ESKENAZI
Between perfection and destruction: Fang Lijun porcelain sculpture
ISBN: 978 1 873609 52 1
Design, Typesetting and Photography Daniel M. Eskenazi assisted by Massimo Eskenazi, London
Printed and originated by Graphicom Srl., Vicenza
© copyright 2023 ESKENAZI London
Between perfection and destruction: Fang Lijun porcelain sculpture
1 - 30 June 2023
10 Clifford Street
London W1S 2LJ
Telephone: 020 7493 5464
Fax: 020 7499 3136
e-mail: gallery@eskenazi.co.uk
web: www.eskenazi.co.uk
Foreword
I am delighted to present Fang Lijun’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Featuring porcelain sculpture, related sketches and ink portraits, the exhibition forms part of our summer programme that focuses on Asian modern and contemporary works.
Fang Lijun’s porcelain sculptures are rooted in the ancient tradition of Chinese ceramic-making while at the same time, the artist creates works that present a new and unexpected dynamic. In speaking to Fang Lijun, it becomes clear that his intention is to produce art works that refer to the past, but not in a traditional way and which would raise questions for the viewer to interpret. I believe Fang Lijun has been wholly successful in this endeavour with these beguiling and delicate sculptures, going beyond the perfection expected of porcelain in the past, both in form and construction.
I am most grateful to Fang Lijun for agreeing to exhibit his porcelain sculptures and works on paper here at Eskenazi. This exhibition would not have taken place without the help of Hadrien de Montferrand who first brought Fang Lijun’s ceramics to my attention and whose team from HDM have helped coordinate the exhibition. I would like to thank Shelagh Vainker, Curator of Chinese Art at the Ashmolean Museum and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford, for her excellent overview of Fang Lijun and his work. Shelagh will be curating an eagerly anticipated Fang Lijun exhibition of her own at the Ashmolean later this year. As always, I would like to thank Sarah Wong for her tireless work on our catalogue productions, this one being no exception.
Daniel EskenaziFang Lijun porcelain works
by Shelagh VainkerThe delicate porcelains in this exhibition present an immediate puzzle to any viewer familiar with the work of Fang Lijun 方力钧 (b.1963). How is it that the leading artist of the 1990s Cynical Realism movement known for its disaffection, its assertive images and above all for Fang Lijun’s own large-scale paintings of casual figures with shaven heads and rebellious facial expressions, has created works of such fragility, in such abstract forms and with so light a touch? For the artist who created them however there is no disjunction. This is not just because it is for him a current iteration in the personal artistic journey he began in his youth; more than that, he has never in all the intervening decades considered medium or materiality to be crucial to his artistic expression. In his autobiographical monograph To Live like a Wild Dog he states: ‘Talking about changes in my works, I don’t think there is any except that I can handle my way of expression with more ease than before.’ Further, he states that ‘the characteristics of medium should not be the limitation of artistic expression…. if you carefully experience the true pain and joy in your heart, you will find the form, method and material matching with it – and this is the best way to respect yourself and strengthen your existence’.
In fact his art education always included a range of materials. Fang Lijun grew up in Handan, southern Hebei province, during the Cultural Revolution and while his school years were thus blighted by hardships and violence, the painting tuition his father arranged for him provided some alternative. He also painted and drew at school, though not until after 1976 during his last years there. The physical environment in which he grew up was industrial; his father worked for the railways, his mother in state-run cotton-spinning factories in a city known for its production of coal, cement and ceramics. Handan is an old city, founded before the Han dynasty (206 BCE - CE 220) when it was known for its commerce and, more significantly, the municipality encompasses the site of the Cizhou kilns that gave their name to the black and white painted ceramics produced across a large area of central north China from the Song dynasty until at least the Ming.
