A brilliant and brilliantly disturbing work by Stamps School alumnus Mike Kelly, which we saw in the exhibition Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art. This was one of the most comprehensive shows devoted to the 20th- and 21-st century fibers art organized in the last several decades.
Eleven foreigners and I by Sherry Paik
When I was eleven, my mother took my sister and I to Auckland, New Zealand. For the first time in my life I was living in a foreign country full of foreign people who spoke a foreign language. Eight years have passed since and I am now in the US. I have no trouble understanding people, strangers they may be. The younger me would have been shy and reluctant to speak up for sure, but I had forgotten about that – until I was in China, once again surrounded by foreigners speaking a foreign language.
Well, to be more precise, I was also traveling with eleven foreigners. If anything else, I should have felt closer to the Chinese people because I am Korean. However I could not communicate with them, unless they spoke ten times slower than they normally do and I managed to pull some simple Chinese from what I had learned in high school, whereas I was perfectly at ease with my fellow travelers because we all spoke the amazing English.
Aside from the language barrier, I did feel much more at home in the streets of Beijing, Hangzhou, or Shanghai, especially in the old, traditional ones, than I do in, say, the State Street in Ann Arbor. Though they are narrower, streets in many Korean cities bear similar look to their counterparts in China: small shops with narrow interiors; tall, very tall apartments; roads on top of roads; congregation of cheap street food places and clothing shops near a university; and so on and so forth. The subways operate almost identically, though I imagine all subways are alike in any metropolitan city. Dryers are not yet common and mothers and wives often hang their clothes in their terraces or even out in the streets to dry. And the old streets - the traditional markets are just as hectic and unruly, the traditional neighborhoods just as dull yet simmering with life. The hole-in-the-grounds actually exist in Korea as well and the last time I checked, many schools have kept them till this day (which means I had a head start, but does not mean I can stand them). Culturally and historically, Korea is heavily influenced by China’s Confucian ideals. Filial piety, yes; emphasis on academic achievements, yes; the tendency to prefer sons to daughters, oh yes, although it has noticeably declined in the last few years in Korea my country. When it comes to food more readily recognizable differences arise, nevertheless we agree on the importance of rice. In the end, however Korean and Chinese landscapes are strikingly different; I only wish to point out that for all the dissimilarities out there, Hangzhou is still less foreign to me than Ann Arbor is.
It was then almost ironic that I felt so distant from the people because I did not understand them. Even more so when the hotel staff or waiters often talked to me directly in Chinese in the absence of the much-appreciated CET guides, because they assumed that I was one of them. I never imagined – on the contrary, I most likely did imagine but had forgotten that language could be such a significant factor in fully immersing myself a foreign culture. Because of this, I have begun to think about where I am in a larger sense. The places I feel comfortable in, like Seoul, Auckland, and Ann Arbor, are only the tiniest bubbles compared to the land of China or the rest of the world. This time I left my bubble voluntarily; it may not be so in the future. There are more people who do not speak the same languages as me than who do out there and while this thought is scary, it also reminds me there is much to explore in this world. I felt confused and frustrated at times in the midst of foreign people trying to communicate, however as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well.
While visiting the Swatch Artist Residency program in Shanghai, we were invited into the studio of American sculptor Don Porcella who was so kind and generous with his time, talking about his interest in China, contemporary culture and above all, the pipe cleaning wire brush, which he uses to make his work and which lead him to China. Thank you Don!
Our last lunch together in China, at a dive restaurant with excellent, scrumptious food. We shared stories, great food and celebrated this amazing adventure in China.
A fantastic mobile sculpture installation made with three dimensional Chinese characters and situated inside the Swatch Peace Art Hotel in Shanghai where we visited the studio of artist Colette Fu in early June.
A highly detailed mezzotint etching created by a student from the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing Printmaking Department, one of the works we saw in the CAFA 2014 Annual Student Exhibition.
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A Cup of Tea, My Dear? by Alexandria Chase
Upon arriving in China, I was very shocked at the amount of tea consumed at each meal. Tea was always the first item brought to the table, and was constantly refilled throughout the entirety of the meal. I have never been an avid tea drinker, so being immersed in a culture that takes tea very seriously was both an interesting and exciting experience. I was able to see and walk through large tea fields, while simultaneously learning the trade of tea picking and tea making. Not only were the tea fields vast and dense, those working the fields had to have enough agility to walk throughout the fields while carrying large baskets to keep the harvested tea leaves in. Depending on the time of the year when the leaves are picked, they will either be very flavorful or very bitter. The largest type of tea consumed in China is green tea, and I learned throughout the course of this trip that green tea serves as a very beneficial medicine to the human body with a large amount of benefits. This tiny caffeinated and nutrient filled leaf has a market all its own in China. It is absolutely incredible to consider that such a tiny piece of nature plays such a large role in a single culture.
Chinese Landscapes by Dillon Irwin
Halfway through our time spent in China, we took a weekend to get away from the constant crowds and get ourselves into nature. As we munched on longan fruit, we drove up a winding river into the mountains of the Zhejiang Province and then disappeared in the mist. The mist was so thick that one couldn’t see more than forty feet ahead. You begin to actually understand how this influences chinese painting when you get the chance to see it. The bus driver would have to give a cautionary honk into the mist every fifty feet to make sure we wouldn’t run into anyone. We were dropped off at a temple where we then had to climb more than 2400 steps up a mountain to reach a taoist monastery, which would be our home for the night. Mist flowed through the monastery, a constant reminder of how spiritual this place felt and was. The following morning was a bit clearer and we were able to see some breath taking views of the surrounding terrain.
In many ways, it felt as if we returned to the ‘Old China’ in which the landscape cannot be separated from Chinese culture. I don’t think I would have been able to understand what that is if we didn’t spend the weekend trekking out to this monastery and, the following day, visiting a national park known for its waterfalls. Here it became clear why the landscape is a favorite subject matter in Chinese classical landscape painting. I think these experiences also tie back to the lecture Endi Poskovic gave us about abstracting landscapes. I can already see a change in the way I approach my personal more abstract work because of my time spent here in the Zhejiang Province.
The work of Los Angeles artist Jim Isermann, which was saw in the Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art, an exhibition organized by the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
"A Family Portrait", a water-based painting by a student work from the Department of Chinese Painting from the 2014 China Academy of Art Annual Student Exhibition.
A student work from the Department of Chinese Painting depicting traditional Chinese landscape exhibited in the 2014 China Academy of Art Annual Student Exhibition.
Fantastic watercolor painting from the Department of Chinese Traditional Painting, which we saw in the 2014 China Academy of Art Annual Student Exhibition.
Incredibly beautiful tapestry created by master weaver Yvette Cauquil-Prince and based on the original drawings and collages of Pablo Picasso. We saw this amazing artwork in the Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art, an exhibition organized by the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
An installation with fibers and metal containers from the Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art.