Pre-trip Talk – Chinese Culture in Qinghai and Gansu

In conjunction with our September trip to Qinghai and Gansu, our resource person, Yeung Chun-tong (楊春棠), Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery will give a presentation and talk to share with us some of the highlights of the trip as well as some historical background of the places to be visited.

In ancient times, Qinghai and Gansu were on the Silk Road linking Eurasia and China. Both of these provinces have developed a mixture of cultures that are clearly reflected in their Buddhist art, as found in cave temples and Lamaseries.

Director Yeung will introduce the pottery finds from a Neolithic site in Qinghai and compare them with similar discoveries in other parts of Mainland China. The wall paintings and stucco sculptures in Gansu cave temples will also be highlighted to illustrate the Buddhist influence on the development of Chinese art and culture.

Do join us for an informative and enlightening evening talk on a part of China that is culturally diverse and fascinating.

在中國歷史上，青海和甘肅於絲綢之路未開拓前，是不受重視的地方。本講座將介紹這兩個省份的早期歷史，內容包括漢人文化和當地少數民族的融和，以及自漢代開始外地文化的傳入所帶來的影響。

本講座以青海甘肅兩地彩陶的發現，追溯新石器時代的歷史，並且利用甘肅石窟的壁畫和彩，說明當地在中國佛教史上的重要地位，同時帶出佛教思想和藝術與中國文化發展的密切關係。

The Art of English High Tea with Wendy Siu

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” — Henry James

To understand the art of English high tea, Wendy Siu, Founder and President of Heather and March will host an English high tea workshop for our members at her shop. She will talk about the history and tradition of English high tea, including proper service of savories and sweets, tea varieties, the art of table setting, and proper etiquette. You will be delighted to discover many interesting facts and details of what English high tea is about.

Following the talk, there will be an optional English afternoon tea to appreciate, savor, and put to practice the insights offered by our knowledgeable speaker. So, come and enjoy an afternoon that will take you back to the historical and elegant Victorian times.

The speaker
Wendy Siu is the Founder and President of Heather & March, a luxury tableware and home accessories store that has been uniquely instrumental in integrating gastronomic knowledge with table settings. Honored by former French President Jacques Chirac with a lifetime national knighthood medal in 2005, the second highest civilian honor of “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite” in France and the ninth person since 1962 to receive this honor in Hong Kong, she has shared her expertise on topics of entertaining etiquette, interior design, home decoration, and the art of living and culinary cooking through workshops, talks and event decorations at many major five star hotels and residences of Consul-Generals, including the Consul-Generals of France and U.S.A. She was also a guest lecturer for the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong on the topic of “How to Create a Successful Business Vision”.

Traditions and Tensions – The Rise of Mondernism in India with Sundaram Tagore

Lecture synopsis
This lecture explores the multiple facets of Indian modernism. The narrative begins with the question: If modernism, in the Western context, is defined as a rejection of tradition, just how does a 5,000-year-old traditional culture such as India manage to make modern art? It somehow unfolds to us in a more tangled and complex manner, influenced by factors such as urbanism, primitivism and neologism. Unlike their counterparts in the West, Indian artists made modern art not by shocking and rejecting, but by assimilating elements from innumerable artistic traditions.

Modernism first took root on the Indian subcontinent with the establishment of colonial art colleges that followed the curriculum of the Royal College of Arts in London. The introduction of Western ideas generated great debate and conflict. Hence a group of Asian and European intellectuals, including Englishman Ernst Binfield, Japanese curator Okakuro Kakuzo and Chinese artist Xu Beihong, created the Pan-Asian alliance to counteract the pervasive influence of Western academic naturalism promoted by the government colleges. The movement swept through India and spread to other Asian countries as well, resulting in an international aesthetic and ideology. Thus began the story of Indian modernism.

The speaker
Sundaram Tagore is a New York-based art historian and gallerist. A descendant of the influential poet and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, he promotes East-West dialogues in multicultural and multidisciplinary events globally. He has worked with many international organizations including The Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, Venice, Italy; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; United Nations; Pace Wildenstein Gallery. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate of Oxford University, and he writes for numerous art publications. In 1999, he was nominated by Avenue magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Asian Americans in the United States. Recently, he was profiled in a 30-minute special interview with CNN International’s Talk Asia.

Dr. Jing Tsu on Lin Yutang, his Chinese-Language Typewriter and the Global Importance of Chinese Language

Language is very much like art. They both are tools to render human thoughts and feelings into tangible forms. At the same time, language is also a form of currency, standardized for exchange and communication among diverse groups of people. What happens when both the aesthetic and practical sides of language are jointly expressed in technology?

