Cheng Xindong
In 1992, according to the French writer Margaret. The film "Lover", adapted from Marguerite Duras's autobiographical novel, has caused a sensation in the global film world, and the oriental man charm shown by Leung Ka Fai in the film has swept Europe. At this time, Cheng Xindong, who lived in France, was praised by the people as an oriental beautiful man who was more handsome than Liang Jiahui because of his resemblance to Liang Jiahui, and he also stepped into the art world this year, and it has been 30 years in the blink of an eye.
As a curator, agent and collector of china's local contemporary art under the background of the first generation of globalization, Cheng Xindong has always maintained his sincere love for art and society over the years, and has also made unremitting efforts for the preservation and value creation of contemporary art.
Recently, the "Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition" was opened in his hometown of Huzhou Art Museum in Zhejiang Province. The exhibition presents 39 works by more than 20 domestic and international artists and nearly 1,000 contemporary art books and documents, and Cheng Xindong donated all the exhibits and documents to Huzhou Art Museum free of charge. Here's the latest story that Phoenix Art brings to you.
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition" opened at Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
On April 28, 2022, the "Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition" was opened at huzhou art museum. This exhibition is the fourth time that Cheng Xindong has concentrated on his personal collection after Hubei Art Museum, Tsinghua University Art Museum and Tianjin Art Museum, and the seventh time to donate art works to public cultural institutions.
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition" opened at Huzhou Art Museum, group photo of the guest of honor, 2022
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition", Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
As a curator, agent and collector of china's first generation of local contemporary art in the context of globalization, Cheng Xindong has introduced countless outstanding Western artists to Chinese audiences with keen insight and judgment in the past three decades, and at the same time brought important Chinese contemporary artists into the Western context.
Some people say that Cheng Xindong is like a "mobile art museum", which inclusively displays the excellent works of art from Chinese and foreign countries and provides a platform space for artists to freely dialogue.
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Literature Donation Exhibition", Cheng Xindong Guided Tour, Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
In 2018, Cheng Xindong held his first solo sculpture collection exhibition at the Hubei Art Museum and donated three important sculptures by Sui Jianguo, Wang Guangyi and Philippe Beihan to the museum, and a year later, he donated sculptures by French master Martial Raysse to the Tsinghua University Art Museum. In the past four years, Cheng Xindong has donated more than 100 works of art and nearly 10,000 art books to dozens of museums, art galleries, libraries and archives.
Accept the donation certificate
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition", Cheng Xindong accepts the donation certificate, Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
As a native of Anji, Huzhou, Zhejiang, Cheng Xindong donated 22 international contemporary art works and 700 art books to The Anji Library in 2020. The motivation of Cheng Xindong to donate art works to Huzhou Art Museum this time is not only out of his sense of responsibility for public aesthetic education and dissemination of contemporary art, but also full of his feelings for his hometown.
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition", Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
In this donation exhibition held at the Huzhou Art Museum, Cheng Xindong carefully selected works of art with cultural diversity, scholarship and ornamentation according to contemporary culture and the aesthetic tastes of residents. Works of art are visual expressions, and the literature deeply interprets the stories and artistic reflections behind each picture.
Cheng Xindong hopes that the donated works of art and documents can enrich Huzhou's research on contemporary art and open up a beautiful future in which classical and contemporary, Eastern and Western aesthetics are developed in parallel.
