Xu Beihong in Nanyang, 5 April to 13 July

Seeing. Feeling.  Being: Alberto Giacometti, 1 May to 15 June

The Artists Village Show, opening on 15 August

The Artists Village Show is about the history of TAV, which if you can recall was the one that Tang Da Wu was in.  In fact, the information at SAM website shows Tang Da Wu and Amanda Heng, who strangely is described as “his installation work”.

Yeah that’s about it for now.  Anyway please decide when we want to go can.  SAM is open on Mondays to Sundays, 10 am to 7 pm, Fridays, 10 am to 9 pm.

Tigershark

this website gives detailed analysis and background information regarding 7 of his works: spoon woman, woman walking, woman with her throat, nose (the Pinocchio one), piazza, standing woman and diego.

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_51_0.html

this one gives information on his life.

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_51.html

ok break time over. need to get back to coursework.

-haha

-haha

http://www.easterntea.com/research/fineart.htm

this one talks about how ng eng teng is able to master sculpturing the human form.

and also in his torso series. apparently he felt that the torso was a very mysterious part of the body because many other similar shapes can be interpreted as torsos.

also talks abit about the east and west fusion in his works.

its difficult to get info on sea artists. REALLY!

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-haha

As you will find out, I got tired of doing this at approximately Post-Impressionism, so please add on from there.

A short and concise of Western art movements since forever:

Medieval art (200 – 1430)

• Used tempera that dried really really fast
• Weird proportions

Renaissance (1300 – 1602)

• Human potential, idealised forms, use of myths to showcase humanism
• Proportion
• Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo

Baroque (1630 – 1730)

• DRAMA, heightened emotions, illusions
• Use of contraposto (S-curves) for action and dynamism, lots of drapery, trompe l’oeil
• Bernini, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio (his name reminds me of Carvanha)

Rococo (1720 – 1780)

• Swirly decoration, frivolous and pornographic paintings of rich people having fun
• Watteau, Boucher

Neo-Classicism (1750 – 1830)

• Morals! Patriotism! Revolution! No more decadent lifestyles!
• Copied from Greek Classical sculptures, stiff poses, dramatic lighting
• Jacques-Louis David, Ingres

Romanticism (1790 – 1880)

• Extreme emotions, especially faced with overwhelming nature, against scientific rational thought
• Exotic locations, magnificent landscapes
• Francisco Goya, J.M.W. Turner (namesake of Turner Prize), John Constable, Géricault, Delacroix

Photography invented in 1825

Realism (1830 – 1870)

• Miserable lives of everyday common people
• Naturalistic, no drama
• Gustave Courbet, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Millet, Repin (Communist, kitsch according to Clement Greenberg)

Modern art descends upon us

Impressionism (1863 – 1890)

• Capturing the moment, light, en plein air
• Painterly, daubs of pure colour next to each other, paint applied impasto, cropping
• Monet, Edgar Degas, Cezanne, Pissaro, Renoir, Sisley, Manet

Post-Impressionism (1886 – 1905)

• Impressionistic style but with more meaning
• Vincent van Gogh: swirly brushstrokes to convey state of mind and emotions
• Paul Cezanne: restore order and structure
• Paul Gauguin: primitivism, Tahitian women
• Henry Matisse: Fauvism (the wild beasts!)
• Seurat: Pointillism

Expressionism (1905 – 1930)

• Die Brück
• Der Blau Reiter

Cubism (1907 – 1914)

• Analytic
• Synthetic
• Picasso (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), Braque

Futurism (1910 – 1930)

• Cars are cool and the past is for chumps, everyone loves wars and weird poems and weird food
• Severini, Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Marinetti (Zang Tumb Tumb)

Dada (1916 – 1930)

• Against contemporary values of art (‘anti-Art’)
• Deliberately does not appeal to sense of aesthetics
• Guillaume Apollinaire, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray

De Stilj aka Neoplasticism (1917 – 1931)

• Spiritual harmony through pure abstractions, essentials of form and colour
• Horizontal and vertical lines, primary colours, black and white
• Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg

Surrealism (1920s – )

• My goodness it’s not over yet
• Elements of surprise, unusual juxtapositions, subconscious
• Automatism, collage, frottage (texture rubbings), exquisite corpse
• Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Alberto Giacometti

Constructivism (1920s – )

Art Deco (1920s – 1930s)

Abstract Expressionism (1940s – )

• Spontaneous, expressive, subconscious creation
• Jackson Pollock: action painting
• Mark Rothko: colour field painting
• Willem de Kooning: violent and grotesque

Pop Art (mid-1950s – )

• Popular culture, mass-production, banal, kitschy
• Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, David Hockney

Minimalism (1960 – )

Contemporary Art

Postmodernism (present)

Fluxus Art (early-1960s – late-1970s)

Performance Art (present)

Conceptual Art (1960s – )

Photorealism (late-1960s – early-1970s)

Installation Art (1970s – )

There you go! Please add to this list when you are free! I shall sticky it on the sidebar (if I can) for easy reference.

