This week: Chinatown Arts Week which includes events organized by Think!Chinatown and Art Parley’s launch of the second issue of the Round Robin Trilingual Community Newspaper; Chinese Theatre Works performs and talks about restoring antique shadow puppets at Fou Gallery; a talk about the current situation in Xinjiang; a biopic about former Taiwanese Yankees star Chien-Ming Wang’s comeback efforts; photography talks; a Taiwanese artist explores the country’s complex history with other countries in the region; five new exhibition listings; and more…
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Coming Up
11/3 – 11/5 – An experimental puppet show based on a classic Chinese poem
11/4 – Taiwanese indie singer Crowd Lu
11/7 – 11/17 – A play inspired by the story of the first Chinese female in America.
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Our weekly listing includes open calls and other opportunities for artists, filmmakers, and others involved with Chinese culture in this intro section.
1) Sinophone Musical Worlds and Their Publics – A call for submissions the journal China Perspectives that discuss how cooperation amongst individuals constitute musical worlds, the approach and paradox of political management of popular music, and the role of music in Chinese society. Read the complete call for submissions. Abstracts are due October 31, 2018, and full articles are due February 15, 2019.
2) Re-Envisioning Gender in China – A call for papers for the Second Conference of the China Academic Network on Gender. How do we re-envision gender in China? Conversely, how does gender allow us to re-envision China? Following feminist theorist bell hooks’ impetus that “There is power in looking” and probing “a critical gaze, one that “looks” to document, one that is oppositional”, the second conference of the China Academic Network on Gender (CHANGE) seeks to examine what new dynamics and power relations are transmitted, focused, defocused or blurred when gender is used as the prism to examine Chinese society and cultural practices.
Read the complete call for papers
Abstracts are due October 31, 2018, and first drafts of articles are due February 1, 2019.
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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 us on Instagram.
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) Photographer Talk: Shanghai from Film to Digital – As the third and last talk of China House’s fall photo exhibition, Shanghai from Film to Digital talks about photographer Lu Yuanmin’s transition from photographing in analog to digital. In this lecture, the photographer will present both black and white film images and digital colored images, as well as discussing how the changes in technologies affect the way people photograph.
Friday, October 26, 3:30 PM
NYU China House, 8 Washington Mews
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2) Looking For? – Come join Q&A and New Fest featured director Tung-Yen Chou, who directed the documentary “Looking For,” for a conversation about queer intimacy in the modern era.
What should be one of the simplest of questions in setting up a dating profile isn’t so easy for gay Taiwanese filmmaker Chou Tung-Yen to answer, leading him on a globetrotting journey interviewing a variety of men who share their stories of love and lust to reveal how dating in the gay community has changed since the rise of dating apps.
So what are you looking for? It’s a question often asked in dating apps of all kinds. But there’s hardly ever an easy answer; it’s perhaps a quick one, but one that rarely leads to any certainty. When filmmaker Tung-yen Chou was asked the question four years ago, he had no idea. Thus began his journey to find out, eventually leading to 60-plus interviews with gay men from around the world discussing experiences of love, lust, and loss in the dating world. They come from different backgrounds and cultures with varying degrees of social acceptance for homosexuality, some keeping their identities secret. By asking this fundamental question, he received answers running the gamut of friendship, to a one time hook-up, and to marriage. None, however, were sure of their answers: As one Chinese interviewee said in response, “Everything, because everything is possible.” And for Yen, what began as a simple curiosity project morphed into an odyssey of self-discovery. This serene and kindhearted documentary will elicit empathy and compassion beyond all else, with Yen trying to discern what he’s looking for. (Seattle International Film Festival)
Friday, October 26, 4 PM
Stephen Donaldson Lounge, Columbia University, 605-615 W 115th St.
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3) MOCA Music + Mic Night – An evening of free music, songs, and stand-up comedy, as we transform our museum lobby into a stage for emerging talent from the community.
Friday, October 26, 7 PM
Museum of Chinese in America
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4) Chinese Theatre Works Shadow Restoration Project Special Series at Fou Gallery – Get to know Chinese Theatre Works, an organization that for nearly two decades has combined Chinese shadow theater and performing arts traditions with Western styles and techniques to create original works. Co-artistic directors Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin and their team will perform their award-winning shadow theater work ‘Tiger Tales’, introduce the art of shadow theater and their collection of antique shadow puppets — perhaps the largest in the US, and discuss their ongoing project of restoring their collection.
