Get The Latest Issue Now!
FEBRUARY 2012
A Fragile Heritage, China Counts its Lost Ruins
January 2012
A Chinese Conundrum: Hong Kong Sales Slow Down
NOVEMBER 2011
Hong Kong Autumn Sales: Reading the Mixed Messages
OCTOBER 2011
Museum der Kulturen Basel Opens After Refurbishment
September 2011
Cover: World Heritage List New Sites
JUNE 2011
Thai Border Clashes Continue Around Preah Vihear Temple
May 2009
Luo Ping: Eccentric Visions
Luo Ping: Eccentric Visions
WIT AND NON-CONFORMIST, bohemian and connoisseur, devout Buddhist and self-proclaimed expert on the supernatural, the 18th-century Chinese painter, Luo Ping was all this and more. Luo was a native of Yangzhou, where the Grand Canal meets the Yangzi and the centre of a thriving salt trade. Destroyed in 1645, merchant patronage and increasing affluence during the nascent century of Manchu rule (1644-1911) turned it into a southern cultural metropolis, complete with scholarly and artistic pursuits. Home to more than a hundred renowned painters - according to Li Dou’s Yangzhou huafang lu (Record of the Flower Boats of Yangzhou, 1795), it was synonymous with the ‘Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou’, a loosely knit group of bold individualists. They subjected the traditional tenets of Chinese painting to much experiment, dwelling on the figurative genres of flowers, plants, rocks and portraiture. Labelled guai, ‘eccentric’ for their unconventional ways, they paid homage to no particular school. Luo Ping was the youngest proponent of the ‘Eight Eccentrics’, and although a timely representative of his age, has remained somewhat eclipsed.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
THIS EXHIBITION of Kuniyoshi’s prints at the Royal Academy in London features over 150 works with the emphasis on Kuniyoshi as a master of imaginative design. It aims to reveal the graphic power and beauty of his prints across a range of subjects, including his ingenuous use of the triptych format. The majority of the works in the exhibition are drawn from the collection of Professor Arthur R. Miller, which has recently been donated to the American Friends of the British Museum. This is the first major exhibition in the United Kingdom on Utagawa Kuniyoshi since 1961.
Dvaravati: Buddhist Art from Thailand
Dvaravati: Buddhist Art from Thailand
A COLLECTION OF WORKS of artefacts representing ancient Buddhistic art from the central plains of present-day Thailand are currently on show in Paris. The exhibition concentrates on the period from the 6th to the 11th century, as well as the territories in the north that were held until the 13th century. Approximately 145 works from 12 of the principal Thai national museums are on show along with 19 pieces from the Guimet Museum itself have been brought together for the first time to illustrate the richness and fine iconography of the Dvaravati kingdom. The show explores the stylistic originality and technical precision of a style of art relatively unknown to a Western audience.
The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Literature
The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Literature
NINTEEN THIRTY FIVE SAW German cultural critic Walter Benjamin complete his celebrated essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in which he describes a new philosophy for the arts, a theory that was to affect the notion of culture up to the present day. Throughout the work, the author argues that art’s metamorphosis from singular hand made objects to the machine made and mass produced, demands a corresponding alteration of mankind’s appreciation of art; from a mode of perception with foundation in epic poetry to an overall aesthetic based upon allegorical montages. In the absence of traditional and ritualistic values, Benjamin declares that art must inherently originate in man’s developments within cultural and political systems. Alternatively, society will witness the ruin of truly unique and creative skills.