Focus: China Events and Programs by Department

A+D Gallery: Found: China's Contemporary Design, an exhibit curated by Tao Huang and Kevin Henry running from October 1 through November 7, 2009. Though the Western consumer products market is saturated by “Made in China” products, the design professions in China remain a mystery. Tao Huang and Kevin Henry, faculty from Product Design in the Art + Design Department, select contemporary Chinese products with great cultural and design significance for contextualized display along with interviews with design professionals in China. The exhibition intends to showcase the exciting developments in design, particularly in product design, in the past three decades in China, to improve the understanding of the impact of globalization on local culture, and to provide a forum to discuss collaborations of American and Chinese design societies. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 1, 2009. For more information about the exhibit, go to www.colum.edu/adgallery.

Art & Design Department in collaboration with the Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Department: Spirals of Indigo: Deconstructing Meaning through Chinese Dress, an exhibition on display in the storefront windows of 618 South Michigan Avenue throughout September and October 2009 and focusing on the specific details of a festival jacket worn by women in Southern China. Diverse societies from around the world use various patterns, symbols, and techniques in their dress to define cultural identity and to artfully enhance the body. The semiotics, construction and embellishment techniques will be examined in depth. In addition, an overview of how clothing is influenced by the geographic and economic conditions of the region will be considered.

Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Department. Cocoon, an online performance art video exploring notions of tradition and change, performed by Jiujiang University students in Jiujiang, China, created by Rose Camastro-Pritchett, edited by Zach Breman. Students explored the notions of change and transition. Questions arose: How do we adjust? Can we alter our lives? Do cultural traditions and values matter? Wrapping, sewing, and cutting cocoons became metaphors for this journey. Sponsored in part by Jiujiang University, the Columbia College Chicago part-time faculty grant, and the AEMM department. Camastro-Pritchett is an adjunct faculty member in the AEMM department and holds an MFA degree in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago. Breman is a Columbia College Chicago graduate in Interactive Arts and Multi-Media.

Center for Asian Arts and Media: Autumn Gem, a film screening followed by a question and answer session with writer/co-director/co-producer Rae Chang and co-producer Adam Tow, Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 5:30PM at Film Row Cinema, Columbia College Chicago. This documentary explores the extraordinary life of the Chinese revolutionary heroine and women’s rights activist Qiu Jin (1875–1907). During the reign of the last dynasty in China, Qiu Jin boldly challenged traditional gender roles and demanded equal rights and opportunities for women. At a time when women’s lives were often marked by repressive practices such as footbinding, arranged marriages, and denial of education, she envisioned a future where women would free themselves from the confines of tradition and emerge as strong and active citizens of a new and modern nation.

This project brings the story of Qiu Jin to the screen in the form of a biographical documentary produced in HD video. It offers a fresh perspective on women in China by sharing the story of a figure known as the country’s first feminist. In exploring the life and work of Qiu Jin, the project unveils a remarkable chapter in the history of modern China and provides a deeper understanding of the lives of Chinese women today.

Center for Book and Paper Arts: Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang, an exhibit running from September 11 through December 5, 2009, with an opening reception Friday, September 11, 5-8PM.

Founded in 1729, the Derge Parkhang (also called the Derge Sutra Printing Temple) is a world cultural treasure, a repository of the cultural memory, literature and art of the Tibetan people. The Parkhang stores over 300,000 woodblocks that are used to publish sutra (holy scripture), commentaries, and histories of Tibetan Traditional Buddhism. It is a living institution, one of the most important religious sites in Tibet and a destination for both pilgrims and increasingly for tourists. It is the only surviving traditional printing temple in Tibet.

At the Derge Parkhang, books are still being made in the same way as they have been for nearly 300 years: hand printed from hand-carved wooden blocks, with ink and paper locally manufactured in a centuries-old tradition. As the exhibition and the accompanying catalog will show, the Derge Parkhang is an institution supported by a community of skilled artisans practicing crafts that not long ago were under threat of disappearing. The government of China, once hostile to all forms of religion, has in recent decades relaxed its restrictions and today printing at the temple flourishes.

