20 LIFE | Culture Tuesday, July 24, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Veteran Korean artist debuts work in Beijing
By LIN QI Lee says he is not painting [email protected] with his brain but his body. He thus produces paint Lee Kunyong, hailed as ings of unsophisticated beau one of the foremost figures of ty, while showing to his performance art in South audience the physical limits Korea, is known for fusing and possibilities of the the act of painting with his human body, and how that own body movements, creat can influence the relation ing works that examine the ship between a person and interactions between the their surroundings. human body and its external Lee’s works often render space. meaning to everyday move His performance is simple, ments, while his thoughts yet engaging and thought and methods are derived provoking, often overturning from many years of studying the audience’s preconcep philosophy, logic and history. tions that performance art is His path to pioneering South absurd and incomprehensi Korea’s avantgarde and per ble. formance art scene started At a recent performance, when he was in high school the 76yearold artist stood in and would search for things front of a wall, facing a blank to read in his father’s study. piece of paper side on. He Lee says, because his swung a paint brush around father spent a lot of money his body to draw several on books, his family some curves on the paper. Then he times had to go without stopped to pick different col meat, clothes or jewelry; but ors, turned his other side to he remembers the books at The specimen and skull of a leopard collected in East China’s Fujian province in 1909 is displayed at an ongoing exhibition at the Shanghai History Museum. the paper and repeated the home stacked up from the PHOTOS BY GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY previous steps. While still ground to the ceiling. swinging the brush, he asked “When my mother got the audience, “How does it angry with father, she just look? Am I doing good?” picked a costly book and The performance was threw it out of the house,” he staged to open Lee’s debut recalls. “When we moved aft exhibition in China on July er my father died, the books HISTORY OF CHINA’S 14. The eponymous show is filled five freight cars.” being hosted at Pace Gallery Among his father’s collec in Beijing’s 798 art district tion, Lee was most interested through Sept 1. in philosophical texts, such Lee tried to engage his as books introducing the EARLY MUSEUMS audience by creating a relax musings of ancient Chinese ing, interesting atmosphere thinkers, Laozi and Zhuangzi and he made his interactions — leading him further with people a part of his crea toward his artistic philoso Exhibits in a tion. The artist is an honora phy. If you go ry professor at Kunsan “I was often viewed at Shanghai show National University in South home and school as a ‘trouble Centurial Collection — Early Korea’s Gunsan city, where maker’,” Lee recalls. “But the include animal History of Museology in he now lives and works. trouble I made was (my Shanghai Before his recent perform work). I wanted to find the specimens 9 am5 pm (admission ance in Beijing, Lee asked answer to the question, dating back a stops at 4 pm), Tuesday people at the front to crouch ‘What is art?’” Sunday, July 17Oct 21 down so that those at the In an essay titled Artist’s century, reports Shanghai History Museum, back could see; and he joked Note, Lee writes: “Art rises as West Hall, 325 Nanjing West that he would not pay the steam on the surface of Zhang Kun. Road, Huangpu district, laundry fees if anyone’s water, makes a rainbow in Shanghai clothes got stained by his the sun, disappears in the People’s Square Station, paints. wind. It passes through the n ongoing exhibi subway lines 1, 2 and 8 When he turned around to subway tunnel to stay among tion at the Shanghai see what his flailing arms people waiting on the plat History Museum had created, he saw the form, and sparkles between offers a glimpse into shape of a colorful heart, he their fingers, holding a tea one of China’s first museums, A cried out in surprise. He cup, to disappear.” dating back to the 19th centu University Shanghai. squatted to ask a little girl sit Lee says these days there ry. Both museums closed in ting on the ground what she have been various discus Centurial Collection — Ear 1952, and the collections were thought of the drawing, sions about art, and no mat ly History of Museology in given to the Shanghai Munici before finally turning to his ter what, he believes that art Shanghai is jointly hosted by pality, later joining the public wife, allowing her to decide is ultimately a way for people the Shanghai Science and museums of the city, mainly whether the work was a suc to communicate with them Technology Museum, Shang