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Indepth Arts News:
"The New Chinese: Landscape: Recent Acquisitions,"
2006-08-12 until 2006-11-12
Harvard University, Arthur M. Sackler Museum
Cambridge, MA,
USA United States of America
The New Chinese Landscape: Recent Acquisitions, an exhibition showcasing the
Harvard University Art Museums’ most important
contemporary Chinese acquisitions to date, will be on display
from August 12 to November 12, 2006 at the Arthur M.
Sackler Museum. This small exhibition of six paintings and one
sculpture represents an often overlooked category of works that
push the boundaries of what the term “contemporary” means in
non-Western contexts. Identified as contemporary Chinese ink
paintings, these works are characteristic of both classical ink
landscapes and contemporary art. The artists’ use of new
techniques, styles, and both Western and Chinese sources of
inspiration, while working within the framework of traditional
materials, formats, and subjects, clearly sets their works apart
from traditional Chinese ink paintings and distinguishes them as
contemporary.
Modern and contemporary Chinese art is only now coming to the attention of Western audiences,
and most exhibitions of contemporary Chinese painting feature Western-style works that follow
international trends. Historical factors are a significant source of the pervasiveness of this
singular view of contemporary Chinese art. In the early 20th century, many younger Chinese
painters were eager to explore foreign styles, as China experienced a drive to modernize and
debate raged about the value of old, or classical, learning. Over the course of the 20th century,
political upheaval and social change in China brought about three factions of artists, each
searching for recognition and identity. One group remained strictly allegiant to tradition, but
another chose to travel to and study in Western countries and adopt foreign styles. Since this
second group of artists no longer works in the traditional style, their work is more easily
identified as contemporary. The third group, including those artists featured in The New Chinese
Landscape, experimented with a synthesis of foreign and traditional styles, resulting in works
that challenge the notion of contemporary Chinese art.
To this latter group, contemporary Chinese ink painting is a genre of great importance, because it
represents a reinvigoration of an ancient tradition with a very distinguished lineage. Accepting
the validity of their ancient artistic legacies, they work within the framework of traditional
materials (brush, ink, and paper), formats (hanging scroll, handscroll, and album leaf), and
subjects (landscapes). However, these artists reject the formulaic compositions, prescribed
stylistic modes, and codified brushwork that for centuries were the foundation of classical
Chinese painting, and incorporate into their works new media, techniques, or elements borrowed
from foreign styles. In some instances, it is an entirely new approach to the Chinese landscape.
In others, it is a newly invented type of brushwork or a reliance on classical Chinese models
different from those sanctioned by earlier generations of traditional artists.
“It is important to ask why these artists choose to paint in the traditional style,” said Robert D.
Mowry, Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Asian Art and organizer of the exhibition. “They have all
lived and trained in the West, and one has even taught art at a university in the U.S. However,
they have also had access to the great repositories of classical Chinese painting in Beijing,
Taipei, and the United States. They have great admiration and respect for the classical Chinese
tradition, just as they also have a passionate desire to revitalize it and rescue it from becoming
stagnant and languishing in the past. Through this exhibition, we hope to create a dialogue by
awakening interest in this heretofore neglected field and encouraging scholarship on it.”
The exhibition is also one of the first to incorporate works by contemporary Chinese artists
working in geographically diverse parts of the world, both East and West. Exhibitions of modern
and contemporary Chinese paintings typically include works by painters from just one region.
The New Chinese Landscape includes works by Chinese artists working in China, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and abroad. These artists identify strongly with the legacy of their Chinese ancestry
and feel it is their responsibility to perpetuate that legacy and advance Chinese culture. They
want to be recognized not just as accomplished artists but as accomplished Chinese artists. “In
that context,” says Mowry, “the artists and their works are strongly patriotic, representing a love
of their country while still, at times, being critical of its political or social circumstances. Given
that audiences typically expect contemporary artists worldwide to work in an international style,
it might be argued that these artists have chosen the more difficult path—to redirect and
reinvigorate an old tradition and to make it relevant to the contemporary world.”
Despite its world-class holdings of traditional Chinese art, the Art Museums began to
systematically collect modern and contemporary Chinese ink paintings only in 1993. The works
in this exhibition are the most important of the 25 contemporary Chinese works acquired by the
Arthur M. Sackler Museum since that time and reflect the Art Museums’ commitment to a new
area of concentration in its collections. “Although small in size, this exhibition is an important
one in terms of its presentation of this emerging style of Chinese painting,” said Thomas W.
Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. “We
consider these works to be a significant part of a new genre of contemporary art, and we hope
this exhibition will be a landmark in demonstrating to our visitors the evolution of this field, as
well as specific and valid Chinese responses to modernity and the contemporary world.”
The exhibition borrows its title from the first exhibition of contemporary Chinese painting to tour
the United States from 1966 to 1968 and commemorates 40 years of growing interest in this
country of Chinese art and modern and contemporary Chinese painting in particular. Organized
by Chu-tsing Li and Thomas Lawton, the original New Chinese Landscape featured works by six
painters from Taiwan. The New Chinese Landscape: Recent Acquisitions at the Arthur M.
Sackler Museum foreshadows an autumn 2007 exhibition of more than 60 contemporary Chinese
ink paintings from the collection of Chu-tsing Li, co-organized by the Harvard University Art
Museums and the Phoenix Art Museum.
IMAGE
Li Huayi, Mount Huang, 2004. Hanging scroll; ink and light colors on paper, 178.8 x 100 cm. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Purchase through the generosity of Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky and of Michael E. and Winnie Feng, 2005.86. Photo: Katya Kallsen © President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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