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news,jan.2000,show & lecture in nceca, letter from newzealand...

updated tue 18 jan 00

 

Clayart China on mon 17 jan 00

CLAYART CHINA, Jan. 2000, Vol. 6
"CLAYART CHINA" is a newsletter emailed monthly to professional ceramic
artists who want to know about ceramic art in China and things related. This
newsletter will be a bridge between China and Western countries for the
ceramic arts. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Editor Guangzhen "Po" Zhou
P.O.Box 64392, Sunnyvale, CA 94088, U.S.A.
Tel. 408-245-6271, Fax. 408-245-8756, Email: pozhou@email.msn.com
http://www.silverhawk.com/crafts/zhou/welcome.html

FEATURES
"Ceramic Art" Magazine in Taiwan. This quarterly magazine was founded in
Autumn 1993 with most of color pages. The magazine contents covered not only
ceramic art in Taiwan, mainland China, Japan and other Asian countries, but
also America and Europe. Both Yih-Wen Kuo and Guangzhen "Po" Zhou write for
the magazine regularly. Guangzhen "Po" Zhou introduced many American clay
artists and some of the articles were published on this magazine, such as:
John
Glick, Don Reitz, Adrian Saxe, Ralph Bacerra, Michael Lucero, Marilyn
Levine, Jerry Rothman, Rudy Autio (his work was on the cover).
The magazine also supported the Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Art Exhibition,
Denver 2000, and will help to print the catalogs for the show. Their address
is:
Ceramic Art, P.O. Box 47-74, Taipei, Taiwan. Tel. 886-2-2987-2722, Fax.
886-2-2585-7658, Email. ceramicart@ms27.hinet.net, www.ceramicart.com.tw.

PROFILE
Hap Pottery, Beijing, China and Chinese Potters Newsletter owner Mr. I-Chi
Hsu is American Chinese and doing business China for about twenty years. The
Hap Pottery is not only a clay studio, but also has exhibition room, lecture
room and a yard with kind of American style. Mr. Hsu with his newsletter
brings a lot of activities in clay art in China. Tel. 86-10-6434-0924, Fax.
86-10-6433-6575.

TRAVEL
25 days Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Ceramic Travel, 2000. This will
be a great trip! We have got some applications already, whom included the
well-known clay artist Jun Kaneko and Dennis Parks. We are going to have two
small groups, fifteen people for each group, total will be limited thirty
people. The deadline is April 10, 2000, but it is on the first come first
serve bases.

About the Chinese Money. Chinese currency is called Ren-min-bi (meaning
people's currency) and is abbreviated to RMB. The standard unit is Yuan. One
US dollar equals about 8.27 Chinese Yuan. Right now, RMB is only can be
exchanged in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Traveler's checks are changed at
a slightly better rate than cash. Major credit cards and some ATM cards are
also accepted in some shops and hotels in larger cities in China.

ACTIVITIES
NCECA, Denver 2000. Friday, March 24, 1:30 p.m. "Chinese Contemporary
Ceramic Art," Slides Lecture by Guangzhen "Po" Zhou and I-Chi Hsu. What is
Chinese type of contemporary ceramic art look like? When and how Chinese
clay artists have been started doing clay as a medium of art? What kind of
relationship is between Chinese fine art and clay art? Please come to the
lecture.

