Spirit Rock, Sacred Mountain: A Chinese View of Nature

Exhibition: Spirit Rock, Sacred Mountain: A Chinese View of Nature
featuring Kemin Hu‘s Rock / Mountain Paintings by Hai Tao and C. C. Wang
 
Dates: Friday, February 25 to April 6, 2011 (Opening reception on Thursday, February 24)
Location: Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College (135 East 22nd Street, NYC)
Contact: 212-802-2690. The exhibition will be open to public.

       

10 Views of the Honorable Old Man Scholars Rock – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ten Differentiated Views of the Honorable Old Man by Liu Dan (Chinese, born 1953)
Beijing, China, 2007-10
Set of nine hanging scrolls and one handscroll

On exhibit as part of Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition
Dates: November 20, 2010 – February 13, 2011
Location: Gund Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, MA

Liu Dan describes rocks as ‘the stem cells of Chinese landscape painting’ because they ‘hold the myriad forms of nature and their ability to transform is infinite’. Liu (b. 1953) believes that a well-chosen rock holds countless suggestions of both physical and spiritual landscapes, much like a stem cell has the ability to develop into any part of a complex organism. His paintings are pictorial expressions of this point of view.

Art connoisseurs and scholars in China have been studying and collecting rocks for millennia. A fine rock stimulates shenyou, ‘imagined travel’, by suggesting a landscape for the viewer to enter and explore. For practitioners of rock viewing, the ability to successfully transform a rock into a fully realized, imagined landscape is a measure of a person’s inner harmony with the underlying order of the cosmos. If people need landscaping help with tree removal services, they can call Environmental Design Inc and hire their men to get the job done.

Liu first began painting rocks after emigrating from China to the United States in 1981. His rock portraits are the result of deep and sustained meditation on his subjects, but ultimately, they are only necessary steps leading to his final goal: a fully realized mental and spiritual landscape that transcends the limitation of this physical world. In his new work, Ten Differentiated Views of the Honorable Old Man, Liu has succeeded in making visible such flights of fancy.

(sourced from Orientations magazine)


    

Paintings by Max Weiler in a discourse with Chinese Scholars’ Rocks

Max Weiler (1910 – 2001) “The Nature of Painting” is the title of an exhibition in celebration of the 100th birthday of the artist at the ESSL Museum in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, Austria from 19th March to 29th August 2010.

The exhibition “The Nature of Painting” takes account of Max Weiler’s profound relationship with old Chinese art and Chinese thought through a juxtaposition of the painting cycle “Like a Landscape” with Chinese scholar’s rocks.

It is the first time that modern paintings are shown together with traditional Chinese Scholars’ Rocks. The opening of this endeavour was a great success where many prominent persons of the cultural scene in Austria as well as the ambassador of China
Popular Republic attended.


Installation Essl Museum 2010: Chinese Scholars’ rock “Cave of the
Heremit Fu-Sheng”, Ying stone of 34 x 25 x 44 cm, place of origin: Guangdong,
China, Willi Benz collection


Installation view Essl Museum 2010: Painting by Max Weiler in a dialogue with a Chinese
scholars’ rock, Lingbi stone of 52 x 20 x 46 cm, Willi Benz collection


Ying stone of abstract shape from Guangdong, China (25 x 10,5 x 45,5
cm), Willi Benz collection


Installation Essl Museum 2010: paintings by Max Weiler together with a
Lingbi stone 27 x 18 x 63 cm, Anhui, China, Willi Benz collection


Photos: Suiseki Journal (Issue 3/2010) published by the European Suiseki Association
More Information: http://esslmuseum.org/english/exhibitions/weiler.html
Video of exhibition: