Chinese History: Roundup

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Ken Johnson, "To See a Universe in the Tiny Details of Chinese Artifacts, Boxes to Birds," New York Times, December 31, 2010

Organized by Denise Leidy and Joyce Denney, curators in the Met’s Asian art department, the show presents about 160 mostly desktop-scale works from the museum’s collections, including ornate boxes; carvings in wood, jade, amber, ivory and other semi-precious materials; ceramic vases; and lavishly embroidered silk kimonos used in royal theatrical performances. To pore over these objects is to be repeatedly astounded by the level of design and technical achievement.>>>

Pankaj Mishra, "Staying Power: Mao and the Maoists," New Yorker, December 20, 2010

This persistence of Mao in official discourse and popular imagination may seem an instance of ideological pathology—the same kind that makes some Russian nationalists get misty-eyed about Stalin. Indeed, the Communist state’s vast propaganda apparatus first exalted Mao to divine status. But then a non-ideological view of Mao has rarely been available in the West, even as he has gone from being a largely benign revolutionary and Third Worldist icon to, more recently, sadistic monster. This is largely due to China’s ever shifting place in the Western imagination.>>>

Perry Link, "China: From Famine to Oslo," New York Review of Books, January 13, 2011
The main reason why the Great Famine continues to haunt China fifty years after it happened is that people are obliged—forcibly, if necessary—to continue to accord the famine’s primary perpetrator, Mao Zedong, a position of honor. Mao’s portrait still hangs at the center of Tiananmen, where it overlooks his embalmed body, which lies supine in his mausoleum within the giant square. And Mao remains the spiritual godfather of today’s regime.>>>

Laura Allsop, "The hidden history of China in photos," CNN, December 23, 2010

Daguerreotypes and photographs from the period between 1840 and 1911, which up till recently have not been widely collected or displayed, show a country undergoing vast change, caught between its ancient traditions and modernization. But they are not only historical documents of a changing land: the delicate, sepia-toned images that exist are now being assessed for their art historical value as well and show Chinese photographers of the time interpreting the medium according to centuries-old artistic traditions.>>>

Roger Ebert, Review of Last Train Home, October 13, 2010

The film opens like a big-picture documentary, showing us a huge crowd being directed by police as it grinds its way forward. We are informed that these are some of the 130 million Chinese citizens who make an annual train journey from urban centers to their provincial villages — “the largest human migration in the world.” . . .

There is so much to say about this great film. You sense the dedication of Lixin Fan and his team. (He did much of the cinematography and editing himself.) You see once again the alchemy by which a constantly present camera eventually becomes almost unnoticed, as people live their lives before it. You know the generations almost better than they know themselves, because the camera can be in two places and they are usually in one or the other.>>>

Art of the Americas

Randall Stephens

The Boston MFA opens its new Art of the Americas Wing this week. (Watch a video on the space.) The extension represents the most significant public art project in America today. With a price tag of over $500 million, it will display a portion of the museum's massive South and North American collections. It ranges from the pre-Columbia to the 20th century. Some critics have complained that the wing will lack some of the MFA's best post-war pieces. That seems like a minor issue though.

WBUR reports:

And while this is a big cultural moment for Boston, the rest of the world is paying attention, too.

“Museums all over the country have expanded over the last decades and this is the MFA’s entry in the ‘space race,’ ” said arts writer Judith Dobrzynski, who has reported on the MFA’s expansion for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“And because it’s a beautiful space, and because it’s chock-a-block with art from the Americas, which is different. This is very important and I think it probably going to raise the profile and the stature of the MFA.”

Dobrzynski is impressed by the MFA’s fundraising effort, and the $504 million represents a feat for Boston. Other cities — bigger cities, she said — including Los Angeles and Chicago, have not been as successful in raising money for their own museum campaigns. Or as strategic. The MFA’s new construction cost about $340 million — much of the rest sits in an endowment. “You know the MFA was very ambitious here,” she said, laughing, “but at the same time a bit conservative by going for a building fund and an endowment fund at the same time. I shouldn’t say conservative. I should say responsible here.”>>>

As far as North American artists, highlights will likely include:

Washington Allston
John Singer Sargent
Gilbert Stuart
Frederic Edwin Church
Martin Johnson Heade
Fitz Henry Lane
Thomas Eakins
John Singleton Copley
Childe Hassam
Frank Benson
Edmund Tarbell
Winslow Homer
Mary Cassatt
Ellen Day Hale
Gretchen Rogers
Lilian Westcott Hale
Georgia O’Keeffe
Arthur Dove