Reviews
Auction
Artworks
More than 1,100 pieces of Chinese art with a total value of 200 million yuan ($25.60 million) feature in the spring auctions of the Council International Auction Co Ltd, at Beijing's Asia Hotel this weekend. Works can be previewed at the hotel.
Highlights include works of best-selling contemporary Chinese artists at the world market, ancient calligraphies, and seals of 20th-century master artists.
In the contemporary art section, Mask (pictured) by Zeng Fanzhi has won much acclaim. Created in 1998, the oil painting depicts a man wearing a mask that appears to be part of his face.
Of more than 200 ceramics to go under the hammer, 17 from the royal collections of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) are among the best on the market this spring.
Wang Shanshan
Movie
The Chinese Botanist's Daughter
Directed by Dai Sijie, starring Li Xiaoran, Mylene Jampanoi
This French production was shot in Vietnam, but the story was set in 1980s China. A stern botanist has an intern, a beautiful half-Chinese, half-Russian young woman whose parents were killed in the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. She and the botanist's daughter become lovers, but the old man eyes the intern as his daughter-in-law. His son, a soldier stationed in Tibet, marries her, but abuses her when he finds out she is no longer a virgin. The story ends tragically when the father stumbles upon the truth, and the daughter, in an effort to prevent him from hurting her female lover, accidentally kills him. Both young women receive the death sentence.
The movie pits traditional bigotry against unconventional love. Like Dai's previous movies, this eternal theme is given a French texture. The characters seem to be vaguely Chinese, yet think and act in a decidedly French fashion. It is a work of a Chinese artist who knows exactly what his target audience wants and serves them a mixture of erotica and exotica that they believe is a Chinese concoction.
Raymond Zhou
Exhibition
A+A
A showcase of works created from the unique angles of twenty young artists from Beijing, Chongqing and Sichuan. Includes 150 oil paintings, photos and architectural models The exhibition, titled A+A, continues at the PIFO New Art Studio in Beijing's 798 Art Factory until Saturday.
Born in the 1970s and 1980s, the artists' observations differ greatly from the outlook of older best-selling artists. While works by senior Chinese artists continue to fetch high prices on the world market, galleries and dealers on the mainland now favor the emerging scene.
WSS
(China Daily 05/31/2007 page20)