In September 1980 Fang went to Tangshan to begin his studies at Hebei Light Industrial College, from which he graduated three years later having specialised in ceramics. His studies there also however included sketching, painting and woodcuts in addition to the complete processes of ceramic making. After finishing his degree at Hebei, Fang entered the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing to study printmaking. He graduated in June 1989 having submitted a series of the ‘bald head’ images that remain his signature subject, but there was no graduation ceremony; June 1989 was a pivotal moment for Chinese art. The economic reforms following Mao’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution had given rise to an energetic, almost febrile artistic environment as artists embraced, devoured or otherwise engaged with the enormous amount of textual and visual works from outside China that became newly available to Fang Lijun and his contemporaries. The experimentation and creative energy that gathered pace throughout the 1980s finished abruptly with
the ending of the Tiananmen protests on June 4 th ; the artworks that followed were characterised by disillusionment and boredom and an ennui arising from the impossibility of self-expression in a society now limited by the impositions of national politics. Fang Lijun’s bold figures in both paintings and prints became the defining image of the group of Beijing-based artists who were identified as a movement named by the critic Li Xianting as Cynical Realism. In 1993 Fang Lijun was one of ten artists representing China at the Venice Biennale, on the first occasion that China participated, and from then he subsequently exhibited in many galleries, both private and public, as one of the most recognised and recognisable of his generation of artists from China.
Following several decades of success in exhibiting, teaching and public lecturing, internationally and across China as both a painter and printmaker, Fang re-engaged with ceramics as an artistic medium. Arriving in Jingdezhen in 2012, he found that amid the mass production was a proliferation of private workshops and visiting ceramists on the one hand and, on the other, the cutting-edge research of the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute; at the same time, several of his contemporaries otherwise famous for their painting, printmaking, installations or sculpture were including ceramics in their work, pieces that were designed by the artists and produced by Jingdezhen potters. 1 Fang however had no such intention in travelling to the ‘porcelain city’ but rather, he was there to see an old friend from the early days of his career in Beijing. Encountering again at first hand the processes of ceramic-making, he saw afresh how each element had to be completed in order that the product be achieved. The stages of porcelain production are well documented, from Jiang Qi’s initial account in the 13 - 14 th century through the letters of Pere d’Entrecolles in the early 18 th , to the annotated illustrations of 1743 by the imperial porcelain director Tang Ying that were reproduced in countless 19 th -century versions. 2 Such series generally include twenty-four procedures, including procuring, selecting and preparing the clay; modelling, finishing, decorating, firing, sorting, packing and finally transporting for sale. The quantity of ceramics successfully produced at kilns in China since they first began more than 5,000 years ago and, over that time, in almost every part of the land, is testament to the skills mastered in all these processes. In 2012 Fang Lijun was struck by the almost frantic attempts to repair pieces that emerged imperfect from the kiln and had long been impressed by the proportion of successful to failed firings. For him though, the making of ceramics hangs not so much on the craft skills developed over millennia, but rather on the fact that: ‘The final outcome depends on the interactive relationship between clay, glaze, water, temperature, weight and air . ’ While this feeling does not exactly contradict the time-honoured production practices, it speaks to the volatility of the undertaking, the unpredictable rather than the manageable. In his words: ‘Once the technique is controllable, it becomes obsolete for me and a baseline for investigating new possibilities. I seek the critical point between perfection and destruction, a critical point that’s in continuous flux.’ 3
