2019-08-07
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The “CAFA Art Museum (CAFAM) Collection Series: Exhibition of Selected Works from the National Beiping Art School Period” (“National Beiping Art School Exhibition” or “the Exhibition”) is a trademark CAFAM collection exhibition since 2012. It has received good response and acclamations from the society. The Exhibition is one of the few monographic collection series in the domestic art museum world. It is a program worth exploration and reference, in the aspects of its selected topics, exhibitions, academic research, publicity and exhibition period. The article will analyze the intellectual and academic qualities of the exhibition’s content and structure.Living in a world filled with thousands of various exhibitions, including the collection exhibitions, we are still struggling to find meaningful ones in them. It is partly due to the limited level of exhibited artworks, but is further because of the out-of-date curatorial ideas and the result of which, lack of exhibitions with substance and reason. In an era of information explosion, when the information people receive increases greatly, the audience are no longer satisfied with the superficial image of artworks. They have more need for the cultural concept and creative intentions behind the world. The quality of the exhibition’s effect lies in the curatorial team’s ideas, which decide every detail of an exhibition. CAFAM is one of the earliest to raise the idea of producing knowledge in art museums in China. It views the art museums as a public space that produces and provides knowledge, and regards “knowledge production” as the historical responsibility and profession of art museums: “Art museums should be a synthesis of ‘knowledge production’. Every action related to art and culture that happens in an art museum can build up the meanings and values of ‘knowledge’; Art museums should take the production of ‘knowledge’ as its starting point and core meaning.” Art museums have historical responsibility in social education. Its exhibitions represent the professional institutions’ perspectives and attitudes. Through exhibitions they lead to discussions about the artworks, promote research on relevant art history research and the dissemination of artistic concepts, for the public to acquire knowledge and new perspectives on art. This is an important channel for the art museums to practice its function. In this sense, when we hold exhibitions in an art museum, we need to consider what the audience need and what we need to show them.Under the guidance of such concept, every step during the preparation of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition is centered around how to study the collection, how to make the audience understand the artworks, the theme of “Beiping Art School” and how to help the audience understand the exhibition and learn knowledge. This is a common goal for all the collection exhibitions - with real content and attitude, to “study history and collection profoundly and structurally and form an ‘art history’ writing.” 1. Cultural Responsibilities and Knowledge Production from the Perspective of the Selected Topics of the National Beiping Art School ExhibitionThe topics of collection exhibitions are very important. The topic is the guideline of an exhibition. A good exhibition’s topic must have high academic level, historical sense, and contain social thinkings about the history and modern time, so that it is fresh instead of cliche and powerless; so that new possibilities could generate from the historical collections, while new academic viewpoint and research result can be passed on to the audience; so that the audience could truly learn things and further push forward the art cause.Why choosing the topic of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition? CAFAM has given to it thorough thinking: First, National Beiping Art School is a miniature and milestone of the development of modern art education in China. In the foreword of the first series exhibition it says: “The National Beiping Art School will was not only the fine art education shrine that gathered the best teachers and students and represented modern Chinese art, but also a cultural front that advocated spirits such as art education for all and the combination of art and science.” Many important thinkings, events and figures of modern Chinese art history are interwoven with the history of the National Beiping Art School, especially in Beijing, without the knowledge of the School would make it difficult to understand art during the Republic of China period. Moreover, as the predecessor of CAFA, the School is the foundation of many of CAFA’s heritage. During its 30-year development in Beijing, it had established close relationship with Beijing’s cultural scene, and was one of a significant aspect of Beijing culture. Thus, the National Beiping Art School is an utterly important and meaningful topic in terms of modern art history. Meanwhile, it is also a paradox: As the first national art school of modern China, a nursery ground for a large number of talents, it is still perceived vaguely, shatteredly, and inadequately by the public and even the academic world. In a long period of time, knowledge and research on the Beiping National Art School was in its primary stage. Its historical meaning is still far from well dug into. In this sense, this topic has filled in the gap of Chinese art history, as well as the gap in most audience’s cognition of art. This is exactly the responsibility of art museums. In the early stage of preparation for the Exhibition, CAFAM took the angle of art history research, and tried to bring in a macroscopical and historic thinking. What the museum needs to do is more than the display of artworks, but more importantly to tell a history, to fill the gap in the audience’s knowledge as well as art history research.2. Knowledge Production and Communication of Collection Exhibition from the Perspective of Organization and Execution of the National Beiping Art School ExhibitionThe successful selection of topic has solved an important problem, but why curating such an exhibition? How would the museum hold such an exhibition and will it be able to successfully hold the exhibition? The answers lie in adequate preparation. Only with adequate preparation the exhibition will naturally happen.In the foreword for the first series exhibition that focuses on western paintings, it mentioned four fundamental works regarding the National Beiping Art School: First, the discovery of important artists and artworks; second, organization and protection; third, featured researches on the collections and the National Beiping Art School; digital archiving. It was because these works have made progress that CAFAM was able to begin the exhibition series. Regarding the execution of the exhibition, the curators hope every part of the exhibition could offer adequate information and effective knowledge for the audience, so that they could understand the exhibition in multiple perspectives and levels, and make new discoveries through the exhibition. To achieve this goal, the curators put great effort in the selection, writing and organization of the exhibition, with the hope that the audience could comprehend the essence of the art during the National Beiping Art School period, and construct a succinct but complete image of the School. (1) Choose angles and accurate positioning of the exhibition according to the practical contentThe National Beiping Art School displayed by the Exhibition almost has no trace in most people’s memory, and that’s why a great deal of image archives and researches are needed to enrich the School’s picture. It is a fine art school with comprehensive disciplines, including painting, music, theater and architecture; in its 30 some years history, there were numerous disciplines and complex staff and student groups, which makes it especially important to choose what content the exhibition would display. In recent years, paintings by the first west painting professors Wu Fading and Li Yishi, like Wu’s Portrait of Woman Wearing Qipao and Li’s Portrait of Chen Shizeng (Picture 9), and works by teachers of the later period such as Sun Zongwei, Qi Zhenqi, Wang Linyi are gradually discovered and organized. Adding the original collection of masterpieces by Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Chen Banding, Chang Shuhong, Wu Zuoren, Ai Zhongxin, Li Keran and Li Kuchan, CAFAM is equipped with a fundamental collection of the National Beiping Art School period. However, the collection is mainly composed of oil painting, Chinese painting, sketches and pastel painting, which is limited in categories and not able to reflect a complete picture of the School. Even so, another research on teachings during the Naitonal Beiping Art School period indicates that these categories exactly echo with the two most important and longest-established departments - western paintings and Chinese paintings. It is based on this fact that the curation of the Exhibition highlights these two departments, in order to show the main image and artistic characters of the School. In order to fully present the highly distinguished conditions and developments of western paintings and Chinese paintings in that period, the exhibition took the form of series exhibition, and held two feature exhibitions separately for western and Chinese paintings.Exhibitions with a specialized angle might not be comprehensive or grand, but they have more advantage in offering effective knowledge and information to the audience. This is a very important function of collection exhibitions. (2) Select exhibited works by academic standard and professional knowledgeExhibited works are traditionally the main body and most important component of an exhibition. The richest and most emphasized content of any exhibition is the exhibited works. To curate a fruitful exhibition for the audience, we must select works with high artistic value. Many of the exhibited works at the National Beiping Art School Exhibition are very precious works with high academic and artistic value, most of which are exhibited for the first time; some have even filled the gap of academic studies, such as Wu Fading’s Portrait of Woman Wearing Qipao, Li Yishi’s Portrait of Chen Shizeng, Portrait of Wang Mengbai in the western painting sector; and Zheng Jin’s Fox, Magnolia and Peacock, and Chen Shizeng’s album in the Chinese painting. With these precious works once again entered the public sphere through the Exhibition, neglected masters such as Yao Manfu, Xiao Qianzhong, Wang Mengbai, Tang Dingzhi, Yu Shaosong, Yan Bolong, Qi Zhenqi, Fang Bowu were also discovered. In the academic world, these works provide more complete materials for research on art history and construction of fine art memory of the Republic of China era; in the social realm, the public enjoy the opportunity of gaining a more complete, honest and richer knowledge of the art of the National Beiping Art School.These works themselves were not labeled with “National Beiping Art School”, neither were they from the same source, so how did we select and gather them up? It was thanks to the extensive effort of exhibition organizers. Every search and categorization of a work is a transmit of knowledge. A especially good point of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition is the serious-minded organization of works based on fact checks. Each and every artwork selected for the exhibition conformed to the exhibition’s standards, and could reflect the message the exhibition would like to pass on. When the exhibition was first organized, CAFAM has clear and strict rules for the works to be selected: First, as the theme is National Beiping Art School, the works must be related with the School - works from the School’s teachers or students, with its date and information clearly recorded, though because of the immature development of researches on the School, we encountered a lot of difficulties in the fact check works. Moreover, the National Beiping Art School people usually generally refer to was founded in 1918 and merged into Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1949. Since it stopped existing since 1950, with a lot of academic changes happening since then, the works by the right authors must also be created during circa. 1918-1950. This is to guarantee the original presentation of the School’s art styles and to reduce historical misreadings. In order to find most comprehensive collection of works by the National Beiping Art School’s artists, we on the one hand search for names in the School’s staff and student rosters; on the other hand, we went through resumes of artists collected by CAFAM, and located those who were related to the School. After strict screening of works, we selected works that accord with the exhibition standards. But even though, they were not the final selections (all of them were included in the exhibition catalogue for future academic studies). Only the most precious and wonderful artworks were eventually exhibited according to requirements of the exhibition standards and space. The exhibited works could most directly tell the audience what the National Beiping Art School was, and what are the works that could most represent the School. The process of selecting works were also a process of clarifying truth, a process of showing the real picture of works from the National Beiping Art School period. Furthermore, as exhibited works were strictly organized according to the chronological order of the artists’ birth date, it could clearly present the change of era, and make the audience understand more clearly the School’s development in different stages. (3) Organize history and academic background behind works from the perspective of academic research and audience’s acceptabilityAlthough the National Beiping Art School Exhibition was divided into two themes: western painting and Chinese painting, due to the lack of the public’s knowledge of the School, it would confuse the audience if we directly entered narration about the two genres. In this sense, it is particularly important to have a basic research and introduction of the history and development of the School. Only when the audience understood that part of information that they would understand the artworks’ cultural meaning, historical and artistic value. So firstly, facing the problems of the School’s complicated history of being established and re-established by different governments during the Republic of China period, its confusing naming in different stages and even today, curators conducted basic but clear organization of the history of the School. In the opening exhibition (Western Painting), the curators set up several blocks that provide introduction of the School in text and pictures, to form a vivid, graphic memory of the School. I now list a few of the blocks below: 1) The National Beiping Art School Chronology organized by Cao Qinghui (Picture 14 & 15), which presents detailed time of every change of the School’s name, directors, administrative affiliations, and addresses; 2) Table of the Corresponding Relationships between CAFAM Western Painting Collection’s Authors and the National Beiping Art School History, made by CAFAM, which organizes the exhibited artists’ time of study or teaching at the School, linking abstract history events with concrete paintings and creating a whole piece of picture with the two separate parts; 3) Archives, photos, seals and part of the books collected by the National Beiping Art School Library (Picture 16 - 20), such as the sketch portfolio sent by Zhang Xian to the School in 1936, articles by Xu Beihong and others to mourn Qi Zhenqi’s death, reports on Qi Zhenqi’s death, the School’s 1928 yearbook, archives of all phases of the School collected by CAFA, and “Artworks in Overseas Collections” at the “Realignment” exhibition, etc. These precious and vivid materials carry a great deal of historical message and traces, bringing the audience to the time of the School, and passing on abundant historical codes to the audience. Meanwhile, the first systematic exhibition of these precious archives further provide materials and fuels to the development of academic research. For instance, in the following “The National Beiping Art School and Art of Republic of China” symposium, a scholar spoke about the Line between the North and the South issue of the Republic of China art based on Zhang Xian’s sketch portfolio.As many artists of this exhibition were unknown to the public, the Exhibition also sorted out complete resume of each artist (Picture 21), including the artist’s photo, birth date and death date, birthplace, alias, education and work experience, and major academic propositions, and mostly importantly, their teaching time and positions at the National Beiping Art School. Through this resume, the audience would know the artists’ achievements, their relationship with the School, and the important roles these people played in the Republic of China art world. In both the western painting and Chinese painting sectors, the artists’ signs and inscriptions were recognized; especially in the case of the seals, preface and postscripts on Chinese paintings, we especially displayed the text recognized by professional scholars alongside the original artworks, so that the audience could compare the text with that in the paintings, to help themselves better understand the works’ intentions.Except for the above mentioned works and archives, the Exhibition also collected, and displayed relevant research materials of the National Beiping Art School, to provide academic researches with more clues and questions, which makes it a good practice of pushing forward research with exhibition. In order to explain the special characters of the School’s period, especially the relationship between teachers’ creative practices and theoretical research (painting studies), the Chinese painting sector of the Exhibition collected and exhibited the first editions of important essays and articles by the exhibited artists published in the Republic of China period. Some of these materials are already academic classics, but there were hardly any