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Ying’s Gallery on Tai Ping Shan Street features rare antiquities. Founder Ying Lau is a third-generation connoisseur of Asian works of art. She will speak to us about favourite objects that have passed through her hands, and how ancient objects can serve a functional purpose in our modern day lives.
Watch the replay here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/238804797318394/
If you have questions for the Lecturer, please go to http://www.slido.com and enter code#28930
Lecture synopsis
This lecture introduces one of the most unusual iconic works in Chinese art history. It is a painting that by all counts should not be a “masterpiece.” It is a painting of ghosts (rather than a landscape), it is a handscroll of smaller paintings in uneven sizes mounted together (therefore somewhat ad hoc), and it was made by an artist seeking patrons after years of being under his charismatic teacher’s shadow. It also collected over 160 admiring colophons. So why did this painting garner such attention? Why is Luo Ping’s Ghost Amusement Scroll important? This lecture given by HKU’s Dr. Yeewan Koon in conversation with Orientations Magazine publisher Yifawn Lee looks at how Chinese paintings are mediators of intimate relationships, whether between painters and their audiences or between masters and disciples, and why the strange world of ghosts captured the imagination of an eighteenth-century Chinese art world.
“Art and its Histories: Scholars in Lecture” is a series of public lectures organized by the Art History Department, The University of Hong Kong and presented in collaboration with Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Friends of Hong Kong Museum of Art, and the University of Hong Kong Museum Society. The programs aim to deliver current art-historical thinking in an accessible manner presented by specialists in the field. The series is part of the Department of Art History’s broader dedication to promoting the importance and relevance of art history in Hong Kong.
Speakers
Dr. Yeewan Koon is Chair of the Art History Department at The University of Hong Kong. Her primary research is on Chinese painting and she is currently completing a study on the “self-knowing” copy in the sixteenth century. Koon’s academic interest also expands into contemporary art in Asia with a recent monograph of Yoshitomo Nara, and curatorial work at the Gwangju Biennale (2018) and a forthcoming exhibition on Hong Kong art in Helsinki (2021). She is the recipient of numerous awards including from the American Council of Learned Scholar, and as Fulbright Senior Fellow.
Yifawn Lee is the publisher and editor of Orientations, a scholarly magazine for collectors and connoisseurs of East and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas and South Asia founded in 1969. After finishing her studies, she worked in finance and later joined Orientations in 2008. In 2014, she founded Asian Art Hong Kong as a platform to provide art-related lectures and events. In 2018, she helped organize ‘The Blue Road: Master crafts from Persia’ at Liang Yi Museum and ‘From Two Arises Three: The Collaborative Works of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney’ at the University Museum and Art Gallery of The University of Hong Kong. She currently sits on the advisory board of Liang Yi Museum and on the executive committee of the Friends of Hong Kong Museum of Art.
About Luo Ping
Luo Ping (1733 to 1799) was one of the most versatile, original, and celebrated artists in 18th-century China. While Luo’s early works reflect the thriving and innovative artistic climate of his hometown Yangzhou, his late oeuvre produced in Beijing provides evidence for the art-historical and antiquarian interests that he shared with his friends and patrons, many of whom were among the most prominent representatives of the intellectual and political life of the day.
Luo grew up in Yangzhou, a place which became a byword for informed connoisseurship and aesthetic exploration. At that moment, the city was favored with both imperial patronage and the generosity of the salt merchants. Libraries were assembled while scholars were hired to tutor the children of salt merchants. He started out as a poet and at nineteen married an artist named Fang Wanyi.
During 1757, Luo studied painting under Jin Nong (1687–1763), an elder member of the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou” and one of the leading figures in Yangzhou’s bohemian culture. In the latter part of his life, Luo worked mostly in Beijing and developed a unique personal style including portraits, colorful landscapes, Buddhist images, and witty depictions of animals and plants, most notably plum blossoms.
His paintings
Luo Ping was an extraordinary artist, whose works influenced the course of later Chinese painting. With examples of Luo Ping’s early work including his arresting and highly unconventional Portrait of Jin Nong (ca. 1760), capturing his beloved mentor as a Buddhist saint poring over a Sanskrit scripture. The unflattering characterization, verging on caricature, pointedly evokes grotesque 10th-century depictions of Luohans (disciples of the Buddha) that Jin Nong admired.
