madame Butterfly, the exotic settings for which were discovered in the precincts of Santa Monica.
Dir: Chester M. Franklin
1922, 54min / 35mm
Screening with:
“Anna May Wong Viist Shanghai”
Newsreel / 6min / 35mm
Screens as part of the series Ann May Wong: Empress of Chinatown
Saturday, October 7, 4:45 PM
Metrograph
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9) Daughter of the Dragon – Envying Wong’s grand success abroad, Paramount set out to lure the wayward star back to Hollywood, preparing Sax Rohmer’s best-seller Daughter of Fu Manchu as a homecoming vehicle. Wong has the title part, Princess Ling Moy, a sinister force at large in London who’s every bit as wicked as her famous father (Warner Oland). Much “Yellow Peril” wickedness ensues, but it can’t damper the charisma of Wong and costar Sessue Hayakawa, playing the secret agent determined to bring her down.
Dir. Lloyd Corrigan
1931, 70 min.
Screens as part of the series Ann May Wong: Empress of Chinatown
Saturday, October 7, 6:15 PM
Metrograph
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10) Artist Walkthrough: Lin Tianmiao – Join for a walkthrough with Lin Tianmiao and Michelle Yun, Senior Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art at Asia Society Museum. The artist will discuss her work in Protruding Patterns, currently on view at Galerie Lelong & Co.
Saturday, October 7, 5 PM
Galerie Lelong, 528 W. 26th Street, RVSP required
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11) UNTITLEDdialogue 18: Endless Journey – Fou Gallery’s UNTITLEDdialogue will invites artist Tiger Cai to introduce his experimental short films and videos, including ‘Six Dreams About a City’ (2014), ‘Truth Tower’ (2013), ‘Twin Paranoramas’ (2015), and his looping animation series (2015-2017).
‘Six Dreams About a City’ is a 24-minute long single channel short film that explores many different topics, such as political memories, personal identities or the border between reality and dream. According to Tiger, the film is a response to and evocation of his thoughts and experiences as he lost faith to the Utopia once he knew as a child. The talk will also introduce Tiger’s recent looping animation series since 2015. The motivation for the recent animation series is the concept of “the inescapable, infinite loop of life.” By repeating themselves, these videos do not have definite beginnings nor endings. The videos evolve endlessly as self-contained ecosystems. Observers’ gazes become a new method of editing. Audiences can decide on their own interpretations in an ever-changing environment. However, being observed or not, these videos will be going on forever by themselves, just like the endless labor of Sisyphus.
Tiger makes a statement through these looping animation: “There will always be a close circle that we, as human, can never break through; it can be history, ideology, destiny, or banality of life. In the end, no one escapes from loops. No one survives from loops.”
Saturday, October 7, 7 – 9 PM
Fou Gallery
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12) TAP-NY Mid-Autumn Festival Party and Soiree – Put on your cocktail attire for Taiwanese American Professionals New York chapter’s first Mid-Autumn Festival Soiree, an elegant evening held at the highly acclaimed Museum of Chinese in America.
Engage with the TAP community through insightful conversation, fun activities, and yummy food as you explore the unique stories and beautiful exhibits that the museum houses. In the eight years since its move to Centre Street, MOCA has become a cultural icon of downtown Manhattan and Chinatown, representative of the deep and un-told history of Asian Americans. Attendees at this event will be able to explore the museum, including a first look into the brand new exhibit: FOLD: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures.
In addition to having access to the entire museum, the Mid-Autumn Festival soiree will have music, food, drink, cultural activities, a scavenger hunt, and more to make it a memorable evening. It’ll be a chance to not only learn about this important holiday and other cultural aspects, but maybe get a little competitive (and definitely have some fun).
Saturday, October 7, 7:30 PM
Museum of Chinese in America
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13) Yuhan Su Quintet at Cornelia Street Cafe – Acclaimed vibraphonist Yuhan Su plays Cornelia Street Cafe with her quintet.
Saturday, October 7, 10:30 PM
Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street
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14) Old San Francisco – Introduced by NYU historian John Kuo Wei Tchen, co-founder of the Museum of Chinese in America.
