The Paper's reporter Lu Sijia
The capture and interest in faces is innate human nature. Behind each face are vivid, rich and creative people, and "people are the best carrier of civilization exchanges and mutual learning." To stimulate people's innovation and vitality, "the most direct way is to go into different civilizations, discover the strengths of others, and inspire your own thinking." ”
The Paper learned that "Meet: World Expo International Exhibitors Donate Collection Exhibition" was recently exhibited at the Shanghai World Expo Museum, and sculptures, paintings, masks, shadow puppets, paper cuts, and art installations from 29 countries and regions told the "Story of Faces". The faces on display include Pangu, Monkey King, Thinker, Flying Sky and more.
At the exhibition site, the pictures in this article are provided by the organizers.
Taking "faces" as the starting point, the exhibition selects nearly 50 sets of exhibits containing face elements from the collection donated by international exhibitors of previous World Expos, and divides these faces into 20 groups according to the similarity of appearance or the relevance of content, guiding the audience to compare the "same" and "different" of each group of faces, and experience the diversity and commonality of world cultures. The exhibition is divided into four units: "Coming From", "Survival", "Others" and "Relationship", which correspondingly shows the answers of people in different parts of the world to the four questions of "where do I come from", "how do I survive", "who are you" and "your relationship with me".
Curator Hong Lina told The Paper, Art Review, that although the exhibits are small, behind them is a whole web of human development, as if "continuously looking", they "hold hands and meet each other" across regional time and space.
China and the Czech Republic of America "Monkey King"
Chinese audiences are familiar with Monkey King. In the exhibition, two faces of the Monkey King are displayed, one from the East and one from the West.
The image of Sun Wukong has existed since ancient times, and according to research, it first appeared in the Western Xia murals of the Yulin Grottoes in Dunhuang. Wu Cheng'en of the Ming Dynasty depicted Sun Wukong in detail in his novel Journey to the West, and this image also appeared in a large number of art categories such as novel illustrations, opera faces, puppets, shadow puppets, and paper-cutting.
The Monkey King of China
In 1961, a Czech translation of Journey to the West was published, and the artist Sköner drew pictures for the book. Journey to the West was very popular in the Czech Republic, and was reprinted several times and adapted into a screenplay.
Skåna is a Czech artist. In 1955, Beijing held an exhibition of Czechoslovak achievements in ten years of socialist construction. Skåna set foot on Chinese soil for the first time as a member of the Czech Working Group, a trip to China that had an important impact on his artistic creation throughout his life. Upon his return, Skäner wrote a series of illustrations for the Czech edition of Monkey King, including 80 black-and-white illustrations and 24 color illustrations, depicting 12 stories from Journey to the West. Despite the many Chinese elements incorporated in the work, Skåna reinterpreted this ancient oriental story in a very contemporary way.
Czech Monkey King
Interestingly, when Schoener visited China, he carried a notebook with him, recording anything he was interested in along the way. Moreover, the notebook is more like a "handbook" or sketchbook, and Skona often records it in a drawing-like way rather than text. These painting records can also be read carefully at the exhibition. For example, Schoener often uses Chinese words in his notebooks, such as "men's toilet", "bus", "where to go", etc. He saw Chinese characters as pictograms that strengthened the imagination and made people dream, containing ancient wisdom, exotic spells and codes.
Czech Monkey King illustration "Wukong Three Tones Banana Fan"
Czech Monkey King Illustration "Eight Precepts of Righteousness To Stimulate the Monkey King"
Czech Monkey King Illustration "Goku Doufa Erlang God"
Pangu, the Sui Emperor and the "Taoist Shadow Puppet"
The "Pangu and Tarn" group shows the faces of two Creator gods, one from New Zealand and one from China.
Pangu
Tarn is the creator god of New Zealand mythology, stretching his limbs vigorously in the darkness, separating the heavens and the earth that were originally tightly hugged together. Thousands of miles away, the creator god Chinese most familiar with is Pangu, and the story also depicts the chaotic state of the world before it was born, and the creator god began to have all things after opening up the world.
Tarn
Two completely different peoples, the fantasies of the beginning of the birth of the world are strikingly similar. They had not agreed, but they all seemed to see a god man in the eternal void, using the same posture to crack a hole and bring light to the world. Where am I from? Ancient ancestors seem to have given the same answer.
The "Zhangye and London" group shows the faces of two kings separated by more than a thousand years, one is the Sui Emperor and the other is Prince Albert.
