"Year after Year Archives 2021 - The First Shanghai Contemporary Emerging Printmaking Promotion Exhibition" is being held at Liu Haisu Art Museum, and this exhibition will also be the beginning of the ten-year plan of Liu Haisu Art Museum's printmaking series exhibition. During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, on February 5th, the art museum will also be transformed into a printmaking experience station to prepare a woodblock print "Greeting the God of Wealth" experience workshop, and the participating artists will also provide on-site guidance, inviting art lovers to ink and print, and after completion, they can take home the printmaking works.
Illustration: Visitors experience printmaking Courtesy of the organizer (the same below)
Focus on society and the present
Last year marked the 90th anniversary of China's emerging woodcut movement. "Emerging woodcuts are the consistent demands of the author and the public, and often the soul of modern society." Mr. Lu Xun emphasized the thematic characteristics of woodcut prints that pay attention to society, people's livelihood and reality, and organized the form of woodcut groups to cultivate talents and creation. To this end, Liu Haisu Art Museum brings together some of Shanghai's printmaking artists to explore the connection between the characteristics of printmaking and contemporary visual culture.
This exhibition project, which is ready to run continuously for ten years or more, is a rare "marathon planning" in shanghai's art museums. This work begins in 2021. Take 2031 as a milestone to commemorate the 100th anniversary of China's emerging woodcut movement.
The exhibition introduces Shanghai as the birthplace of the emerging woodcut movement, systematically reviews the growth history of "emerging printmaking", and also exhibits 61 prints by Shanghai printmaking artists such as Wang Xilin, Fang Xiaolong, Ning Shuai and Sun Ling. The works of these young and middle-aged printmakers are close to the times, deep into life, concerned with reality, with distinct themes, inheriting the concept of "emerging woodcuts".
Pictured: Wang Xilin, "The Women of St. Carlço"
The exhibition sets up a special section to record and create important social events of the year, as well as related prints, to encourage and guide artists to pay attention to society, the present, and life. On the basis of the successful experience of the first exhibition, the future sessions will expand and extend the focus of attention, and pay attention to the works of shanghai's older generation of artists and outstanding artists at home and abroad in parallel exhibitions and synchronous exhibitions, for Shanghai's contemporary young and middle-aged printmakers as a reference.
The plan will last for ten years
Zhao Yongquan, curator from Shanghai Hongqiao Peninsula Printmaking Art Center, said that on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the emerging woodcut movement, Liu Haisu Art Museum used printmaking as the focus of exploration to help and urge artists to leave more excellent works for society and history with higher artistic pursuits.
The project plans to select about 10 young and middle-aged artists every year, systematically display the more representative works of the artists in a certain period, as well as the notes, sketches and photos and images of the recording of the creation site in the creative process, and at the same time exhibit the original, tools, material equipment and simulated on-site environment, so that the audience can understand their creative concepts, processes and methods. Liu Haisu Art Museum will collect the excellent works in the exhibition, record and archive relevant materials, hoping to promote the artists' enthusiasm for creation and strengthen their sense of social responsibility and historical responsibility.
Photo: Xu Zengying, "Shanghai - The First Departure of the Subway"
"Ten years of sharpening a sword, in the hope that more excellent works will continue to appear, to comfort the predecessors of printmaking who were active in this land." Bao Weihua, director of Liu Haisu Art Museum, said, "The project will inherit the spirit and tradition of the emerging woodcut movement in the context of the new era, and closely integrate with the red culture, Shanghai school culture and Jiangnan culture, condense the creative power of printmaking, promote the innovation of contemporary printmaking art in the creative ideas, expression methods and materials, and continue to launch masterpieces of the times that are both artistic and ideological with a broad contemporary perspective and profound spiritual feelings." ”
In order to cooperate with the exhibition, Liu Haisu Art Museum also held an experience workshop at the same time to interact with the audience. Printmakers guided the audience on a printmaking experience, and participating artists and many art lovers participated in the event. Under the background of ink and wood incense, the painters guided the audience to print out a series of Paintings of the Year of the Tiger Zodiac, feeling the wisdom and charm of ancient intangible cultural heritage techniques, and bringing home the joy of the New Year. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Le Mengrong)