In the bad, corrupt old San Francisco Tenderloin of the turn of the last century, corruptto- the-bone Chris Buckwell (Warner Oland, Hollywood’s favorite faux-Asian) makes a good living skimming the local suckers and bullying the Chinese community—the better to conceal his mixed-race background, and the fact that Wong, in a small but piquant role, is his invaluable assistant. Add in Spanish grandees, mad dwarves, and the great earthquake of 1906, and you’ve got a humdinger of a good time.
Dir. Alan Crosland
1927, 88 min.
Introduced by NYU historian John Kuo Wei Tchen, co-founder of the Museum of Chinese in America.
Screens as part of the series Ann May Wong: Empress of Chinatown
Sunday, October 8, 3 PM
Metrograph
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15) Patty Chang in conversation with Jill Casid and Book Launch – Inside Patty Chang’s most ambitious exhibition to date ‘The Wandering Lake, 2009–2017’, the artist will engage in conversation with Jill Casid about the exhibition and the eponymous artist book, the two distinct representations of narrative and performance that organically inform and construct each other.
Jill H. Casid is Professor of Visual Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has written extensively on landscape and performance.
The conversation will be followed by the book launch of The Wandering Lake (2017), an artist book co-published by Queens Museum and Dancing Foxes Press, Brooklyn.
Sunday, October 8, 3 – 5 PM
Queens Museum
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16) Dragonfly Eyes 《蜻蜓之眼》– Chinese visual artist Xu Bing’s ambitious debut feature follows an ill-fated romance through a frightening and faceless urban environment, using only closed-circuit surveillance footage. Constructing a fictitious narrative from real-world encounters and frequently spectacular images, Xu turns the story of a young man attempting to relocate his object of desire into a cogent analysis of postmodern identity and digitally mediated communication.
Dir. Xu Bing
China, 2017, 81 min
Screens as part of the New York Film Festival.
Read about the film at Variety.
Sunday, October 8, 9:30 PM, followed by a Q&A with Xu Bing
Monday, October 9, 12:30 PM and 5:15, followed by a Q&A with Xu Bing
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St.
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17) From Han Emperors to Jewelry Connoisseurs: Unveiling the Mysteries of Jade – Why is jade so important in Chinese culture—from art to mythology and vernacular tradition? In the Han Dynasty, only royalty was allowed to deal with jade, and emperors were buried in jade suits intended to preserve their lives for eternity. Through the centuries, Chinese babies have worn jade amulets to protect them from harm and evil forces. And today, jade jewelry is treasured more than ever as a valuable and beautiful asset. Mr. Keziah Chan, manager of Lao Feng Xiang Jewelry, the venerable Hong Kong jeweler with a store on Fifth Avenue, is one of the world’s experts on the precious stone. Come hear him explain jade through the millennia—from historical traditions to how to recognize and analyze the value of various jade types today.
Before and after the talk, visit the China Institute Gallery’s stunning show, Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity, featuring a magnificent jade suit from Xuzhou, Jiangsu, where many of the Han emperors were buried.
Tuesday, October 10, 6 – 7:30 PM
China Institute
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18) Art as Activism: An Evening with Ai Weiwei – Since 2008 Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has become a household name in the United States and around the world. Celebrated for both his creativity and his activism-and the unique place where they meet-Ai Weiwei has led the fight against censorship, shed light on the international refugee crisis, exposed government corruption, and more.
“Literature is a place where we can construct new realities together, but unless the literature available to us is representative, those new realities threaten to reconstruct the prejudice and discrimination of the world we live in,” says Weiwei. The artist will share the stage with PEN America President and writer Andrew Solomon for an intimate conversation on life as a dissident, the impact of his celebrity status on his art, and new and renewed threats to artistic expression in both China and America.
The event is sold out, but a livestream available here: https://pen.org/livestream-ai-wei-wei/
This event is presented in collaboration with PEN America’s newest initiative, the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC).
