This is revolutionary, a start of a new era, this is fresh, exciting and sooooooo cool– Those are the thoughts and feels i had when first saw the video on David Hockney’s recent exhibition “Fresh Flower” in Paris. Click here to check it out and to see what you would think…
Look what the high tech would do/is doing to the art word, to artists, to everyone, to our daily life- isn’t this amazing?!
Posted in artist, exhibition
Tagged "fresh flowers", Brushes, David Hockney, iPad, iPhone, Paris
Early October we were in NY for a kind of “Broadway Show” weekend. During 3 shows, we made sure to stop by on Sunday morning at the Met for the exhibition “The world of Khubilai Kham“. The exhibition was phenomenal which is absolutely worthwhile for a visiting.
Learn more about this exhibition on Youtube at here and here.
My first love to mural started with the one in Oldenburg, a small town in Germany. 
The painting is on a lonely house, behind the local train station, on the way to the student WG I used to live. Even years later the feeling i had on it remains vivid.
It was a nice surprise to find out that our backyard — Philadelphia has over 3000 murals in its urban area, which gain a reputation for the city as the mural capital of the world. A mural tour in downtown on a hot summer morning might not be for everyone. But as same as any nature scene, a city could be sharming even when the sunshine is burning and the breeze is steamed. A self-guided mural tour leads you not only to treasure-hunt the city’s murals but also to discover the city’s insight: a deserted corner around the skyscrapers; a popular sandwich bar on a eclectic commercial street; white marble steps in front of tree shadowed brick houses…
Some photos from our mural art tour in Philadelphia:
A-day-trip on a sunny day of May to Monet’s Garden in Giverny, 50 miles north from Paris, was unexpected yet turned out to be unforgettable lovely.
The Garden is known as Monet’s living painting and the desire to visit it came after we saw Monet’s “Nympheas” at the Musee de l’Orangerie. This art gallery contains impressionist paintings by Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne, etc. On the upper floor at the Museum, a pair of oval-shaped rooms were designed/build particularly for Monet’s waterlilies.
Visitors enter the room with a gasp: breathtaking gigantic masterpieces, 8 of them, bathed in natural lights filtered from the roof, the way that the Master self originally intended to. The size of the paintings are so striking, maybe the biggest drawings in modern art history. Normally it would take an artist years to finish one in such scale, but Monet did 8 of them– at his 80’s while suffered from eyesight disease. I was simply hit by these Nympheas. One feels the Master’s passion and soul in these paintings. One would be drawn close to these waterlilies, into them and would wonder how the transformations were created from the reality onto the canvas by one of the greatest Master in the history ever.
Tips: 1) Allow time of one day for the trip to Monet’s Garden. After the train’s arrival, take a taxi or the shuttle bus (right side outside the train station). But be quick since the bus would be packed and count for seriously 30 minutes for checking on the bus. click here for more travel details.
2) Be patience for the long line at the entrance of the Garden. You might take your lunch break ahead at a nearby restaurant decorated in charming french country-style, afterward you can take time and enjoy the garden fully.
Posted in museums in Paris
Tagged impressionist, Monet's Garden in Giverny, Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris, Waterlilies
Get a little bit tired after all the classic paintings/artworks? Visit the French National Museum of Modern Art inside the Centre Pompidou for a refreshing.
The building “Centre Pompidou” is absolutely a chin drop 
at the first sight: rough industry look with bond colorful tubs in red, yellow, blue surrounding its surface which made it not only standing against all other architectures in Paris but also a impossible-missing-spot even from as far as the top of white-domed Basilica of the Sacre Coeur. Besides the museum, Centre Pompidou houses a public library and a music research center as well.
With nearly 60,000 works of art, the French National Museum of Modern Art has the largest collection of modern/contemporary art in Europe and the 2nd largest in the world, after the MOMA in New York. This time we visited the special exhibition there called “Elles@centrepompidou” which was mentioned in my previous blog entry. Below are some pictures took on site:
Posted in museums in Paris
Tagged Centre Pompidou, contemporary art, Frech National Museum of Modern Art, museum, Paris
The Louvre is one of the “must-to-be visited” spots for most visitors in Paris. Housing 35,000 works of art, the Louvre can be easily overwhelming. A list of works along with their locations inside the museum might help you to keep t
he tour more specific and focused. Aimed with the “self-guided tour” that instructed by the museum’s website, one can cover most of the masterpieces at Louvre, including the most popular lady in the Museum– Mona Lisa whose fame actually came more from her story being stolen than the painting’s qualities self.
As always, the time in Louvre goes by too quickly. One of the paintings I studied this time is “the Raft of Medusa” by Theodore Gericault. It was very impressive of the tragical emotion brought cross the canvas to its viewers by the movement of the figures in this painting, also one has appreciation of the painter’s choice on the true event that this painting based upon.
On the same wall right next to “the Raft of Medusa” is Delacroix’ masterpiece “July 28, Liberty leading the People“. An art trip to Paris could be a good opportunity to learn about a specific artist whom you might not be familiar with before. This time we picked Delacroix. In the following days we visited Delacroix’ museum which used to be his residence while he working on the commissions for church Saint-Sulpice. Sure enough, we eventually walked into the nearby Saint-Sulpice and found Delacroix’ 3 works inside the church on the right side near the entrance.
Tips: 1) to avoid the long line at the Pyramid, get there early before 9 am or try in the evening on Wednesdays/Fridays when it opens till 21:30.
