Artist Project Ⅲ - Chinese Contemporary Artist: Qiulin Chen

Qiulin Chen, one of famous Contemporary artist in China, was born in 1975 and graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2000. I chose this artist because the theme of her art attracted my attention.  For the last fifty years, the process of urbanization in China are accelerating. However, the urban growth created many problems. Most of her artworks focus on the confusion brought on by the fast pace of change, and the hope for a new and improved standard of living in China.

Her artworks include performance, photography, video, installation and sculpture. She has had many solo exhibitions and group shows in Asia, Europe, and America. Her artworks have been included in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art and so on.

The Garden is one of her famous artworks. It is a photos’ collection. Because of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, thousands of people should leave their hometown. She created this collection in order to notice people that some people were devoting and contributing while the country were developing.

Another famous artwork from her is One Hundred Surnames. Between 2014 and 2015, she used tofu to create one hundred most common Chinese family names and made videos to record the decaying process of the tofu. She also interviewed some people and record their story which related to

tofu. In China, tofu is one of the most common food. During their decaying process, their color and smell would change, and seeped out water slowly. Moreover, family name is a very important part in Chinese traditional culture, and it also means the inheritance of each families. She used this process to reflect that the Chinese traditional culture was decaying as well while the society were developing. Chinese people must pay more attention and take some measures to protect the traditional culture. 

Shadow Picture

It is a little fun game. People can use their hands and fingers and the reflection by light to create different shapes . It can look like a rabbit, a fox, a bird, and so on.

Architecture

I have been visited Macau, and the most attractable architecture for me is the Macau City Hall. Its architectural style is unique. It was the center of Macau's politics when Macau as a colony by Portugal. Although built in 1784, it was in a style like the plain style from 14th- to 15th-century Portugal. The main color of its appearance is white. It was a typical Portuguese style building, and it was fixed twice in 1876 and 1940. On the inside

almost all foot of walls had decorated by Portuguese cyan ceramic tile. There are a public library and beautiful garden inside. Unlike the bustling in outside, it’s very stately and quiet when you enter the Macau City Hall. It’s the offices of Macau’s government now, but it’s open to visitors as well. Their purpose is that people can learn or remind the colonial history in Macau.

In chapter 13 of our book, I learned various style architecture. Architecture is around of our lives, but most of us just can partition them with different colors and shapes. Actually, different architectural style have their own characteristic.

Chicago Public Art

        Art is in everywhere of our city. The Crown Fountain, which was designed by Jaume Plensa, opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a black granite reflecting pool placed

between a pair of glass brick towers, and each towers is fifteen meters tall. A thousand of different smile faces display on two LEDs screens.

        Near the Crown Fountain, it is the Cloud Gate. It is famous for its image which look likes a huge bean. It is the largest sculpture in the world. 
        In the same street, Art Institute Public Gardens and Art Institute Museum are here. The Gardens was designed by England artist Henry Moore. It look likes a soft body from a person.  In front of the Art Institute Museum, two lions are

standing in left and right. The lions were made by turquoise and designed by Edward Kemeys.

        The Chicago Civic Center is a place where we all knew, but not all of us can notice that there are two sculptures around the center, the Chicago Picasso and the Monument with Standing Beast.The Monument with Standing is a 8.8 meters white fiberglass artwork by Jean Dubuffet. The sculpture is known to many Chicago's people as "Snoopy in a blender". And the Cubist sculpture by Picasso which is 15.2 meters tall has become a well-known landmark in downtown Chicago. Visitors can climb on and slid down the base of the sculpture.

        Visiting those artworks, I saw many visitors played in there with smile. Those artworks support a best way to people touch art and enjoy art. Art is not just a noblest object in museum or gallery, it can be friendly and diverting as well. Thanks for this project, I have a chance to pay more attention on art in our city. 

Reflection Student Art Exhibit

In the Student Art Exhibit, i saw many creative artworks. They included many kind of works, such as paintings,sculptures, and photos. The best one I chose was a painting which called Lost Time. What can you see from this painting? A beautiful view outside of the window. Mussy toys all over the ground of the house. White and black are all colors in this painting. Less colors express more sadness from the painter. A photo of a woman place on a wall. I think she is a mother. Why she feels sad? What does she lose? Connecting with the toys, I guess she may lost her child. The painting was drawn by pencil. Humdrum colors and shadows construct a sad atmosphere. I found some colors or shapes what I have never seen. I chose a painting which named Dragon City. The painter created a fictitious image for dragon with shadow blue.

Art 21: Season 8

In the theme Chicago, an artist attract my eyes. Nick Cave, a performance artist, is famous for one of his works "Soundsults". He usually create a new atmosphere by using usual objects, such as hairs. I can found he is falling in love with art. He express the representations of social and material culture and usually dances and performs  in his sculptures or before the public. He wants to bring his interactive creations to life.

Another artist which I saw in the theme Mexico City is interesting as well. She is a film director. One of her famous films is EL General. Her films and works always focus on Mexican history, politics, and culture. She hopes that her film and documentary can notice people some social issues.

Reflection of MCA

Have you ever seen contemporary artworks? I had a nice trip with contemporary art in MCA on last Wednesday. Some museums look like very classical, but MCA is a modern building both external and inside. We visited an exhibition which called Eternal Youth at first. There were many photos and paintings, and they were expressing what the youth is in the artists’ ideas. Among them, a group of photos attracted my eyes. It’s a very clever idea to take photos with the same people

in the same place in different time. Compare two photos, I can find the time was flow, and the views may be change. However, something would not change forever, such as love from family. 

In the third floor, I saw something interesting. It is amazing that the artwork looks like a real view if you watch it closely.

Going through the Merce Cunningham: Common Time, it likes a mysterious space. One of show rooms. Several videos were showed one by one, it seems that the visitors were going through the time tunnel. After the viewing of artworks, we visited the bookstore and gift shop as well. I found many creative gifts, A simple gift card can become a three-dimensional adornment when it is opening. 

Film' s reaction - A strong clear vision

I am interested in Maya Lin because of her famous aunt at first. Her aunt, Huiyin Lin, was the first female architect in China and joined to

design the People's Hero Monument in Tiananmen Square. After I watched the movie “A Strong Clear Vision”, I realized that Maya Lin was a legendary woman as well as her aunt. The movie focused on three of her artworks, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Civil Rights Memorial, and

The Women’s Table. The story of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial made a big impression to me. She loves nature and our environment, so she usually designs an artwork to mingle the environment instead of breaking it. Although most people agree and praise with her design now, she has suffered many disagreements, criticisms and insults since her design was announced.

Many people protested her design because the design was looking unusual, was not following what they thought, and was reminding them of the painful war. What was worse, they attacked Lin because she was a Chinese American even she never lived in Asia. I am admiring her creativity, and admiring her courage and persistence more. I can’t imagine that how she could insist her own idea under a huge pressure. She always insisted the memorial is created for people and not for politics, and she also believed that people just could recover from the pain after they could face the fact. Therefore, she refused to add another idea into her design. She might not predict that there were a lot of criticisms after she proudly got the prize of the competition. 

Time certifies that she was right, and The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a great artwork. I hope I can have courage when I am in trouble or under pressure as well as Maya Lin. A strong and clear vision gave her chances to succeed. Going through the criticisms and pressure, she has become a bloomy flower in architecture.

Blog - Museum Team Project

    The link below is a PowerPoint for our team project.

There are four parts in it. The first part is the basic information about the Loyola University Museum of Art. 
The second part is about the exhibitions which are showing and more detail for the special one. The third part is the interview with a staff. The last part is the interview with visitors. Both of us had a nice experience in this trip. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PemDJ8nHt2hR_w4TROUqvAE3nA2PvGRoslTowPBWh-0/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

The Reflection of AIC Museum

I had a great trip in AIC Museum on Wednesday. I visited the museum with Gitte and my classmates. The first artwork that we watched was “Paris Street; Rainy Day” which was drawn by Gustave Caillebotte. 

I felt a strong European style from this painting because of the buildings, the clothes, and the umbrellas. Then, “A Sunday Afternoon on the La Grande Jatte” by George Seurat was in front of us. This artwork was painted in 1884. I noticed that half of this painting has sunlight and half was in shadow. Moreover, most women in the painting wore a hat with flowers. I saw many warm colors in this painting, and I thought that the painter might use the compare between light and shadow to express the war was over and hope were coming. Then, we looked around the works by Van Gogh, and there are some carvings by Pail

Gauguin in the same room. I remembered that they were good friend at first, but they argued and didn’t contact anymore. The painting by Van Gogh which I had a deep impression was his “Self-Portrait”. He used dark colors to finish this painting that I could feel his sad and oppression. We also saw the artworks by Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin in different gallery rooms. My favorite painting in AIC Museum is “Sky Above Clouds IV,

