Category: Local

Through the display of 231 items/sets of rare artefacts including goldware, glassware, bronze sculptures and ivory carvings, unearthed from the four famous archaeological sites of Tepe Fullol, Aï Khanum, Tillya Tepe (Hill of gold) and Begram, now in the collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan, the exhibition Glistening Treasures in the Dust – Ancient Artefacts of Afghanistan demonstrates the profound influence of foreign ancient cultures such as Greek, Indian and Roman on Afghanistan and its surrounding regions from the Bronze Age to the first century AD, as well as a cultural diversity embracing the features of different Steppe cultures.  These artefacts also attest to the role played by ancient Afghanistan as the cultural crossroads of the Silk Road, which subsequently promoted the exchange and integration of world civilisations.

We are pleased to organize this guided tour with Dr. Joseph Ting.  The exhibition is jointly presented by the Hong Kong Museum of History and Art Exhibitions China.

 

Resource Person

Dr. Joseph Ting majored in Chinese Literature and Chinese History from HKU and graduated with a BA degree in 1974. He was conferred an MPhil in 1979 and a PhD in 1989, both from HKU. Dr. Ting joined the Hong Kong Museum of Art as an Assistant Curator in 1979 and was appointed Chief Curator of the HK Museum of History in 1995. He retired in 2007 after serving for 28 years. He is currently an Honorary Assistant Professor in the School of Chinese at The University of Hong Kong, as well as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Pair of clasps with cupids riding dolphins
Tillya Tepe, Tomb 3
AD 25-50

“King and Dragons” pendants
Tillya Tepe, Tomb 2
AD 25-50

The HKU Museum Society and the University Museum and Art Gallery are pleased to present guided viewings of two current exhibitions, “Along China’s Coast: Dezső Bozóky’s Travel Photography 1908–1909″ and “Silk Poems”.  We will be guided by Museum Director Dr. Florian Knothe, and author and artist of Silk Poems Jen Bervin.

 

Along China’s Coast: Dezső Bozóky’s Travel Photography 1908–1909

Following the success of UMAG’s 2016 exhibition “Two Years in Asia: Travelling in Hong Kong 1907–1909″, the Museum presents a larger group of photographs that Dezső Bozóky took along China’s coast from 1908–1909. A naval officer with the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Bozóky first left Hong Kong for Canton before travelling to Fujian province, Shanghai and Beijing, documenting the countryside and cities as well as their inhabitants.  The photographer’s interest in nature and architecture and, above all, the Qing dynasty street scenes and people he met, continue to transmit the excitement and wonder of this early European traveler in a country and culture so far from his own.

 

Silk Poems

Beyond silk’s traditional use in textiles, researchers are now experimenting with the material in novel forms of biomedical technology; as silk is compatible with human tissue, the immune system can accept silk on surfaces as sensitive as the human brain. In the UMAG exhibition Silk Poems, visual artist and author Jen Bervin melds the medium’s traditional applications with cutting edge research – engaging with silk’s cultural, scientific and linguistic complexities.

Bervin’s Silk Poems began as a six-year research project developed with expertise from more than thirty international textile archives, medical libraries, nanotechnology and biomedical labs, and sericulture sites in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

In 2016, Bervin began collaborating with scientists at the Tufts University Bioengineering Department on fabricating her poetry at nanoscale. In this process, a mask was used to etch her poetry in gold spatter onto a silicon wafer, and then liquid silk was poured over the wafer. As the silk dried, the letters remained suspended in the film, resulting in a work that can be viewed through a microscope. Throughout the exhibition, Bervin’s poetry is recreated in the form of strands of DNA so as to reflect both the filament pattern that silkworms create when making their cocoon and the genetic structure of silk, which forms like the weft thread in weaving.

 

Resource Persons

Dr. Florian Knothe studies and teaches the history of decorative arts in the 17^th and 18^th 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 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 joining The University of Hong Kong where he now serves as Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery.

 

Jen Bervin is the author of ten books, including “Silk Poems”, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a New Museum Book of the Year. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and grants, including from The Foundation for Contemporary Art (1917), The Rauschenberg Residency (2016), and The Asian Cultural Council (2016). She is currently an artist in residence with SETI Institute, a program that facilitates an exchange of ideas between scientists and artists. Her work has been covered in media outlets such as “Artforum, Huffington Post, The Nation”, “The New Yorker” and “The New York Times”.

The Executive Committee is pleased to present a guided viewing of “Ink, Colour and Water – The Art of Marina Pang” with the artist Marina Pang (also known as Marina Choa) at the HK Central Library. 

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Marina graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, USA before completing a postgraduate certificate in Education from the University of London, UK.  Her passion and mastery of art developed from 1970 when she began studying Chinese ink painting from Masters Huang Chun Pi, Chao Shao An, Bao Siu Yau, He Baili and Song Yu Gui; calligraphy from Master Ou Da Wei; and oil painting under Master Ma Dok Yuan. 

 

Artist

Marina Pang is one of the founding members of the HKU Museum Society and has served as the Treasurer of the Executive Committee for many years.  Her paintings have been selected for exhibition at the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibitions in 1989, 1998, 2001 and 2005, the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Awards in 2012, and the “Tradition to Contemporary: Ink Painting and Artistic Development in 20^th Century China” at the University Museum and Art Gallery in 2018.  Since 1994, she has held numerous solo exhibitions in Hong Kong, including the City Hall, the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery, The Hong Kong Club and the Central Library.

 

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.