Precarity is thus the subject of the ceramic pieces that comprise this exhibition. They do not represent the expression of a creative idea but explore the possibilities of creativity itself afforded by the material being used. The construction technique is, unsurprisingly, fraught with risk. Fang Lijun’s designs of hollow boxes, stacked, brick-like, into larger rectangles or cube shapes is a way of constructing, from incredibly thin materials, an object with both volume and an internal support structure. The matrix itself is so delicate that the internal support is itself vulnerable. The materials Fang notes on his planning sketches include kaolin and white porcelain clay, along with paper; the latter provides a combustible support that is lost forever during the firing. The kaolin and white clay are used in the form of slip and glaze, while the paper provides a necessary support for them to adhere to. Other supports – wood and plastic – were tried in the experimental stages of the project, but it was paper that was adopted. On some pieces, the edges of the blocks are delineated with colour, particularly red ( 中国红 ‘Chinese red’ on the annotated drawings) and occasionally black. The colour is applied along the edge of the individual bricks and while on some pieces the result is neat, on others the unpredictability of the materials results in drips, emphasising the difficulty of controlling them. The terms Fang Lijun uses (kaolin 高岭 , white porcelain clay 白泥土 ) refer to the local materials from which Jingdezhen porcelain has been manufactured for around seven hundred years and which here is without doubt being put to the edge of limits never previously tested. As Fang remarks, they are not functional wares. The materials are found at their most refined in the Qing imperial porcelains of the eighteenth century, with bodies of half porcelain stone/half kaolin composition, clear transparent glaze and fine enamel painted decoration. Fang Lijun’s testing of the material itself brings new meaning to the term tuotai 脱胎 (bodiless), long used to describe bodiless or eggshell porcelains or fine lacquerware that has no wooden core but is made of layers of lacquer applied to a vessel formed on stiffened silk. Like the historic bodiless pieces that are unnervingly light to hold, Fang Lijun’s ceramics exude delicacy, and can even unnerve at a distance – in the artist’s words: ‘The sounds of cracking, splashing and crushing can be heard in the quiet of night.’ The pieces are indeed so finely constructed that even those that emerge from the kiln without collapsing may, for a while later and at any point, begin to give way within the internal matrix. The moment of removal from the kiln is the point that Fang terms the critical status between perfection and destruction; the physical properties of the materials before, during and after firing in the kiln are an equilibrium between clay, glaze, humidity, weight, temperature and atmosphere that is at the heart of creativity in ceramic making.
When asked about ceramics in a 2016 interview, he replied: ‘When I was in Tangshan, ceramic art was taught through a systematic process that included traditional Chinese ink painting, western painting perspective, practical utensil design and production, sculpture, etc. Any art discipline I choose that employs traditional methods therefore takes me back to the time of my ceramic studies.’ This idea touches on another link between these extraordinarily small and delicate ceramic works and the large-scale paintings of figures, especially
heads, with which his fame began. Over the last decade or so, alongside his reprise of ceramic-making, Fang Lijun has been engaged in a substantial project around ink drawings. 4 These again take the human head as the principal subject matter and though some are large, many are relatively small in scale at around 60 x 40 cm; they are not just smaller but also more intimate, for most are portraits of friends and colleagues. Some have been friends from early in his life, others much more recently encountered and the portraits’ treatment of the human head is not only made more personal by the choice of subjects but also by the evidently well-disposed humour with which they are depicted. The defiance of Fang Lijun’s 1990s figures in oil and woodblock, with their dissociation from life, have become more relaxed and more human. The ceramics on the other hand, which were Fang Lijun’s first specialist and broadly practical medium, have now become the area in which he contests and challenges, through taking the material itself to confront precarity in the abstract.
Endnotes
1 For example, XU BING - EXHIBITIONS - Traveling to the Wonderland and V&A · Travelling To The Wonderland By Xu Bing (vam.ac.uk) in 2013; Saraab | Cai Guo-Qiang (caiguoqiang.com) in 2011 and Ghost Gu, 2007 | Exhibitions | Lisson Gallery ; ‘Sunflower Seeds‘, Ai Weiwei, 2010 | Tate
2 Jiang Qi 蒋祈 ’s Pottery records (Taoji 陶记 ); 唐英 Tang Ying, 陶冶图编次 ( Twenty Illustrations of the Manufacture of Pottery ), 1743; the Jesuit missionary Pere d’Entrecolles (Francois Xavier d’Entrcolles, 1664-1741) wrote the accounts in letters from his visits to Jingdezhen between beginning in 1712.
3 Anne-Clair Schumacher, ‘Interview with Fang Lijun’, 方立钧禁区 Fang Lijun Espaces Interdits Forbidden Areas , Ariana Museum, Geneva, 2016, pp.20-21.
4 See Fang Lijun, ed, 人间仙境 – 方力钧水墨 Wonderland: Fang Lijun’s Ink Painting , Beijing, 2022, produced to accompany a major exhibition in Xi’an.
