Virtual exhibition draws art lovers
Tsinghua University’s Tour-Portrait exhibition may be over, but the show’s culturally diverse works can still be experienced virtually, Lin Qi reports.
The temporary shutdown of museums amid the COVID-19 pandemic has deprived people of visiting exhibitions. Fortunately, virtual tours of art shows, whether they have ended or are coming to a close, are still available online to provide people an approximate on-site experience.
Tsinghua University Art Museum, for example, has recently made digital the Tour-Portrait, an exhibition for which the curtains came down on Sunday. However, it continues on museum’s website and WeChat account, where people can navigate the exhibition which has been divided into two parts.
It gathers more than 100 paintings and sculptures made by 80 artists from seven member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, namely, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India is also a member.
When artists around the world adopt more angles and use a wider range of mediums to produce work, the form of the portrait, either painted or sculpted, has lost its position of dominance. But, portraits continue to play an important part in the work of the artists from the countries featured at the exhibition, allowing them to delineate the mentality of their people and everchanging social realities.
Du Pengfei, deputy executive director of the museum, says the portraits on show do not just depict the figurative representations of people from different countries. He says that, in an unspeakable manner, they give a profile of the “social climate and cultural images” of these areas.
And tour, as in the exhibition title, Du adds, refers to the long journey upon which different civilizations continuously exchange and explore ways to learn from each other.
According to Xu Hong, the co-curator in general of the exhibition, one of the reasons why the exhibition centers around portraits is that “of all cultural legacies of human society, it is objects which portrayed people’s faces and expressions — whether they are masks, pieces of wood carving, murals or clay figures, and whether they were made of oil paints, marbles or bronzes — that are more thought-provoking than others”.
She says the facial expressions of people outlined in artworks show people’s shared feelings of happiness, anger and sorrow. “Staring at these faces, we are connected with our past.”
She says the works also reflect the common issues of human society, such as the coexistence with nature and healthcare, thereafter arousing discussions among their viewers about how to extend communications and cooperation further.
Works on show are categorized by country, and curators from each of the featured SCO members was designated to select the pieces for each section. They are either directors of art colleges, scholars who are on good terms with the artists or artists in their own right.
Su Dan, another co-curator in general of the exhibition, says Chinese and Russians account for the largest number of artists on show, with a wide range of ages and a noticeable variety of styles presented. He says it shows an influence of the two nations’ roles in the international community on their respective art landscapes back home.
In the Chinese section, one will find artworks like those of Feng Yuan and He Jiaying, which carry on a realistic style and the traditions of classic Chinese ink art, as well as productions by younger artists like Li Tianyuan and Peng Wei, who seek a new identity in an increasingly urbanized, internationalized country.
Svetlana Gracheva, the curator of the Russian section, says the Russian works at the exhibition include paintings, lithographs and sculptures by 10 artists that portray different people, the old and the young, celebrities and minor figures.
“I believe they reveal the philosophy of art,” she says. “Artists show in their work a travel of time and space and also, a voyage to the inside world of human beings.”
Su notes that all of the featured Russian artists received training at the time-honored Repin Institute, of which the systematic disciplines also constitute an aspect of the rich culture these artists display in their works.
He adds it is the same with the artists from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, who were well trained academically and whose resultant prominence now supports their endeavors at art schools to educate the younger generations.
Su says at the exhibition that Pakistani art dazzles people with its dynamics, which reflects that a country’s culture still exerts a mighty influence on the formation of its homegrown art, as globalization has activated the flows of various cultures around the world.
Du says, through the eyes of featured artists, the viewers can embark upon “an expedition of geology and history” that is inspirational. They will feel the “extraordinary diversity” of Eurasia which differs in language, writing, customs, religion, culture and art.