Tuesday, October 10, 6 PM
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, 2537 Broadway
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19) The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg – Discover the fascinating life of one of the leading collectors of contemporary Chinese art, Swiss businessman and diplomat Uli Sigg. The film explores the West’s embrace of Chinese contemporary art, through the eyes of Sigg and the artists he championed. Ai Weiwei, Cao Fei, Feng Mengbo, and Wang Guangyi are interviewed along with curators, diplomats, architects and others.
Art world sensation Ai Weiwei credits him with launching his international career. Renowned pianist Lang Lang describes him as a mentor to Chinese artists. Curator Victoria Lu believes that his taste and influence as a collector has been felt around the world.
But when Swiss businessman Uli Sigg first went to China, art was far from his mind. The year was 1979, and Sigg — working for the Schindler escalator and elevator company — was hoping to set up one of the first joint ventures between the Chinese government, seeking international investment in the post-Mao era, and a Western company.
The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg is directed by art historian and scholar Michael Schindhelm (Bird’s Nest) and produced by Marcel Hoehn (Dark Star: H. R. Giger’s World The Knowledge of Healing, Monte Grande, Santiago Calatrava’s Travels, The Written Face)
Dir. Michael Schindhelm.
Switzerland. 2017. 93 min.
Followed by a conversation with Uli Sigg, Asia Society Museum Director Boon Hui Tan, and Center on U.S.-China Relations Director Orville Schell.
Tuesday, October 10, 6:30 PM
Asia Society
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20) The Fourth Portrait 《第四張畫》– After his father’s death, 10-year-old Xiang is sent to live with his mother and a stepfather he barely knows. However, a lurking threat of unspoken violence surrounds him in his new home. One night, Xiang dreams of his elder brother who went missing, his subconscious gradually bringing to light a startling secret revealed in his drawings.
Dir. Chung Mong-hong
Taiwan, 2010, 105 min.
Screens as part of Martial Law and After: Reflection of the 30th Anniversary of the End of Martial Law in Taiwan Cinema
RSVP Required
Wednesday, October 11, 1 PM
Room B126, Chanin Center Insdorf Screening Room, Hunter West Building, Hunter College
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21) Golden Venture – Join MOCA for a screening of Golden Venture, the film that explores the ongoing struggles of the Chinese migrants whose artwork is featured in FOLD: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures.
This 2006 documentary follows the Golden Venture passengers from Queens to York County Jail in Pennsylvania, where many were imprisoned for years while activists and lawyers fought for their release against a public opinion increasingly hostile to foreign immigration. An examination of how political pressures, media scrutiny, and reactionary policies can warp human lives, Golden Venture is a timely meditation on the state of the U.S. immigration detention system.
Followed by Q&A with filmmaker Peter Cohn.
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22) Fortune-telling and Material Culture in Han China – Predicting future events were popular in ancient China, but its information was scarce in textual records. Archaeological finds in recent years yielded quite a few examples that inform us of how ancient Chinese tried to predict their future and what their concerns were. This lecture by Lillian Tseng, Associate Professor of East Asian Art and Archaeology, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, will introduce two cases in Han China. One demonstrates how astrology forecast national affairs, while the other reveals how chess-playing was used for predicting individual events.
Part 4 of the 5-week lecture series, The Glories of the Han Dynasty
Wednesday, October 11, 6:30 PM
China Institute
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23) Archiving China: A Presentation by Asia Art Archive’s Anthony Yung – Home to one of the largest collections of research materials on recent art from Asia, Asia Art Archive (AAA) endeavors to catalyze new ideas by sharing knowledge and building tools and communities through research, residency, and educational programs. Instrumental in developing AAA’s research collection, Anthony Yung will introduce a selection of AAA’s key projects in China, highlighting the inventiveness, originality, and dynamism of contemporary art practice from the late 1970s to the present.
Based in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Anthony Yung is AAA’s Senior Researcher specializing in Greater China. Projects include Materials of the Future: Documenting Contemporary Chinese Art from 1980-1990, which features over one hundred filmed interviews of artists, critics, and scholars. Yung was recipient of the Fourth Yishu Award for Critical Writing on Contemporary Chinese Art (2014) and served as the co-curator of A Hundred Years of Shame – Songs of Resistance and Scenarios for Chinese Nations (2015, Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong).
