On Sunday I found myself in Suzhou with a few hours to kill, and so I decided to spend a little time at the I.M. Pei-designed Suzhou Museum. Opened in October 2006, the building has received mostly warm reviews partly predicated (I believe) on the belief that the structure might be Pei’s last commission. At…
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Santa’s Chinese Workshop
Posted on Author AdamPosted in Appreciations and Recommendations, Arts, Business and Trade, Labor6 Replies
Below, a photo of a Christmas ornament workshop in Zhejiang Province. Statistics are difficult to come by, but this workshop is located in a section of Zhejiang known for producing a very large percentage of China’s Christmas exports (the country is reportedly the source for 80% of the world’s Christmas ornaments and accessories). And, according…
Liu Jianhua’s Scrap, Pt. II: WSJ Edition
Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal quotes me in an article on Liu Jianhua’s new exhibition, “Export-Cargo Transit,” at the Shanghai Gallery of Art (I reviewed the exhibition on September 10, shortly after its opening). The author, Lisa Movius, does a nice job of summarizing (what I characterize as) the conceptual and factual issues…
Peng Wei’s Woven Clouds
Imagine a two-meter bolt of silk hung from a ceiling and gently painted with the ghostly image of an ancient Chinese robe swept with images and design elements from the history of Chinese art. Then, imagine a gallery filled with these ghostly garments, these woven clouds. Tonight, September 18, Beijing-based Peng Wei’s “Woven Clouds” opens…
Art for Export: Liu Jianhua’s Scrap
One of the standout works at the 2006 Shanghai Biennale was a pile of cheap Chinese export products that flowed from an open shipping container grafted to a wall in the Shanghai Art Museum. “Yiwu Investigation,” as designed by Liu Jianhua, reflected upon the unsteady relationship between the developed world and China. By choosing products…