By Carol Yinghua Lu
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A work shown in ‘Dunhuang: Song of Living Beings’ at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, China. Courtesy Shanghai Himalayas Museum
Our Beijing-based contributing editor shares her favourite shows and events from 2015
Dunhuang: Song of Living Beings
Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, China
For the first time in Shanghai, visitors have the chance to see some of the finest examples of Buddhist art from a period spanning 1,000 years, from the 4th to the 14th century. All of these works – until now – have rarely been seen outside of the Dunhuang Caves in Gansu Province, an ancient Chinese Buddhist sculptural site. This educational exhibition includes eight replica caves whose originals are inaccessible to the public for purposes of preservation. The show also includes painted stucco sculptures and cave murals reproduced by the founding pioneers of the National Dunhuang Art Institute.
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Leslie Thornton, Peggy and Fred in Hell: Folding (1985 – 2015), Digital video still transferred from 16mm. Courtesy the artist
The Inoperative Community
Raven Row, London, UK
This thought-provoking exhibition, curated by Dan Kidner, deals with an extremely timely issue: the shifting nature of community and the limits of political activity. The show draws from works made for cinema, television and gallery spaces from 1968 to the present. Seeing it restored my faith in the possibility of an intellectually rigorous exhibition that begs for more than one visit.
Asian Exhibition History
Research and Archive Centre, Asian Culture Complex, Gwangju, South Korea
‘Asian Exhibition History’ is the inaugural programme of the Research and Archive Centre in the Asian Culture Complex in Gwangju, South Korea. Conceived and led by Korean curator Kim Sunjung, ‘Asian Exhibition History’ displays a collection of archival materials based on eight commissioned research projects carried out by curators and researchers from eight Asian countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. Each of the researchers looks into the exhibition history of his or her respective country from the beginning of the Cold War Period until the present. This initiative goes a long way toward correcting the absence of infrastructure and the awareness of archives for artistic practice and art historical research in Asia.
Francis Fukuyama: Challenges in Chinese and American Political Reform
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Invited by Wang Hui, professor of intellectual history at Tsinghua University, for this lecture, Francis Fukuyama offered his observations and analyses of Chinese and American political reforms. The lecture was followed by responses from two left-wing Chinese political analysts – Cai Zhiyuan and Pan Wei. While Fukuyama is often identified by left-wing Chinese intellectuals and media for exposing the deficiencies of the democratic system in America and, in contrast, attesting to the effectiveness of Chinese state power, Fukuyama held his ground in pointing out that the rule of law is a pivotal element of the modern political system that is still missing in China.
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‘And away with the minutes: Dieter Roth and Music’, installation view
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, London/New York/Zurich; photograph: Thomas Bruns
And away with the minutes: Dieter Roth and Music
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany
This encyclopaedic show of Dieter Roth’s oeuvre focused mainly on the artist’s music-based practice. It provided insights into the working methods and processes of the artist, and above all, revealed the significance of his family life at the heart of his practice.
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Ai Weiwei, Spouts (detail), 2015, installation view Galleria Continua & Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China
Ai Weiwei
Galleria Continua & Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China
This exhibition – in which Ai Weiwei split an ancient temple across two adjacent galleries – not only marked the first major Beijing exhibition of the artist since his return to Beijing from New York in the mid 1990s, it also demonstrated Ai’s brilliance as an exhibition maker. The show was well conceived, multi-layered, concise and elegant, and, at the same time, aptly mirrored the cultural dynamic of our times.
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Kazunari Sakamoto, Architectural Laboratory, Tokyo
Anticlimax Poetry: Sakamoto’s Architecture
Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China
This exhibition is among a series of architecture exhibitions organized by the Power Station of Art over the past two years, introducing diverse practices by world-class architects, from Renzo Piano to Yona Friedman to Kazuo Shinohara. ‘Anticlimax Poetry: Sakamoto’s Architecture’ is a comprehensive and detailed survey of architectural designs by Kazunari Sakamoto, a Japanese architect and educator. The show also includes designs by his students and successors, characterized by their shared dedication to the practice of home design as a key form of exploring and imaging the possibilities of architecture.
A Forgotten and Rediscovered Star: Wu Dayu
Chinese Academy of Oil Painting, Beijing, China
A pioneering figure of Chinese modern painting, Wu Dayu was a prolific artist, a vocal theoretician and an influential teacher during the 1940s. His practice and thought has been pivotal for several generations of abstract painters in Shanghai in recent decades. Yet due to his marginalized position in China since the 1950s, he never had a solo exhibition in his lifetime and is seldom included in the current historical account of art in China. This exhibition brought together rare works and documentary materials that made visible his vigorous exploration of abstract painting throughout his career. Read my review for the September issue of friezehere
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