February 6, 2010

Te Wei (1915-2010) - Chinese Animator

from  my five year plan.:

6 Feb/100



It can hardly be called a tragedy when a 94 year old man dies, especially one whose life was as accomplished as Te Wei’s.

Who, you say?

Te Wei, the greatest of the great Chinese art animators of the Shanghai animation studio. One of the incontrovertible artistic masters of animation.

I had the good fortune of learning about Te Wei from a man who knew him, David Ehrlich. In my final term at Dartmouth, I fulfilled a National Cinemas requirement within my Film Studies major with a class inauspiciously titled ‘Asian Animation.’ Wary of Japanese cartoons about robots and the entire culture of anime fandom in the United States, I had low expectations for the class, despite Ehrlich’s reputation as a terrific teacher and his own masterful talent as an animator. We touched, briefly, on Japanese animation, though in those classes we spoke of craftsmen like Osamu Tezuka and his experimental animation in the 1980s and Kihachiro Kawamoto, whose incredibly intricate puppet animations of Japanese folk narratives are haunting and uncanny.

Half the class though was dedicated to Chinese animation, and to a few particularly key figures: A Da, Hu Jinqing, and the greatest of them all, Te Wei.

Te Wei only directed four films in his life. Each is an important work. I’m going to post two of them here and talk briefly about them, but it’s better to let the films speak for themselves.

His second film is among the most popular and enduring works in Chinese animation, Where is Mama?, which was his first experiment in integrating traditional Chinese visual culture into animation. It’s cute, it’s fun, and it portends greatly of the work to come. Since this video is untranslated, you should simply know that the film is about a group of tadpoles searching around their pond trying to determine which adult is their mother. As the figurature is rather abstract, it helps to know this in advance.




The second is Feeling from Mountain and Water (1988), on which Te worked for decades. It’s available for viewing in two parts here:







As in his third film, The Cowherd’s Flute (1963), Te draws upon the visual economy and poetry of Chinese shan shui, brush-and-ink landscape paintings designed to reflect Chinese elemental theory. The Cowherd’s Flute is good. This one is better. Here the narrative is slowed down. It’s ethereal. Te is addressing mortality and the life cycle. Feeling from Mountain and Water is a monster of a film, a work that’s so magnificent in its artistry it’s hard to find other points to compare it to. Within animation, I can only think of another short work which represents such an epochal statement within the craft, Yuri Norstein’s Tale of Tales (1979).

I have David Ehrlich, who recently retired from teaching this past semester, to thank for introducing me to this moving work. David’s love for art and personal expression in all forms has been an inspiration to every single student who ever took a class with him, and I wish him the best.

I hope that you take the time to watch these films. They’re slow, at first glance boring, but if you pay attention to it, the art of Te Wei – the attention to line, shape, fluidity of motion, and the manipulation of time and negative space as formal elements within animation are masterful.

So as I said above: the death of Te Wei is no tragedy. It is simply a loss. A tremendous loss.
"
Share/Save/Bookmark