Friday, October 26, 7 PM
Fou Gallery, 410 Jefferson Avenue, #1
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5) The Water Margin 《水滸傳》– It’s an adaptation of a small part of the Chinese classic of the same name (sometimes also translated as Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men are Brothers) Written some time in the 15th century, it details the exploits of 108 outlaws based in Liangshan during the time of the Sung dynasty in 12th century China.
David Chiang is clearly king of this film. His cocky, smiling character is good at everything: wrestling (surprising given Chiang’s small frame), music, martial arts and impressing the ladies. He’s so earth-shatteringly awesome, he’s given his own sound effect, which plays whenever he appears onscreen. The Water Margin is worth checking out just for Chiang’s charismatic performance. And the sound effect.” (Heroic Cinema)
Dir.: Chang Cheh, Hsueh Li Pao, Wu Ma Feng
1972, Hong Kong, 120 min.
Screens as part of IFC’s Shaw brothers retrospective, Shaw Brothers Spectaculars: Presented in Glorious Shaw-Scope through Dec 29, 2018.
Friday, October 26, 11:59 PM
Saturday, October 27, 11:59 PM
IFC Center, 323 6th Ave
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6) Art of Tea at LC Tea Trading – Sit down for a few rounds of tea with Mr. Chen. Learn about his wide collection of tea, specializing in leaves from Fujian. If you ask, he’ll share pictures of where the tea comes from and how the tea is produced. $10 cash a sitting (20-30 mins, and please tip if you stay if you linger). Seating is limited, so circle back around if he’s full up.
This event is presented by Think!Chinatown for Chinatown Arts Week.
Saturday, October 27, 12 – 3 PM
123 Elizabeth Street
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7) Round Robin Trilingual Newspaper Vol. 2 Launch Party – Join artist collective Art Parley (artists Sue Jeong Ka and Melissa Liu) for the launch of the second issue of the Round Robin Trilingual Community Newspaper, an event in partnership with the NewYork Public Library Seward Park and Immigrant Social Services. Featured collaborators include Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Feed Me a Story, Community Access’s Art Collective, Red Silk Dancers, and local playwright David Nieves.
This event will take place in the plaza in front of Seward Park Library (and in the case of rain or cold weather, in the library’s community room). There will be free food and a candy exchange (first come first serve), free copies of the second issue of the trilingual newspaper to pick up, and from 3-5:30 PM some performances and open mic and karaoke that anyone is welcome to participate in. There will be Chinese and Spanish interpretation support available.
Saturday, October 27, 2 -6 PM
New York Public Library – Seward Park Branch, 192 E. Broadway
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8) The Art of Edward Ching Film Screening and Q&A – The Art of Edward Ching (2018, 32 mins) short subject documentary explores the life and art of New Yorker Edward Ching, whose oeuvre consists largely of cityscapes painted outdoors. As he paints, passersby witness Edward morph into Bruce Lee: attacking the canvas with paints and brushes, jabbing, poking, arms swinging, and torso swaying. The youngest of a Chinese father, who created classic Chinese ink wash paintings, and Latin American mother, Edward is a first generation American. This film delves into Edward’s life story, inspiration, and method.
Saturday, October 27, 2 PM
New York Public Library – Chatham Square Branch, 33 E. Broadway
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9) China-U.S. Cultural Investment Forum – Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation and Asia Society jointly present the China-U.S. Cultural Investment Forum, part of Creative China Festival.
China has seen exponential growth in the past twenty years, and many of the new generation of entrepreneurs and investors are beginning to shift their focus to the cultural sector. The Forum will gather a group of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and arts professionals from China and the United States to highlight the role of culture in cultivating new talents and creativity for the society, and to share organization and management models between China and the United States.
Through a series of engaging presentations, discussions, and networking opportunities, the Forum aims to identify new prospects for cultural investment that have emerged in recent years and establish a long term collaborative platform between the U.S. and China.
