AAH-194 Visual Culture in Communist China

A Union College Art History Course, Spring 2023

Category: Project Links

Zhan Wang’s Official Website

This link takes you to Zhan Wang’s official website, while this other link sends you to a MET collection website for a piece by the artist. Zhan Wang’s website is not particularly colorful and features few colors and no images in its landing page. It does, however, provide an up-to-date list of Wang’s artwork, his projects, as well as for an updated description and.contact information. The second link for the MET exhibition displays the information for one of Wang’s stainless steel rock sculptures (Artificial Rock #10). It features information on the artistic reception of the piece, and the evolution of Wang’s artistic process in the creation of stainless steel sculptures.

Xu Bing’s Official Website

This link will take you directly to Xu Bing’s Tobacco Project III: Richmond, and this one will take you to his biography page. Explore around on his website to find a lot of thought-provoking artwork including massive installations. Almost every artwork on his website has a short description of the piece, if not the dimensions and materials used, providing insights into why it was made. His biography is highly informative as well, as it tells of his upbringing and art education, as well as some of the reasons why he makes art.

 

 

Zeng Fanzhi Interesting Link

This video is an interview with Zeng Fanzhi detailing his works at Gagosian Gallery, located in New York. This exhibit was a culmination of 3 years work, and viewers can get a look into his thought process behind the creation of his abstract works. Fanzhi had mentioned that solely choosing the colors for some of his paintings took months, which I found shocking, and underscores the intricacy he takes with all of this works. He also describes mentally how the difficulty of the painting changes from start to finish which I never thought about. It was cool to learn more about Zeng Fanzhi as a painter as now I feel I can put myself in his shoes and think about the paintings he creates.

Qi Baishi Webpage

Qi Baishi

This article is really informative about the history of Qi Baishi’s life. It describes his life and how it relates to his eventual artistic style. It also shows the awards he received which is important to understanding his value to the Chinese art landscape. It also talks about his training which shows how much he cared for his art and it gives background as to how he was able to make his pieces that were popular.

I chose this webpage because I believe in order to understand the artist that Qi Baishi was, you should understand his childhood and how that made him create art that appealed to everyone.

 

Interesting Link – Ai Weiwei

https://www.aiweiwei.com

Ai Weiwei’s website explains some of his films he directed and the background behind his creative decisions. In addition to being an architect and working in design, Ai Weiwei is also a director. His website explains the vision behind his recent memoir titled, “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows.” This film discusses Ai Weiwei’s childhood and how his father’s counter-revolutionary beliefs influenced the manner in which he grew up. Considering Ai Weiwei’s father’s creativity was restrained, Ai finds it important to share his political beliefs and fight for human rights. I think that this website is a great resource as it dives into the driving forces behind Ai Weiwei’s means of expression.

Bibliography

Ai, Weiwei. Ai Weiwei Films. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://www.aiweiwei.com/.



Blogpost Interesting Link

The interesting link provided below is an interview that someone had with my artist, Feng Mengbo. They interviewed him in 2013 about a piece of technology that he owned. The point of the interview was to build off of how Feng’s love for video games and technological tools shows up in his artworks. The insight that this interview brings to my topic is how Feng’s love for technology from the beginning of his digital media art career all the way to the future plays an important role when it comes to the creativity and building of his new digital artworks. This is because each specific electronic he uses or video game he has or is playing appears in each artwork somehow. He gets his inspirations from each current electronic or video game that he has played at the time or is playing and is coming up with a new artwork.

 

Work Cited

“Feng Mengbo Biography, Artworks & Exhibitions.” Ocula the best in contemporary art icon. Accessed April 26, 2023. https://ocula.com/artists/feng-mengbo/. 

Chen Qiulin Interesting Link

https://www.1000plateaus.org/artists/30-chen-qiulin/

This is Chen Qiulin’s gallery page by 1000 plateaus gallery. The gallery is run by her partner and they decided to work together because the gallery as a whole recognizes her talent and allows her to work at her own pace. This gives her a comfortable space to fully express her creative abilities (Qiulin 2013). Sadly it does not hold all her art but it holds a majority of it, especially the more recent pieces. It also includes the most information about each piece compared to other websites that have a collection of her work. In my opinion, the best way to view her work is through “Peppermint” (her book). It includes her own words describing her thought processes and the goal of the piece. This book can be pricey but is available in Shaffer library. Being able to see large high definition photos of her work is vital in understanding the meaning behind the work.

 

Bibliography:

Chen, Qiulin. 2013. Review of CHEN QIULIN 陈秋林 Interview by Monica Merlin. Tate.org. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres/tate-research-centre-asia/women-artists-contemporary-china/chen-qiulin.

Interesting Link About Pan Yuliang

Website: https://www.panyulin.org/categories.php?lang=tw

This link provides a short biography of Pan Yuliang, including a timeline of her life and an abundance of her paintings (and other works). The database of her paintings is beneficial when comparing and contrasting Pan’s ideas as she progressed through her career. It will also help with my exhibition because my goal for it is to discuss the representation and treatment of Chinese women through Pan’s personal experience. Although it does not contain all of her paintings, it contains enough information to gauge Pan’s art style (Modernism and Impressionism), medium (oil), and her appreciation of women and the human body.  The short biography mostly provides information on her schooling while the timeline provides her life events in chronological order. This helps establish what was occurring in her life at the time of her paintings, and it may also help explain why she painted what she did.   

Bibliography:

“作品: 潘玉良 Pan Yu Lin.” 作品 | 潘玉良 PAN YU LIN. Liqing Culture and Education Foundation, 2015. https://www.panyulin.org/categories.php?lang=tw. 

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