Wednesday, October 11, 7 PM
Asia Art Archive in America, 43 Remsen Street, Brooklyn
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24) Author Talk: Madeleine O’Dea, The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance, and the Making of Modern China – The Phoenix Years tells the riveting story of China’s rise from economic ruin to global giant in the four decades since the country started opening to the world in 1978. This remarkable narrative is informed and illuminated by another one running beneath its surface – the story of the country’s emerging artistic avant-garde and the Chinese people’s ongoing struggle for freedom of expression.
By following the personal stories of nine contemporary Chinese artists, The Phoenix Years shows how China’s rise unleashed creativity, thwarted hopes and sparked tensions between the individual and the state that continue to this day. It relates the amazing years of self-discovery and hope in the 1980s, which ended in the disaster of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Following that tragedy comes the story of China’s meteoric economic rise, of the opportunities that emerged and the difficult compromises artists and others have to make to be citizens in modern China.
Thursday, October 12, 6:30 PM
China Institute
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25) ChinaFile Presents: Learning China From the Ground Up With Michael Meyer – When author Michael Meyer first arrived in China at the age of 23, he wrote Chinese words up and down his arms so that he could converse with the people he met. Over the next two decades he would build a fluency as a reporter and chronicler of the everyday lives of Chinese people — a subject he explores with unusual style, sensitivity, and humor in his first two books, The Last Days of Old Beijing (2008) and In Manchuria (2015). ChinaFile is delighted to welcome Meyer back to Asia Society for the launch of his new memoir, The Road to Sleeping Dragon: Learning China from the Ground Up, which describes his life in China over the eventful and transformative years between his arrival in 1995 and the present.
Live webcast available at AsiaSociety.org/Live
Thursday, October 12, 6:30 PM
Asia Society
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26) The Rider – The hardscrabble economy of America’s rodeo country, where, for some, riding and winning is the only source of pleasure and income, is depicted with exceptional compassion and truth by a filmmaker who is in no way an insider: Zhao was born in Beijing and educated at Mount Holyoke and NYU. Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, The Rider is a fiction film that calls on nonprofessional actors to play characters similar to themselves, incorporating their skill sets and experiences. Brady Jandreau is extraordinary as a badly injured former champion rider and horse trainer forced to give up the life he knows and loves. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
Followed by Q&A with Chloé Zhao and Brady Jandreau
Thursday, October 12, 9:15 PM
Alice Tully Hall
ONGOING FILMS, SHOWS, AND EVENTS
1) City of Rock 《缝纫机乐队》– Da Peng’s (Pancake Man aka Jiang Bing Man) highly anticipated sophomore film, CITY OF ROCK, follows Hu Liang, a young man from a small town in China, who wants to protect the town’s treasured Rock Park from redevelopment by a corporate real estate agent. Hoping to save the park by organizing a charity rock concert, he partners with music agent Cheng Gong. But when he’s offered a large payout to cancel the concert, will Hu Liang choose money or will he save the beloved town park?
At Regal E-Walk Stadium
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2) Skyhunter 《空天猎》– Produced in cooperation with the People’s Liberation Army, China’s first aerial warfare film is about a group of elite military who are called into action to resolve a hostage crisis and foil a terrorist plot.
Opens at AMC Empire 25 October 6
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3) Never Say Die 《羞羞的铁拳》– A boxer and a journalist accidentally exchange bodies after they are struck by current, embarking a series of adventures. The new comedy stars most of the cast members of Goodbye Mr Loser, the troupe’s highest-grossing movie and the first movie adapted from one of Mahua’s theater plays
At AMC Empire 25
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4) Human Flow – In an epic film journey led by the internationally renowned artist Ai Weiwei, Human Flow gives a powerful visual expression to this massive human migration. The documentary elucidates both the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Captured over the course of a year amid 23 countries, the film follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretches across the globe, and acts as a witness to its subjects and their desperate search for safety, shelter and justice; from the haunting lure of lives left behind to the unknown potential of the future. This visceral work of cinema is a testament to the unassailable human spirit and poses one of the questions that will define this century: Will our global society emerge from fear, isolation, and self-interest and choose a path of openness, freedom, and respect for humanity?