Partial donation of works
Huzhou Art Museum
⻩Yan, "Chinese Landscape Tattoos", photographic image, 45 x 60 cm, 1999
Shi Jian, "Cloud", stainless steel, 90 x 71 x 185 cm, 2005
Liu Liguo, Classic, Golden Ceramics, 30 x 30 x 55 cm, 2004
Feng Zhengjie, "Flowers", FRP Paint, 28 x 22 x 22 cm, 2009
Olivier O.Olivier (France), Untitled, pastel on paper, 38 x 27 cm
Ling Zhao, Untitled, Acrylic on Paper, 58 x 75 cm, 2000
Zhang Xiangming, "Flower Series", oil on canvas, diameter: 120 cm, 2020
Carambola, Model Movement No. 18, 60 x 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2006
The Roche Brothers, Welcome to world brands, lacquer painting, 46 x 38 cm, 2008
Jin Defeng, "There Are a Thousand Beans", oil on canvas, 200 x 100 cm, 2014
Gao Huijun, Untitled, Ink on Cardboard, Charcoal Pen and Gouache, 109 x 79 cm, 2004
Daisyo, Forward, Ceramics, Height: 60 cm, 2006
Luo Xu, "The Great Chorus", Tao, height: 100 cm, 2000
Cao Kai, Made in 1968, photography, 80 x 100 cm, 2005
Sui Jianguo, Made in China, Ceramics, 31 x 31 cm
Xu Zhao, Interstellar Bill Cow Cow, Mixed Materials, Height: 26cm, 2021
Andrew Pierre Aheré (France), Untitled, oil on cardboard, 20 x 20 cm, 2000
1 A thirty-year-old art hike
His footsteps never stopped
”
Cheng Xindong was born in a bamboo forest village within a 5-kilometer radius of Anji, Huzhou, and was admitted to Zhejiang University of Technology at the age of 17, majoring in analytical chemistry, although the major was not Cheng Xindong's interest, but in the free atmosphere of the university, he began to fully enjoy the pursuit of knowledge and the joy of life. However, later, because he was too active during the period and was criticized for "bourgeois liberalization", Cheng Xindong lost the opportunity to graduate and be assigned, so he could only return to his hometown.
Cheng Xindong in Beijing in 1992
After a year and a half of self-study, Cheng Xindong finally came to Xi'an to start a graduate school life, until after graduation, as the first batch of students to study abroad, in 1989, he took a train to Paris, France.
In his youth, Cheng Xindong in Paris, France
According to Cheng Xindong, from the initial college to the chemistry department, to the later to Xi'an graduate school, many things are not carried out according to their own wishes. But whoever can tell himself prophetically which way to take is right, can only go forward in the process of going with the flow, confused and unscrupulous, and grasp every possibility that appears on the way. Just as Cheng Xindong met The Director of the Galerie de France, Caterina, in 1992, the key to another world was handed to him.
In 1992, Cheng Xindong worked at the Clown Theatre in northern France to help British director Peter Brooke at the Autumn Festival in Paris. After a performance in Shakespeare's play The Tempest, he and the director's friends were drinking in the theater café, and sitting next to him was Catherine Thieck, the artistic director of the Galerie de France. After a casual conversation, Cheng Xindong met Türk, who had come to see Shakespeare's plays, and was invited to participate in an exhibition of Italian descendants born in Shanghai over the weekend. Since then, Cheng Xindong, who does not know what the gallery is, has entered the top french gallery and started a life of dealing with art.
Cheng Xindong and Galerie de France Director Caterina in Shanghai, 1995
It was also the same year that Cheng Xindong, as a member of the team of the French Gallery and commissioned by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinated and promoted the important exhibition of Pierre Soulages, a famous French painter, at the National Art Museum of China. At that time, the National Art Museum of China, after experiencing the opening after the Cultural Revolution, although it was a national art museum, it lacked content, was relatively closed, and did not have the docking conditions for international exhibitions. At that time, the venue conditions of the National Art Museum of China were very poor, there were no spotlights, no air conditioning, the walls had become dull due to the lack of painting for many years, and the exhibition wall of the art museum even had a green wall with Chinese characteristics. Compared with the international art museum space and reference standards, Cheng Xindong has a deep sense of responsibility to play a good role as a promoter and disseminator of art.
Pierre Surage, Composition rouille et noire XXV, 1974
So, throughout the 1990s, Cheng Xindong was almost constantly traveling back and forth between France and China, "I look at the world in Paris, and at the same time look at China in turn." He did not stop at introducing international artists to China, but did his best to push Chinese artists to the larger international stage at the same time.