The HKU Museum Society takes pleasure in presenting a lecture by literary scholar and cultural historian Dr. Jing Tsu (石靜遠), Assistant Professor at Yale University. Dr. Tsu received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard in 2008-2009. She has researched and written extensively on a century's transformation of the sound and script of the Chinese language.

In 1946, Lin Yutang (???) filed an application with the U.S. Patent Office for his Chinese-language typewriter. The design, which had taken him fifty years to conceive and to build, marks a little known history in the struggle for global dominance between the Chinese and English languages in the area of international communication, a rivalry that continues to the present. In this lecture, Dr. Tsu will be discussing this much neglected chapter of Lin Yutang's biography and how it adds an important dimension to our understanding of his significance as one of China's most successful bilingual writers in the English-speaking world.

Dr. Tsu has published many articles, book chapters and reviews on modern Chinese literature, nationalism, and diaspora. She is the recipient of numerous academic awards and international honors. Her book "Failure, Nationalism and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity 1895-1937" was published by Stanford University Press in 2005. She is currently completing her second book manuscript, "Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora," which is under contract with Harvard University Press.

Stephen Hui Geological Museum & Lunch at HKU Senior Common Room

Tucked in one of the buildings inside the HKU campus, the newest museum to open in Hong Kong early this year is the Stephen Hui Geological Museum. The museum owes its existence to the generous donation and continuous support of the family of the late Dr. Stephen Hui, mining engineer, geologist, scholar and philanthropist.

The exhibits are some of the oldest artifacts from planet earth. Instead of seeing man-made art, we will see some of the most spectacular works of art by Mother Nature! The museum occupies two floors with galleries that are arranged thematically. It also contains a small theater classroom for ԍagic PlanetԠdemonstration and lectures.

We will be guided by Dr. Petra Bach, Curator of the Geological Museum, BA & MA from Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany; PhD from HKU. She has done diverse fieldwork in Finland, Egypt and China. In addition, Sylvia Kwok, the daughter of the late Dr. Stephen Hui and an educator and member of our Society, will speak to us about her fatherӳ lifetime passion in geology.

Following the tour, we will walk over to the Universityӳ Senior Common Room, an exclusive dining venue for senior faculty and staff for our lunch.

Come and enjoy the new museum on University campus.

Koo Mei’s Landscape Painting

This special tour and demonstration was conducted by visiting artist Koo Mei in conjunction with her solo exhibition at UMAG. Willing a brush in her hands, clouds and mists magically appeared with mountains and trees in front of our very eyes. Koo Mei was willing to share her insights on art and life with the participants through answering questions and casual conversations. A delicious meal with the artist at a private club afterward.

Studio visit with Lisa Cheung, Chinese Antique Restoration Specialist

Not only famous as one of the Chinese antique pottery restorers in Hong Kong, but also as one of the top rare few in the world, Lisa Cheung is a charming lady who is very articulate and keen to share her interest and passion in life, which fortunately, has become her career. Her restored objects are found in the collections of museums in the U.S.A., Europe, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Her global clients include dealers, collectors, auction houses and museums. She specializes in restoring white pottery, red pottery and grey pottery of Neolithic period, Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Northern Wei period. Occasionally, depending on the object and its condition, she also accepts orders to restore antiques or works of art from all time periods, with materials ranging from porcelain, stone, wood, jade, bone, horn, tooth, bronze, gold and silver.

Jewelry design is Lisa’s serious hobby. Combining old and new Chinese pieces to make one-of-a-kind wearable artworks, she trademarks them under Lisa’s Collection and sells them mainly for charities. Through the years, she has raised millions of dollars for charities like Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, Dragon Foundation, Cable TV for Sichuan Earthquake and Chartered Bank’s “Seeing is Believing” project. One year, she had the opportunity to design souvenir necklaces for the 14 finalists of the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant.

Before becoming an antique restorer, Lisa was known as Chung Ding Dong ( 鍾叮噹 ), an award winning singer, Cantonese movie star, TV contract artist and performer. After marrying Kalam Cheung, a 5th generation Chinese herbalist medical doctor and Chinese antique collector and dealer, Lisa learned the art of restoration from her husband, who studied the craft in Paris many years ago. As patron donors to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, they have donated over 30 pieces of antique in their name and in the name of Kalam’s father, Dr. Pak Sheung Cheung.

Her studio promises to be beyond the ordinary.

Dr. Shane McCausland: Telling Images of China – Narrative and Figure Paintings, 15th – 20th Centuries

Lecture Synopsis:
This talk will introduce themes from an exhibition of paintings, on loan from the Shanghai Museum, to be mounted at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin in early 2010. Each of these 38 paintings retells some kind of story from Chinese legend, folklore, literature or history. While many of the tales will be familiar in China, the ways they were illustrated in painted scrolls and albums are less well known. Individually, these images and the tales they describe have the power to delight viewers; taken together, they can also give a taste of China’s rich lyric tradition.