This exhibition, officially sanctioned by the Derge Parkhang, consists artifacts, photographs, and interviews collected in Derge: wood block printed thangka (meditational image), specimen copies of typical books (also printed from wood blocks), actual wood blocks used in the production of prayer flags, photographs documenting the processes used in creating these artifacts, and videotape of the workers producing books and prints. The exhibition presents this material in a setting reminiscent of the interior of the temple. A special program in November will bring a panel of experts together to present views of the temple’s place in history, and a workshop will offer a hands-on experience of the techniques employed in book and papermaking throughout the Himalayan region.

The exhibition is part of an innovative project to document the social context for the indigenous publication of Tibetan art and literature, a joint venture of the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College Chicago, and the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University. A fully-illustrated catalog, with scholarly essays and many photos, will be available for purchase.

Related Events

Panel discussion: History, Printing and People: The Derge Parkhang and Tibetan Cultural Revival
Saturday, November 21, 3:30 pm

Panelist James Canary will make a presentation on Tibetan book arts as practiced today, after which panelists will present slide lectures on the Derge Parkhang’s role in the creation and preservation of Tibetan culture and the part that it plays in the daily lives of people in Derge. They will present the region’s recent history, the history of the revival of printing there in the 1980s after 20 years of religious and cultural suppression and discuss challenges which face the Derge Parkhang in the twenty-first century.

Panelists:
Patrick Dowdey: Curator of the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Wesleyan University
Clifton Meador: Director, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA in Book and Paper, Columbia College Chicago
Yudru Tsomo: Assistant Professor of History, Lawrence University
James Canary: Special Collections Conservator, Indiana University
[full bios below]

Workshop: The Himalayan Book
James Canary
Saturday-Sunday, November 21-22

In connection with Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang, we’re offering this rare hands-on opportunity to learn about Tibetan/Himalayan book and papermaking. Participants will get an overview of the history of the book in the Himalayan region while creating an authentic traditional book. We will start by learning to make traditional Himalayan paper, and make dyes and surface coatings for the paper using authentic, traditional materials provided by the instructor. We will cover the basic terminology of the book and learn about the indigenous scripts and typical book formats as we work, printing from real Tibetan woodblocks onto paper and cloth prayer flags, then sew a simple and elegant rainbow stitched binding, a common Himalayan structure, to complete our books.

For more information or to register for the workshop, contact the Center for Book and Paper Arts at (312) 369-6630 or book&paper@colum.edu.

Biographiess

Patrick Dowdey is the curator of the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies and adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Wesleyan University. Patrick is a co-curator of Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang at the Center for Book and Paper Arts. He and Clifton Meador conducted three summers of field research at the Derge Parkhang on the history and culture of Tibetan Buddhist printing and printmaking. Their photographs, video and ethnography provide a vivid introduction to life in Derge and to the ancient printing process still in use at the Parkhang.

Clifton Meador is the Director of the MFA program in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Meador is a photographer, writer, and designer who makes books. His recent books explore history and place through narrative and experimental design. Co-curator of Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang, he designed and provided the photography for the accompanying exhibition catalog.

Yudru Tsomo is Assistant Professor of History at Lawrence University.
A scholar of Sino-Tibetan relations, Yudru Tsomo received her PhD from Harvard University. Her dissertation, Local Aspirations and National Constraints: A Case Study of Nyarong Gonpo Namgyel and his Rise to Power in Kham (1836-1865) is a cornerstone in the study of the history of eastern Tibet.

James Canary is a Special Collections Conservator at Indiana University. He began studying Tibetan language and culture in the early 70s and has traveled extensively in the Himalayan region researching papermaking and documenting papermakers, scribes and printers.

Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces/Hokin Gallery: Shanghai Reflections, an exhibit running from August 31 through October 23, 2009 focused on presenting works by students currently enrolled Columbia College Chicago students or Columbia College Chicago alumni in any medium which hold the culture, images, history, or feeling of Shanghai, China as their subject matter or source of inspiration.

Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences: Symposium: : Gender, Identity and the Crossing of Cultures in Contemporary Chinese Art and Media, September 25-26, 2009, Film Row Cinema, Columbia College Chicago. This symposium explores the intersection between gender, identity and cross cultural dialogue in Chinese contemporary art and media. Globalization of the art discourse, the hybridism of cultures, and the emerging role of female artists in this context will be addressed. The symposium will showcase feature presentations by academics, artists, gallerists, and curators from China, Europe and the United States. On Friday evening there will be a roundtable with artiists’ presentations and a discussion featuring local and international curators. On Saturday the issues of gender, identity and cross-cultural relations will be discussed in academic presentations within two panels chaired by Professor Wu Hong. This symposium will be held concurrently with the opening of two closely related exhibitions: the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) will present “Exit,” an exhibition of contemporary photography and video inspired by Shanghai; Hyde Park Art Center will present “Shanghype,” a collaborative video installation by artists from China and Europe. Artists and curators from both exhibitions will actively participate in the symposium.

This symposium is organized by Elena Valussi, Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences, and presented in collaboration with Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media and Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

Schedule:

Friday, September 25, 2009.
6-8PM. Film Row Cinema. Refreshments will be provided.

Artist presentations and moderated discussions featuring:
1. Olivo Barbieri (visual artist and photographer)
2. Natasha Egan (Associate Director and Curator, MoCP)
3. Fang Ling-an (Chicago based visual artist)
4. Wu Hung (Professor, Art History Dept., University of Chicago, and curator)
5. Qiu Anxiong (Shanghai based media artist)
6. Davide Quadrio (independent curator, founder of Bizart and ArtHub, active in Shanghai and Bangkok)
7. Dan Wang (Chicago based visual artist)
8. Defne Ayas (Independent curator, co-founder of ArtHub, active in Shanghai and New York)

Olivo Barbieri, Qiu Anxiong, Fang Lin-an, and Dan Wang will present selections from their works and discuss them with curators and the audience.

Saturday, September 26, 2009
9AM-12:30PM. Film Row Cinema. Refreshments will be provided.

Two panels featuring:

Chair, Wu Hung (Professor, Art History Dept., University of Chicago and curator)
9AM-10:30AM

1. Paola Iovene (Assistant Professor, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Chicago)
Topic: “Women documentary filmmakers in contemporary China”

2. Fang Ling-an (Chicago based visual artist)
Topic: “The Whole World Celebrates Together, Contemporary Chinese art in relationship with traditional art forms and female trades”

3. Sasha Welland (Asst Prof in Women Studies, and Anthropology University of Washington in Seattle)
Topic: “The experience of curating Cruel/Loving Bodies, an exhibition of Chinese female artists”

Discussant: Defne Ayas (Independent curator, co-founder of ArtHub, active in Shanghai and New York)

Chair, Wu Hong (Professor, Art History Dept., University of Chicago and curator)
11am-12.30pm

1. Peggy Wang (Ph.D. Student, Art History Dept., University of Chicago)
Topic: "Critical Discourses: Debating the value of Chinese art in the 1990s."

2. Davide Quadrio (independent curator, founder of Bizart and ArtHub, active in Shanghai and Bangkok)
Topic: “The necessary instability of hybrid cultures. New Silk Roads: repositioning the role of art activists in Asia at the end of the 1990’s”

3. Julie Walsh (Chicago based gallerist focusing on Asia)
Topic: “The Quest: Discovering woman artists from mainland China - Stories and images from a few of the most exciting woman artists from today’s urban centers in China”

Discussant: Dan Wang (Chicago based visual artist)

Lunch Break

2-4PM Screening of documentary “My Dear”, by Gu Yaping, featuring two women from Beijing’s contemporary art world who struggle for personal and artistic integrity. (2007, 82 min.)

4-6PM Visit to some of Columbia College art spaces featuring Focus: China exhibitions.

Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: a Memoir of China will present "From the Cultural Revolution to the Economy Boom: How Changing Policies Affect Individual Lives in China" on October 7, 2009 at the Hokin Auditorium, 623 South Wabash, first floor at 10:30AM. She will talk from a personal perspective and insider's view about the drastic changes in China over the past half century. This lecture will take place as part of Professor Hong Chen’s Chinese language courses, but the Columbia College Chicago community and the general public are welcome. More information on her book is can be found at www.mulberrychild.com.

Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media: Symposium: : Gender, Identity and the Crossing of Cultures in Contemporary Chinese Art and Media, September 25-26, 2009, Film Row Cinema, Columbia College Chicago. This symposium explores the intersection between gender, identity and cross cultural dialogue in Chinese contemporary art and media. Globalization of the art discourse, the hybridism of cultures, and the emerging role of female artists in this context will be addressed. The symposium will showcase feature presentations by academics, artists, gallerists, and curators from China, Europe and the United States. On Friday evening there will be a roundtable with artiists’ presentations and a discussion featuring local and international curators. On Saturday the issues of gender, identity and cross-cultural relations will be discussed in academic presentations within two panels chaired by Professor Wu Hong. This symposium will be held concurrently with the opening of two closely related exhibitions: the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) will present “Exit,” an exhibition of contemporary photography and video inspired by Shanghai; Hyde Park Art Center will present “Shanghype,” a collaborative video installation by artists from China and Europe. Artists and curators from both exhibitions will actively participate in the symposium.

Schedule:

Friday, September 25, 2009.
6-8PM. Film Row Cinema. Refreshments will be provided.

Olivo Barbieri, Qiu Anxiong, Fang Lin-an, and Dan Wang will present selections from their works and discuss them with curators and the audience.

Saturday, September 26, 2009
9AM-12:30PM. Film Row Cinema. Refreshments will be provided.

Two panels featuring:

Chair, Wu Hung (Professor, Art History Dept., University of Chicago and curator)
9AM-10:30AM

1. Paola Iovene (Assistant Professor, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Chicago)
Topic: “Women documentary filmmakers in contemporary China”

2. Fang Ling-an (Chicago based visual artist)
Topic: “The Whole World Celebrates Together, Contemporary Chinese art in relationship with traditional art forms and female trades”

Discussant: Defne Ayas (Independent curator, co-founder of ArtHub, active in Shanghai and New York)

Chair, Wu Hong (Professor, Art History Dept., University of Chicago and curator)
11am-12.30pm

1. Peggy Wang (Ph.D. Student, Art History Dept., University of Chicago)
Topic: "Critical Discourses: Debating the value of Chinese art in the 1990s."

Lunch Break

2-4PM Screening of documentary “My Dear”, by Gu Yaping, featuring two women from Beijing’s contemporary art world who struggle for personal and artistic integrity. (2007, 82 min.)

4-6PM Visit to some of Columbia College art spaces featuring Focus: China exhibitions.

Library: The Library will host a variety of programs, including:

A film series presenting a selection of works from nearly 1,000 16mm films and DVDs dontated to the collection from the Consulate General of The People's Republic of China in Chicago.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009, 6-9:30 PM, 623 S. Wabash, 1st Floor, HOKIN Lecture Hall/Auditorium Room 109.

Wo men liang (You and Me), 2005, 85 min., Chinese with English subtitles. A young woman rents a room from an elderly woman who is mean to her. She decides to say in the room after deciding the elderly woman needs her.

Shi Jie (The World), 2004, 96 min., Chinese with English subtitles. On the outskirts of Beijing lies an amusement park featuring scaled-down models of world famous landmarks. Shi Jie follows the daily lives of staff members Taxo and Taisheng as they navigate their romance through The World.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009, 6-9:30 PM, 623 S. Wabash, 1st Floor, HOKIN Lecture/Hall Auditorium Room 109.

Tuya de hun shi (Tuya's Marriage), 2005, 96 min., Chinese with English subtitles. After suffering a back injury working on the family farm, Tuya decides to get a divorce and find a new husband who will take care of her children, land, and disabled first husband—a search that proves to be much harder than she had anticipated.

Ni qiu ye shi yu (Loach is fish too), 2005, 100 min., Chinese with English subtitles. Two migrant workers from the countryside (one the mother of two children) who share the same name "Ni Qiu" - meaning loach in Chinese - try to subsist as laborers in Beijing.

