Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse

from The Times-Delphic: "

The Secret life of… Lenore Metrick-Chen

By AndiSummers on February 18 2010

GIANT CHINESE VASE, one of the subjects of Metrick- Chen’s studies. Was made for and displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876.

TRADE-CARD AD IMAGE, for Soapine soap, is part of Metrick-Chen’s studies.

With her beginnings as a Medical Student at the University of Illinois, who knew that Lenore Metrick-Chen would one day become an art history professor at Drake University?

“I thought I wanted to be a doctor—I was into biology,” Metrick-Chen said. “I was in a class, Cells and Organelles, and it trained me how to read what we saw on the microscopic slides.”

After taking a break from school and then transferring to the University of Chi­cago, in Chicago, Ill., she went into cultur­al studies. That is where she took the class that changed it all: Art and Revolution.

It was an art history class focusing on the art of the French Revolution, and that was the moment Metrick-Chen knew what she wanted to do.

Instead of exploring cells and organ­elles, she took the skills she learned from looking at microscopic slides by looking at what is there and why it is there, combined with her love of culture and delved into art history.

“I would be the best (student) I ever could be,” Metrick-Chen said. “I wanted to get straight As and be thorough from the start. I kept quitting other majors, but this was heartfelt.”

After finally locking down a ma­jor, Metrick-Chen received a joint Ph.D. from the Uni­versity of Chicago in the Committee on Social Thought and the department of art history. Her dissertation was entitled “Collecting Objects/ Exclud­ing People: Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse, 1879- 1900.”

“I find that the most fascinating is the art of our own time,” Metrick-Chen said.

It is at this time that she started looking in to contemporary art, and the search be­gan to study why people want art to be moral.

After looking for the beginnings of what people have found to be moral in art, she traced it back to the Chinese Exclu­sion Acts. At that point in history, people from China were not allowed to enter the U.S. but that is the time when American art museums were collecting their art.

Metrick-Chen also likes oversee­ing art shows and worked at the Des Moines Art Center on Grand Avenue before working at Drake.

“A lot of people think art is one picture after another; when you curate it is like a journey of pictures creating a narrative, by how they are working together,” Metrick- Chen said. “It’s like opening a book. You have to put all the things together, with the connections you start to see.”

In the future, Metrick-Chen plans to curate a few shows, one being on contem­porary Chinese art.

Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse

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.
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Te Wei (1915-2010) - Chinese Animator

Chinese Contemporary Artists

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Eli Klein Fine Art Focuses on Emerging and Established Chinese Contemporary Artists

Zhang Dali, Slogan B5, 2009. Acrylic and wax on vinyl, 87 3/4 x 71 5/8 inches (223 x 182). Photo: Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art.

NEW YORK, NY.- This group exhibition features the work of some of the Gallery's established artists in addition to their talented emerging artists. This eclectic group includes Cathy Daley, Chen Qiang, Hung Tung-lu, Jiang Huan, Liu Yan, Luo Qing, Meeson Pae Yang, Miao Xiaochun, Sophie De Francesca, Wei Dong, Zhang Lujiang, Zhao Kailin, and Zhang Dali. Eli Klein Fine Art has, over the last year, hosted several important solo exhibitions at the Gallery for artists Zhang Peng, Luo Qing, Xiao Se, and Ma Bing. For each of these artists, our show was their first solo exhibition in the United States and represented a major step in the advancement of their careers. In addition to these landmark exhibitions, Eli Klein Fine Art has produced several significant group shows over this past year, including, Redefining Surrealism, Passing by China, and Chasing Flames. Each exhibit brought together some of China's finest contemporary artists, showcasing some of their work for the first time in the United States. Thus, this show celebrates our past while looking toward the future. Eli Klein Fine Art remains steadfast in its promotion of contemporary Chinese art. The exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, February 3, 2010 through Monday, March 1, 2010. Please join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, February 3rd from 6 - 9 P

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Chinese Contemporary Artists

8 Key Figures of China's New Generation of Artists' to Open Exhibition

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

'8 Key Figures of China's New Generation of Artists' to Open Exhibition

Yang Fudong, 'Ms. Huang at M Last Night', 2006. Photo, C-print black and white. 1.2 x 1.8 m.

BEIJING.- The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) presents "Breaking Forecast: 8 Key Figures of China’s New Generation of Artists", a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing a comprehensive look at the future of contemporary art in China. The exhibition will gather an exciting group of emerging and mid-career artists working throughout China today: Cao Fei, Chu Yun, Liu Wei, MadeIn, Qiu Zhijie, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Yang Fudong and Zheng Guogu. While UCCA’s first exhibition reviewed the history of contemporary art in China, two years later, 'Breaking Forecast' focuses on its future, marking a milestone in the development of the UCCA as an artistic organization with a global vision. 'Breaking Forecast' brings together an influential group, who collectively embody the artistic thinking and creative vitality of Chinese artists in this new century. Utilizing a group exhibition to demonstrate the impact and influence representative of the new generation, the exhibition shows that China’s contemporary scene is both energized and active. “The exhibition speaks about what is the history of the present, in relation to what is going on now in China. Rather than offering an exhaustive list, this exhibition concentrates on artists who are already influential for their generation, as well as for a younger generation,” says Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director. “'Breaking Forecast' is the celebration of UCCA’s two year anniversary. It affirms UCCA’s support and commitment to the development and promotion of the Chinese art scene, for both established and upcoming artists alike.” China’s new generation of artists are flexible, open-minded, and free from the weight of local pressure and obsession. They have renewed methods of thinking and addressing problems, creating relevant art using a vocabulary that global audiences are also able to understand, and relate to. Experts in a range of media, this show offers a wide scope of what the new generation in China is developing. The artists are versatile, and apply suitable media towards a certain concept or idea – 'Breaking Forecast' will include works combining the genres of painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography and film. The show will consists of eight separate solo shows in one unified exhibition, purposefully placed to fit together like an intricate puzzle. Visitors will be taken on an epic journey through every comer of UCCA as artwork fills the exhibition spaces, facilities, and rooms. Displaying both new and recent works, 'Breaking Forecast' affirms UCCA's role as a production center, to help artists develop their talents, and to give them an opportunity to create something new.

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8 Key Figures of China's New Generation of Artists' to Open Exhibition