Posted in museums in Paris
Tagged Delacroix, Liberty leading the People, Louvre, museum, Paris, Saint-Sulpice, the Raft of Medusa
If you like impressionist, then you might enjoy a visit at Museum d’Orsay on 1, rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 75007 Paris. Located on the left bank of Seine, Museum d’Orsay is supposed to hold the largest collection of masterpieces of impressionist in the world: Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh… you name it.
The Museum’s building self is quite impressive with a very unique layout inside since originally it was build in 1898 as a train station. Unfortunately, photograph/video inside the entire building is verboten. Currently a special exhibition called “Crime and Punishment” is on displaying.
A art trip in Paris would be very special if you explore this beautiful and charming city by following the Masters to discover sites that once appear in their paintings over a century ago. I had my moment while standing at the 
very quiet site of moulin de la Galetter to imagine the scene created by Auguste Renoir in his “Bal au moulin de la Galetter, Montmartre“: all of sudden everything in that painting became alive, so vivid, as if one felt the warmth of sun and breeze from late spring; lovely music floating in the air; intimate conversations fading in the shadows…
Tips: 1. Avoid to visit the Museum on a rainy Tuesday. d’Orsay, as the very few (if not the only) museum that opens on Tuesdays, the waiting line could be very long and inside could be packed when everyone trying to do the same thing.
2. With a Paris museum Pass, go directly to the Entry C at Museum d’Orsay. A Paris museum Pass is helpful to save big amount of time/frustration at most local museums.
3. For a walking tours of the artists’ studios, homes, and the sites they painted, see “The Impressionists’ Paris” by Ellen Williams.
Podcast on ” Dance at le Moulin de la Galette” in Chinese
(pictures above are from Wikipedia)
Posted in museums in Paris
Tagged Auguste Renoir, Bal au moulin de la Galetter, impressionist, museum, Museum d'Orsay, Paris
During my research, paintings from a Chinese female artist Cai Jin (蔡锦， 1965－) attracted my attention. I am not a pro in artwork evaluation at all; her works draw me in with the fascinating colors and the marvelous way she applied it. Cai Jin’s series of Dried Canna Lily reminds me of a great female artist Georgia O’keefe. On the similar topic of flower but with completed different approaches/technics that each creates its own unique feeling on their viewers. It seems to me that today’s painters, unlike other artists dealing with art forms other than drawings, have the most difficult time since almost all the high points in every directions in drawings have been reached by all the great masters in the recent history. When everything has been done, one needs some serious talent to break through.
Another Chinese female artist Pan YuLiang (潘玉良，1895-1977) is considered as a female pioneer painter of west style in the recent art history in China. Her real life story was so legend, so tale like that it has been turned into films lately. Click here to read Pan’s story with some of her paintings.
PS: photos from Cai Jin’s website, click here to see more her paintings and artworks.
Lately I have been doing a research on Chinese female artists/painters in the present history. The idea came from my last-minute-studying on one of the exhibitions that we will visit in Paris (next week!) which is called elles@centrepompidou, a thematic exhibition held by the French National Modern Art Museum. By half way through the “Elles”, a book on exhibition with almost 400 pages and tons of pictures for over 200 female artists worldwide, I didn’t find any Chinese female artistes’ names/works. I suddenly realize: even as a native Chinese, I could give you lists of influential Chinese female authors/performers/film directors, but not a single name of a female artists/painters from the present day. Some homework has to be done.
During the research, a female artist XiaoLu (肖鲁, 1962–) really stands out. Indeed, the contemporary art in China is a man’s world. Yet XiaoLu, has set the contemporary art history’s landmark in China with 2 gun shorts she fired as a part of her experimental artwork in 1989 (shown in the picture above). I was a kid back then but I don’t think many of the other Chinese would have known or were aware of this incident which actually swirled the politic and society within and beyond China (omen of the TianAnMen Square massacre shortly afterward). For me, the most fascinating part comes from after 15 years in 2003 when XiaoLu ravealed for the first time of her version of the story: 26 years old, just broke up with boyfriend, frustrated, disappointed and also confused by relationship between male/female, she designed that collaborative piece “conversation” as expression of intimate feelings and with gun shots to also voice out a feeling of “break down”–a pure artistic experiment of a young woman’s inside world without any political intention that claimed by the others later on.
Interestingly XiaoLu made another piece called “15 gun shots– from 1989 to 2003” when she separated from her 15-years long living partner Tong Song, who helped to set up the “conversation” and became her lover afterwards. XiaoLu commented on her work “15 years long, no marriage, no kids, all the way he wants. To me, love is the life’s ideal and I am living for it… I have forgotten myself.” “15 years ago I shot the “me” in the mirror; 15 years after I shot the “me” by facing myself… we are done.”
In XiaoLu’s case, an artwork is tied with her personal life/fate when it implemented with particular time and place. Today XiaoLu is still working on sculptures in her studio in Beijing. (see photos below)
2. A full story on what on earth happend in the 1989 incident that made XiaoLu a star (in Chinese)
Click on for a short summary of XiaoLu’s achievement after 1989
the last 2 photos from Mr. Lin Fei’s blog
The Philadelphia Rodin Museum has the largest collection of Rodin’s works outside the one in Paris.
Podcast of Rodin Museum (Philadelphia) stop 807– The Gates of Hell-Rodin:
Posted in podcast
A Chinese Docent 