Luo Ping, Portrait of Mr. Dongxin, ink and color on paper, 1762-63, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou
Where Luo really took off in his own direction, though, was in paintings of ghosts. One of the best known paintings in the late imperial China—Ghost Amusement, depicting the world of ghosts that, he claimed, he had seen with his own eyes. The Ghost Amusement Scroll painted after Jin Nong’s death. Since business turns for the worse in Yangzhou, Luo Ping decides to use his reputation and make a new start in Beijing where business is flourishing and where creative talent is being attracted from around the world.
There were eight paintings that constitute completed scroll. Luo Ping painted his ghosts on saturated sheets of paper that had not yet dried, so that “shadowy lines with dark accents bleed into miasmic washes to shape the strange forms.” The ghost paintings catch the tensions and contrasts that were coming to dominate this time in China’s history—as well as the layers of religious euphoria that lay behind the alternate reading of the scrolls title as a “realm of ghosts,” a literalness of interpretation that Luo Ping deliberately fostered by his repeated claims that he had seen the ghosts in person on many occasions. In his later years, he was in demand at parties for telling illustrated ghost stories.
Luo Ping, painting from the handscroll “Ghost Amusement”, ink on paper, ca. 1766, private collection
Reference:
www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/specters-chinese-master
www.theartwolf.com/exhibitions/luo-ping-met.htm
www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/arts/design/09visions
www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2009/luo-ping/photo-gallery
www.dailyartmagazine.com/luo-ping-painter/
Co-presented by
“Zao Wou-Ki: Friendship & Reconciliation” with Arthur de Villepin at Villepin
Villepin opens its doors with an exhibition of work by the late artist Zao Wou-Ki, the Chinese painter most celebrated for his embrace of Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Titled ‘Friendship and Reconciliation’, the exhibition aims to address not only Zao Wou-Ki’s creative resolution of disparate cultures and painterly styles but also the friendships he formed with fellow artists and collectors throughout the course of his career – friendship being a core value that stands at the heart of Arthur and Dominique de Villepin’s new gallery. The exhibition also marks the centennial anniversary of the artist’s birth.
Through rare works from the 1940s to the early 2000s, including a selection of large-scale oil paintings, watercolours Chinese inks and lithographs, the exhibition will tell the story of Zao Wou-Ki’s life and the evolution of his practice, from his background as a drawing instructor in Mainland China and early figurative tendencies to an iconic mid-century painter known for his abstract and gestural works.
Through his use of bold lines and swirls of highly saturated colors, combined with elements of Chinese calligraphy, Zao Wou-Ki’s paintings mark an exemplary reconciliation between Chinese and Western aesthetics, in which the language of modern abstraction is enriched by Asian traditions deeply rooted in the past.
Resource Person
Arthur de Villepin is the chairman and co-founder of Villepin, as well as an entrepreneur and avid collector of art. The son of former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Arthur grew up surrounded by artists. His mother is the celebrated sculptor Marie-Laure Viebel de Villepin and his sister, Marie de Villepin, has established a successful career as a painter. Throughout his childhood and extensive travels, Arthur was introduced to many leading artists, including Zao Wou-Ki, Anselm Kiefer, Myonghi Kang, Pierre Soulages and Miquel Barceló, all of whom trained him to see art through the eyes of artists rather than the market. This experience had a profound and lasting effect on Arthur, nurturing a passion for collecting based on close friendships with artists. The launch of Villepin is a natural evolution for Arthur, who has pursued art activities through parallel initiatives under the Art de Vivre Group. The new gallery will launch in Hong Kong, where Arthur has been based for the past ten years. Together with his father, he has nurtured strong friendships with artists from the region, developing unparalleled expertise in the Asian art market.
“Uniquely Hong Kong — A Celebration of Hong Kong Art” with Daphne King at Alisan Fine Arts
This lively exhibition will highlight the diversity and talent of these local individuals, bringing attention and thought to what defines a Hong Kong artist. With a rich history as a backdrop, the question of whether there is a common thread that links this group of artists may be seen in the correlation between context and independent artistic growth. Spanning close to three quarters of a century between the exhibitors, this exhibition hopes to explore and illuminate this question. Working with various forms of media ranging from ink on paper, seen in the works by masters Lui Shou-Kwan, Irene Chou, Fang Zhaoling, Wucius Wong, Kan Tai-Keung, Fung Ming-Chip, to multimedia such as steel, ceramic, bamboo and digital media by sculptors Kum Chi-Keung, Man Fung-Yi, Rosanna Li, Danny Lee, Mok Yat-San and Fiona Wong. In addition, the exhibition will also have artwork displayed by emerging artists Cherie Cheuk, Zhang Xiaoli and Ling Pui-Sze, Hui Hoi-Kiu.