Cheers! tigershark

http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/

When you are at the page, click on Henry Moore Perry Green (found at the top). After a new page has loaded, click on Henry Moore. (some where in the middle) There is a VERY detailed biography on him and more importantly, there are some good and short descriptions/analysis on his major works in “works chronolgy”.

Enjoy!

Okay that’s that. Anyway today I visited SAM to have a look at the Xu Beihong in Nanyang exhibition, which I will elaborate on later. The point (and I think the part you guys will care more about) is, while I was looking at the rest of the galleries, I actually saw one of Montien Boonma’s stupas.

This one is Black Stupa, 1989, mixed media, 99×69 cm. It’s basically white paper splattered with dirt, soil, charcoal, ash, and what I think is rice, in wooden frames. The organic material forms the shape of a stupa, and so does the physical arrangement of the frames. It actually is quite successful when you see the real thing as opposed to the very small picture in the notes, because it’s quite tall (about 1 metre tall if you look at the dimensions), and so physically quite imposing. The arrangement of the frames helps to emphasise the idea of a stupa than just a picture alone. So the effect really quite nice. I know that the photos are bad, but no choice due to (ahem) restrictions. If you want to see it for real instead of my crummy photos, it’ll be on exhibition until 2009.

Next we have Xu Beihong, whom as you all know is the guy who is awesome at painting horses. Anyway he is not just good at Chinese painting, he does oil and watercolour too. Some background on his influences:

• Studied Chinese classics, calligraphy and painting since young.
• 1919 Paris: Main movements at that time were Expressionism and Cubism. Studied the works of Courbet, Millet, Rodin, and Degas, which you all know worked in the naturalistic or Realistic style. He also copied the works of Prud’hon (Neo-Classical and Romantic), Delacroix (Romantic), Velazquez (Baroque, famous for Las Meninas), and Rembrandt (etching, chiaroscuro, brand of pastels we use)
• 1921 Berlin: Worked under Arthur Kampf (etchings, paintings). Studied the works of Durer Holbein and Menzel (drawings, etchings, paintings)

The Foolish Old Man, 1940, ink on paper

As a result, his style is very much a mixture of Eastern and Western techniques. He thought that the Western style of realism is essential to the reform of Chinese art. However he chose to be grounded in the style of his wn culture while incorporating Western elements.

• Oil paintings: Style is very representational and naturalistic, but with painterly strokes. There is a lot of modeling done. A good example is Slave and Lion, where there is a lot of variety in the lighting from dark to bright. Uses large amounts of sketches (usually charcoal drawings) to prepare.
• Chinese paintings: Show quite a lot of Western influences. In Autumn Eagle (linked is not the painting, but similar), the eagle in question is depicted in a rather naturalistic way, instead of the stylised way Chinese paintings tend to be. I think the composition is influenced by Western art too, for example in Drinking Horses. Agree?
• Portraits: In the style of Western portraiture, but with Asian context. For example, Portrait of Lim Loh, 1927, has scenery as its background, but the subject is dressed in traditional Chinese costume (the kind that looks like a skirt) and holds a fan. One of the portraits, Portrait of a Young Lady, shows a corner of his calligraphy in the canvas, which reminds me of Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear by van Gogh (the one with the ear cut off and the Japanese print). Portrait of Ms Jenny is quite similar.

Put Your Whip Down, 1939, oil on canvas

In terms of subject, Xu Beihong is very into patriotism and loves his Motherland, China. So a lot of his paintings have Chinese themes, mixed with his Western-influenced ideas.

• Patriotism and social realities: The Foolish Old Man (aka 愚公移山), ink on paper, 1940, done in India uses the legend to illustrate China’s struggle against Japanese occupation. Put Your Whip Down, oil on canvas, 1939, is about a starving Chinese girl who faints while performing with her father, who whips her until a 大好青年 worker angrily jumps out to stop him. They then lament about how they have lost their homes to the Japanese. (Digression: actually I think the girl looks very weird in the painting, look at her curvy arm and protruding left knee.)
• Chinese paintings: Usual Chinese painting subjects (animals, bamboo, people), but sometimes done in very naturalistic, watercolour-like style. Examples include Portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, 1940, and Portrait of an Indian Lady. The Foolish Old Man has nude models, which is quite unsual for Chinese painting, and the people were modelled after Indians.
• Portraits: Usually friends and their relatives who housed him.
• Landscapes: Himalayas. Liu Kang said they were ‘mediocre in composition with no artistic ethos whatsoever’.
• Southeast Asian: Sometimes painted tropical fruits and plants. Not very influenced by Nanyang stuff.

He had influences on Singaporean art, due to his active participation in groups like NAFA, and his support for an art museum. He also encouraged Liu Kang (whom he thought was better than Matisse because of his bright colours and outlines), Chen Chong Swee, and Chen Wen Hsi.

Anyway if you want to see the images in greater detail, they are in a museum magazine which you can borrow from me. The Xu Beihong exhibition will be held until 13 July! Also, there will be an Alberto Giacometti (really thin and long sculptures) exhibition from 1 May to 15 June!

Yes okay this is the end of my very very long first post. Do comment heartily.

Cheers, from the tiger shark (floating in formaldehyde)!