Archives: Activity

 

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the Museum Society’s upcoming trip, “Tradition & Modernity: A Tour of Fujian-Taiwan” with Professor David Lung (龍炳頤教授).  All are welcome to attend.

In this lecture, Professor Lung will discuss about the cultural diversity of sites in the Fujian Province where Christianity, Manichaeism, Islamism, Buddhism, Taoism once flourished.  He will talk about the communal way of living of the Hakka people in the traditional mud buildings. The lecture will also touch upon the Kinmen Island, a restricted military combat zone for over 5 decades in Taiwan.

 

Speaker

Professor David Lung led a Museum tour to Chaozhou two years ago.  He has retired from teaching and is currently holding honorary professorships in Department of Architecture and the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at HKU.  His research interest is in the areas of vernacular architecture, heritage conservation and history of Christian thought, liturgy and ecclesiastical architecture.

City University of Hong Kong is proud to present 12 original drawings by Leonardo da Vinci from the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, brought to Hong Kong for the first time to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death.   The Hong Kong University Museum Society is extremely pleased that Dr. Isabelle Frank, Exhibition Curator and Director of the City University Exhibition Gallery has agreed to guide our members on a private tour of this very special exhibition.

Leonardo da Vinci was first and foremost a polymath inventor and creator. Whether looking at plants, musical harmonies, or elliptical curves of cannon balls, he was fascinated by the world around him.  His indiscriminate exploration of the diversity of human and natural knowledge—arts, humanities, sciences and technology—turned him into the exemplar of what is now called a Renaissance man.

Leonardo left behind over 6,000 drawings that reveal his scientific, theoretical, and creative mental worlds that remained largely unknown before the 19th century. Since then, however, his writings, overflowing with artistic, scientific, and technological inventions, have become almost more famous than his artwork. They reveal a polymath whose prescient observations and scientific analyses seem to foreshadow later discoveries.

In tribute to Leonardo’s continuing influence, nine contemporary artists (eight based in Hong Kong) have produced new artworks, imagining what Leonardo might have done in an era of digital media and virtual reality. Fully embedded in contemporary technology, these pieces nonetheless hark back in startlingly direct ways to the legacies of Leonardo’s drawings, paintings, and unlimited curiosity.

 

Biography:

Dr. Isabelle Frank is currently Director of the City University of Hong Kong Exhibition Gallery; she focuses on curating exhibitions that combine technology and the arts and bridge Western and Asian cultures. An art historian by training with a PhD from Harvard University, she first taught at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts and was then associate dean for academic affair at The New School, and dean at Fordham University’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. She has published on Italian Renaissance art and decorative art as well as edited many exhibition catalogues for the CityU Exhibition Gallery, including “Cabinets of Curiosities, Art Deco. The France-China Connection”, and most recently  “Leonardo da Vinci. Art & Science. Then & Now.”

 

Swire HK Archive Service works together with Swire’s operating companies in Hong Kong and Asia to preserve and manage their historical archives.

The archive collections of Swire reflect its rich heritage in shipping, industry, aviation, beverages, trade and property and are comprised of a wide range of media, dating from the nineteenth century to the present day. Swire’s principal operating companies are represented in the archives, including Swire Pacific, Swire Properties, Cathay Pacific Airways, and HAECO, as well as Swire’s head office in Hong Kong, John Swire & Sons (H. K.).

Our visit at the Swire Archive will be led by Matthew Edmondson, Archivist of Swire HK Archive Service.  The tour consists of three parts: a presentation about the Archive, an introduction to Swire’s history along their photo gallery wall and a look inside the archives repository to view some of the physical artefacts and hear their stories.

As part of the Swire HK Archive Service’s commitment to share their rich history with the community, they do not charge any entrance fees.  The cost of this tour is charged at the discretion of the HKU Museum Society to support art and cultural programmes at UMAG and the wider community.

 

This Autumn, Sotheby’s will present the finest selection of masterpieces by modern Asian pioneers and Western masters, which includes Guan Liang, Sanyu, Zao Wou-ki, Foujita, Bernard Buffet and George Mathieu. Under professional curation, the Modern Art section will demonstrate an exponential growth of the international modern art development in the 20^th century, sparking conversations between the East and West, figurative and abstract, material and spiritual.

Our tour will be led by Jestina Tang.  Members are welcome to stay and view all other works of art on exhibition afterward.

Resource Person

Jestina Tang is a cataloguer at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, specializing in Modern Asian Art.  She is a Fine Arts alumni of The University of Hong Kong, where she acquired comprehensive training in both Western and Asian art histories.  Before joining Sotheby’s, she received her MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art, focusing on modern and contemporary Asian art. 