An exhibit highlighting the fifty-six unique fraternal nationalities which are woven together to create the dynamic tapestry of the People’s Republic of China today. A kaleidoscope of textures, brilliant hues, and intricate designs invite the observer to intimately experience the depth of many heritages that remain an integral part of local daily life. Collectively, this collage of cultures is the heart blood pulsing vibrantly throughout the Chinese nation. This collection is a celebration of the richness, variety and beauty of all Chinese peoples. On the 3rd floor during September and October 2009.

Hugo Tillman: Film Stills of the Mind, an exhibition running September 8 through October 30 at the Library, with a reception on Thursday, October 1 and an artist talk/lecture on Friday, October 2. In this revealing series of color photographs, British artist Hugo Tillman turns his lens towards China, the fastest growing force in art and economics, and examines in the most intimate of portrayals, approximately eighty of the leading Chinese artists of today. This solo exhibition will present selected film stills of this powerful investigation.

For this project, Tillman spent two years in China interviewing his subjects and immersing himself in the culture and art scene. He explains: “I interviewed each artist for a few hours, asking them about their past, their memories, their dreams and their fears. Then I photographed each artist in sets that recreate their memories and dreams.” The result is a mesmerizing look at the unique psychological landscape of the present-day Chinese art world, seen from Tillman’s Western point-of-view. The dream-like quality of the settings that Tillman creates and the vibrant hues of red, blue, pink and green give the images a psychedelic quality reinforcing the surreal element of his project.

In this deeply personal examination by a Western artist of his Asian counterparts, Tillman creates, through artful stage settings, a dramatic composition to convey a generation of forward looking individuals whose struggle with the country’s recent past, its oppressive regime, is a constant battle. As in his other photographs, the intense tonal quality and the ambiguous settings contrast with the stark reality of the memories and dreams that they depict.

Museum of Contemporary Photography: Reversed Images: Representations of Shanghai and Its Contemporary Material Culture, an exhibition running from September 25 through December 23, 2009 with an opening reception on Thursday, September 24, 2009 from 5–7PM, looks at the city of Shanghai and its development into one of the global economy’s top cities in the new millennium. The city of Shanghai is known for its impressive population growth, the increasingly rapid rate of its cultural and environmental transformations, and the tension between Western and traditional Chinese values, lifestyle, and work habits. In addition, the city is caught in between a not-so-distant communism and a late-arriving capitalism, between a world founded upon its labor force and the world of new technologies. Within this environment, the role of the artist becomes ever important as they look to interpret the experience of inhabiting a city and a time that’s looking to define itself between the contradictory natures of its past, present and future. The participating artists in this exhibition take various approaches in capturing a city that from day to day seems to transform before our eyes. Featuring the works of Olivo Barbieri, Birdhead (Song Tao and Ji Weiyu), Isidro Blasco, Mathieu Borysevicz, Cao Fei, David Cotterrell, Hu Yang, Jin Shan, Sylvie Levey, Lu Yuanming, Ma Liang, Shi Guorui, Shu Haolun, Speedism (Julian Friedauer and Pieterjan Ginckels), Su Chang, Xu Jianrong and Xu Xixian, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Zhou Xiaohu, and Zhu Feng.

Lecture by Olivo Barbieri, Thursday, September 24, 2009, 6:30PM, Ferguson Lecture Hall, 600 South Michigan Avenue, 1st Floor. Exhibiting artist Olivo Barbieri is recognized for his use of innovative aerial photography techniques to document urban environments. This program is presented in conjunction with the Columbia College Photography Department’s Lectures in Photography series.

Film screening and discussion with filmmaker Robert Adanto, The Rising Tide, October 1st, 2009, 7PM, Ferguson Lecture Hall, 600 S. Michigan Avenue, 1st Floor. The Rising Tide examines China's economic and cultural metamorphosis through the work of some of the country’s most talented video artists and photographers, including the internationally recognized Cao Fei, Xu Zhen, Wang Qingsong, Chen Qiulin, O Zhang, Yang Yong, and Birdhead. Robert Adanto will introduce the film and answer questions following the screening. For more information, visit www.therisingtidefilm.com.

