What about art ? Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art

All that I can say in advance  - I feel sorry that I have not visited this exhibition earlier. That would have given me a chance to return  and see everything in details . It was huge - the size of the exhibition , the diversity , the visual delights , the spiritual message .

 China and art  ? I think of ancient clay sculptures ,fine decorated porcelain , ink paintings . China and modern art ? I knew nothing about that - I must admit . Right as I entered I saw a lots of clay sculptures so many that I forgot  for a moment that it was contemporary  art and believed they were ancient . In fact they were the creature of a Chinese villager who discovered the artist in himself only some years ago . His sculptures featured  their everyday life in realistic style . People  and animals in the village . Street scenes ,interiors , and  abstract shapes .

 His art was interesting  and exciting . Never let yourself to be labelled ! One can be a villager  , a retired farmer and can be  an artist at the same time!

  The second room was an installation by Xu Bing . An ancient image painted on  a scroll was remade in huge size and the painting of the modern artist was enlightened on a transparent wall . At list this was the thing that I thought at first . Then I  looked at the other side of the wall and I saw that it was a collage made from junk ! It was so wonderfully made  that I could not believe . And the message is great as well -  the junk rearranged by a creative spirit can be the most wonderful thing .

 The wrinkly and inky effects unique to traditional Chinese painting were made of different materials from the junk . Things like feather ,mud ,plastic bags were turned into a landscape collage . The title was Background story . The artist is Xu Bing .

 Then came video games room the  Flower  - it was about some petals starting their journey from an urban home's balcony to the wild . The video game was directed by J . Chen and originally intended to arouse positive feelings in the gamers .It was a real zen experience .

Then came a room with a short film about street bullying - that was quite depressing -also the photos of a remote village and their traditional celebration in black and white .I always must think about  traditional dog and cat eating in China . It was not mentioned that they are eating this food but I had made those association when seeing dogs around the villagers .

 The opera room featured strange looking black and white lamps with painted  walls and shadows .
It was OK a bit depressing  but something that was specific -I mean related to the Chinese culture .

The water tank was  of a size of a large  room and full of dirty looking water .  There was hose in the middle hanging from the ceiling in the shape of a loop .  The water hose once in an hour started its crazy dance -it looked like a very long and savage snake splashing the dirty water on the windows . This installation was the work of Sun Yuan & Peng Yu .

  When I entered the  sakura  room  ( I named it like that )it was nice to look at the beauty of nature the soothing pink blooms of the trees on large paintings .

Another pinkish abstracts made it feel like heaven  .Or under heaven ? It was a three d painting - the colors were applied to the canvas by a pastry bag . They were amazing from far and tasty looking from close . The artist must have been inspired by a fellow cake artist !

And there were six or more rooms to see but I got tired physically and mentally as well ...

 That was nearly the last day of the exhibition .  When I thought of it after I would notice that I learnt very little of the Chinese culture .

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 The well maintained exhibition hall  ,Riwaq gave home to this fantastic event .
I am so happy I could see it . The facility includes well maintained toilets , boutique to buy artistic items from cheap to very expensive , and a  super expensive cafe . There were a lots of local ,Indian , expat Arab families visiting the event and it made me feel nice to see so many people interested in contemporary art  .