Sunday, October 28, 1 PM
Asia Society
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10) Urban Archive’s Chinatown Architecture Scavenger Hunt – Urban Archive has organized a digital scavenger hunt for Chinatown Arts Week that will take you all across Chinatown. Enter in teams, or pick up a team with new friends! Explore Chinatown’s architectural history… maybe visit a local museum, and perhaps you’ll win some prizes from sponsors Pearl River Mart and the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The Hunt begins at 5 Essex Street for hot cocoa and instructions.
Register your team at: https://ti.to/urbanarchive/thehunt-chinatown
This event is presented by Think!Chinatown for Chinatown Arts Week.
Sunday, October 28, 1:30 PM
5 Essex Street
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11) Hand in Hand – A Shadow Puppet Performance by Spica Wobbe – What are hands made for? Are they for scratching, rubbing, or counting beats?
In this work a mother holds her daughter’s hand, which conveys how the previous generation took care of the next generation. It also tells how a self-taught artist, Lisa Shia, used her paintings to document her life stories growing up in Meng Xia through a scroll that she painted. The show’s elements include shadow and light, object manipulation, Kamishibai style storytelling, and music.
At the age of sixty-five, Lisa Shia began the process of learning to paint. In the last two decades of her life, she used her paintbrush to document her life in Taiwan. Under the encouragement of her teacher Liu Xiumei, she relied on her memory and her unique simple style of painting to document her life. Although there are no academic techniques in her paintings, her works are full of history and emotion. In more than 300 paintings, she recorded the customs of Taiwan, the rule of foreign powers, the horrors of war, the social changes after liberation, and the modernization of the 20th century. The National Museum of Taiwan History acquired all of her paintings in 2015 for their permanent collection.
The show is 20 minutes and will be performed twice: 5 PM in English and 6 PM in Mandarin
Doors Open at 4:30pm
There will be a post performance Q&As with the artist
This event is presented by Think!Chinatown for Chinatown Arts Week.
Sunday, October 28, 5 – 7 PM
1st Chinese Baptist Church, 21 Pell Street
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12) VOTESart Get Out The Vote Concert w/ E. Fuzhou Opera Association – VOTESart is non-partisan organization that works with musicians to engage their local communities through pop-up concerts in community spaces. The program will include a special selection of classical music for a Chinatown audience and feature excerpts of Chinese Opera performed by Eastern Fuzhou Opera Association. Audience members will be engaged in bi-lingual get out the vote activities interspersed through the performance.
Dress warm! There will be heaters, but this event will take place outdoors in the beautiful bamboo garden at 5 Essex St. Wine and light reception will be served.
This event is presented by Think!Chinatown for Chinatown Arts Week.
Monday, October 29, 6 PM
5 Essex Street
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13) ChinaFile Presents: The Situation in Xinjiang – Over the past roughly six months, major international newspapers, scholars, and advocacy organizations have documented a campaign by China’s government to “transform” local ethnic Muslim populations in the far western region of Xinjiang. The campaign, which builds off of long-standing policies of policing and control of the local Uighur population, has escalated dramatically and now include surveillance of unprecedented scope and scale, a program of forced home visits for millions of the region’s Muslim residents, the almost complete prohibition of Islamic religious practice and Uighur cultural activity, and the incarceration of up to a million people in prison camps.
What is the latest reporting on the subject? Why is the campaign happening? How do Chinese officials explain these policies and what they seek to accomplish? And what is the international community doing in response — especially as it becomes increasingly clear that Beijing’s pressure tactics and threats don’t stop at China’s borders, but are levied against foreign citizens living in other countries?
ChinaFile’s Jessica Batke will moderate a discussion with journalist Gulchehra Hoja of Radio Free Asia and historian Rian Thum of Loyola University.
Monday, October 29, 6:30 PM
Asia Society
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14) Chia-Wei Hsu – Black and White – Malayan Tapir Opening Reception– Through evocative storytelling, Hsu cuts across time and geography to narrate the history of the Malayan tapir and its relationship to colonial power and zoos in Southeast Asia. See the exhibition section below for a full description of the show.
