The sixth “CAFAM Art Museum Night” was held wonderfully at the CAFA Art Museum at 4:30 pm, October 19, 2013. This art museum night adhered to the activity aim of all previous art museum nights. Combined with the academic exhibitions at the same time, the art museum night with the theme of “Beuys Dancing with Andy Warhol” was held. As one of the most important Western artists in the second half of the 20th century, Beuys was a figure that could not be neglected and evaded in the discussion of the history of post-war contemporary art. Beuys had a profound influence on the art. Andy Warhol was an important American artist in the 1970s and 1980s. He influenced the public deeply. He applied and developed many media and performance possibilities without hesitation and was involved in many different fields. He changed the figure into the visual goods through the silk-screen printing technique and the repeated images. The “Art Museum Night” art festival aims to promote the exchanges and friendships between college students, art lovers and related art practitioners who love art, and establishing “the most IN and the most lively art gathering in China.”
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the invited guests and friends who spontaneously came to participate in the event came in rich dress one after another. On the same day, the online exhibition “Social Sculpture: Beuys in China”and the retrospective exhibition of “Andy Warhol: The Eternity of Fifteen Minutes” were open to the public at no charge. For this exhibition, we will divide three groups in the “Master and Doctor Guide Project”, which will be professionally explained to the audiences in the exhibition area by the Beuys and Andy Warhol curators, the academic presenters, and the master and doctor guide team of the Faculty of Humanities.
At that time, the cool workshop had been opened to the audiences. According to the theme “Beuys and Warhol meeting in CAFAM” of this activity, there were volunteers who dressed up as pop art fans at the entrance of the museum. They provided the visitors with the black felt hats representing the image of Beuys and the white and colorful wigs representing the image of Warhol. The visitors were dressed up as young artists in pop style. In addition, the blank masks and colorful paints and tools were also prepared in the museum. The visitors could paint the most personalized masks according to their preferences. Before the activity began, the art lovers from the CAFA，Capital Normal University，National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts and other schools gathered in the hall of the first floor of the art museum, and ten thousand people maybe more.
At 6 o’clock in the evening, the Sixth Art Museum Night was officially open. The opening program was performed by the Dirty Little Secret Band. Their cheerful music did not have a slight sense of heaviness. Instead, they attracted the audiences in the most casual manner, as if their performance was natural and brought people the plainest happiness and people enjoyed the music in a relaxed mood. In the next moment, the dumb showThe Twelve Minutes Cycle was performed, which was adapted from Xiong Liang's illustrated book,24 Seasons. During the performance process, the art museum sank into a silence. The audiences learned the simple and natural joy from the rich body languages of the artists. The dance Attention was performed by the Pojie Art Team. The team members include Rosey Feltham from New Zealand and Georgie Cockburn from England, as well as doctoral students from Beijing Dance Academy, remedial education experts, special education teachers, a former actor of the National Ballet of China and more than a dozen of disabled people.
They presented different people’s reactions and inspirations to the exhibition and turned them into dancing movements through cross-domain communication and presented the personal treatment and social change bearing the art ideas of Beuys. The two musical compositions and the interactive play of saxophone, clarinet, and pipa performed by the Capital Police Band presented the artistic feeling and the art impact of the two western art masters in China. The performers showed the inspiration with the music and presented a new audio-visual feast to the audiences. The last program was the contemporary drama Unblocking and Distinguishing performed by graduate students of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. The opera disassembled the symbols and elements of the opera by sound, form, and costume, and then rearranged and combined. The reproduction and color exchanges in the Warhol type broke the common perception of color concepts in the traditional ethnic culture. The performers also expanded the performance area to the atrium area of the entire art museum, broke the relationship between audiences and performers. When gathering, the audiences became a link, a picture, and a part of the artistic works. After the performance, the cheers and applause of the audience were endless. The final link of the activity was the most exciting lottery draw for the audiences. The audiences passed the Sponge Bob dolls to each other in the music to obtain the reward opportunities. Five lucky viewers, including two children, were given the exquisite gifts by the museum. In the host’s concluding remarks and the audience's longing for more, the Sixth Art Museum Night had a happy ending.
This Museum Night was shown through various activity types, including stage performance, on-site creative makeup, the show of taking and getting photo immediately, art & record film meeting, and “my presence”Weibo interaction. The activity theme of “Beuys Dancing with Andy Warhol” was interpreted roundly from the colorful art perspective, allowing the art lovers from all walks of life to understand art, participate in art, enjoy art and establish the link with the art in the art museum.
