Exhibition, 'Divine Power - The Dragon in Chinese Art' with Chris Hall and Tina Pang

Date :
24 May 2012, Thursday
Time :
10:30am for carpool – meet at General Post Office in Central; or 11:00am meet at entrance of The Art Museum; 11:00am - 12:30pm Guided Tour
Venue :
The Art Museum, CUHK, Shatin
Cost :
$150 Member, $200 Non-member, Free for Student with valid ID
Enquiries :
Yvonne Choi at [email protected] or 9132-1669

The Hong Kong University Museum Society is pleased to announce a guided tour of "Divine Power – The Dragon in Chinese Art", an exhibition jointly organised by the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and The Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to celebrate the Year of the Dragon, and the 40th anniversary of the Art Museum. The tour will include a special guided viewing of the exhibition's textiles by Christopher Hall, renowned textile collector and OCS President, as well as of other highlights from the exhibition with Tina Yee-wan Pang, Curator at the University Museum and Art Gallery, HKU.

Featuring the dragon as its central theme, the exhibition consists of almost 400 items dating from the Neolithic period to the 20th century, across a range of media including ceramics, bronzes, gold and silver wares, jade, glass, lacquer ware, paintings and textiles. The image of the dragon can be first identified on jade and bronze objects of the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. By the Han dynasty (206 BCE – ACE 220) it becomes associated with Chinese cosmology and is often depicted as the Green Dragon of the East. From the Tang (618-960) to the Qing dynasties (1644-1911) dragons come to symbolise imperial authority, and an emblem of the emperor.

Chris Hall is President of the Oriental Ceramic Society. He has a large collection of antique Chinese textiles, which he has been collecting for over 30 years. Parts of his collection have been exhibited in the USA, Britain, Australia and Korea. Chris organised the first major exhibition of Chinese textiles in the world, on behalf of the Oriental Ceramic Society, at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1995. He also contributed to the writing of the exhibition catalogue, Heavens' Embroidered Cloths: 1000 Years of Chinese Textiles. Parts of Chris Hall's collection are currently on long-term loan to China's National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, and the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore. He lectures regularly on Chinese textiles.

Tina Yee-wan Pang is Curator at the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, and Honorary Assistant Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, HKU. Prior to moving to Hong Kong she worked in New York and Beijing. She is a graduate of St Hilda's College, Oxford (MPhil Ethnology and Museum Ethnography) and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London (Chinese and Art & Archaeology). She is a recipient of the 2010 Asian Cultural Council – Lee Hysan Foundation Fellowship to research museums and curatorial practices in the USA.