Tuesday 13 December 2016

China Today - Defying the limits - temporary exhibition at Museu do Oriente, Lisboa - The 10th of December 2016


I unexpectedly decided to go to Museu do Oriente so as to see two temporary exhibitions, one of which was called China Today - Defying the limits. From freedom of expression to searching for the Chinese Identity and environmental sustainability the works presented couldn't have been more different in their artistic approaches - oil on canvas, digital photography and pencil on paper.
LiFan's paintings had an initial negative impact on me, though taken as a manifesto in defence of the fundamental right to expression does give them a slightly different dimension, I must admit - "Nakedness" as raw as it may look.















Artist Ai Wei Wei flying - 2013 - oil on canvas (two of the tryptic paintings). 







Ai Weiwei and the other fourteen men - 2014 - oil on canvas.








Ai WeiWei, 4 women - 2012 - oil on canvas.








The Du Zhenjun photos presenting a dystopian vision of the undergoing changes in China did impress me. The images were particularly rich visually, irrespective of the chosen thematic and the "Babel Towers" in every image background provided the alegoric sense.



















Snow - Digital Photography - 2011 (left). Carnaval - Digital Photography - 2011 (right).





















Eating - Digital Photography - 2012 (left). Accident - Digital Photography - 2010 (right).









The ones that mostly impressed me though were the huge pencil drawings with extremely fine details by Qiu Jie on cultural citizenship and the encounter between the Western advertising and "pop culture" and the Chinese iconography.



 













Lady in the street - 2015 (right and left).













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