1963 Born in Handan, Hebei Province
1983 Diploma in Ceramics, Hebei School of Light Industry, Tangshan, Hebei Province
1989 Graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and started his career as a professional artist
2004-16 Visiting professor and graduate supervisor in 22 different Chinese colleges and universities
2009 ‘Appointed Artist’ at the Contemporary Art Academy of China (CAAC), attached to the Chinese National Academy of Arts, Beijing
2012 Ambassador of Peace for the Peace and Development Foundation (PDF), official partner of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in China
2013 Director of the Center for Contemporary Art appointed by the China National Academy of Painting, Beijing
Currently lives and works in Beijing
Select solo exhibitions
2023
Fang Lijun: The Light of Dust ( A Luz Poeirenta ), Macao Museum of Art, Macao, China
2022
Wonderland — Fang Lijun Ink painting , Xi’an Art Museum, Xi’an, China
2021
Fang Lijun’s Woodcuts , Hunan Museum, Hunan, China
2020
Fang Lijun Ceramics , Songzhuang Art Center, Beijing, China
2019
Fang Lijun: Facial Recognition , Vermilion Art, Sydney, Australia
2018
Zhou Chunya and Fang Lijun’s Joint Solo Exhibition , K Gallery, Chengdu, China
2017
Art History of Fang Lijun , Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China
This All Too Human World , Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong, China
The Manuscript of Fang Lijun 2012-2017 , Meilun Art Gallery, Changsha, China
2016
Alternative Survival: Research Exhibition of Fang Lijun’s Manuscripts , United Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Fang Lijun Documentary Exhibition , Wuhan University, Wanlin Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Fang Lijun: Forbidden Areas , Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland
Re-sensing: The work of Fang Lijun , Hubei Art Museum, Wuhan, China
2015
Fang Lijun 2015 , Springs Center of Art, Beijing, China
2014
Great Success-Fang Lijun Exhibition , Yibo Gallery, Shanghai, China
Fang Lijun: The New Body of Work by Mr. Fang Lijun 1963 , Art & Public–Cabinet P.H, Geneva, Switzerland
2013
Fang Lijun: A Cautionary Vision , Palazzo Marcello, Venice, Italy
Fang Lijun 2013 , Springs Center of Art, Beijing, China
Fang Lijun , Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Archive Exhibition of Fang Lijun , Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen, China
2012
Breakthrough — Fang Lijun’s Solo Exhibition , CP Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia
Fang Lijun Document , Singapore MOCA, Singapore
Fang Lijun — Living Multitudes , Time Square 2nd Floor, Hong Kong, China
The Precipice Over the Clouds , GAM (the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), Turin, Italy
2011
Fang Lijun: From Symbol to Analysis , Xi’an Art Museum, Xi’an, China
2010
Fang Lijun , Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Fang Lijun , Art Museum of Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
2009
Endlessness of life: 25 Years Retrospect of Fang Lijun: Living Like A Wild Dog 1963-2008 Fang Lijun’s Archive , Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Fang Lijun, Sea and Sky , Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Fang Lijun: Thread of Time , Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2008
Fang Lijun , Arario New York, New York, U.S.A.
2007
Fang Lijun Heads , the Laboratory of Art and Ideas At Belmar, Denver, U.S.A.
Fang Lijun Places to Places to Places , Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin|Beijing, Berlin, Germany
Fang Lijun , Hunan Provincial Museum, Changsha, China
Fang Lijun Solo Exhibition , Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2006
Life is Now , Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
Fang Lijun: Today! , Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Fang Lijun–Holzschnitte und Zeichnungen , Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museem zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
From My Hand: Sculptures & Woodcuts by Fang Lijun , Michael Berger Gallery, U.S.A.