1965” that was drawn by Georgia O’Keefe’s. The clouds which near visitors were big, and the far clouds were small. In this painting, clouds which don’t have regular shapes looked like some rectangles. I thought that was a frozen lake surface at first if I didn’t know the name. The painting “The Old Guitarist” by Pablo Picasso also attracted me. An old, poor and weak guitar still held his guitar. I realized that he had deep love on guitar and music. Then, my partner Jeremy and I chose “The Red Armchair”, one of Pablo Picasso’ s artworks, for our team presentation. It was drawn on December 16,1931. The first thing I focused on was the different

colors and shapes on left side and right side in the painting. And the woman who sat at the chair seemed have two faces. We believed that it stood for his two different styles and he was changing his art style to Cubism at that time. We also wrote a short poem for it. It was a great experience though it was snowy when we left.

 

Woman

Strange, weird

Luckily directly Inadvertently

In front of me

Quietly sit lonely

Amazing Mysterious

Woman

The red Armchair

My Experience for Exploring the AIC Website

I saw a clear guide on the homepage while I explored the AIC website. It’s easy for me to find out what I want to visit. I think this website is so nice and convenient for people who want to visit the museum or know something about art. Not everyone has time to visit the museum, and the visitors may not have enough time to go through all part of the museum. The artwork that you are Interested in may not display while you are visiting. The website can help you know what exhibitions are showing and understand some information before visiting. You also can see the artwork that are not display on the website. It’s interesting that you can create your own collection on the website. In a word, it’s an interesting experience for exploring the AIC website.

Artists toolkit - images

By Paul Gauguin - Tahitian Landscape
The fall field is always warm .

By Francois Jourdain - The White Cat

Artists toolkit - Color

-The Tree, The Life-
I used different shapes from small to large and different green in this picture. I want to show the different step for a tree, and it is same with our lives. Different steps have different color for tree, different steps have different experience for us. The tree is growing, and we are growing.

Reflection

    Last Wednesday, I visited the Chicago Cultural Center with my classmates and teacher. I saw the exhibition Eugene Eda's Doors for Malcolm X College. Eugene“Eda”Wade who was born in Baton Rouge is a painter, print-maker, sculptor, and muralist. He designed those doors for MX College. From the introduction, I know that the door murals depict subject matter from African and African-American history and culture. I noticed that he used some lively colors in each door. Some of them are flat and two-dimensional, and others have more of a painterly quality.

     I saw another exhibition “Hey You! Yeah You!” too. Art is in life, from live. This exhibition is closer to our real life. I remembered a funny art work, but I did.t take the photo. It uses several parts to make up a sense. I thought it’s a whole view in this art work at first, and all the people who are playing are in the same place. I found my first opinion was wrong later. This art work made up from some different parts. It’s a great idea. The picture is one of the art work in this exhibition, and it shows us a small and active city.   

Color

My favorite color is blue. Blue is the color of sky and sea. When the sky is blue, we will feel happy, because we will have a nice weather today. Moreover, when we come to the seaside, the deep blue color seem has many secrets. Many people think that blue stands for sad, but I believe that It's a color of mind and calm.

The photo is taken by me in the end of a Chinese movie which called To the Fore. Rainbows, which include many kind of colors, usually stand for nice meanings. A rainbow appeared in the sky when it cleared, and success appeared after you try your best.

Artist Project/Video

https://cn.kizoa.com/Movie-Maker/d94287280k8733742o1/art-project---maya-lin

This video is about Maya Lin who is a famous designer and artist in the world. I introduce some information about her in the video, includes her education, her artistic life, and her honor. After watching this video, you can learn more about Maya Lin and realize how great job she did. The background music what I choose is Kiss The Rain, from a famous Korean Musician Yiruma. This music is expressing a natural and comfortable feeling in a summer raining night. I chose this music as a background music, because both of this song and Maya Lin’s works can let me feel natural, comfortable, and touched.

Blog#1 - an Art Work that I Like

    The art work that I chose to present is a famous painting which was drown by Claude Monet. It is called Impression Sunrise. The view that Monet showed in his painting was not like a very real view. We can feel some mess felling from his draw so that he got many opposition at first. Impression Sunrise was a painting about the sight in a port when the sun rose. It used simple streaks and colors, so it looks like very hazy and casual. I like this painting because I feel peaceful and easeful when I saw it. The color that it used very mild and suitable. I can image a view when I saw this painting, the new day is beginning, the new hopes and opportunities are coming.