chance for them to be gathered together, especially their first edition; in this case, the Exhibition presented a special scenery by linking these articles together with the thread of the National Beiping Art School. Meanwhile, the organization of these materials also provide systematic clue to Chinese paintings created during the National Beiping Art School period and even the Republic of China period (Picture 22). CAFAM saw this exhibition as a platform to gather materials of value in all layers, and through categorization and organization it hopes to see chemical reactions in thinking and research.The Exhibition’s introduction and presentation of history and academic background shows CAFAM’s academic level and vision. Only when the historical relations of the artworks are organized and the stories behind artworks are well told, that the audience would find it easier to understand the exhibition and the knowledge behind it, so as for the effective communication of knowledge. (4) Conduct systematic and focused academic researches and guide the audience through the exhibitionOnly putting good artworks together won’t make a good exhibition. The real value of a work is the historical value and artistic value it carries. Thus the Exhibition proposes to conduct analyses on artworks not from the superficial and isolated angles of their content, techniques, but from their (art) historical background and development, and to appreciate different works and discover their charisma via comparison. Guiding the audience to appreciate artworks is both the museum’s responsibility and requirement for knowledge circulation. Feature research became the partly hidden and partly visible kite string behind, as well as the academic core of the exhibition. It is exactly this idea that the Exhibition would like to affirm, that we should show the audience content and clues through art historical researches, and tell the audience what to see and how to see. All the research of the Exhibition series was centered around the National Beiping Art School’s history from the perspectives that the audience could easily understand, to re-organize the chaotic and complicated history events, and provide the audience with essence of artistic development below the surface.The academic focus of the exhibitions are clearly set according to the paintings’ genre and time. All three exhibitions include Associate Professor Cao Qinghui’s simple but profound feature research. Such a significant research body, tailored specially for an exhibition, is a rare case. In the western painting sector, Professor Cao Qinghui wrote an essay titled “Mainstream, main thread and others”, in which he conducted analyses on collected works and their authors, while linking them to the development of western art in China in the 20th century, so as to organize the main thread of the introduction and practice of western paintings in the first half of 20th century with the National Beiping Art School as an example. Research found out that most of the western painting teachers of the early National Beiping Art School period have studied abroad, so have the teachers from the late period, that’s why their works are closely related to Japan and Europe and involve complicated teacher-student relationships. To put it simply, the main thread of western painting’s development is linked by overseas students and their students; the main stream is the introduction of realistic paintings and the formation of realistic trend and school in 1940s. The main thread of Chinese painting’s development, on the other hand, was narrated by Prof. Cao Qinghui in his essay “The Transformation of Painting Studies Through Broken Shadows of Chinese Painting”. He analyzed main issues the Chinese Painting Department of the National Beiping Art School faced in the 30 some years history, such as the conflicts between western pedagogy and traditional Chinese painting study, conflicts between officers with overseas study background and Chinese faculties, and ups and downs of logic methodologies of painting study, the evolution of Chinese painting and the development of realism. The two essays not only provided distinctive organization and study of the history of western painting and Chinese painting disciplines of the National Beiping Art School, but also clarified the two disciplines’ faculty background, development process and art styles, narrated the major history events of western painting and Chinese painting, and divided the School’s history into clear phases. Based on this solid research result, the exhibition was curated from the two unique angles of overseas study and painting study, which reveals to the point the core question in changes of faculty and art styles during the School’s development. The exhibition thus offered special viewpoints and clues.The practice of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition indicates that except for good artworks, collection exhibitions must also have profound study and systematic organization of collected works. This kind of study should avoid pinning a meaningless academic label on works or exhibitions, which would only confuse the audience. Such study should go through detailed and accurate academic research and organization, should target certain aspects, while also considering the audience’s acceptability. (5) Set up the museum’s educational responsibility in historical narration through collection exhibitionsThe Exhibition advocates an academic attitude of restoring and envisaging history. This accords with CAFAM’s educational responsibility to restore history and conduct historical narration.The history is full of variety and causal relationships, but it is also hypercritical and forgetful. Many hidden historical events are equally important in their days, and are an important node in the study of history. The lack of avoidance from history will lead to many misreadings, and thus the lost of vitality. In face of these significant problems, CAFAM should present objective exhibitions. The National Beiping Art School Exhibition, when dealing with the National