the Shanghai Museum of Nat cess. selves, each other and the hai Museum and the Shanghai ural History, a branch of the Lee’s Body Drawing series world. History Museum. Shanghai Museum of Science of paintings form an impor A large proportion of the 151 and Technology. tant part of his exhibition at objects on display belonged to Yang shared stories of the Pace, sharing the spotlight If you go the original collection of the first museums of Shanghai at a with a display of installa Museum of North China forum on July 17, and said that tions, as well as photos and 10 am6 pm, Tuesday to Branch of the Royal Asiatic these museums wrote an videos of his performance Sunday, through Sept 1. Society (NCBRAS). Among the important page in the urban work — including the iconic 798 art district, exhibits are animal specimens history of Shanghai. pieces that he drew from 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, dating back 100 years, bronze In 1905, the Nantong Muse behind a paper board by Beijing. 01059789781 and ceramic items from um was established in Jiangsu reaching around it to leave ancient China, as well as the province, as the first public marks on the front. first reproduction of the skull museum founded by the Chi of the Peking Man. The origi nese. Museums sprouted in nal piece of the cranium of the other parts of China around primitive human was lost in the same period. Together the World War II. they marked the rapid devel “We have not only brought opment of museology in Chi out the original specimen and na, Yang said. objects from the former Royal The forum, The spirit of Asiatic Society, but also natural history in the metrop arranged the exhibition olis, took place at Shanghai according to historical docu Museum over July 1719, ments and pictures,” says when museum directors and Huang Ji, curator of the exhi administrators, from both bition, and a scholar with the home and abroad, discussed Shanghai Museum of Natural the history of museology, and History. how museums impact urban For example, the first speci culture in the contemporary men of the giant panda is world. exhibited in a “scenic box” China’s museums have seen that imitates the original rapid development in recent dwelling environment of the decades, said Guan Qiang, dep animal, just like it was dis Top: The specimen of an Asian lion is unveiled at the opening of the exhibition. Middle left: A tripod uty head of the State Adminis played in the original muse with an animal face decoration from 13th11th century BC, from the original collection of the NCBRAS, tration of Cultural Heritage. um of NCBRAS. is now in the collection of Shanghai Museum. Middle right: The specimen of a geometrid moth was There are currently 5,136 “The exhibition has been collected and prepared by Jean Pierre Armand David in Sichuan province in 1870. Above: An Asiatic museums in China, 230 times designed to create an experi golden cat collected in Fujian province in 1920. the number in 1949, he noted. ence reminiscent of the origi In 2017, more than 20,000 nal NCBRAS museum,” he exhibitions took place in these said. Visitors can also down Museum. “A historical piece of collection, had all been real In 1872, the NCBRAS club museums, with some 900 mil load mobile applications to architecture built in the 1930s, ized at that time.” house began to open to the lion visits recorded. their smartphones to enjoy an our museum is an ideal venue It started from the Shanghai public, and in 1874, the Muse Centurial Collection — Ear interactive experience to learn to reproduce the original envi Literary and Scientific Society, um of the NCBRAS was offi ly History of Museology in about the exhibits and muse ronment.” which was founded by 18 expa cially open at No 5 Shanghai is free of charge and um history. The museum of NCBRAS triates led by E.C. Bridgman Yuanmingyuan Road (now 20 open to the public at the “The original building of the “was one of the first museums (18011861), America’s first Huqiu Road in Huangpu dis Shanghai History Museum. It Asiatic Society museum is now in China,” says Yang Zhigang, missionary to China, in 1857. trict) in Shanghai. During the runs through Oct 21. occupied, so we can’t have the director of Shanghai Museum. Two years later, the society same period, another museum exhibition in the original loca “The basic functions of a prop joined the Royal Asiatic Socie was founded by the Catholic Contact the writer at South Korean artist Lee Kunyong stages a performance tion,” says Wang Xiaoming, er museum, which were exhi ty of Great Britain and Ireland, priests in Shanghai, which lat zhangkun@ before his debut exhibition in China on July 14. director of Shanghai History bition, research and to be its North China branch. er became part of the Aurora chinadaily.com.cn PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY