The Asian Art Museum's Shanghai exhibit opened yesterday, and I dropped by a quick visit. It's a wonderful show. My only complaint is that I wish it were a little larger. Nevertheless, I think the curators did a fantastic job of showcasing the breadth of Shanghai art throughout the city's various incarnations.
I'll be writing more about the exhibition at the Museum's blog, but in the meantime here are a dozen of my favorite pieces:
- Ladies, 1890
A series of twelve paintings (ink and color on silk) by Wu Youru, whose delicately rendered Shanghai beauties were the forerunners of the calendar girls of the 20s and 30s. - Boundary tablet of Hongkew (the American Settlement), post-1850
This piece of metal has a weight that palpably conjures Shanghai's colonial past. - Plum Blossoms under the Moon, 1933
I could sit for hours staring at this haunting and seductive hanging scroll by Tao Lengyue, who was given the name Lengyue, or "Cold Moon", because of the amazing moonlit scenes that were his specialty. - Huang Jinrong and Du Yuesheng, 1924
You gotta love this hanging scroll portraying "Big Ears" Du and "Pockmarked" Huang — the bad boys behind Shanghai's Green Gang — as genteel fellows relaxing in a tranquil garden of bamboo and pine trees. - Qipao, 1920s and 30s
My favorites were those with the Art Deco patterns, but the one with the cut-velvet floral pattern was pretty cool too! - It Often Begins with a Smile, 1930s
My favorite of the Shanghai lady posters on display, a delicious pinup that I'd love to hang on my wall. It was painted by Jin Meishing, one of the "Three Pillars of Calendar Posters". After the Revolution, he continued painting in the same vibrant and luminous style. But instead of portraying decadent bourgeois ladies, he depicted healthy proletarian lasses in such works as Vegetables Are Green, Melons Are Plump, Harvest Is Bountiful. - I wouldn't mind having this in my living room...
Rug, 1920-1935
Wool with yin and yang pattern. Private collection. - Sanmao Follows the Army, 1946
Three pages of original artwork from Sanmao, the longest running comic strip in China. A delightfully gruesome piece of patriotic black humor. - Shanghai Number One Department Store, 1955
I was a little disappointed that this poster didn't make it into the catalog. The crowded scene of what seems like all of China, including its ethnic minorities, jammed inside this real-life department store is proof that even back then the Communists had an inkling that salvation lies in consumer capitalism. - This was an amazing installation that I fully intend to sit through in its entirety when I revisit the exhibit. Starting off completely darkened, the neon tubes light up one by one to the sound of the plucked strings of a Chinese zither.
Landscape-Commemorating Huang Binhong-Scroll, 2007
By Shen Fan (b. 1952). Installation with lights and sound. Courtesy of the artist. - Forest, 2004
Li Huayi's mesmerizing hypnagogic landscape painting depicting an ancient cypress grove on the grounds of a temple outside Suzhou. Evidently, the Qianlong Emperor gave them the title Qingqi Guguai, meaning "elegant and strange". - Mawangdui, 2009
Liu Dahong's stunning embroidered silk banners, modeled after Western Han Dynasty funerary banners but updated with hyper-mythologized Maoist iconography.
If you can't make it to the show, do consider buying the handsome and hefty catalog, Shanghai: Art of the City — a steal at 49 bucks for the hardcover edition. You can order it directly from the Museum.
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