 

*We are delighted to add a special visit to the The Masterpiece Pavilion at the HKCC immediately after our Sotheby’s tour.  Philip Hewat-Jaboor, Chairman of the Masterpiece London Fair will introduce us to their Pavilion which brings the vision of cross-collecting to Hong Kong. Held within Fine Art Asia and showcasing exhibitors drawn the London Fair’s art and design specialists, the Pavilion provides an unparalleled opportunity for collectors to discover exceptional works, spanning eras and disciplines, from leading international exhibitors.  

We are delighted to organize a visit with ceramic artist Sara Tse at her studio in Kwai Chung.

Sara Tse lives and works in Hong Kong. She graduated with BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and MFA from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT), Australia.

Sara is the director of “clayplay” and the chairman of the Hong Kong Contemporary Ceramic Art Association. Her works have been widely exhibited in many solo and group shows both in Hong Kong and international cities abroad. She was the recipient of Fond Des Artistes Award from Alliance Francaise, Hong Kong (2006), Award Winner for the Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition, Hong Kong Museum of Art (2003) and Ceramic Award from the Pottery Workshop, Hong Kong (1998). She has also participated in many artist-in-residence programs in Japan, Canada, the United States, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

*Kindly note the changes of the Joint-UMAG event:

“Hou Beiren and Splashed Ink – A Sideways Look” with Dr. Kevin McLoughlin lecture will be rescheduled until further notice and will be replaced by “From Paris to Venice: A photographic journey by Willy Ronis” guided viewing with Dr. Florian Knothe.  

The guided viewing of “Living Kogei” exhibition will be held as scheduled.

The University Museum and Art Gallery and the HKU Museum Society are pleased to present a guided viewing and talk of two exhibitions supported by the Museum Society – “Living Kogei: Contemporary Japanese Craft from the Ise Collection” and “Clouds of Ink, Pools of Colour: Paintings by Hou Beiren” (now replaced by “From Paris to Venice: A photographic journey by Willy Ronis” guided viewing).

Guided Viewing – “From Paris to Venice: A photographic journey by Willy Ronis”

Reporter, industrial photographer and illustrator, Willy Ronis (1910–2009) was one of the key figures of twentieth-century French photography. For eight decades, from the 1930s to the 2000s, he pointed his camera lens at the French people, criss-crossing the streets of the capital or the south of the country with a perpetually-renewed pleasure. A photographer of joyful happenstance, Ronis captured the “slices of everyday life” of his family and friends, such as his wife Marie-Anne or his sonVincent, but also strangers who he came across while taking a detour through the streets of Belleville. A member of the Groupe des XV, he vigorously and passionately defended the career of photographer. In 1951, his work gained broader recognition during an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, where it was shown alongside works by Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Doisneau and Izis.

Guided Viewing – “Living Kogei: Contemporary Japanese Craft from the Ise Collection”

The modern Japanese term for artisan crafts, “kogei”, refers to a form of highly skilled artistic expression associated with specific regions in Japan. “Kogei” typically include ceramics, textiles, lacquer, metalwork, glass and wood, and have at their core a concern for fine craftsmanship and the inherent qualities of materials. Informed by centuries of tradition, these crafts have been revitalized and expanded in recent years, with emerging avant-garde tendencies in fields like bamboo sculpture and studio glass competing with established practices and values embedded in Japanese culture. Drawn from the Ise Collection, “Living Kogei” highlights eighty works by contemporary Japanese craftsmen, ranging from rustic ceramics with asymmetrical forms to abstract glasswork with elegant silhouettes and sensuous colours. Each demonstrates how contemporary artisans appreciate and continue the long tradition of Japanese craft, while at the same time departing from convention in search of the new.

 

Resource Persons

Dr. Florian Knothe

Dr. Knothe studies and teaches the history of decorative arts in the 17th and 18th centuries 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 started his career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Before joining The University of Hong Kong, where he now serves as Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery.

Benjamin Chiesa

Benjamin Chiesa is the Assistant Curator at the UMAG. He was previously Assistant Curator of Cross-cultural Art at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore. His research focuses on hybridity and artistic exchange between China, Japan and Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular focus on ceramics and silverware made for export to the West. His publications include Objectifying China: Ming and Qing Dynasty Ceramics and Their Stylistic Influences Abroad, Auspicious Designs: Batik for Peranakan Altars and Devotion and Desire: Cross-cultural Art in Asia.

 

 

“Marble: From Nature to Sculpture” will present artworks created by sculptors Cynthia Sah and Nicolas Bertoux together as well as independently. The main purpose of this exhibition is to illustrate their experience in creating marble sculptures and what happens during the process. There are sculptures in both marble and plaster models to illustrate various stages of creativity and workmanship. For many years, Cynthia and Nicolas have used the traditional method of carving but in the last 20 years, they have been using CNC machines that can rough out or carve forms and create contemporary artworks.

Smaller models of public artworks will be used to show the process of making large and monumental sculptures. These models were made from different materials including clay, plaster, aluminum and resin, and some used 3D modeling and printing.