More than 1400 years ago, the Sui Emperor summoned the envoys of the 27 countries in the Western Regions to hold a grand meeting of Yanzhi in Zhangye, and the carriages and horses were crowded for a while, "tens of miles around". 170 years ago, The British Prince Albert held the International Industrial Products Exposition in London, with 25 countries participating in the exhibition and millions of passengers. Interestingly, both men decided to use the temporary building as the main venue: the Sui Emperor used the demolishable living palace "Guanfeng Xing hall", and Prince Albert chose the easily demolished Crystal Palace from more than two hundred design proposals.
Zhangye. In 609, the Sui Emperor sent troops to attack Tuguhun and won a complete victory, clearing the last obstacle to the resumption of trade, and convened envoys from 27 countries in the Western Regions to hold an unprecedented Yanzhi grand meeting in Zhangye.
London. In 1851, under the strong impetus of Prince Albert, the International Industrial Exposition in London, England, was opened, marking the birth of the World Exposition in the modern sense.
Zhangye and London, two cities thousands of miles apart and spanning thousands of years, are related by the same move. "Zhang Guo's arm is tied to the western region", after the Zhangye meeting, the Silk Road, which had been interrupted for three centuries due to war, was reopened again. After the London Conference, the World Expo in the modern sense began. Both openings, one goal, both aim to establish a connection and symbiotic relationship.
The same is a shadow puppet play, and the audience can enjoy "Karagoz and Daoqing Shadow Puppet".
Turkish shadow puppet Karagoz
Karagoz, synonymous with Turkish shadow puppetry and the name of the core character of Turkish shadow puppetry, meaning "black eyes", first appeared in the early 14th century of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish shadow puppetry in the process, less carving, rough knife technique; more painting, meticulous depiction, especially the eyes are the most vivid. In addition to Karagoz, Turkish shadow puppetry also has a core character called Hashivat, and all the stories revolve around these two characters. Each scene also features a variety of supporting characters, representing the general public living in the capital Istanbul.
Turkish shadow puppet hashivat
In China, the Daoqing shadow puppet in Huanxian County, Gansu Province, has a history of 200 years and is known as the "living fossil" of oriental drama. Compared with the shadow puppetry in other parts of China, both the props and the performances are relatively simple, and it has preserved the appearance of traditional Chinese shadow puppetry in a relatively complete way.
Taoist shadow puppetry is derived from a combination of Daoqing and shadow puppetry. Daoqing is a kind of folk song based on the form of rapping, as early as the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan, the disciples of the Wudang and Shaolin sects took fishing drums, simple boards, wooden fish, etc. to the streets to lobby, encouraging the people to resist foreign aggression, resulting in early Daoist sentiments.
Shadow puppets
In terms of craftsmanship, unlike Turkish light carving and heavy painting, the Taoist shadow carving is exquisite and delicate, the painting is simple and gorgeous, and it draws on the craft technique of paper-cutting, adopts a straight line-based expression form, and exudes a strong Longdong atmosphere as a whole.
In terms of styling, the figure of the shadow person is basically a side performance. The upper body is half-sided, the waist is frontal, and the legs are one in front and one back, although the perspective angle of each part is different, it is coordinated and comfortable as a whole.
In this exhibition, there are 20 groups similar to the above", "Comparative Reading". In addition to the above, there are also groups such as "Sun God and Sun Tower", "Hu Bottle and Hu Ren", "Heavenly Daughter and Flying Sky", "From Thinker to Thinker". The exhibition organizers believe that the so-called "people are the best carrier of civilization exchanges and mutual learning" To stimulate people's innovation and vitality, "the most direct way is to go into different civilizations, discover the strengths of others, and inspire their own thinking."
Celestial Goddess
Flying
Sun God
Sun Tower
As the official museum of the World Expo, it is the mission of the museum to collect and collect the heritage of the World Expo. The special exhibitions planned by the World Expo Pavilion not only introduce the exhibits that have appeared at previous World Expos and World Expo, but also convey the concept and spirit of the World Expo through the exhibits.
posters
Meet: Exhibits donated by international expo exhibitors
Exhibition period: November 16, 2021 - February 15, 2022
Venue: Shanghai World Expo Museum No. 1 Pro Exhibition Hall (No. 818 Mengzi Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai)
Editor-in-Charge: Weihua Gu
Proofreader: Luan Meng