Film screenings, Date TBA, Ferguson Lecture Hall, 600 South Michigan Avenue, 1st Floor.

Mathieu Borysevisc’s Taian Lu (12 Min). Taian Lu is a poetic account of a pregnant mother’s journey through the city of Shanghai.
Shu Haolun’s Nostalgia (70 min). Nostalgia is an ode to the traditional Longtang and Shikmen housing structures that are rapidly disappearing from the neighborhoods Shanghai.
Sylvie Levey’s Shanghai Waiting for Paradise (26 min). Shanghai Waiting for Paradise follows three generations of the Wang family living under one roof in the old city of Shanghai as they are confronted by the imminent demolition of their home.

Radio: Radio Airwaves in China, a series of radio features and news reports examining the music, contemporary development and current status of Chinese music radio stations and its influence on pop culture and social value of the world’s most populous country, presented by WCRX Radio, 88.1FM. Radio features include interviews and music performed by Chinese artists from various musical genres that include Hip Hop, Electronica and Cano pop.

Features and reports will air Monday through Friday, October 6 – October 11, 2009 at 7:51am, 9:51am, 1:51pm and 3:51pm. Listeners may listen to this program at www.wcrx.net <http://www.wcrx.net> or on 88.1FM

Hyde Park Art Center: Shanghype!, a video exhibition running from September 27 through December 13, 2009 and curated by Davide Quadrio and Dan S. Wang. There will be an opening reception on September 27 from 3-5PM with a gallery talk by Peggy Wang, a doctoral student researching the ‘90s experimental art scene in China. The exhibition will feature works by the following artists (titles and durations included if already known) in a running loop:

Sun Xun, Lie (8 minutes, 2006)
Qiu Anxiong, to be determined
Tang Maohong, On the Way (9 minutes, 2008)
Bu Hua, Savage Grow (4 minutes, 2008)
Song Tao, Feature (13 minutes, 2004)
Cao Fei, The Birth of RMB City (11 minutes, 2009)
Zhang Ding, Great Era (14 minutes, 2007)
Yang Fudong, Robber-South (2001)
David Cotterrell, Hero (2008)
Xu Zhen, Shouting (2 minutes, 1998)
Yang Zhenzhong, Spring Story (12 minutes, 2003)
Pierre Giner, to be determined
Olivo Barbieri, A Silent Story (2006)
Xu Zhen, We Will Come Back (2003)
D-fuse, Brilliant City (15 minutes, 2009)
Jin Shan, to be determined
Speedism, to be determined
Mathieu Borysevicz, Tai’an Lu (2008)
Zhou Xiaohu, Temporary sculptures 1-4 (10 minutes, 2008)

Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: a Memoir of China will present "From the Cultural Revolution to the Economy Boom: How Changing Policies Affect Individual Lives in China" on October 7, 2009 at 10:30AM. She will talk from a personal perspective and insider's view about the drastic changes in China over the past half century years. This lecture will take place as part of Professor Hong Chen’s Chinese language courses, but the Columbia College Chicago community and the general public are welcome. More information on her book is can be found at www.mulberrychild.com.

Millennium Park Chicago: A Conversation with Chicago: Contemporary Sculptures from China, an exhibition running from April 9, 2009 through October 2010. The Park will exhibit four large-scale sculptures by Sui Jianguo, Zhan Wang, Shen Shaomin, and Chen Wenling, four leading Chinese sculptors and installation artists. The exhibition is available for all to enjoy free of charge.

In recent years, contemporary Chinese art has emerged from a domestic avant-garde movement into one of the fastest growing and most dynamic components of the international art scene. Representing the current stage of contemporary Chinese art, the four large sculptures, never before seen in the United States, bring the global conversation into one of Chicago's most popular public spaces.

Coming from different regions and educational backgrounds, the artists each employ different materials and visual styles, but they also show commonalities. Each work is intensely engaged with important contemporary issues such as the energy crisis, materialism, and globalization. They also share inspiration from traditional Chinese art, commercial culture, folk art, and industrial machinery as they explore ways to react to a public space.