2004
Fang Lijun , Prüss & Ochs Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Fang Lijun, gravures sur bois , Galerie de France, Paris, France
2002
Fang Lijun , Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Fang Lijun , Hong Kong Art Center, Hong Kong, China
Fang Lijun, Between Beijing & Dali, Woodcuts & Paintings 1989–2002 , Ludwig Forum für Internationale
Kunst Aachen, Aachen, Germany
2001
Fang Lijun, New Woodcuts & Paintings , Prüss & Ochs Gallery (former Asian Fine Arts), Berlin, Germany
1998
Fang Lijun , Stedeljik Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fang Lijun , Max Protetch Gallery, NYC, U.S.A.
1996
Fang Lijun, Human Images in an Uncertain Age , the Japan Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
1995
Fang Lijun , Galerie Bellefroid, Paris, France
Fang Lijun , Galerie Serieuse Zaken, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Select group exhibitions
2021
Local Individuals , Epoch Art Museum, Zhejiang, China
Boshan Ceramics Biennale , Yanshen, Zibo, China
The Realm of Existence: An Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art , Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China
Alchemy—Paths of Transformation , Sanya Museum of Contemporary Art, Sanya, China
Indistinct Boundary , Huzhou Art Museum, Huzhou, China
2020
Ink Painting on Going: 2000 — 2019 , Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangdong, China Asia Digital Art Exhibition 2020 , Beijing Times Art Museum, Beijing, China
Circle of Friends , Mountain & Sea Art Museum, Beijing, China
2020 Ink Painting Art Experimental Research Exhibition, Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China
The Logic of Painting , Shijiazhuang Art Museum, Hebei, China
2019
Neo—Materiality—Contemporary Chinese Ceramics , Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China With Nature , Soka Art Beijing, Beijing, China
Paper & Ink Language — Nanjing Ink Art Biennale 2019 , Art Museum School of Fine Arts, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
Beyond the Wall — Special Invited Exhibition for the 10th Anniversary of Xi’an Art Museum in 2019 & Literature Exhibition for the 10th Anniversary of Xi’an Art Museum, Xi’an Art Museum, Xi’an, China
New Ink Art in China 1978-2018 , Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China
Art History Shaped by 40 Artists: 40x40 from 1978-2018 , Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China
2018
Dedicated to Elysee: An Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art , UCCA, Beijing, China
The Road of Avant–Garde: Contemporary Art Exhibition , Nanshan Museum, Shenzhen, China
Shaped by 40 Artists’ Art History , Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China
2017
Echo of Civilization , The Imperial Ancestral Temple Art Museum, Beijing, China
Unbounded , La Casa del Mantegna, Mantua, Italy
Fusion-Contemporary Oil Painting Language Research Exhibition , Today Art Museum, China
A City in Dialogue with the World —‘Jing Piao’ International Exhibition , Jingdezhen China Ceramic Museum, Jiangxi, China
2016
M+Sigg, Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art , Artistree, Hong Kong, China South of the Mountains: 11 Contemporary Chinese Artists , Sanyu Contemporary Art Center, Guangzhou, China
2015
Fragmentary Narratives , Changsha Museum, Changsha, China
Taiyuan International Sculpture Biennale , Taiyuan Museum, Taiyuan, China
Freehand China, 2015 Annual Exhibition of China National Academy of Painting , National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Fragmentary Narratives Exhibition , Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford, U.S.A.
2014
China New Expression: Exhibition 1980-2014 , China Art Museum, Shanghai, China
The 3rd Documentary Exhibition of Fine Arts: Re-Modernization , Hubei Museum of Art, Hubei, China
West Says East Says—Chinese Contemporary Art Research Exhibition , United Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Post Pop: East Meets West , Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K.
Freehand China, 2015 Annual Exhibition of China National Academy of Painting , National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
2013
Re-Ink: Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Ink and Wash Painting 2000-2012 , Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Individual Growth—Momentum of Contemporary Art , Tianjin Art Museum, Tianjin, China
Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S.A.
2012
Face , Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Omen 2012 – Chinese New Art , Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Go Figure! Contemporary Chinese Portraiture , National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; Sherman
Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia
Through All Ages-Long Museum Opening Series Exhibitions , Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Re-Ink: Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Ink and Wash Painting 2000-2012 , Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China
2011
Pure Views: New Painting from China , Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, U.S.A.