Resource Person
The second tour will be led by Daphne King, director of Alisan Fine Arts and curator of this show. Daphne graduated from Philips Academy, Andover and the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in History. After graduation she worked in the advertising industry in New York and Hong Kong. In 1996, she joined Alisan Fine Arts and was promoted to Director in 2005; in 2011 she formally took over operations at the gallery.
Daphne was a Friend of the Hong Kong Museum of Art from 1997-2000 and is currently a Trustee of the Friends. In 2011 she was appointed Director of The Ink Society and now serves as Vice-Chairman. She has been a keen supporter of the Hong Kong Ballet since 2002, serving as co-chair of the Ballet Guild from 2011-2015, and was a board member from 2012-2017. Since 2015 she has been a patron of Asian Cultural Council Friend’s Circle and is a co-chair of their fundraising gala. In 2016 she was appointed Director of the Association Culturelle France Hong Kong Ltd. Daphne founded the University of Pennsylvania Scholarship Fund in Hong Kong, serving as President from 2002-2014. In recognition of her success as an art visionary, she received the 2018 Women of Hope award in the category of Art and Culture, and in the same year was invited by Net-a-Porter as a guest speaker for their “Incredible Women Talks.” In 2019 Daphne was selected by the World Women Leadership Congress for the Hong Kong Women Leadership Award.
In response to the recent cancellations of March art week, Art Basel Hong Kong, and Art Central, the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association (HKAGA) re-energises the city’s art scene by presenting UNSCHEDULED. Neither an art fair nor a museum exhibition, it is a platform for selling and networking by presenting solo exhibitions from HKAGA gallery members. The exhibiting galleries were selected by an independent selection team led by curator Ying Kwok and artist Sara Wong with a mission to engage not only people who buy art but also gallery visitors who might not buy art. Artists featured range from rising stars in their 20s to influential artists in Hong Kong, representing diversity across generations and backgrounds, but with a focus on modern and contemporary art with a connection to Asia.
Our tour will be led by Curator Ying Kwok. She is an independent curator noted for her inventive curatorial approach, centered on “boundaries of collaboration” between curators, artists, and the wider community. She has curated numerous exhibitions internationally, including the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017. Together with local art professional, she founded the Art Appraisal Club to encourage critical thinking and effective discussions. Through exhibition reviews and themed journals, the group provides an insider’s perspective to interested parties, emphasizing the importance of discussion and dialogue among local art critics.
Led by the Director of Sovereign Art Foundation, our visit to the 2020 Sovereign Asian Art Prize Finalists Exhibition will view works by 31 shortlisted artists, hailing from 18 countries and territories across Asia-Pacific. The Sovereign Asian Art Prize was launched in 2003 to increase international exposure of artists in the region, whilst raising funds for programmes that support disadvantage children using expressive arts. Held annually, the Prize is now recognized as the most established and prestigious annual art award in Asia-Pacific.
Following our visit to the exhibition, we will have a tour to K11 HACC and the rooftop at the K11 ATELIER King’s Road in Quarry Bay. Branded to introduce the Vertical Creative City concept, transforming the design, purpose and culture of workplaces, this latest addition to K11 ATELIER King’s Road is the first office tower in the world that achieves the highest green and healthy building standards and brings sustainability in the workplace to life.
Christie’s is delighted to invite the members of the University of Hong Kong Museum Society to a private guided tour of Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art from their forthcoming Hong Kong Spring Auctions. The guided tour will be given by Pola Antebi, Deputy Chairman, Asia Pacific, International Director & Head of Private Sales, Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art Department, Christie’s.
Highlights
This season Christie’s continues the tradition of offering scholar’s objects which reflect the sophisticated taste of the Chinese literati. One of the highlights is an exquisite celadon vase made at the Longquan kilns in the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), covered with a thick celadon glaze of jade-like quality. Fresh to the market, the vase was acquired c.1860-1880 from a Japanese temple by a landowning family, and has been with the family since. Another treasure is an Imperial soapstone seal belonging to the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795), commissioned during the early part of his reign, carved with the phrase “hanwei jingji” as a reminder to the Emperor to admonish himself from any sluggishness.
