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For a very limited three days, the Asian Art Museum will host a special installation of never-before-seen artworks by some of China's most celebrated and emerging artists. Pure Views is curated by Lu Peng and Bai Hua, and co-organized and sponsored by iCulture and Institutions of Chinart.
PURE VIEWS "溪山清遠" takes its name from a work of art by Song Dynasty (960-1297) painter Xia Gui (1195-1224). Practices and techniques from this diverse group of living Chinese painters are exposed as the artists reflect and respond to their shared artistic heritage in the context of an ever-changing global environment. Featured artists include Fang Lijun, Shang Yang, Ye Yongqing, Yue Minjun,Wang Guangyi, Zhang Xiaogang, and Zhou Chunya.
This installation will culminate in MATCHA on April 21, 5-9 pm, wherein four of these artists—Hong Lei, Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, and Zhou Chunya, along with critic Liu Chun and curator Lu Peng—will gather in a lively panel discussion about art in China today. Visitors that evening will also have one last chance to see Pure Views before the paintings are de-installed and shipped back to China. They can also see special exhibition Bali, stroll the galleries, go on a docent tour, mingle over cocktails and DJ-spun music.
The Asian Art Museum is the ONLY venue.
Press Release
Curator Lu Peng:
Influenced by the modernist and post-modern concepts of the last thirty years, Chinese contemporary artists have begun to expand the scope of their work in the direction of a total examination of the scope of the civilization to which they belong.
China's contemporary artists are advancing towards the future, and at variance with the previous thirty years, this future does not depend on any simplistic borrowing from Western civilization, and in many ways they are embarking on the type of reassessment that saw Greek and Roman art reexamined during the Renaissance and artists empowered to create new art through their restoration of the spirit and temperament of their own traditional civilization.
The works in this installation exemplify this major turning point in Chinese contemporary art, one which not only expresses the rediscovery by artists of value in the civilization but which at the same time alerts us to the fact that an artistic renaissance is accompanying the rise of the nation. After a number of years of debate and experiment surrounding the identity of Chinese contemporary art, the development of contemporary Chinese art is writing a new page in the history of world art.
Curator Bai Hua:
There are those who say that art is without question now the goal rather than the means that artists exist for the sake of their works. But I beg to differ. In Chinese culture, the goal of art is not for the sake of the art itself but rather to promote the idea of self cultivation. The best works of art not only promote cultivation within the artist, but also within those who appreciate, view and participate in the art. Art and cultural expressions of real substance can help more of us to cultivate ourselves, increase communication, promote more understanding, and close those gaps that persist between us as individuals – perhaps this is what those of us working in the art field are able to contribute to the greater good.
In many ways San Francisco can be viewed as the most cosmopolitan city in the world, a place where people from all countries gather to live, co-existing in relative harmony despite differences in background and religious beliefs, even while pursuing a myriad of interests and participating in social organizations of every stripe. Because of this we have turned to the underlying essence of this great city for inspiration in establishing the theme of our instillation and related academic events. "Pure Views" brings us the works of contemporary Chinese artists baptized in the fires of a post-modern multicultural world, offering us a penetrating look at Chinese traditional culture while painting this most cosmopolitan of cities in the brilliant colors of contemporary Chinese art.
 
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