Exhibition view
The green mountains are endless, and the green water is long. On April 13, 2024, sponsored by the China Academy of Art, the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Osaka, and the China Academy of Building Research, organized by the Scientific Research and Creation Office of the China Academy of Art and the Architectural Design Institute of the China Academy of Building Research, and implemented by the Institute of Contemporary Art and Social Thought of the China Academy of Art, the Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition opened at the Osaka Cultural Center in Tempozan Tempozan .
Exhibition view
On the occasion of the first anniversary before the opening of Expo 2025 Osaka, the exhibition "Endless Green Mountains: Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition is in line with the theme of the China Pavilion of the Osaka World Expo, "Building a Community of Life between Man and Nature - A Future Society with Green Development", adhering to the "Exchange and Mutual Learning of Civilizations", and comes to Osaka, an important port city that once had the significance of the starting point of the China-Japan Maritime Poetry Road.
Exhibition view
The "Road of Tang Poetry" is not only a road of mountains and rivers in geography, but also a road of roaming and inhabiting of the poetic soul, a road of cultural and historical inheritance that runs through ancient and modern times, a road of endless ecological civilization, and a road of growth for countless generations from ancient times to the present. From this poetry road, there is another "Tang Poetry Road on the Sino-Japanese Sea". It is the road of seeking the Dharma of poets and monks in the past dynasties, the road of poetry diplomacy of the envoys of the two countries, the road of daily singing of Japanese literati and students studying in the Tang Dynasty, and the road of Han poetry to the east since the Tang Dynasty, the road of extension of Tang poetry in eastern Zhejiang and the road of poetry gifts for people drifting on the sea. This road has witnessed the long history of cultural exchanges between China and Japan, and has also left the footprints of countless poets and cultural envoys who are concerned about mountains and rivers, crossed mountains and seas, and attached great affection to mountains and rivers, and also reflects the deep friendship across borders and times.
The opening ceremony of the 2024 "Green Mountains Are Inexhaustible: Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition
Xue Jian, Consul General of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Osaka, Gao Shiming, President of China Academy of Art, Shi Ming, Chief Representative of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Japan, Chief Representative of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Japan, Yumiko Fujita, Director of the Intercity Exchange Division of the Osaka Economic Strategy Bureau, Hirotoshi Sakaguchi, Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of the Arts, Wang Dongling, representative of Chinese artists, Shuji Mukai, representative of Japanese artists, Takuya Naka, President of the Japan-China Friendship Association of Wakayama Prefecture, Guan Zhihao, President of the West Japan Chinese Enterprise Confederation, and Zhao Zhili, President of the Osaka Overseas Chinese Association, jointly cut the ribbon for the opening of the "Endless Journey of Green Mountains: Mountains and Seas" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition. Gao Shiming, Xue Jian, Chief Architect of the Architectural Design Institute of the Chinese Academy of Building Sciences, and Chief Consultant of the China Pavilion of the 2025 Osaka World Expo delivered speeches successively, and the 2025 Osaka World Expo Association of Japan Shi Mao Bo President congratulated the congratulatory message, and Sakaguchi Kuanmin, Wang Dongling, and Shi Ming delivered speeches respectively. The opening ceremony was presided over by Gu Cong, co-curator of the exhibition and deputy director of the Research and Creation Department of the China Academy of Art.
Xue Jian, Gao Shiming, Shi Ming, Yumiko Fujita, Kantoshi Sakaguchi, Wang Dongling, Shuji Mukai, Takuya Naka, Guan Zhihao, and Zhao Zhili jointly cut the ribbon for the opening of the exhibition
Gao Shiming, President of China Academy of Art, delivered a speech
Xue Jian, Consul General of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Osaka, delivered a speech
Xue Jian said that this exhibition takes place on the first anniversary of the countdown to the 2025 Osaka-Kansai World Expo, which is timely and significant. Osaka is hosting the World Expo again after 55 years, and I hope that China and Japan will inherit and carry forward the good tradition of cooperation, add luster to this world-renowned event, and set off a new upsurge of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and Japan. The Consulate General in Osaka advocates "seeing China, visiting China", and hopes that Japanese friends will take the initiative to enter China through appreciating the Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition, using poetry as a medium, to experience China's brilliant and excellent traditional culture, to witness the rapid development and changes of contemporary China, and to give a new connotation to the friendly exchanges and mutual understanding between China and Japan in various fields.
