Curating an online sensation

Curating an online sensation

The world's first online art fair, VIP Art Fair, has received 3.3 million visitors from 130 countries since its launch on Jan 22.

The VIP Art Fair features 138 leading contemporary art galleries from 30 countries, with more than 2,000 artists and 7,500 works of art. Works on view at the fair range in price from less than $5,000 to more than $1 million.

Visitors can search for an artist by name and follow a trail of the artist's work through the fair.

Co-founded by New York-based dealers James and Jane Cohan and Internet entrepreneurs Jonas and Alessandra Almgren, VIP Art Fair re-configures the traditional art fair model for the Internet. The fair, which will conclude on Jan 30, is only available online at http://www.vipartfair.com.

Think ink for this show

The first Chinese Ink Art Biennale is on in Zhejiang's provincial capital Hangzhou.

Until Feb 27, the exhibition presents hundreds of ink works featuring figure, mountains-and-water and birds-and-flowers paintings by veteran artists from across the country.

Lectures and seminars will be organized for academia and the public during the exhibition. The show "aims to promote public awareness of the traditional art genre that is striving to find a place in contemporary life", president of the China Academy of Fine Arts and key organizer of the event Xu Jiang says.

Sculptor's tour takes shape

Renowned Italian sculptor Nicola Rivelli will stage his solo exhibition tour in China.

The tour will kick off at the Rivelli Art Space in Beijing's 798 art zone on March 20.

The show will move to Taipei in June and wrap up in Shanghai in December, curator Feng Jiao says.

A native of Naples, Italy, Rivelli was brought up in a family of artists and architects. He is good at creating philosophically charged bronze works, using traditional casting techniques.

His 10-meter-high bronze sculpture, Boy of Mountain Tai, installed in downtown Shandong's provincial capital Jinan has been a landmark since 2009, when the city hosted the National Sports Games.

Actor to play old Mao

Veteran actor Tang Guoqiang (pictured), known for playing Chairman Mao Zedong in several TV dramas and films, will again appear onscreen as Mao - this time, portraying the late leader in his 70s.

Tang, 59, will appear as Mao in Grand Scene (tentative title), a film that depicts the historic events of 1969 to 1972. These include former US president Richard Nixon's trip to China in 1972 and the US ping-pong team's first visit to the country in 1971.

Filming will begin in Beijing in April. The movie will premiere on Oct 25, the 40th anniversary of China's return to the United Nations.

Razzle-dazzle for gala

The China Federation of Literary and Art Circles hosted its 2011 Spring Festival Gala - to be broadcast during Spring Festival - at the Great Hall of the People this week.

About 220 celebrated artists watched the gala, which featured more than 1,000 performers from Hubei, Guizhou and Fujian provinces, and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Pop and folk songs were performed by local artists, including famous director Chen Kaige, A-lister Yao Chen and tenor Qiao Jun.

"I was very honored to participate in the event's final program, a patriotic song that touches audiences' hearts," Qiao says.

The show will be broadcast on CCTV-1 and CCTV-3 during the holiday.

China Daily

(China Daily 01/29/2011 page11)