Tuesday, October 30, 6 PM
International Studio & Curatorial Program, 1040 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn
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15) Learning a New Dance by Facing Death: A Family Conversation – In 2015, the Yin family had the rare experience of going through a “dress rehearsal” for their mother’s death. Join us for an important and meaningful discussion on facing death with love, trust, and communication between Fay Hoh Yin and her daughter, Monona.
At the age of 83, Fay Hoh Yin was given 3-6 months to live. She and her children had painful but necessary conversations about her end-of-life wishes. But the story doesn’t end there. Fay Hoh Yin recovered, published her memoirs, and returned to living on her own. The Yin family’s new awareness of death’s nearness now allows them to appreciate the present and strive to create joyful memories every day. Join us for an important and meaningful discussion on facing death with love, trust, and communication. Passages from Fay Hoh Yin’s memoirs, Riding with the Wind: Three Generations of My Family in China, will be shared, and the book will be available for sale as well.
Tuesday, October 30, 6 PM
Manny Cantor Center, 197 E. Broadway
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16) Chinatown Arts Week Poetry Night – Chinatown Arts Week will close with a night of readings by Asian American writers curated by Julie Chen.
This event is presented by Think!Chinatown for Chinatown Arts Week.
Tuesday, October 30, 7 PM
Chen Dance Center, 70 Mulberry Street
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17) Chinese Theatre Works’ 7th Annual “Dream Life Love Theater” Fundraiser – Chinese Theatre Works’ Dream Life Love Theater gala celebrates its 7th anniversary! As a tradition, the night will feature three special Cross Culture Awards to honor some of the most important cultural leaders, opinion influencers, artists, as well as mentors of the Chinese/American community; CTW’s review of the 2017-18 season’s achievements and a sneak peak at the upcoming year. Also be prepared for some live performances, auctions and raffles.
Wednesday, October 31, 6:30 PM
Henson Annex, 225 E. 67th Street
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18) Behemoth 《悲兮魔兽》– For the second film in the screening and discussion series Can the Substrate Speak?: Experimental Films of Planetary Change, CEH Director Una Chaudhuri and Professor Elaine Gan will be showing the documentary Behemoth.
Beginning with a mining explosion in Mongolia and ending in a ghost city west of Beijing, political documentarian Zhao Liang’s visionary new film Behemoth details, in one breathtaking sequence after another, the social and ecological devastation behind an economic miracle that may yet prove illusory.
Dir. Zhao Liang
2015, China, 90 min.
Thursday, November 1, 6 PM
Center for Experimental Humanities, NYU, 19 University Place, Room 222
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19) Photographer Ka-Man Tse – narrow distances – Photographer Ka-Man Tse joins MOCA for the New York premier and book launch of her new book narrow distances, photographs she made between 2004-2018. Featuring essays, poetry and texts in both English and Chinese by: Yau Ching, Kaitlin Chan, Ken Chen, Anita Wong, Dorothy Cheung, Alfa Chan; and an interview with Elle Pérez.
narrow distances features photographs made between New York and Hong Kong and asks questions of home, identity, community, and subject-hood. What does it mean to look, who has the right to look, what does it mean to be seen? narrow distances address a desire to negotiate multiple and diasporic identities and are made within the intersection of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) and LGBTQ Community . For more info or to purchase book please go to http://www.candorarts.com/goods/narrow-distances
Thursday, November 1, 6:30 PM
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St
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20) Chia-Wei Hsu’s Huai Mo Village + Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau Screening – Join Asia Art Archive in America for a screening of Chia-Wei Hsu’s Huai Mo Village (2012, single-channel video, 8’20”), and Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau (2015, single-channel video, 13’30”), followed by a conversation with the artist moderated by curator and critic Christopher Phillips. Their discussion will touch on the artist’s exploration of filmmaking as a performance art and Taiwan’s complex relationship with other countries in the region.
Huai Mo Village takes place in an orphanage in Chiang Rai, Thailand and tells the true story of a troop of Chinese Nationalist soldiers who retreated to the border regions between Thailand and Myanmar at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1950. In this film, the founder of the orphanage, who is a pastor and former intelligence officer, recalls the plight of these homeless, stateless soldiers who remained in Thailand rather than return to China or join the Nationalists in Taiwan
The pastor appears again in a second film, Ruins of the Intelligence Bureau, to expand on the story he began in Huai Mo Village. Set in the remains of the demolished Intelligence Bureau, this film features a performance of a traditional Thai puppet show. Narrating the performance is the pastor, who recalls personal memories and recounts the legend of Hanuman—a monkey general who leads his troop to battle and helps a prince return to the kingdom from which he was exiled.