October 12 – 19
Q&A with Ai Weiwei following the 1:50 PM screening on 10/14
Angelika Film Center, 18 W. Houston Street+
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5) Our Time Will Come 《明月幾時有》 – Ann Hui, a Hong Kong auteur whose output marks her an equal of Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark, returns with this tense, tough historical drama set amidst the Japanese occupation during World War II, in which school teacher Zhou Xun gradually commits to violent action on the side of the resistance. Anchored by Zhou’s steely performance and supporting work by Tony Leung, Our Time Will Come has the scope and masterful control of a female-centered ‘Army of Shadows’. Edited by legendary Eric Rohmer collaborator Mary Stephen.
Dir. Ann Hui
2017, 130 min
October 6 – 12 at Metrograph
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6) Chasing the Dragon 《追龍》－ Donnie Yen stars as the infamous real-life drug kingpin Crippled Ho, who came to Hong Kong an illegal immigrant in 1963 and ruthlessly carved an empire from the chaotic underworld of drug dealers and corrupt police that ruled the city under notorious detective Lee Rock, played by Andy Lau.
At AMC Empire 25
ART EXHIBITIONS
Group Shows and Local Artists:
He Wei, co-founder of He and Hu, shows works on paper at Carma Asian Tapas starting October 4.
Wang Xu is one of the artists at The 2017 Socrates Annual which opens on Oct 1. The Socrates Annual – formerly known as The Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition – is an annual exhibition of new public art that addresses the most urgent issues of today.
Dongze Huo will be part of the group shows Live – Work – Play NYC which opens September 21 and Interactive which will be on view September 23 – October 15.
Fina Yeung will exhibit her mixed-media cardboard installations at ARTISTS CO-OP at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning which runs rom September 21 – November 11.
Chinese Indonesian artist FX Harsono is one of the artists in Asia Society’s After Darkness: Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History which runs from September 8, 2017 – January 21, 2018. A frequent theme in his work is about being part of the ethnic Chinese minority in the country. From the exhibition page:
Lulu Meng exhibits her sculpture series Impression in which “softness and movement [of articles of clothing are] frozen in the solidity of the object” as part of the Fourth AIM Biennial at the Bronx Museum of the Arts which is on view through October 22
Fou Gallery shows the fecund botany-themed works of Michael Eade which invoke a certain Chinese aesthetic in Realms of Soil.
Opening and Newly Listed:
1) Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World (Guggenheim, 10/6/17 – 1/8/18) – The much debated exhibition has been strongly protested by animal rights group even before its opening, and Guggenheim announced that it will pull three works from the exhibition due to threats to the museum.
Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World is a major exhibition of contemporary art from China spanning 1989 to 2008, arguably the most transformative period of modern Chinese and recent world history. The largest show of this subject ever mounted in North America, it offers an interpretative survey of Chinese experimental art framed by the geopolitical dynamics attending the end of the Cold War, the spread of globalization, and the rise of China. The arc of this international history, beginning with the crushed utopianism of the nationwide democracy movement and culminating in the conflicted euphoria surrounding the Beijing Olympics, provides the framework for the Guggenheim’s show.
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2) East of Que Village: The Ends of Nature (The Walther Collection, 10/6 – 11/25) – A site-specific installation by Chinese artist Yang Fudong, East of Que Village (2007) is a six-channel video work that draws inspiration from Yang’s distinct childhood memories of a village in Hebei, a Northern province adjacent to Beijing. Suggesting the isolation and bleak everyday realities of life on the outskirts, this dystopian aesthetic puts forth a deep meditation on the existential condition of contemporary Chinese life.