Collecting History: China New Art , Chengdu MOCA, Chengdu, China
A New Horizon- Contemporary Chinese Art 1949 to 2009 , National Gallery of Australia, Sydney, Australia
I Believe that —Chinese Contemporary Art in Songzhuang , Songzhuang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2010
Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art: Painting (1979-2009) , Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Clouds: Power of Asian Contemporary Art , Soka Art, Beijing, China
Pure Views-New Paintings from China , Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, U.S.A., Louise Blouin Foundation, London, U.K.
A Gift to Marco Polo , Venice International University, Island of San Servolo, Venice, Italy
Chinamania , Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark
Embrace Suzhou, Exhibition of the Chinese Contemporary Arts , Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China
Open Vision - Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art , Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
Collision - Cases of Contemporary China Art Experiment , CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008
Cina XXl secolo, Arte fra identità e trasformazione , Palazzo delle Esposizionzi, Rome, Italy
Beijing - Athens, Contemporary Art from China , Greek Athens National Contemporary Art Center, Athens, Greece
Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection , San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, U.S.A.
Avant-Garde China: Twenty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art , National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
The Revolution Continues: New Art from China , Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K.
2007
Chinese Contemporary Sotsart , The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Post-Martial Law vs. Post ’89 - The Contemporary Art in Taiwan and China , National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan
Red Hot , Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, U.S.A.
China-Facing Reality , Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria
2006
China Coup , Red Mansion Foundation, London, U.K.
Expressions of Contemporary Chinese Water and Ink Painting , Huitai Art Center, Tianjin, China
The Sacred and the Profane , Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin|Beijing, Berlin, Germany
2005
Always to the Front, China Contemporary Art , Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
China Contemporary Art , Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, China
Mahjong , Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
History of River—The Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition In New Era , Culture Ministry Art Bureau of the P.R.C., National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
2004
China, The Body Everywhere? , Museum of Contemporary Art, Marseilles, France
Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Faces of Illusion by Fang Lijun, Ye Yongqing and Yue Minjun , Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
East Wind , Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland
2003
From China with Art , National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia
Alors, la Chine , Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
An Opening Era , National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Chinese Printmaking Today , British Library, London, U.K.
2002
A Point in Time , Meilun Museum, Changsha, China
Guangzhou Triennial 2002 , Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2001
China Art Now , Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Towards a New Image: Twenty Years of Contemporary Chinese Painting , National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; Sichuan Art Museum, Chengdu; Art Museum, Guangdong, China
2000
Visage: Painting and The Human Face in 20 th Century Art , National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan
The Collection of Shanghai Art Museum , Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
The 20th Century Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition , China Arts Museum, Beijing, China
Portrait of China Contemporaries , Espace Culture Francois Mitterrand, Perigueux, France
1999
The 5th Asian Art Show , Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
Aperto , The 48th Venice Biennale , Venice, Italy
1998
It’s me , Forbidden City, Beijing, China
Inside Out: New Chinese Art , Asia Society, New York, U.S.A.
China , Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
1997
China , Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Die anderen Modernen , Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
1996
Begegnungen mit China , Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany
Great art exhibition- a special exhibition of experimental prints , Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
1995
Visions of Happiness - Ten Asian Contemporary Artists , Japan Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
Unser Jahrhundert , Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1994
Welt—Moral , Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Biennale Contemporary Art at São Paulo , 22nd International Biennale of São Paulo , São Paulo, Brazil
1993
China’s New Art, Post ’89 , Hong Kong Arts Center, Hong Kong
Passagio ad Oriente , The 45th Venice Biennale , Venice, Italy
Mao Goes Pop , Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
China Avant-Garde , toured Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Kunsthal Rotterdam; the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, U.K.; Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark; Roemerund Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany
1992
Fang Lijun and Liu Wei Oil Painting Exhibition , Beijing Art Museum, Beijing, China
New Art from China/Post-Mao Product , the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat; Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra, Australia
1989
China Avant-Garde Art Exhibition , National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
1984
6th National Art Exhibition , Guangzhou, China
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
National Gallery of Australia, Sydney, Australia
Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, Australia
Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
Liang Jiehua Foundation, Hong Kong, China
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
Taida Contemporary Art Museum, Tianjin, China
Tan Guobin Contemporary Museum, Changsha, China
Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Wuhan City Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan, China
Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry, Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris, France
Collection of the City of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, Germany
Peter & Irene Ludwig Stiftung, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
CP Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia
Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
Modern Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway
National Gallery, Singapore
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, U.S.A.
