Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Past Exhibitions
Transformations: Traditional and Contemporary Chinese Art in Dialogue
- Oct 14, 2007 – Feb 03, 2008
- Center Gallery
Click image to enlarge…
This exhibition juxtaposes traditional and contemporary works by Chinese artists to reveal transformations of classical models and vernacular idioms for a cosmopolitan and industrialized context. The dialogue between old and new offers a chance to reflect upon the enduring power of calligraphy, landscape imagery, and popular symbols. Contemporary artists have transformed calligraphy by creating new systems of writing, selecting unorthodox materials, or compressing characters. Their works question what calligraphy means, while also demonstrating its continued significance. Landscape painting gained prominence around the turn of the first millennium, when monumental images of mountains and rivers symbolized the grandeur and authority of China's imperial court. Later, campaigns to modernize and reform China cast landscape painting as irrelevant or even harmful. But, landscape has returned in the work of many artists, especially those concerned with the urbanization and environmental degradation occurring throughout China. Symbols abound in Chinese art but their meanings may alter as traditional values shift, creating opportunities for transformation. A work that reflects many of these concerns and interactions whilst contributing to the dialogue between past and present is Wang Tiande's Digital Series No. 03-A05, (2003). The passage of time and the erasure of meaning are evoked by producing a fragile and near invisible text, created by cigarette burns. Through the pattern of perforations, a layer of more conventional, but also indecipherable writing is visible below. Tiande translates calligraphy into a contemporary language and meaning, engaging the history of his medium to do so.
Pictured above:
Xu Bing, Chinese, born 1955, Quotation from Chairman Mao, 2001, Chinese ink on paper, Museum Purchase, with a grant from the Freeman Foundation Undergraduate Asian Studies Initiative, 2006.10.1