Opening reception: Friday, October 6, 6 – 8 PM, The Walther Collection, 526 W 26th St, Ste. 718
Yang Fudong, from East of Que Village, 2007
Courtesy the artist, ShanghART Gallery, and The Walther Collection
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3) Uncharted Waters (Boers-Li Gallery, 10/6 – 12/23) – Beijing-based Boers-Li Gallery announces the opening of its outpost in New York City. This expansion is in accord with a vision to introduce the gallery’s artists to a broader audience. Located in a landmarked townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the new space is within walking distance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. The gallery’s new branch will present works from its veteran artists, and, at the same time, develop new programs in collaboration with international artists outside of China. The inaugural exhibition of Boers-Li New York Gallery, Uncharted Waters, showcases both established and emerging Chinese artists including Zhang Peili, Zhao Gang, Zhang Hongtu, Zhang Wei, Ma Kelu, Lin Yilin, Fang Lu, and Miao Ying, all of whom have lived or are still living in New York City.
Opening reception, Friday, October 6, 5 – 7 PM, with Performance by Zhang Peili at 5:30 PM
Boers-Li Gallery, 24 East 81st Street, 4th Floor
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4) Musquiqui Chihying: Resistance is Futile (Gallery 456, 10/6 – 11/3) – An exhibition of installation works by Berlin- and Taipei-based artist Musquiqui Chihying (b. 1985). This is his first solo show in New York. Chihying’s recent works investigate the post-colonial and post-immigrant ideology embedded in the images and media culture of a globalized society, questioning the power structures around seeing and being seen. The exhibition features 4 media installations the artist created since 2016, which centered the complex tension and distortion between human beings and the camera. The exhibition title takes its name from popular sci-fi franchise Star Trek, which is delivered by the villain The Borg . The Borg is a group of cybernetic drones that assimilates the culture of the conquered. When our perception is gradually expanded and replaced by digital apparatuses, are we eventually become the Borg in the future?
The exhibition at Gallery 456 is organized by curator Shih-yu Hsu, with special thanks to SCREEN.
Opening reception: Friday, October 6, 6 – 8 PM, with artist-led tour at 7 PM, Gallery 456, 456 Broadway, 3rd Fl.
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5) Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (multiple sites NYC, 10/12/17 – 2/1//18) – As the culmination of its 40th Anniversary year, Public Art Fund will present the citywide exhibition Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, by world renowned artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei. Inspired by the international migration crisis and current global geopolitical landscape, the exhibition transforms the security fence into a powerful social and artistic symbol with interventions across the city. Large-scale, site-specific works will be installed at Doris C. Freedman Plaza at Central Park, the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village, and the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, in partnership with NYC Parks. These will be joined by site-specific interventions on top of and in between private buildings located at 48 East 7th Street, 189 Chrystie Street, 248 Bowery, and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art at Astor Place; a series of new flagpole-mounted works for the New York City Economic Development Corporation-managed Essex Street Market; and sculptural interventions around 10 JCDecaux bus shelters in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation. In addition to these site-specific works, Ai has created a new series of 200 unique two-dimensional banners that will appear in all five boroughs on lampposts. The artist will also use spaces that traditionally feature advertising to showcase a new series of 98 documentary images from his research at refugee camps and national borders on JCDecaux bus shelters as well as Intersection’s LinkNYC kiosks citywide. A graphic work depicting the many forms of the global refugee crisis will appear on five JCDecaux newsstands in Manhattan. Each of the works will grow out of the existing urban infrastructure, using the fabric of the city as its base and drawing attention to the role of the fence in dividing people. In doing so, the artist highlights how this form, ubiquitous yet also potent, can alter how we perceive and relate to our environment.
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5) Fan Yun (ACAW x Sundarm Tagore Gallery, 10/12 – 11/4) – Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) Thinking Projects presents a pop-up exhibition of work by Yu Fan of Beijing at Sundaram Tagore Chelsea. This exhibition is co-presented with the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (BCAF).