Thursday, November 1, 7 PM
Asia Art Archive In America, 43 Remsen St, Brooklyn
ONGOING FILMS, SHOWS, AND EVENTS
1) LATE LIFE: The Chien-Ming Wang Story – The first and only Taiwanese player for the New York Yankees, Chien-Ming Wang (王建民) held many titles: American League Wins Leader, World Series Champion, Olympian, Time 100 Most Influential, and The Pride of Taiwan. He had it all – until a 2008 injury forever altered the course of his career. LATE LIFE: The Chien-Ming Wang Story – named after the late sinking action on his signature pitch – follows the rise and fall of the international icon as he fights his way back into the Major Leagues through endless rehab programs and lengthy stints away from home, carrying the weight of the world on his battered shoulder. A poignant and intimate account of Wang’s steadfast quest, LATE LIFE tells the story of a man who is unwilling to give up and unable to let go.
Dir. Frank W. Chen
2018, USA, Taiwan, 97 min.
At AMC Empire 25 – 10/26 – 11/1
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2) Shirkers – Director Sandi Tan was a teenage rebel when she set out in 1992 to make an ambitious, genre-bending road movie shot in her native Singapore. Joined by her friends, Tan was assisted by a fortysomething American teacher, Georges Cardona, who disappeared with the 16-millimeter negative before the film was completed. Decades later, Tan is reunited with the footage, which becomes the foundation of this fascinating combination of diary, documentary, and artistic inquisition. Shirkers is an opportunity for the filmmaker to revisit her own punk past, and to investigate the character of her sketchy mentor, Cardona. Searching, unsparing and deeply invested in questions of sex, power and access to the tools of filmmaking, Shirkers is also, finally, a monument to one woman’s unflagging dedication to serving her own vision. Winner of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Directing Award.
Dir. Sandi Tan
2018, United States, 96 min.
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3) Project Gutenberg 《無雙》– The Hong Kong police is hunting a counterfeiting gang led by a mastermind code-named ‘Painter’ (Chow Yun-fat). The gang possesses exceptional counterfeiting skills which makes it difficult to distinguish the authenticity of its counterfeit currency. The scope of their criminal activities extends globally and greatly attracts the attention of the police. In order to crack the true identity of ‘Painter’, the police recruits a painter named Lee Man (Aaron Kwok) to assist in solving the case.
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4) Crazy Rich Asians – The first film since The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago to feature an all-Asian cast is a rom-com based on Singaporean American writer Kevin Kwan’s best-selling book of the same name.
Rachel Chu is happy to accompany her longtime boyfriend, Nick, to his best friend’s wedding in Singapore. She’s also surprised to learn that Nick’s family is extremely wealthy and he’s considered one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. Thrust into the spotlight, Rachel must now contend with jealous socialites, quirky relatives and something far, far worse — Nick’s disapproving mother.
At local multiple theaters in the New York area
ART EXHIBITIONS
Group Shows, Local Artists, and Other Art Events:
Artist Qiren Hu‘s installation American Ginseng which “further[s] the dialogue about value, belief systems, notions of meaning, authenticity, and consumer desire that evolve from market constructs”; science and tech inspired artist Ani Liu; Mo Kong who talks about politics in coded geologic form and weather narratives; photographer Arthur Ou; and Christine Wong Yap will be part of Queens International 2018 at the Queens Museum which runs from October 7, 2018 – February 24, 2019.
Qiren Hu – ‘American Ginseng’
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Next time you’re in the Times Square or Grand Central subway stations, take the S Train shuttle and see artist MengChih Chiang‘s (孟芝江) Taiwan-themed design for the train done for the Taiwan Tourism Bureau and possibly win roundtrip tickets to Taiwan by taking a photo of yourself with the wrapped S train and post the photo on Instagram between Monday, October 1 – Friday, November 2 (updated) with the hashtags #taiwanstrain and @ttb_na.