Zhu Ningtao, Chief Architect of the Architectural Design Institute of the Chinese Academy of Building Sciences and Chief Consultant of the China Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, delivered a speech
Zhu Ningtao, on behalf of the general consulting team of the China Pavilion at the Osaka World Expo, mentioned that the exhibition was completed in Beijing in late autumn last year, and an encounter with artists from the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts about the China Pavilion at the Osaka World Expo and the "Road of Tang Poetry". The China Pavilion of the Osaka World Expo hopes to integrate the wisdom of many curators and artists, with the theme of "Building a Community of Life between Man and Nature - A Future Society with Green Development", and put forward the concept of "Exhibition, Beyond the Exhibition", and witness the cultural exchange between China and Japan together with the "Road of Tang Poetry", tell the cultural inheritance that connects the ancient and modern, and spread the concept of ecological civilization that integrates nature and man.
The 2025 Osaka World Expo Association President Ishimo Hiroyuki sent a congratulatory message, sincerely congratulating the successful holding of the "Green Mountains Endless: Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition (Osaka). At the same time as the art exhibition, I wish that the relationship between Japan and China will be further deepened.
Professor Emeritus Sakaguchi Kantoshi of Tokyo University of the Arts delivered a speech
Sakaguchi Kantoshi talked about the influence of Chinese tradition on the teaching of music and art at Tokyo University of the Arts, and believed that in the face of a big problem such as the road of Tang poetry, which carries the universe of mountains and seas, it is necessary to deal with it in a more complex and multi-dimensional way in order to open up the situation.
Wang Dongling, a representative of Chinese artists, delivered a speech
As a representative of the Chinese participating artists, Wang Dongling reviewed the history of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges, starting from the content of the works, and carefully summarized the relationship between calligraphy, calligraphy and Tang poetry, and believed that whether it is the visual tension presented by calligraphy, or the spiritual power and historical context contained in it, it is still worthy of our continuous inquiry and discussion.
Shi Ming, Chief Representative of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Japan, delivered a speech
Shi Ming learned that the Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition has been successfully held for four times since 2020, and has achieved great influence and fruitful results at the public and academic levels at home and abroad, and continues to build itself into a brand project of Chinese traditional culture exhibition and performance with the theme of "Poetry Road Culture". The successful holding of this exhibition will further promote cultural exchanges between China and Japan, promote people-to-people communication and mutual learning between Chinese and Japanese civilizations, and play a positive role in promoting the Osaka World Expo.
Gu Cong, co-curator of the exhibition and deputy director of the Scientific Research and Creation Department of the China Academy of Art, presided over the opening ceremony
The academic seminar of the "Green Mountains Are Inexhaustible: Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition
In the afternoon of the same day, the academic seminar of the Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition was held, and Chinese and Japanese experts and scholars exchanged and dialogued on academic issues related to the exhibition. The seminar was chaired by Guan Huaibin, former dean of the School of Intermedia Art of the China Academy of Art and representative of the participating artists, and attended by Guo Qiang, director of the Economic and Commercial Office of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Osaka. Zhu Ningtao, Chief Architect of the Architectural Design Institute of China Academy of Building Research, unfolded from the relationship between Tang poetry and architecture, believing that Tang poetry and writing are a carrier of culture, while architecture is a carrier of space, and this exhibition has achieved a perfect fit between the two, and runs through the indoor and outdoor spaces, realizing the concept of "exhibition, outside the exhibition". Starting from the exhibition and his works, Wang Dongling, a famous calligrapher and representative of the participating artists, believes that the calligraphy works in the exhibition hall show their own uniqueness and richness in each area, and that all media can expand the boundaries of calligraphy and art itself to a certain extent as long as they have a mental state that is in line with calligraphy. From the perspective of calligraphy education and dissemination, Lu Dadong, head of the Department of Calligraphy Education and Communication of the China Academy of Art and representative of the participating artists, analyzed the differences in the communication paths of calligraphy and art between China and Japan, believed that the meaning will be translated in the process of communication, and put forward what kind of tradition and poetry we are facing at the moment, and his own works are a response to this problem and phenomenon. Sakaguchi Kantoshi, professor emeritus of Tokyo University of the Arts, introduced his works exhibited in the previous Tang Poetry Road, and expressed his deep hope for the continuation of the theme of the exhibition and the future of mankind. Satoru Noda, a professor at Koyasan University, expressed his feelings about the exhibition based on his own memories. Jiang Feiran, the curator of this exhibition, introduced the curatorial ideas of the exhibition, tracing the history of cultural exchanges between China and Japan and Tang poetry and the particularity of the Tang Poetry Road exhibition landing in Japan, and emphasizing the significance of re-walking and understanding the Tang Poetry Road today. Ryoko Goto, a Ph.D. student at the School of Arts and Humanities at the China Academy of Art, analyzed the changes in thinking in Chinese and Japanese cultures through viewing from the perspective of the history of art and cultural exchanges between China and Japan, and expounded on the complexity of Chinese and Japanese cultures that share the same origin but develop their own differences.