The sculptural works will be on view in Millennium Park's outdoor Boeing Gallieries. The piece by Shen Shaomin will be presented in Millennium Park's North Gallery, while the South Gallery will feature works by Chen Wenling, Sui Jianguo, and Zhan Wang. The exhibition is curated by Wu Hung, University of Chicago Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and a Consulting Curator for the Smart Museum of Art, and by Millennium Park staff. From June 11 through August 27, 2009, staff members from Millennium Park will offer free tours of the sculpture every Thursday at 12:15 p.m. The tours start in the North Boeing Gallery and last 45 minutes.

Millennium Park is located in the heart of downtown Chicago. It is bordered by Michigan Ave. to the west, Columbus Dr. to the east, Randolph St. to the north and Monroe St. to the south. The Boeing Galleries are located along Millennium Park's midlevel terraces, just east of Michigan Avenue. Millennium Park is open every day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. For more information about Contemporary Sculptures from China and Millennium Park, call 312.742.1168 or visit www.millenniumpark.org.

Work by the following artists will be featured:

Sui Jianguo (b. 1956)
Professor and head of the Department of Sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sui Jianguo emerged as one of the leading Chinese experimental artists in the early 1990s. His sculptures often respond to China's social and political transformation, and reflect on cultural clashes in the process of globalization. With 'Made in China' engraved on their chests, his larger-than-life toy dinosaurs reference the cheap, mass-produced goods that have become a foundation of the booming Chinese export economy. Witty and incisive, such work questions the source of China's economic prowess as well as a stereotypical image of China in the West.

Zhan Wang (b. 1962)
Having graduated from Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988, Zhan Wang has become world famous for his stainless steel copies of "scholars' rocks" found in classical Chinese gardens. By applying a pliable sheet of steel over a scholar's rock and hammering it thoroughly, he achieves a form that reproduces every minute undulation on the surface of the stone. To him, both the original rock and his stainless copy are material forms created for people's spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different cultural environments at different times. With their glittering surface, ostentatious glamour, and illusory appearance, his stainless rocks symbolize how the Chinese cultural tradition has adapted to today's postmodern conditions and acquired new aesthetic qualities.

Shen Shaomin (b. 1956)
An energetic sculptor, installation-artist, and film maker, Shen Shaoming has been pushing the boundaries of Chinese experimental art through various daring projects. Kowtow Machines---his contribution to this exhibition---is inspired by his childhood experience of growing up near one of China's major oil fields, where numerous oil pumps (which local people call 'Kowtow machines' because of their rhythmic, up-and-down movement) stand next to schools, hospitals and residential compounds. Squeezing the last drops of oil out of the soil, their silent, incessant movement generates anxiety, as if the ground beneath one's feet were being hollowed out. By refitting the mechanical transmission, Shen changes the pumps' stable, uniform motions into twitching, convulsing gestures; the result is like an old man suffering from constricted blood vessels and atrophied nerves, struggling to complete the task before him. Moved from Beijing to Chicago, Kowtow Machines forges a contemporary allegory for the dangerous dependence of modern society on oil production.

Chen Wenlin (b. 1969)
The youngest among the four artists, Chen Wenlin also most acutely responds to the heightened commercialism and materialism that has seized Chinese society in recent years. Made of stainless steel and painted red and gold, his sculptures frequently consist of blissful, self-indulgent human and animal figures, who embrace one other to form a tight, three-dimensional cluster. Chen derives the pig motif---one of his signature images ---from the folk art of his birthplace in Fujian, but he turns this local symbol of wealth into a humanized icon of contemporary Chinese society. His human figures, on the other hand, are often animal-like, absorbed by the simple delight of material possession. Displaying a highly organic style, these images are at once fantastic, ironic, satiric, and comical.

Nohra Haime Gallery: Hugo Tillman: Film Stills of the Mind, an exhibition running September 8 through October 30 at the Library. In this revealing series of color photographs, British artist Hugo Tillman turns his lens towards China, the fastest growing force in art and economics, and examines in the most intimate of portrayals, approximately eighty of the leading Chinese artists of today. This solo exhibition will present selected film stills of this powerful investigation.