Denver Art Museum, Denver, U.S.A.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, U.S.A.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, U.S.A.
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, U.S.A.
Works of art purchased from Eskenazi Ltd. London, are now in the following museum collections:
Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina
Arita Porcelain Park Museum, Saga
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Asia House, Mr and Mrs John D Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco
Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama
British Museum, London
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Chang Foundation, Taibei
Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum, Sookmyung
Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton
Denver Art Museum, Denver
Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen
Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware, Hong Kong
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Hagi Uragami Museum, Hagi
Hakone Museum of Art, Hakone
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Hetjens Museum, Düsseldorf
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu
Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Izumi, Osaka
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi
M Woods Museum, Beijing
Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Miho Museum, Shigaraki
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
MOA Museum of Art, Atami
Musée Ariana, Geneva
Musée des arts asiatiques, Nice
Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet, Paris
Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels
Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Museum für Lackkunst, Münster
Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka
Museum Rietberg, Zurich
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
National Museum of Singapore, Singapore
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
Nezu Museum, Tokyo
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Östasiatiska Museet, Stockholm
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle
Shanghai Museum, Shanghai
Speed Art Museum, Louisville
State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Beijing
Toguri Museum of Art, Tokyo
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo
Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo
Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong
Tsz Shan Monastery Buddhist Art Museum, Hong K ong
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester
Zhiguan Museum of Fine Art, Beijing
Previous Exhibitions
March 1972
Inaugural exhibition Early Chinese ceramics and works of art.
June 1972 Georges Rouault, an exhibition arranged by Richard Nathanson.
June 1973 Ancient Chinese bronze vessels, gilt bronzes and early ceramics.
November 1973 Chinese ceramics from the Cottle collection.
December 1973 Japanese netsuke formerly in the collection of Dr Robert L Greene.
June 1974 Early Chinese ceramics and works of art.
November 1974 Japanese inro - from the collection of E A Wrangham.
May 1975 Japanese netsuke and inro - from private collections.
June 1975 Ancient Chinese bronzes from the Stoclet and Wessén collections.
June 1976 Chinese jades from a private collection.
June 1976 Michael Birch netsuke and sculpture.
June 1976 Japanese netsuke and inro - from private collections.
June 1977
June 1978
Ancient Chinese bronze vessels, gilt bronzes and sculptures; two private collections, one formerly part of the Minkenhof collection.
Ancient Chinese sculpture.
June 1978 Michael Webb netsuke.
June 1978 Eighteenth to twentieth century netsuke.
June 1979 Japanese netsuke from private collections.
June 1980 Jap anese netsuke from private collections and Michael Webb net suke.
July 1980 Ancient Chinese bronzes and gilt bronzes from the Wessén and other collections.
December 1980 Chinese works of art from the collection of J M A J Da wson.
October 1981 Japanese netsuke and inro - from the collection of Professor and Mrs John Hull Grundy and other private collections.
December 1981
Ancient Chinese sculpture.
October 1982 Japanese inro - from private collections.
November 1983 Michael Webb, an English carver of netsuke.
October 1984 Japanese netsuke, ojime, inro - and lacquer-ware.
June 1985 Ancient Chinese bronze vessels, gilt bronzes, inlai d bronzes, silver, jades, ceramics – Twenty five years.
December 1986 Japanese netsuke, ojime, inro - and lacquer-ware.
June 1987 Tang.
June 1989 Chinese and Korean art from the collections of Dr Franco Vannotti, Hans Popper and others.
November 1989 Japanese lacquer-ware from the Verbrugge collection.
December 1989 Chinese art from the Reach family collection.
May 1990 Japanese netsuke from the Lazarnick collection.