Known for his sleek and delicate sculptures, the renowned Chinese sculptor presents an intimate set of sculptural clay works culminating from his residency at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, with particular inspiration drawn from the Asian art collection. The exhibition is curated by ACAW director Leeza Ahmady as part of Asia Contemporary Art Week’s 2017 signature program Thinking Projects, a pop-up series presenting research-based on-going artistic endeavors by nine noted artists from China, Indonesia, Turkey, India and the United States. Yu Fan’s project is BCAF’s inaugural Creative China Festival in New York.
Opening reception: Thursday, October 12, 6 – 8 PM, Sundarm Tagore Gallery, 547 West 27th Street
Yu Fan, San Sebastian, 2001. Courtesy of the artist.
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6) Yang Xin (ACAW x Klein Sun Gallery, 10/12 – 11/25) – As part of Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) 2017 signature program: THINKING PROJECTS— pop-up exhibition series focusing on research-based artistic endeavors curated by ACAW director Leeza Ahmady. Yang Xin’s fascination with microbiology is interpreted in an impressive scientifically infused set of multi-media works that are profoundly reflective of various essential mechanisms within the building blocks of the human body. Co-organized with ACAW Consortium Partner Fu Xiaodong of Space Station in Beijing.
Opening reception: Thursday, October 12, 6 – 8 PM, Klein Sun Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street
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Closing soon:
Maya Lin: Ebb and Flow (Pace Gallery, 9/8 – 10/7)
Referencing Alexander Calder: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art (Klein Sun Gallery, 9/7 – 10/7)
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)
History’s Shadows and Light (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, 8/29 – 10/12)
Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Central Park New York: 24 Solar Terms (Foley Gallery, 9/6 – 10/15)
Yang Jiechang: The Whip (Chambers Fine Art, 9/7 – 10/17)
Current shows:
Visit the exhibition calendar for details for the current shows listed below. Check the museum’s or gallery’s website for hours of operation.
Maya Lin: Ebb and Flow (Pace Gallery, 9/8 – 10/7)
Zheng Chongbin: Asymmetric Emergence (Ink Studio x Sundarm Tagore Gallery, 9/19 – 10/8)
Referencing Alexander Calder: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art (Klein Sun Gallery, 9/7 – 10/7)
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)
History’s Shadows and Light (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, 8/29 – 10/12)
Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Central Park New York: 24 Solar Terms (Foley Gallery, 9/6 – 10/15)
Yang Jiechang: The Whip (Chambers Fine Art, 9/7 – 10/17)
Sun Xun: Time Spy (Sean Kelly Gallery, 9/8 – 10/21)
Lin Tianmiao: Protruding Patterns (Galerie Lelong, 9/7 – 10/21)
TWO ROCKS: Nobuo Sekine and Zhang Hongtu (Baahng Gallery, 9/20 -10/21)
Heidi Lau: The Primordial Molder (Bronx Museum of the Arts, 7/19 – 10/22)
Ding Yi: Appearance of Crosses (Timothy Taylor Gallery, 9/29 – 10/28)
Musquiqui Chihying: Resistance is Futile (Gallery 456, 10/6 – 11/3)
Fan Yun (ACAW x Sundarm Tagore Gallery, 10/12 – 11/4)
Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity, Treasures of the Han Dynasty from Xuzhou (China Institute, 5/25 – 11/12/17)
East of Que Village: The Ends of Nature (The Walther Collection, 10/6 – 11/25)
Yang Xin (ACAW x Klein Sun Gallery, 10/12 – 11/25)
Uncharted Waters (Boers-Li Gallery, 10/6 – 12/23)
Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World (Guggenheim, 10/6/17 – 1/8/18)
Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (multiple sites NYC, 10/12/17 – 2/1//18)
Patty Chang: The Wandering Lake, 2009 – 2017 (Queens Museum, 9/17/17 – 2/18/18)
FOLD: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures (Museum of Chinese in America, 10/5 /17 – 3/25/18)
In Focus: An Assembly of Gods (Asia Society Museum, 9/26/17 – 3/25/18)
Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong: Constellation (Seward Park, June 2017 – June 2018)
Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8/26/17 – 1/9/19)
Lead image: Packaging mooncakes in the 1960s