At the exhibition, we will find out more about the nature of marble ‒from the marble quarry to the process of carving ‒ and the innovative machines available to do the work.  Participants will be allowed to touch the sculptures and models to know the difference between rough and finished; to feel and understand the quality, form and the different materials.                                                                       

 

Resource Persons

Cynthia Sah was born in Hong Kong in 1952 and grew up in Japan and Taiwan. After receiving her Master’s degree in the U.S., she has chosen to work in Italy where she lives since 1979.  Her sculptures reflect the Chinese philosophy of essential equilibrium, often translated into marble or bronze, which takes shape as lightness and fluidity in space.  Her artworks are in private and public collections such as Taipei Fine Art Museum, Farum International Sculpture Park in Denmark and Azuchi-Cho Cultural Center in Japan.

Nicolas Bertoux was born in 1952 in Paris, France and began his career as an interior architect and is now totally dedicated to sculpture.  His main direction is to integrate artwork into the environment by relating to a given space, local culture, history and nature.

His monumental works can be found in public and private places like the European Parliament of Strasbourg and in the Town of Ronchamp in France, or in Taiwan at the Institute of Transportation and in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.

五四運動前後中國社會風貌趣談:

由山西「模範」軍閥閻錫山的勳章及治晉著述說起

五四運動作為民間自發愛國運動，起因是北京學生反對一次大戰的巴黎和會中，列强將戰敗的德國在山東的權益轉讓給日本而非歸還屬戰勝國的中國。1919年5日4日，學生示威遊行，後來發展至火燒交通總長曹汝霖的居所，北洋政府予以鎮壓，並逮捕了學生代表32人，然而示威、罷課、罷市等抗議行動日益擴大，更漫延至全國其他省市。

五四運動標示「民主」、「科學」、「自由」與「平等」等「啟蒙」思潮的冒起，繼承由陳獨秀等知識份子自1915年由「青年雜誌」所開展的新文化運動，五四運動也影響着「反日」、「反封建」、「反軍閥」等作為「救亡」的政治走向及中國歷史的發展，然而後世對五四運動的評價莫衷一是。

百年過去，從多角度反思五四運動尤為重要。講座將聚焦五四前後的中國社會風貌，透過分析山西「模範」軍閥閻錫山的勳章及治晉著述，讓參加者接觸有關當時當權者及百姓情況的第一手史料，從而加深對五四運動的了解。講座內容將以展示文物及從拾趣角度探討社會風貌，務求雅俗共賞。

講座以粵語進行，講者郭競翔是資深晚清及北洋勳章研究者，也是香港大學博物館學會會員，近期曾參予孫中山紀念館「北洋軍‧政‧歲月」展覧。由今天至8月25日，孫中山紀念館亦正舉辦「動與醒︰五四新文化運動」展覽。

The Social Physiognomy of China around May Fourth Movement

as shown in the Medals and Publications concerning the Governing of Shanxi by

“Model” Warlord Yan Xi-shan

The May 4th Movement was a spontaneous civil patriotic movement led by students in Beijing objecting to the Paris peace conference after World War I, which flagrantly failed to reinstate the rights and interests in Shandong back to China from a defeated Germany.  Instead, the foreign powers in Paris elected to transfer all former German interests to Japan.

On the 4th May 1919, students took to the streets to protest the unfair peace treaty.  The residence of the Chief of Communication, Cao Ru-lin was set on fire, leading to the arrest of 32 student representatives by the Beiyang Government.    However, the protests and strikes spread rapidly among the ranks of both students and businessmen throughout the provinces and cities all over China.

 

The May 4th Movement marked the growth of “Enlightment” ideologies of “Democracy”, Science”, “Liberalism” and “Equality” , following the introduction of the “New Culture Movement” published in the La Jeunesse magazine in 1915 by intellectuals such as Chen Du-xiu.  The May 4th Movement also saw the rise of “Self-Salvation” political sentiments, such as “Anti-Japanese”, “Anti-Feudal” and “Anti-Warlord”, which were clearly influential in forming the character of modern China.  Of course, views have varied widely as to how actually significant the May 4th Movement was to the overall historical development of modern China.

In conjunction with commemorating the centennial memorial of the May 4th Movement, it is both critical and helpful to review this historical event from multiple angles.   By studying the medals and publications of “Model Warlord”, Yan Xi-shan which relate to his governing of Shanxi, our speaker will share first-hand information on both the sovereign and the common people.  In this way our audience will have a better understanding of both the physiognomy of China during the period surrounding the May 4th Movement, as well as the Movement itself.

 

This talk will be conducted in Cantonese.  Our speaker, Kwok King Cheung Bassanio is a member of the HKU Museum Society.  A veteran researcher of orders and medals of the late Manchu and Beiyang periods, Mr. Kwok recently participated in the “Beiyang Warlords: War and Politics” exhibition at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum.  The current exhibition, “The Awakening of a Generation: The May Fourth and New Culture Movement” at Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum will run until the 25th August 2019.