Calligrapher Chi Lik Cheung: 2008 Year of the Rat.
2007 Year of the Pig
Asian-inspired jazz with Wei Zen Ho and Melissa Cox in the Gallery Café ushered in the 2006 Year of the Dog. Photo John Michelis
Jerry Liu: 2005 Year of the Rooster
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Chinese New Year celebrations
2008 Year of the Rat
Each year the Gallery welcomes the start of the new lunar year with special events in conjunction with the City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival > The Chinese tradition associates each year in a twelve-year cycle with a different animal which determines the characteristics of the year and the people born in that year. Start the Year of the Rat with a visit to the Gallery and enjoy a varied program including contemporary Chinese art lectures, brush and ink demonstration, hip hop performance and storytelling for children. This year’s program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Mountains and streams: Chinese painting from the NGV Asian collection. Art After Hours
Wednesday 6 February 2008 5:30pm, Function space - Brush and Ink Demonstration
Calligrapher Chi Lik Cheung paints souvenir ‘Rat’ characters for you to take home.
6:30pm, Central Court - Year of the Rat hip hop performance with Dancekool dancers
Teams of dancers from around Sydney showcase hip hop, locking, popping and b-boying.
Free Contemporary Chinese Art Lectures
Saturday 9 February 2008
Centenary Auditorium
12pm - 4pm 12pm - Contemporary Chinese art and landscape
Dr Elizabeth Bedford
This lecture looks at Chinese landscape painting today and the very different approaches artists are now taking. Painting in China is a tradition that spans 2000 years, and one where images of nature have remained a powerful source of inspiration. Today Chinese artists continue to draw on this subject-matter but in radically different ways. What has remained constant however is the fact that such depictions are rarely simple representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the thoughts and sentiments of a new generation of artists, often commenting on social, historical and political issues prevalent at the time.
Elizabeth Bedford is a specialist in museum education, who has spent the last eight years in Hong Kong teaching and lecturing at various institutions including the Hong Kong University SPACE.
2:30pm - BEIJING - Internationalising the City
Contemporary Chinese Art and the rapid redevelopment of the Urban Landscape
Tammy Wong, arts manager and artist
Tammy Wong lived and worked in the art community in Beijing in 2000-2. Since then, she has maintained a keen interest in the contemporary art scene in China. In this talk, she gives an overview of her recent impressions of the changes in the art community in relation to the rapid development of the urban environment and economy. The city of Beijing has undergone massive urban redevelopment in the last few years and continues to do so in preparation for the world stage during the 2008 Olympics. These enormous changes to society have strongly affected the everyday lives of ordinary people and inspired a generation of artists to document or comment on how these changes have impacted upon them. Tammy screens recent work of Beijing based multimedia artists Zhang Dali, Wang Guofeng and Li Wei who respond to the changing urban landscape.
Storytelling with Aditi and her Rickshaw
Sunday 10 February
Meet at the Information Desk
2:30pm
The show depicts the life of Aditi, a rickshaw driver, who shares with the audience from her own experience and those told to her by her passengers and the people she meets on the road. People like Chang, who tells the story of ‘The Yellow Thunder Dragon’, Ravi, the Snake Charmer and his adorable cobra, Pavarti and told old Nepalese woman, who shares her story of ‘The Silk Brocade’. |