In the spring of 1993, Cheng Xindong curated one of the organizers of the Star Art Exhibition in France, the artist Ma Desheng's printmaking exhibition; in 1994, China quickly entered the market economy and comprehensively moved towards reform and opening up, he brought the French painting master Pierre Soulage's "Fifty Years Painting Exhibition" to China for the first time; in 1996, he planned the first exhibition "Four-Point Intersection" that fully introduced Chinese contemporary art in Paris, France- zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Zhang Peili, Gu Dexin's four artists, starting from different media of painting, video and installation, present the true state of Chinese contemporary art.
National Art Museum of China "Retrospective Exhibition of Suraje Paintings", 1994
With Li Xianting, Gu Dexin, Wang Guangyi, Liu Wei and other friends at the opening scene of the Bonafa exhibition in the Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, 1997
In 1997, Cheng chose to return to China. From promoting the exhibition as an independent curator, to establishing a studio in the courtyard in Beijing, inviting artists to reside and complete the studio open exhibition, this is the predecessor of Cheng Xindong International Contemporary Art Space. In 2000, the millennium and the era of globalization, he founded cheng xindong international contemporary art space in Beijing, becoming one of the first art spaces to enter the 798 art district, and served as the first president of the Beijing Gallery Association to promote art works in the form of galleries.
Cheng Xindong in Zhang Xiaogang Studio, Chengdu, Sichuan, 1999
Signing ceremony for Caesar's masterpiece "Thumb", 2002
During SARS, Cheng Xindong, Together with Feng Zhengjie, Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Hao, was in Zhang Xiaogang's Beijing Studio, 2003
Cheng Xindong with former French President Jacques René Chirac, 2005
Cheng Xindong was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Lettres des Arts et des Lettres des Arts et de France, 2012
Since 2017, Cheng Xindong, who has made small achievements in the art industry, has gradually begun to use "art" to give back to the society. On December 9, 2017, the donation ceremony of French contemporary artist Marshall Reis's sculpture "One, Two, Three, Catch the Golden Rooster" was held at the Art Museum of Tsinghua University. Cheng Xindong, along with artist Marshall Reiss, donated his old collection to the Tsinghua University Art Museum, which caused widespread discussion at the time.
Cheng Xindong and Marshall Reis "One, Two, Three, Catch the Golden Rooster" (Ric de Hop la Houppe) at the donation ceremony of Tsinghua University
"What on The East and the West" Cheng Xindong Contemporary Sculpture Art Collection Exhibition In the Hubei Provincial Art Museum Director and Curator of this exhibition Ji Shaofeng and Cheng Xindong were present, and Cheng Xindong also donated three works to the Hubei Provincial Art Museum in this exhibition, 2018
In 2018, he donated Wang Guangyi's sculptures, Sui Jianguo's Zhongshan suits, and the works of French artist Bei Han to the Hubei Art Museum, and he felt that the domestic public art museums were still missing in the contemporary art collection section. In the same year, he donated 104 volumes of Cheng Xindong International Contemporary Art Space to the Songzhuang Contemporary Art Archives for the years to publish art albums and posters. In the following three years, he has donated several precious works of art to Hubei Art Museum and Tianjin Art Museum, hoping to promote public collections to further through his own strength.
Wang Guangyi, Materialism, 2000
Sui Jianguo, Zhongshan Suit, 1996
Philip Behan 'S sharpens'
In 2020, Cheng Xindong, as a sage of Anji Township, donated 22 works of art such as paintings and sculptures from his personal collection and 1,200 art books to his hometown, worth about 15 million yuan. In April this year, full of hometown feelings, he carefully selected works of art with cultural diversity, academicism and ornamentation according to contemporary culture and the aesthetic tastes of residents, and donated them to Huzhou Art Museum free of charge.