Exhibition view
The "Endless Green Mountains: Mountains and Seas Crossing Far Away" Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition takes the "waterway" as the path, connecting the Tang Poetry Road in eastern Zhejiang, which is "inexhaustible in green mountains", and the Tang Poetry Road on the sea that "Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance". The exhibition begins with the poem "When to Look at the Three Mountains on the Sea" by the Tang Dynasty poet Meng Haoran, reflecting the three "fairy mountains" that appear on the "sea" in the exhibition hall, leading the audience to travel physically and mentally from the perspective of boat travel, reciting landscape poems, and imagining the state of mind of Chinese and Japanese poets in the Tang Dynasty who crossed the ocean to find the way to visit friends. The narrative of the exhibition starts from Tiantai Mountain, the key intersection of the Poetry Road in Eastern Zhejiang and the Sino-Japanese Maritime Poetry Road, and uses the overlapping and juxtaposition of three visual images: fairy mountain, pagoda and cave, showing the convergence of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and the cultural atmosphere of inclusiveness.
Artwork 1905143 Qiang Maekawa, Linen, mesh seam, acrylic, 227 × 181 cm 1999
At the entrance of the exhibition, the works of Takeshi Maekawa, a member of the Japan Concrete Art Association, are used as a guide, and the door opens to "Aoyama". Maekawa Qiang is accustomed to using the materiality of painting as a means, and between rigidity and softness, the narrow "waterway" divides the solid "mountain shape" into two, and the road of mountains and rivers and mountains and seas gradually unfolds.
Hanshanzi Poetry and Messy Calligraphy, Wang Dongling, Calligraphy, 600 ×, 420 cm, 2024
Appearing in the center of the exhibition hall is a huge calligraphy on the wall, "Hanshanzi Poetry and Messy Calligraphy", specially created by artist Wang Dongling for this exhibition. Hanshanzi lived in seclusion in the Hanyan Cave of Tiantai all the year round, and after the annotations and translations of his poetry collection came out in Japan, he had a profound impact on overseas Zen Buddhism, and his image also entered the history of painting and the altar. Wang Dongling revisited Hanshanzi's poems in the form of random books, which is not only the seclusion of the supernatural poet "at this time in the maze of the path, the form asks where the shadow is", but also interprets his "looking around at the clear sky, the white clouds fly with the cranes". At the end, the sentence "Where the dust is raised today, it was the sea in the past" responds to the time-space meeting and ideological exchange of literati in "Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance", and conveys the exclamation of the vicissitudes of the sea, the ancient and the modern.
Kunlun Snow of the 24 Solar Terms Cao Xiaoyang Charcoal on paper 25 × 120cm 2015 24 Solar Terms: Lake and Mountain Qingming Cao Xiaoyang Charcoal on paper 26.5 × 106 cm 2023 24 Solar Terms of the Valley Rain Cao Xiaoyang Charcoal on paper 25 × 120 cm 2016
Cao Xiaoyang painted "Twenty-four Solar Terms" with charcoal as a pen, called "Lake and Mountain Qingming", "Valley Rain" and "Kunlun Snow". In these three scenes, the fog gathers and the rain falls, the sea waves and mountains change, the four seasons change, and the heaven and the earth move. The painting is like a theater curtain slowly unfolding, and the scene changes in accordance with the order of heaven and earth. The viewer, or between the perception of the object and the self, the time of the day, the time of the day, the time is hidden and the time is present, the load is heavy and floating, and the thinking then shuttles through the realm of the virtual and the real, and the reason for the movement and stillness.
The Road of Tang Poetry Zheng Yu, Zhou Yuxuan, Wang Xingru, Cheng Jian, Mo Junjie, Chu Yuqi, Zou Yue, Zeng Zhihao, Huang Hongdong, Wang Zixuan, Zhen Tianqi, Jin Sisi, Fu Xiaodong, Li Mingjian, Zhao Zhe, Yang Dan, Song Shuai, Yao Yihan, Xu Haoyue, Wang Xiaolong, Liu Guanhua, Zuo Yao, Wang Hailang, etc. Instructors: Lin Haizhong, Chen Lei, Li Minghuan, Zhuo Hejun, Chinese Painting, Manuscripts and Records 230 × 1300 cm 2021-2022
At the window, a magnificent and gorgeous ten-meter-long scroll "The Road of Tang Poetry" extends to the sea surface of Osaka Port outside the window. The creation was made by 26 teachers and students of the Department of Chinese Painting led by Professor Lin Haizhong of the China Academy of Art to re-walk the core poetry field of the Tang Poetry Road - the journey from Tianmu to Tiantai, and to take a portrait of the landscape, recording the magnificent scenes of Tianmu Mountain, Wozhou Mountain, Banzhu, Nineteen Peaks, Wanmadu, Shimen and so on. In addition to shuttling between the past and the present, teachers and friends are closely co-created, Mr. Chen Lei joins hands, Mr. Zhuo Hejun's book titles, and Mr. Shaomei's collection of sentences, there is no lack of fun in poetry and books.
Wei Wanxing Travel Taco Photography 60 × 80 cm each 2024
The famous poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty once wrote "Sending Wangwu Mountain Man Wei Wan to Return to Wangwu" to narrate that his friend Wei Wan traveled thousands of miles into Zhejiang to find and did not meet, passing through Huiji, Tiantai, Lingxi, Jinhua and other places, and finally returned to Guangling. Through the poetic tone of the picture, Taco's work connects ancient and modern people on the same road in the journey of streams and mountains.
Qian Qishi sent the monk back to Japan, Lai Shaoqi, calligraphy, 95 ×, 59.5 cm, 1995
Sit with a view of the sea. Uno Yukimura's 1951 work "The Mountains in the Day" is also a book and a painting, facing the wide sea of Osaka, writing the spirit of "the Yellow River flowing into the sea". Observing each other is the artist Lai Shaoqi's quadruple Tang poetry calligraphy, "floating in the sky and far away in the sea, and the death of the boat is light". Lai Shaoqi once went to Osaka to negotiate with Japanese friends about the establishment of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and this work returned to Osaka, becoming a witness and window connecting history and the present. The four poems he swayed, all of which contain the feelings of detached rhyme, each with a deep meaning, writes the Sino-Japanese friendship in Tang poetry, and should be the distant precursor of the poet at that time to create and sing.
泉高入梦喧 卓鹤君 纸本水墨 153 × 388 cm 2015
At the turn of the peak circuit, Zhuo Hejun's ink painting "Spring High into a Dream Noise" stands on the "Immortal Mountain", its height is two, standing on the top of the sky, the mountain peaks are stacked in the picture, the clouds and mist surround, the temple is hanging high, the spring water rushes down, and the momentum is huge. At the foot of the mountain, the trees and rocks are tough and strong. "The mountain is approaching, the road in the world is gradually far away", looking for immortals and asking, participating in Zen and worshiping Buddha, the road of mountains and rivers is indulgent and wanton, but also ethereal dreams, and the feelings entrusted by poetry and painting are contained in it.