Visit Chen Dongfan’s Doyers Street street mural, The Song of Dragon and Flowers
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Opening and Newly Listed:
1) The Preservation of Fire: On Lines and Materials (Crossing Art, 10/19 – 12/15) – This exhibition highlights a group of four acclaimed Chinese and Korean artists — Qin Feng, Ann Niu, Wang Tiande, Kwang Young Chun — whose use of expressive lines and unique materials create a convergence of the traditional and the contemporary. The title references a quote attributed to Gustav Mahler: “tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” This sentiment sums up the vibrant work that these artists create. They each refer to their cultural heritage in order to create searingly contemporary art. The traditions that the artists embrace do not restrict them, but instead propel their inspiration towards innovation.
Ann Niu – Little Scholar Stone, 2015
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2) Huang Rui: Zen Space (Boers-Li Gallery, 10/26 – 12/8) – An exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Huang Rui, dating from the 1980s to the present. This will be the first U.S. exhibition of Huang Rui’s most recent series, “Zen Space”.
Huang Rui is widely recognized for his foundational role in the development of post-Cultural Revolution art – as a founding member of the audacious Stars Group, for his early application of Western art concepts – abstract expressionism, cubism, fauvism – to Chinese contemporary art, and as a founder and defender of Beijing’s 798 Art District.
Huang characterizes his art as “determined, deep exploration”, and “Zen Space”, his latest series, as growing from “…a continuous experimentation towards the most essential statement of art”. This body of work takes shape in part through Huang’s consideration of the Confucian order of society and the Taoist order of nature as they are reflected in the hexagrams of the I Ching (Book of Changes) and in Taoist geomancy expressed through classical architecture and the design of scholar’s gardens.
Huang Rui was one of China’s earliest adherents of abstract painting. Abstraction and enduring experimentation with architectural composition, minimalist aesthetics, and the graphic exemplification of philosophical principles are some of the guideposts of his work. This exhibition includes Stars group paintings from the early 1980s, Huang’s later investigation of spatial elements inspired by Chinese traditional architecture, and works from “Zen Space”, a summation to date of his ongoing exploration to embody Asian philosophies in his art. Huang says, “In ‘Zen Space’, the material is not real matter, but an essential state of mind….”
Continue reading the press release
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3) Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers (Museum of the City of New York, 10/26/18 – 3/24/19) – New York City’s nine predominantly Chinese neighborhoods are home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia. Interior Lives features the work of three photographers who have spent years documenting the lives of Chinese New Yorkers: Thomas Holton, Annie Ling, and An Rong Xu.
Thomas Holton has followed the trajectory of a single family, the Lams of Ludlow Street, since 2003. Starting as a family of five in a 350-square-foot apartment, the family has changed over the past 15 years, with the growth of the children and the eventual separation of the parents. For more than a year, Annie Ling documented the lives of the 35 residents of the fourth floor of 81 Bowery—the “invisible immigrants” who live cramped quarters and work for low wages, many sacrificing in order to support their families left behind in China. And An Rong Xu has used photography to explore his Chinese-American identity with a series of photographs that explore the intersection of “two sometimes polarizing cultures.” Together, the works of these photographers provide a window into the complex realities of immigrant life in New York City.
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4) Chia-Wei Hsu: Black and White – Malayan Tapir (ISCP, 10/30/18 – 1/25/19) – Chia-Wei Hsu: Black and White – Malayan Tapir focuses on a specific non-human animal—the Malayan tapir. Through evocative storytelling, Hsu cuts across time and geography to narrate the history of the Malayan tapir and its relationship to colonial power and zoos in Southeast Asia. According to the artist, his intention with Black and White – Malayan Tapir is to use an encyclopedic narrative style to deal with issues of equality between people and non-humans, man and nature, and to explore changes in the way modern people view images.