what else is here

the cloud

9/11 (2) Abbema_Jelte van (1) action heros (2) Afghanistan (1) Africa (1) African-American (4) Akakce_Haluk (1) Amorales_Carolos (1) Anderson_Pam (1) Anger_Kenneth (1) animation (1) anime (1) Arab (1) Arata_Michael (1) archaeology (1) architecture (2) Arranz-Bravo_Eduardo (1) art_market (1) avant garde (2) Aztatlan culture (1) Baier_Nicolas (1) Bailey-Beezy (1) Baldessari_John (1) Ballard_ J.G. (1) Balthus-Greg (1) Banerjee_ Sunandini (1) baroque (1) Bataille (1) beauty (1) Bell_Jonathan (1) Beloff_Zoe (1) Bergman_Robert (1) Black Atlantic (1) Bottero_Fernando (1) Burton_Time (1) C Magazine (1) Cai Guo-Qiang (1) Caravaggio (1) Castillo_Victor (1) Castro-Kelley (1) China (4) Christie's (1) Coching_Francisco (1) collage (1) Collins_Phil (1) comics (5) conceptual art (1) Condo_George (1) consumer_culture (1) cultural capital (1) culture_hacking (1) Cumberland_Sturart (1) Dali_Zhang (1) darklorddisco (1) Darwin (1) Davis-Stuart (1) death (1) Der Blaue Reite (1) design (1) digital (4) Dikovitskaya_Margaret (1) dolls (1) drawing (2) drawings (1) Dzama_Marcel (1) eco_culture (1) EcoMag (1) Eggleston_William (1) Egypt (2) El-Siwi_Adel (1) Emberley_Ed (1) Ethiopia (1) ethnography (1) Fairey_Shepard (1) Falnama (1) Fauxreel (1) feminist (6) film (12) film_score (1) Flickr (1) FlowTV (1) Folkert (1) food (2) Ford-Michael Lee (1) Fosik-AJ (1) Fournier_Marie (1) Furedi-Lily (1) gaphic design (1) gender (3) Genesis Beyer P-Orridge (1) Gentry_Nick (1) Germany (1) Giacometti_Alberto (1) global culture (1) Goltzius_ Hendrick (1) Gordon_Douglas (2) graffiti (2) graphic (9) graphic design (6) Gysis-Nicholaos (1) Harlem (1) Harris-Charles "Teenie" (1) Hass-Philip (1) Hirschhorn_Thomas (1) Hirst_Damien (1) history (1) Hitchcock (1) Hman_Jonathan (1) Holzer_Jenny (1) Hopper_Edward (1) Hulk-the Incredible (1) illustrated manuscripts (1) illustration (1) images (1) impressionism (1) India (3) Indonesia (1) installation (9) intersex (1) Iranian (2) Jalali_Bahman (1) Japan (2) Jongeleen_Jeroen (1) Kakebeeke_Karijn (1) Kandinsky_Wassily (1) KAWS (1) Kiefer_Anselm (1) Koelbl-Herlinde (1) Kritkos (1) Kuniyoshi_Utagawa (1) Lady GaGa (1) Landy_Michael (1) Latin America (2) Levin-Golan (1) Lewis_Ben (1) Lewis_Dave (1) Lewis_Wyndham (1) Linder_Richard (1) lithographs (1) low brow (2) Lozano_Lee (1) Macleod_Steve (1) Macphee_Graham (1) Manga (1) Marly-Pierre (1) Marvel Comics (1) Matta Clark_ Gordon (1) Maya (1) McCullin_Don (1) Meckseper_Josephine (1) media (1) medieval (1) Metrick-Chen_Lenore (1) Mexico (1) minimalism (1) Miss Van (1) modernism (1) Mooi Indie (1) Mottalini_Chris (1) Mueck_Ron (1) Murakami_Takashi (1) Museum of Contemporary Art (1) music animation (1) Muybridge_Eadwearch (1) network culture (1) new media (1) Obama (1) oil (1) Olav_Westphalen (1) Ortiz-Santiago (1) painting (28) Panton_Verner (1) paparazzi (1) Paranormal Activity (1) pep art (1) Philippine (1) photography (36) photoshop (2) Pilson_John (1) Pollock_Jackson (1) pop art (18) Portuguese (1) prints (1) Provost_Nicolas (1) public art (1) punk (1) Quinto_Felice (1) ready-made (1) recycling (1) recyled art (1) religion (1) Richardson-Earle (1) Richter_Gerhard (1) Roehr_Peter (1) Romantic art (1) Rostovsky_Peter (1) Rudolph_Paul (1) Ruff_Thomas (1) ruins (1) Russia (1) sculpture (2) seriality (1) Shaden-Brooke (2) Shonibare-Yinka (2) Singh Twins (1) Smith_Kiki (1) Sotheby (1) sound (1) Soviet style art (1) Spain (1) Spanish (1) story telling (1) Stout_Renee (1) street art (1) Suerkemper_Caro (1) Superman (1) Suriname (1) Swerman_Marshalll (1) tattoos (1) Te Wei (1) technology (1) territoriality (1) text (1) Thomas_Harnk Willis (1) Titian (1) Tolan_Canan (1) Tomic-Milica (1) Tommy Ga-Ken Wan (1) Turkey (1) TV (1) Twombly_Cy (1) ubran screens (1) vanities (1) Vertigo (1) Victorian (1) video (6) Violette_Banks (1) visuality (8) waste (1) weddings (1) Wessel-Henry (1) White-Charles (1) wiki (1) Wikipedia (1) Willardson_David (1) Wilson_Jane (1) Winterling_Sussane (1) work (1) Zeid_Fahrelnissa (1) Zero Art (1)

search this blog

Superfamous is the studio of interaction designer Folkert Gorter, primarily engaged in graphic and interactive design with a focus on networks and communities. Folkert holds a Master of Arts in Interactive Multimedia and Interaction Design from the Utrecht School of Art, faculty Art, Media & Technology, The Netherlands. He lives in Los Angeles, California."

Click on any text below to see Folkert's remarkable posts from the blog "but does it float."

but does it float