Resource Person
Drawing from over 30 years of professional experience, Pola Antebi is a global ambassador representing Christie’s in its operations around the world from her base in Hong Kong. As one of the most senior Chinese ceramics and works of art specialists in the firm, Pola regularly meets with prominent collectors, dealers and museum representatives in Asia, Europe and the United States to advise about her market, assist with curation of collections and to secure art works for sale both for auction and private sales.
Pola began her career in the field in New York in the mid-1980’s. Her dedication to further the prominence of Chinese works of art brought her to Asia and she joined Christie’s Hong Kong in 1990. As part of a pioneering team, Pola quickly grew the department, and supported the expansion of Christie’s presence throughout Asia. By 1998 Pola was promoted to Head of department, a role she held for 14 years. During this period of unprecedented growth, she was instrumental in elevating the category globally; her department regularly shattered auction sale records.
Through her passion, commitment and engagement with notable academics, Pola has made substantial contribution both to Christie’s and to the study of imperial ceramics and works of art, with a personal emphasis on Chinese imperial ceramics, lacquer and jade carvings from the Song to Qing dynasties.
Pola is also passionate in sharing her knowledge and experience with the younger crop of Christie’s specialist; she actively supports the mentorship program and has initiated a learning and development specialists’ forum which she chairs.
FINE AND VERY RARE LONGQUAN CELADON CYLINDRICAL VASE
SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY (1127-1279)
7 in. (17.8 cm.) high
The HKU Museum Society and the University Museum and Art Gallery are pleased to present guided viewing of three current exhibitions, “Metamorphosis or Confrontation”, “Clouds of Ink, Pools of Colour: Paintings by Hou Beiren” and “Mountain Taoist”. We will be guided by the artist Dr. Tobias Klein and Museum Director Dr. Florian Knothe.
Metamorphosis or Confrontation
This exhibition traces Tobias Klein’s work over the past decade and is structured in four distinct areas: “Bones”, “Masks”, “Mutations” and “Forces”. Each theme unravels the relationships and evolution of the artist’s body of work, while at the same time demanding that visitors take a position of negotiation, evolution or confrontation.
The first room, “Bones”, serves as a general introduction. Full of references and models that were both inspiration and source material for the artist, the space has been transformed into a cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer). The second room, “Masks”, is dedicated to a single work. Inspired by the intricate detail and cultural allusions of Cantonese Opera masks, this interactive installation transforms the visitor into a participatory player within a landscape of discoveries and unexpected moments. “Mutations”, the third exhibition space, places three different works in a stimulating constellation—”The Invisible Human, Melted Proportions and Witnesses”—
Seen as a whole, the individual rooms establish myriad readings. On the one hand, they allow for an understanding of the mastery of both digital and analogue materials while expressing the ability to apply interpretative and communicative techniques between old and new. This entire exhibition may be regarded as an extended Wunderkammer—a total work of art—which impressively presents the rich tapestry of Digital Craftsmanship.
Clouds of Ink, Pools of Colour: Paintings by Hou Beiren
“Clouds of Ink, Pools of Colour” presents recent work by the master painter Hou Beiren. His panoramas are filled with playful but elegiac meditations on the theme of the Chinese landscape expressed in luminescent swirls of colour and cascading ink, a theme to which he has returned numerous times over recent decades.
The origins behind Hou Beiren’s paintings lie in the ink landscape tradition of the Tang (618-907) and Southern Song (1127-1279) dynasties. Subsequently eclipsed by literati painting in China after the fourteenth century, splashed ink continued in the Zen influenced Japanese ink wash painting of the Muromachi Period (1333-1578). This tradition was revived and renewed in the 1950s by the great twentieth-century master of Chinese painting Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), who saw parallels with the Abstract Expressionist and action painting then dominant in the Western avant-garde. Zhang and Hou were close friends, and in recent decades Hou has tirelessly developed his form of splashed ink landscapes into a uniquely personal practise.
Mountain Taoist
“Mountain Taoist” presents six newly donated works by Wesley Tongson (1957–2012) created between 1993 and 2012. Known for his traditional ink work and uniquely developed style of finger painting, the exhibition “Mountain Taoist” combines both genres, his mountain landscapes and two bamboo paintings that document Tongson’s imaginative move from brush to finger.
After Tongson was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 15, he found consolation in the act of painting, and in 1977, began studying Chinese painting with the artist Gu Qingyao in Canada. It was at this time that Tongson started to explore the world of splashed ink painting, a technique with its origins in eighth-century China.