Cheng Xindong and guests at the Anji Library, from left: Laurent Bili, Ambassador of France to China, Yuan Xiuhua, Director of the Anji Library, Cheng Xindong, Art Curator, and Dario Mihairin, Croatian Ambassador to China
The opening ceremony of the exhibition "Thirty Years of Looking East and West: Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Collection", Art Museum of Tsinghua University, 2021
"Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Document Donation Exhibition", Huzhou Art Museum, 2022
2 In the name of donation
Let the art sparkle
”
For Cheng Xindong, donation has long become a real thing to do.
"In the entire art system in China, the development momentum of art museums is getting better and better. Whether it is the development of private art museums or the improvement of the content of art museums. However, when the structure of public art museums was still in the process of creation, art museums were not only a problem of hardware space, but also needed to build public collections from the system, and promote public education from collections. As a public institution, the museum needs to give back to the society with high-quality exhibitions and series of Catholic lectures that are regular on a daily basis. In the mature art museum system in the West, many of them are enriched by donations from individuals and artists to enrich the museum collection. I feel like I have this responsibility, and I have this condition, to do what I can. ”
Cheng Xindong guided the works for the audience at the exhibition site
Cheng Xindong set up an exhibition at the "Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Social Art" at the State Art Museum of Russia
Exhibition site of "Thirty Years of Looking East and West: Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Collection Exhibition"
He hopes that in public spaces, people will have more opportunities and more possibilities to access art that is good enough. As the first generation of chinese art dealers, since the 1990s, Cheng Xindong has introduced many Western artists from the United States, Germany, Russia and France to China. Now that everyone is doing this, he has begun to look for new resources, to Cuba, Central and Eastern Europe, Lithuania, Macedonia, Slovenia, Mexico, to find artists and works of art that are more in line with this era.
Kim Ki-ro (Korea) Coke Killer, 2007, LED installation, 60×250cm
Joseph Boyce (Germany), "Living for Love," 1975, measuring cup, rose, variable size
Maru Mendy (Cuba), The Most Beautiful Thing, 1995, Acrylic on Canvas, Metal, 180×200cm
Marshall Reis (France), Dear Freedom, 1989, bronze, 26×20×10cm
Sinesha Kasalevsky (North Macedonia), The End of Time, 2017, oil on canvas, 114×162cm
Julian Oppe (UK), Ruth and the Cigarette, 2006, video, LED screen, 110×66×12cm
Art is an indispensable element of his life, and it is also something that changes his life and makes his life more fulfilling and beautiful, and he enjoys sharing and disseminating art. And the donation of art is something he has been doing and will always do. As a curator, agent and collector of China's local contemporary art under the background of the first generation of globalization, his life is rich and glamorous, but behind this, he still maintains his sincere love for art and society, and has always made unremitting efforts for the preservation and value creation of contemporary art.
Cheng Xindong at the "Cheng Xindong Collection of Art Works and Books Donation Ceremony", 2020
The collections and publications donated by Cheng Xindong are a microcosm of his personal interests and growth path, and they are also a cutting edge of the development of Chinese contemporary art in the context of globalization. He makes high-quality art enter the lives of more people by sharing works of academic and aesthetic value with the public, providing a pluralistic window for the public to see the world and life.
"Human life is limited, and I hope to use some collections to give back to the society and refine its social and public nature." Therefore, Cheng Xindong is full of sincerity and enthusiasm, step by step on the road of promoting the integration and symbiosis of art and society, so that contemporary art can shine in the feedback to society.
Art curator, agent and collector Cheng Xindong
About the exhibition
Exhibition: Cheng Xindong Contemporary Art Works and Art Book Literature Donation Exhibition
Exhibition time: April 28, 2022 - May 29, 2022
Exhibition venue: Exhibition hall on the first floor of Huzhou Art Museum
Pavilion Address: No. 2588 Longwangshan Road, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China
Organizer: Huzhou Museum (Huzhou Art Museum)
Some of the graphics come from the network
(Phoenix Art Huzhou Report Author/ Editor/Li Jingjing Responsible Editor/Li Jingjing Sophie)
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