June 1990
Ancient Chinese sculpture from the Alsdorf collection and others.
November 1990 The Charles A Greenfield collection of Japanese lacquer.
June 1991 Inlaid bronze and related material from pre-Tang China.
November 1992 Japanese lacquer-ware – recent acquisitions.
December 1992 Chinese lacquer from the Jean-Pierre Dubosc collection and others.
June 1993 Early Chinese art from tombs and temples.
June 1993 Japanese netsuke from the Carré collection.
June 1994 Yuan and early Ming blue and white porcelain.
June 1995 Early Chinese art: 8th century BC – 9th century AD.
October 1995 Adornment for Eternity, loan exhibition from the Denver Art Museum.
June 1996 Sculpture and ornament in early Chinese art.
November 1996 Japanese inro - and lacquer-ware from a private Swedish collection.
March 1997 Ceramic sculpture from Han and Tang China.
June 1997 Chinese Buddhist sculpture.
June 1997 Japanese netsuke, ojime and inro - from the Dawson collection.
November 1997 Japanese netsuke – recent acquisitions.
March 1998 Animals and animal designs in Chinese art.
June 1998 Japanese netsuke, ojime and inro - from a private European collection.
November 1998 Chinese works of art and furniture.
March 1999 Ancient Chinese bronzes and ceramics.
November 1999 Ancient Chinese bronzes from an English private collection.
March 2000 Masterpieces from ancient China.
November 2000 Chinese furniture of the 17th and 18th centuries.
March 2001 Tang ceramic sculpture.
November 2001 Chinese ceramic vessels 500 – 1000 AD.
March 2002 Chinese Buddhist sculpture from Northern Wei to Ming.
November 2002 Two rare Chinese porcelain fish jars of the 14th and 16th centuries.
March 2003 Chinese works of art from the Stoclet collection.
November 2003 Song: Chinese ceramics, 10th to 13th century.
March 2004 Chinese Buddhist figures.
November 2004 A selection of Ming and Qing porcelain.
March 2005 Ancient Chinese bronzes and sculpture.
November 2005 Song ceramics from the Hans Popper collection.
March 2006 A selection of early Chinese bronzes.
June 2006 Recent paintings by Arnold Chang.
November 2006 Chinese porcelain from the 15th to the 18th century.
March 2007 Song: Chinese ceramics, 10th to 13th century (part 3).
November 2007 Mountain landscapes by Li Huayi.
March 2008 Chinese sculpture and works of art.
October 2008 Chinese ceramics and stone sculpture.
October 2009 Seven classical Chinese paintings.
March 2010 Trees, rocks, mist and mountains by Li Huayi.
November 2010 Fiftieth anniversary exhibition: twelve Chinese masterworks.
March 2011 Early Chinese metalwork in gold and silver; works of art of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
November 2011 Chinese huanghuali furniture from a private collection.
November 2011 The twelve animals of the zodiac by Li Huayi.
November 2012 Qing porcelain from a private collection.
October 2013 Junyao.
October 2013 Bo Ju Gui: an important Chinese archaic bronze.
October 2014 Waterfalls, rocks and bamboo by Li Huayi.
October 2014 Chinese sculpture c. 500 - 1500.
May 2015 Principal wares of the Song period from a private collection.
October 2015 Transfigured echoes: recent paintings by Liu Dan.
October 2016 Recent paintings by Zeng Xiaojun.
November 2016 Early Chinese art from private collections.
November 2017 Six Dynasties art from the Norman A. Kurland collection, Part one.
May 2018 Song: Chinese ceramics, 10th to 13th century (part 5).
May 2018 Gogottes: a rift in time.
November 2018 Six Dynasties art from the Norman A. Kurland collection, Part two.
November 2019 Room for study: fifty scholars’ objects.
October 2021 Tang: ceramics, metalwork and sculpture.
June 2022 Contemporary bamboo: masters from Japan.
June 2022 Gogottes: unfolding time.
October 2022 50 years of exhibitions: five masterpieces on loan from a private family coll ection