EXHIBITIONS
The Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Art, Denver-2000. A special reception is
scheduled for Thursday, March 23rd from 7-9 p.m. in Indigos Gallery.
Everyone is welcome.
In the show, there were total forty works selected. The eleven invited clay
artists are: Vice director and associate professor of Sculptural Department,
the Central Academy of Fine Art - Beijing, Lu Pin-Chang; Vice director and
associate professor of Fine Art Department, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute,
Huang Huan-Yi; Present of Hanguang Ceramic Art Company in Shanghai, Li
You-Yu; Taiwan clay artists, professor and director of Craft Department,
Taipei Art College, , Liou Chen-Chou; Instructor of Taipei Art College, Ray
Liao; Deng Hui-fen and Sheng Tong-Ning, and Chinese American clay artists
Eva Kwong, Yih-wen Kuo, Hsin-Chuen Lin and Guang-zhen Zhou.
The Juror's statement of the exhibition: I have long had an interest in the
ceramic arts of China, particularly the stoneware teapots of Yixing. It has
been a rewarding experience to have had the opportunity to travel to China
on several occasions and to
meet many of the ceramic artists. Being a juror of this exhibition has been
rather challenging. The lines between Western and Eastern art have blurred,
as art is being transformed, like everything else, by globalization. The
work I viewed by Chinese artists from China, Taiwan, and the U.S. raises
many questions.
When we borrow from other cultures, do we merely copy, or do we
assimilate aesthetics and combine them with our own philosophical
approach to art making? How important is it to maintain one's own
cultural traditions, even in the most innovative work? Should we even
worry about these concerns?
I have chosen those artists whose work spoke with clarity of a strong
personal aesthetic, whether rooted in traditional Chinese techniques and
styles, or exploring new concepts and/or forms in a "Western" approach.
I look forward to viewing the final exhibition, which has been a
collaborative effort among several jurors.
Richard Notkin

OPPORTUNITIES
Sixth Taiwan Golden Ceramics Awards International. Online application form
is available now. Deadline, April 20, 2000. The judges are: Mustuo
Yanggihara, Japan; Tony Franks, U.K; Rudy Autio, USA; Janet Mansfield,
Austrlia, and few Taiwanese. The web-site is with the application form:
http://210.63.80.25/golden/golden.htm

LETTERS
Letter from New Zealand
We've had ongoing contact with various Chinese and Taiwanese potters
since the International Conference at Yixing in 1998. Luo Xiao Ping from
Yixing and Hwang Jeng-Daw (Andy) from Taiwan have been to Auckland together
this year, set up a small but well-received exhibition of teapots, charmed
the locals, appeared on local television and radio and in newspapers, cooked
fine food, drank the local beer, studied the finer points of cricket (in
vain) and took a tour or two to scenic spots, caught a couple of good trout
- a very enjoyable visit and one that may be part of a longer term exchange.
I returned to China almost exactly one year ago at the invitation of the
Henan Government and met a whole new group of potters and sculptors.
Once again enormously generous hospitality and kindness - the 5 weeks
will remain a memorable experience. The object of the project was to use a
couple of overseas potters to add some variety and interest to the Henan
Province submission to the Kunming International Garden Expo. We (my
colleague Alan Mauger and myself, my wife also there for the ride) did our
best, and, in spite of the rather lifeless clay which in fact was used as a
slip-casting clay without the addition of any deflocculant (try discussing
these finer technical points when you've only just getting the hang of
asking for the toilet), we produced some half respectable pieces which we
glazed in the local chun (blue and red) glaze (we were working at the Jun
Institute in Yuzhou - home of what we call Chun) which we never saw fired
but have since been told were fine - though the famous Chinese politeness
may account for some of this positive response. We worked for 10 days or so
in the Jun Institute, a large part of which is basically a slip-casting
factory, getting to know the people who worked there through a mixture of
sign language and beer drinking (Chinese beer does a lot to improve
communication skills), and exploring the local pottery communities. Our
guides (one of them called Wong Wei - a splendid fellow with an excellent
sense of direction and good humour) then took us to places like Kunming, Li
Jiang, Xian and Beijing, where we stayed at the Central Academy of Arts. Our
two main guides (a city sculptor from Zhengzhou - Mozhung, and his wife
Qingli)
are on their way to New Zealand in a month or so and we intend to swamp them
with as much hospitality as they showed us, though without the backing of
the Henan government they will be homestaying and squashed into a pick-up.
Meantime I seem to have attracted a large number of new immigrant Chinese
students to the Teaching Centre that I run here in Auckland.
They are clearly attracted by my ease in telling them where the toilet
is. Actually my Mandarin has shot ahead as a result of the earlier
visit, and now the local students delight in exchanges which they seem
to find hilarious as my inaccurate speech tones change the meaning from
"kiln" to "mattress" or somesuch.
Happy New Year ..... xin nian hou
Peter Lange
Auckland Studio Potters Teaching Centre.






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