Beiping Art School during the enemy occupation of Beiping (it was named National Beijing Art School at the moment), gave that history objective positioning and evaluation.A museum’s display and narration of art history should be systematic and consistent, which is an important embodiment of the museum’s educational function. The National Beiping Art School Exhibition boldly experimented on this aspect, and made some achievements in the two exhibitions on western and Chinese painting. It seems that the question of the National Beiping Art School has been answered after systematic organization of the two painting disciplines, but following them CAFAM releases the third exhibition, named “Realignment: From National Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts to China Central Academy of Fine Arts” (Picture 23). In the foreword of the exhibition it says: “The museum narration of the National Beiping Art School, CAFA and the evolution of 20th century Chinese art, based on museum collection, has reflected the teachers and students’ creative trends, ups and downs in styles at the School and CAFA in different historical phases of 20th century. It starts to touch upon the relationship between the academy and the society, teachers and students and creative trends. In order for the narration to be more inherently logical, and to establish and dig deep into the historical relations between collected works, our museum believes that it is necessary to conduct specialized organization of the establishment of CAFA by merging the National Beiping Art School and the Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts through collection and archives.” The exhibition will further complete the narration of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition series, and in the meanwhile facilitate explicit expression of CAFA’s relationship with its two predecessors, to form a “comparatively complete thematic museum narration”. The thinking is based upon a macroscopic narration and sincere attitude towards academic studies, and demonstrates CAFAM’s systematicness and sense of responsibility in terms of its public education function.3. Exhibition as a Component of Museum Knowledge CirculationThe National Beiping Art School Exhibition also went through profound and serious academic discussions about other topics relevant to the School. It expands the exhibition’s influence, generates more research subjects, and truly promotes research in this aspect. The Exhibition is no longer isolated, but has become a component of museum knowledge circulation. During the exhibition, two important symposium and semniar were settled: “The National Beiping Art School and Art of Republic of China” symposium (Picture 24) and “High as Mountains and Long as Rivers: Masters of the National Beiping Art School” seminar (Picture 25). The symposium invited over 40 experts from relevant academic field to speak, the content of which was later edited and published as a book. The seminar includes over ten lectures, each of them was unfolded around an old master from the National Beiping Art School. We have also combined seminars with master and doctor courses, encouraged the students to participate in the seminars and write essays based on the issues and their interested points mentioned in the seminars and the exhibitions. Throughout the development of relevant events, the three exhibitions of the National Beiping Art School Exhibition also continuously brewed and formed a positive cycle.Meanwhile, the Exhibition also practiced CAFAM’s good archiving tradition, editing and publishing the Exhibition’s data and research results. The Exhibition’s publication is not only an exhibition catalogue - it also adds in many works that weren’t exhibited, and significant academic materials that cannot be presented at the exhibition, to make the exhibition’s academic and archival quality more complete. The successive release of the publications also helps preserve and circulate the Exhibition’s research fruits, with they themselves become important research books of the field. It is worth mentioning that CAFAM also produced digital exhibition room for the Exhibition using digital technologies. It recorded the exhibition venue with 360-degree cameras, and linked the exhibition’s information to the visual footage, so that the exhibition’s visual effects could be preserved permanently, and the audience could revisit real site of the exhibition on their computers.A good exhibition shouldn’t be a lecture out of a textbook, but should contain rich thinkings of the curators. It’s like creating an unknown world for the audience to discover themselves. The audience could either achieve something following the route designated by the curators, or discover their own interests and inspirations freely. A good exhibition is not the end point of a research or an isolated event, but should be a transmission shaft that passes on more abundant resources, or a fermenter that incubates more fresh matters.The feature collection exhibition in Chinese museums is only at its beginning stage, and the National Beiping Art School Exhibition is a beneficial experiment. It sturdily completed a thematic series research, pushed forward development of relevant academic fields, and enhanced the public’s knowledge of art in the National Beiping Art School period to a certain extent. In this process, the museum’s curatorial idea was also well represented. Although the content is about works and archives of nearly a century ago, the curatorial idea and approach, as well as the ultimate effect of the exhibition, are new. Picture 1: Poster of the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
2: Bus stop light box advertisement design of the “Selected Works of
Western Painting Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School”
ExhibitionPicture
3: Large printing of the photo of the Auditorium of the National
Beiping Art School and previous names of the School at all stages, put
at the entrance of the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
4: Photo wall, archive presentation and seal background at the