The show includes narrative paintings that describe the plotlines of emotive tales through sequences of pictorial images, as well as portraits of individuals or groups. Historically, such images were often the starting point for viewers’ individual reminiscences on a figure’s humanity or place in culture. Included are tales like that of the Chinese lady Wenji, who in ancient times was married to a “barbarian” chieftain, bore his children, and was later faced with the harrowing decision of whether to return to China without them. This tale lay at the heart of an ongoing definition of Chinese culture through history, but also has resonance for Chinese people at home and abroad today. Other tales of “scholars and beauties”, demon-slayers and Taoist immortals similarly continue to have relevance in daily life and the popular imagination.

This exhibition sets out to explore the dynamic interplay of words and pictorial images in the art of China’s last two imperial dynasties, the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911), and into the Republican period. It explores how narratives took form in pictures, and how portraits and genre scenes could transmit cultural memories. In highlighting themes, from exile and longing, to supernatural and religious lore, to the morality of history and the delights of romance, the exhibition shows how successive generations of artists gave new life to learning, devotion and leisure in pictorial images fit for their own times.

The Speaker:
Dr. Shane McCausland is Head of Collections and also Curator of the East Asian Collections at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. In 2003-04 he was Sainsbury Fellow in the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, based at the SOAS, University of London, where he was previously a lecturer in Chinese art history. He has a doctorate from Princeton University (2000). In 2003, he published The Admonitions Scroll: First Masterpiece of Chinese Painting and Gu Kaizhi and the Admonitions Scroll (contributing editor) (both British Museum Press). His Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai’s China is forthcoming from Hong Kong University Press in 2010.

Venue:
A double treat for our members – we are privileged to be dining at the exclusive Min Chiu Society Club. It was founded in 1960 by a group of Hong Kong collectors and connoisseurs. Today, with 50 members, they continue to work towards their goal of propagating and preserving traditional Chinese art and culture. This prestigious Society has extensive contacts with curators, collectors and scholars from China and overseas. The members’ collections have been individually or collectively exhibited or loan to various museums.

Trip: Contemporary Art and Architecture in Japan Echigo Tsumari Triennial Art Festival 2009 Preview Tour with Alex Hui

Overview:

The University of Hong Kong Museum Society is proud to present an exciting summer tour for our members this year. We will be led by architect Alex Hui
( 許日銓 ), former Curator of the University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery, and past Director of Hong Kong Arts Centre. This exclusive art and architecture tour is designed to introduce our members to the most forward-looking art festival in Asia, the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial. In addition, we will visit at least six top-notch museums, special restaurants and designer hotels. By the end of our tour, we would have made a loop around the area and seen some wonderful gems of Japanese architecture rarely visited.

Our trip will last 7 days plus an optional extension – details have been mailed out earlier but here is a summary of the trip.

Itinerary:
Day 1 – Friday, 5 June 2009

We will meet in the morning to begin the tour. Our bus will pick us up in Tokyo (at a location to be advised) and our first stop will be Hara Museum and the Kankai Annex. Then we continue on to Echigo Tsumari where we will stay for the next few days to view art works in the company of the curators of the show. We will stay in a small ryokan and experience rural hospitality. Please note that as with rural traditional ryokans, facilities are shared, in a small home atmosphere. Treat this as an experience of traditional Japanese way of life.

May-June 2009 9
Day 2 & 3 – Saturday and Sunday, 6-7 June 2009

We will view a selection of works from amongst the hundreds of art works on show. These art works are all site specific installations and what is notable is that the local community has a large say in which art work stays and which goes as they are the ones living with the works. If the community chooses to ignore and not maintain the work, it will be gone sooner or later, maybe even after the first snow bound winter!

Day 4 & 5 – Monday and Tuesday, 8-9 June 2009

Traveling westward to the Japanese Alps, we visit Chihiro Art Museum designed by Hiroshi Naito, Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Waseda University. Another museum to visit is Matsumoto City Museum of Art where the permanent collection of Yayoi Kusama is kept.

Day 6 & 7 – Wednesday and Thursday, 10-11 June

Our last two days will be in Kawaguchi area where we will stay in Risonare, an award winning highland resort hotel. While in the highlands, we will visit Tadao Ando's Koumi-machi Kogen Museum of Art as well as Fuji Harness, the headquarters of the Japan Guide Dog Association designed by architect Chiba Manabu. Transportation will be arranged for members to return to Tokyo, or if members are taking the Yokohama extension, then to the hotel in Yokohama.

Optional Extension tour to Yokohama and Kamakura
"Y 150" celebrates 150 years of the Port of Yokohama – There is a 2-night extension for those interested in spending some extra time in the area.