The exhibition is composed of a synchronized four-channel LED-screen installation. The scenes in the video switch between the National Gallery Singapore, the National History Museum, and the Singapore Zoo, to search engines and multiple computer screen windows. Across the screens, a zoo tour guide recounts the initial recording of the black and white Malayan tapir by a Chinese painter, who mapped it in the early nineteenth century at the request of William Farquhar, a commander of the British East India Company. This was likely the first documentation of the species, an endeavor that was ultimately contested by Farquhar’s boss Stamford Raffles, who also purported to be the first to discover the animal. Due to the rapid development of the natural sciences during the colonial era, the naming and documentation of animals and plants became a competitive field, and accordingly, conflict is entwined with the history and legend of the Malayan tapir, now an endangered species.
Opening reception: Tuesday, October 30, 6 PM
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5) Hai Chang – The eye is not satisfied with seeing (Miyako Yoshinaga, 11/1 – 12/8) – A solo exhibition of mixed media collage works by this New York-based artist
The romantic picture of America is often at odds with the jarring reality of living within its complex workings, a rift especially pronounced for Hai Zhang. At the age of 24, Zhang departed his home country of China and arrived at a small town in Alabama in 2000, the start of a connective thread that would drive his pursuits as he periodically traversed the South, Midwest and West. After nearly two decades spent living in both urban and rural locations in the U.S., his vision of America as a symbol “has transformed into unsettling curiosity and suspicion.” With a diverse repertoire of experience that includes a past career in architecture and years of work in photojournalism, he understands that the subject is never isolated from its surrounding context. There is always more to the photograph than what is depicted within the image, more questions than answers.
Continue reading the press release
Opening reception: Thursday, October 25, 6 – 8 PM with an artist talk with Barbara Pollack, independent curator and critic.
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6) Rhythm of Time: Chinese Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition in New York (New York Gallery of Chinese Art, 10/27/18 – 1/27/19) – Debut exhibition of 40 outstanding Chinese contemporary printmakers and masters and their artworks in New York.
Opening reception: Saturday, October 27, 3 – 6 PM
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Closing soon:
Furen Dai: The Institute of Marriage (Gallery 456, 10/5 – 10/26)
One Side of My Camera: Shanghai in the 1990s and 2010s (NYU China House, 10/9 – 10/30)
Shang Yang: New Works (Chambers Fine Art, 9/15 – 11/3)
Current shows:
Visit the exhibition calendar for details on the current shows listed below. Check the museum’s or gallery’s website for hours of operation.
Furen Dai: The Institute of Marriage (Gallery 456, 10/5 – 10/26)
One Side of My Camera: Shanghai in the 1990s and 2010s (NYU China House, 10/9 – 10/30)
Shang Yang: New Works (Chambers Fine Art, 9/15 – 11/3)
Chow Chun Fai (Eli Klein Gallery, 9/8 – 11/17)
Shen Chen – Tradition and the Individual Talent (Fu Qiumeng Fine Art, 9/21 – 11/21)
Metamorphosis: Liu Dan’s Fantastic Landscape and the Renaissance (Nicholas Hall, 9/13 – 11/23)
Huang Rui: Zen Space (Boers-Li Gallery, 10/26 – 12/8)
Hai Chang – The eye is not satisfied with seeing (Miyako Yoshinaga, 11/1 – 12/8)
The Preservation of Fire: On Lines and Materials (Crossing Art, 10/19 – 12/15)
Wei Jia – A Way of Life (Fou Gallery, 10/13 – 12/23)
Christopher K. Ho: Aloha to the World (Bronx Museum, 10/3/18 – 1/6/19)
Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8/26/17 – 1/9/19)
Rhythm of Time: Chinese Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition in New York (New York Gallery of Chinese Art, 10/27/18 – 1/27/19)
Chia-Wei Hsu: Black and White – Malayan Tapir (ISCP, 10/30/18 – 1/25/19)
Qiren Hu Ani; Liu; Mo Kong; Arthur Ou; and Christine Wong Yap at Queens International 2018 (Queens Museum, (10/7 /18 – 2/24/19)
Radical Machines: Chinese in the Information Age (Museum of Chinese in America, 10/18/18 – 3/24/19)
Interior Lives: Photographs of Chinese Americans in the 1980s by Bud Glick (Museum of Chinese in America, 10/18/18 – 3/24/19)
Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers (Museum of the City of New York, 10/26/18 – 3/24/19)
Lead image: Zhongdian festival, Chinese dragon. Photo by Arian Zwegers, licensed through Creative Commons.