Flow Gap Guan Huaibin Video 9'25'' 2018
Guan Huaibin's work "Flowing Gap" records the image of the pagoda sinking and dissipating. The flow gap is the erosion and rheology of matter, the polishing and filtering of history and memory by the years, and the moment when countless wonderful moments are squeezed and consumed. The work records the continuous erosion and collapse of a tower cast of terracotta mortar under water, like a solidified historical stage. On the other hand, Liang Chen's "Endless Tower" provides another kind of imagination about the tower, with simple mechanical lighting devices constructed into a perpetual motion, like the Tower of Babel that constantly rotates and rises, pointing directly to the dome. The staircase in the tower is projected in the exhibition hall in light, encircling the "fairy mountain", illuminating a cave and pointing to the eternal metaphor of the spiritual pursuit of human beings who continue to climb upward and explore outward, and the reality of the cave. These two works use different media to examine the two forms of the era as the tower of the human spirit, and reflect on the lost gains of historical and cultural memory in the process of rapidly developing civilization.
When Mingyue Lu Dadong Live Creation 460 × 428 cm 2024
Lu Dadong wrote the Japanese version of Li Bai's classic Tang poem "Silent Night Thoughts" on the wall of the exhibition. The meaning of Tang poetry has been translated along with the mutual influence and spread of cultural exchanges between China and Japan in history, and the well-known "raise your head and look at the bright moon" in Chinese comes from the changes of the Ming Dynasty, while the Japanese "raise your head and look at the mountain and the moon" is closer to Li Bai's original version. Lu Dadong skillfully completed the "bright moon" that was absent in Japanese poetry through words, mirrors and lighting, with the interesting title "When is the Bright Moon", and used the ready-made scaffolding in the exhibition hall to make a table in the Tang Dynasty, creating a moon-gazing situation of strangers in a foreign country at night. This poem and the Tang poem "White Sun in the Mountain" by Uno Yukimura at the other end of the exhibition hall also constitute an echo of the sun and moon and day and night, reaching the two states of mind of appearance and introspection respectively.
Exhibition view
This exhibition brings together more than 70 masterpieces such as calligraphy, Chinese painting, lacquer painting, mixed media painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, etc. Painting the rhyme of Tang Road with ink and blue, highlighting the essence and inheritance of art, and interpreting the new environment of Tang poetry through contemporary multimedia. In addition, the exhibition comprehensively uses three color temperatures: skylight, neutral room light and warm light to construct "three mountains and three realms": the realm of appearance, mutual view, and vipassana, the horizontal, far-reaching, and lofty viewpoint, and finally the realm of unbounded mountains and seas, and the realm of internal and external accommodation. The ingenuity of the exhibition leads the sea into the room, and the ground ripples, and the viewer feels as if he is walking between the mountains and the sea, imagining the poets of the "China-Japan Maritime Tang Poetry Road" crossing and returning, crossing the past and the present, and realizing the journey of "crossing the mountains and seas". It is a blend of ancient and modern, continuing to write poetry and rhyme, and casting the glory of contemporary art. Yusi, the way of co-admiring man and nature, and living in harmony with heaven and earth.
It is reported that the "Endless Journey of Green Mountains - Tang Poetry Road Art Exhibition: Mountains and Seas Crossing the Distance" exhibition in Osaka, Japan, will be held from April 13th to 27th.
Exhibition view
List of participating artists
Cao Xiaoyang, Chen Ronghui, Guan Huaibin, Sugiyama Gong, Lai Shaoqi, Li Ding, Liang Chen, Liao Fei, Lin Haizhong Team (Authors: Zheng Yu, Zhou Yuxuan, Wang Xingru, Cheng Jian, Mo Junjie, Chu Yuqi, Zou Yue, Zeng Zhihao, Huang Hongdong, Wang Zixuan, Zhen Tianqi, Jin Sisi, Fu Xiaodong, Li Mingjian, Zhao Zhe, Yang Dan, Song Shuai, Yao Yihan, Xu Haoyue, Wang Xiaolong, Liu Guanhua, Zuo Yao, Wang Hailang and other instructors: Lin Haizhong, Chen Lei, Li Minghuan, Zhuo Hejun), Lin Shu, Lu Dadong, Shuji Xiangjing, Yukimura Uno, Shao Wenhuan, Taco, Takahiro Kondo, Takeshi Hayashi, Tong Zhongtao, Maekawa Qiang, Wang Dongling, Wu Shan, Zhuo Hejun