“Selected Works of Western Painting Created in the Period of National
Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
5: Entrance of the “Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in the
Period of National Beiping Art School” Exhibition (3rd Floor). A scroll
painting of the National Beiping Art School collected by CAFAM is used
as the main image of the exhibitionPicture
6: On-site photo of the “Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
7: At the entrance (3rd Floor) of the “Realignment: From National
Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts to China Central
Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1953)” exhibition. The Chinese inscription
of “National Fine Art Academy” by Mao Zedong is used as the main imagePicture
8: On-site photo of the “Realignment: From National Beiping Art School,
Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts to China Central Academy of Fine Arts
(1946-1953)” exhibitionPicture
9: Li Yishi, Portrait of Chen Shizeng, Oil on Canvas, 70x130cm, 1920,
Collection of CAFAM (This work is one of the two portrait works of Li
Yishi from the 1920s that are known to be left to date. It is a very
precious artwork and research material)Picture
10: On-site photo of the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
11: On-site photo of the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” Exhibition. The reading
table and provided materials at the exhibition are spoken highly of by
the audiencePicture
12: On-site photo of the “Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
13: On-site photo of the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in
the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
14: The National Beiping Art School Chronology compiled by Professor
Cao Qinghui, displayed at the “Selected Works of Western Painting
Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture 15: Seals of the names of CAFA since its establishment in 1918Picture
16: Photo wall of the valuable photos throughout the history of the
National Beiping Art School at the “Selected Works of Western Painting
Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School” ExhibitionPicture
17: Books collected by the National Beiping Art School Library,
displayed at the “Selected Works of Western Painting Created in the
Period of National Beiping Art School” Exhibition; displayed on the
upper right corner is the sketch portfolio donated by Zhang Xian in 1936Picture
18: Photo of the “Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in the
Period of National Beiping Art School” Exhibition. The painting in the
photo is Qi Baishi’s Eagle donated by the artist to the School in 1935.
Displayed on the shelf on the left is Ling Wenyuan’s Discussions on
Chinese PaintingsPicture
19: Yu Shaosong’s Fu Tang Lei Gao, displayed at the “Selected Works of
Chinese Painting Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School”
ExhibitionPicture
20: The National Beiping Art School Chronology compiled by Professor
Cao Qinghui, once again displayed at the “Realignment: From National
Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts to China Central
Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1953)” ExhibitionPicture
21: The “Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in the Period of
National Beiping Art School” Exhibition collected and collated detailed
resume of the artists. Many materials are made public for the first
time. All the 34 resumes were shown in the exhibition area for the
audience to quickly enter the atmosphere of the National Beiping Art
SchoolPicture
22: The “Realignment: From National Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun
College of Fine Arts to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1953)”
Exhibition organized the representative artworks which were created in
the early years after the establishment of the People’s Republic of
China and cannot be exhibited on site, and displayed them as a video
titled “Artworks in Overseas Collections”.Picture
23: The “Realignment: From National Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun
College of Fine Arts to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1953)”
Exhibition displayed Mao Zedong’s inscription of “National Fine Art
Academy” in 1949 for the first time as a piece of workPicture
24: “The National Beiping Art School and Art of Republic of China”
symposium was co-held by CAFAM and School of Humanities on April 6,
2013. A group photo was taken after the symposiumPicture
25: “High as Mountains and Long as Rivers: Masters of the National
Beiping Art School” seminar was held by CAFAM and School of Humanities
in Autumn 2013. It invited renowned scholars in China to conduct
lectures on important figures in the history of the National Beiping Art
School. The seminar has 10 lectures, and stirred heated discussions.Written by Li Yaochen, Director of Department of Collection, CAFA Art MuseumOriginally published in Issue 6 of University and Art MuseumEdited by Zheng Lijun1. The National Beiping Art School Exhibition has three parts: 1) CAFA Art Museum Collection Series: Selected Works of Western Painting Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School (November 27, 2012 - April 25, 2013); 2) CAFA Art Museum Collection Series: Selected Works of Chinese Painting Created in the Period of National Beiping Art School (June 6, 2013 - December 1, 2013); 3) Realignment: From National Beiping Art School, Yan’an Luxun College of Fine Arts to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1953) (November 4, 2014 - March 1, 2015).2. The National Beiping Art School Exhibition was listed as one of the Outstanding Exhibitions of National Exhibition Season of Brilliant Collection Works from Art Museums in China by the Ministry of Culture.3. Wang Huangsheng (2012), Art Museum as Knowledge Production, p.13, Central Compilation and Translation Press4. Wang Huangsheng (2012), Art Museum as Knowledge Production, p.14, Central Compilation and Translation Press
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