In 2001, Tongson began experimenting with finger painting, and by 2009, he had virtually ceased using brushes altogether. During this time he worked primarily with his fingers, fingernails and hands to create pieces that were as sophisticated as any brush work.
Tongson considered landscape painting the most difficult form of Chinese art to master, and he continued to study and mentor others in the landscape tradition throughout his career. Referring to himself as a ‘mountain Taoist’ or ‘mountain teacher’, Tongson’s paintings display a deep understanding of the natural and spiritual meaning of the Chinese landscape, and a continuous appreciation for the past masters.
Resource Persons
Dr. Tobias Klein was born in Bonn, Germany. He is a German Artist/Architect. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.
Klein’s combined artistic and architectural works construct the emerging practice of Digital Craftsmanship, through which he has established an operational synthesis of digital and physical materials and tools as poetic (Poïesis) and technical (Technê) expressions. Klein’s works are based on the use of contemporary CAD/CAM technologies with site and culturally specific narratives, intuitive non-linear design processes, and historical cultural references.
His work has been exhibited internationally at the London Science Museum, the V&A, the Venice Architectural Biennale, the Science Gallery (Melbourne), the container (Tokyo), the Bellevue Arts Museum, the MoCA Taipei, and the Museum of Moscow and Museum of Vancouver. His works are also found in the permanent collection of China’s first 3D Print Museum in Shanghai, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma (USA), and the Antwerp Fashion Museum (MoMu).
Dr. Florian Knothe teaches the history of decorative arts in the 17th and 18th century with particular focus on the social and historic importance of royal French manufacture. He has long been interested in the early modern fascination with Chinoiserie and the way royal workshops and smaller private enterprises helped to create and cater to this long-lasting fashion. Dr. Knothe worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and on European and East Asian glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, before his current position as Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery at HKU.
Tobias Klein
“Melted Proportions III”
Resin (white), 3D print (Stereolithography Apparatus SLA)
2019
Edition of 3
50x40x40 cm
© Tobias Klein
Hou Beiren
“Rafts on the Spring River”
Ink and colour on paper
2018
Gift of Hou Beiren
HKU.P.2019.2456
© University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
Wesley Tongson
“Bamboo 4”
Ink on paper
2012
Gift of Lilia and Kenneth Tongson
HKU.P.2019.2465
© University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
Please visit https://www.umag.hku.hk/en/ for the precautionary health and security measures of UMAG.
The Tenth Annual General Meeting of The University of Hong Kong Museum Society Limited will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, 9 July 2020 at the Drake Gallery, 1/F, Fung Ping Shan Building, University Museum & Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Reception will start at 5:00 p.m. Due to the unforeseen situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, we regret this year’s AGM will not be held concurrently with a lecture and dinner.
Please click the links below for the AGM documents.
The HKU Museum Society is pleased to co-present a special lecture “Reading and Regarding: Book Illustrations in Late Ming Print Culture”. The lecture and dinner are jointly presented with The Ink Society with support from the University Museum and Art Gallery.
Lecture synopsis
Unprecedented numbers of books were published and in circulation in sixteenth and seventeenth century Ming China. This talk examines the remarkable and varied nature of late Ming book illustration and its impact on society and culture during this period, as well as its extraordinary legacy. It will also consider the development and proliferation of book illustration in light of technological changes, regionalisation, urbanisation, and literacy during the late Ming.
Speaker
Dr. Kevin McLoughlin is currently the Curator at the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery. His previous professional roles have included serving as Interim Curator of Asian Art at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art; as Lecturer in the Arts of China postgraduate course at Christie’s Education London; as Senior Curator of the Chinese and Korean Collections and later Principal Curator for East & Central Asia at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Prior to this, he held positions as Deputy Curator of University Museums at the University of Durham; as Assistant Curator of the Barlow Collection of Ceramics, Bronzes and Jades at the University of Sussex; and East Asian Collections research assistant at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.
He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Sussex; an MA in Chinese Art & Archaeology from the University of Durham; and a BA in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He also studied at the Beijing Language and Culture University.
Detail from the Qingming shanghe tu 清明上河圖 showing a book store 書坊
Qiu Ying (c. 1495-1552)
Handscroll, ink and colour on silk
Mid-16th century
Liaoning Provincial Museum
Jointly presented by
