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Cai Guoqiang
Cai Guo-Qiang (; born 8 December 1957) is a Chinese artist who currently lives and works in New York City and New Jersey. Biography Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China. His father, Cai Ruiqin, was a calligrapher and traditional painter who worked in a bookstore. As a result, Cai Guo-Qiang was exposed early on to Western literature as well as traditional Chinese art forms. As an adolescent and teenager, Cai witnessed the social effects of the Cultural Revolution first-hand, personally participating in demonstrations and parades himself. He grew up in a setting where explosions were common, whether they were the result of cannon blasts or celebratory fireworks. He also “saw gunpowder used in both good ways and bad, in destruction and reconstruction”. It seems that Cai has channeled his experiences and memories through his numerous gunpowder drawings and explosion events. In his late teens and early twenties, Cai Guo-Qiang acted in two marti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quanzhou
Quanzhou, postal map romanization, alternatively known as Chinchew, is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China. It is Fujian's largest metropolitan region, with an area of and a population of 8,782,285 as of the 2020 census. Its City proper, built-up area is home to 6,669,711 inhabitants, encompassing the Licheng District, Quanzhou, Licheng, Fengze District, Fengze, and Luojiang District, Quanzhou, Luojiang district (PRC), urban districts; Jinjiang, Fujian, Jinjiang, Nan'an, Fujian, Nan'an, and Shishi, Fujian, Shishi city (PRC), cities; Hui'an county (PRC), County; and the Quanzhou District for Taiwanese Investment. Quanzhou was China's 12th-largest extended metropolitan area in 2010. Quanzhou was China's major port for foreign traders, who knew it as Zaiton, during the 11th through 14th centuries. It was visited by both Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta; both travelers praised it as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines and road building. Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn at subsonic speeds), whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialist Realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is characterized by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. Despite its name, the figures in the style are very often highly idealized, especially in sculpture, where it often leans heavily on the conventions of classical sculpture. Although related, it should not be confused with social realism, a type of art that realistically depicts subjects of social concern, or other forms of "realism" in the visual arts. Socialist realism was made with an extremely literal and obvious meaning, usually showing an idealized USSR. Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation. Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rent Collection Courtyard
The Rent Collection Courtyard () is a clay collection of 114 life-sized sculptures in located in the courtyard of the former home of rural landlord Liu Wencai in Dayi County, Sichuan created by Ye Yushan and a team of sculptors from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1965. It is a famous work of Socialist Realist sculpture showing an evil landlord collecting rent from poor peasants, it is one of the most powerful works of the cultural revolution. Copies were made and put on display in Beijing after modification to make them more powerful as works of propaganda. In the 1999 Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ..., the contemporary Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang referenced the sculpture in the performance piece ''Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard'' in whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest. History Creative Time came to life amidst the deterioration of New York City's infrastructure and social fabric, combined with the mission of the newly established National Endowment for the Arts to promote the role of artists in a democratic society and introduce new audiences to contemporary art. Artists in the late 1960s and early 70s were already experimenting with new media and new forms of art that could exist in the public sphere, outside the purview of conventional art galleries and museums. Early Creative Time programs took over abandoned storefronts and neglected public spaces, such as the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage and the Great Hall of the Chamber of Commerce in Lower Manhattan. Both landmarks had been unused for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and curators, and reviews of art, music, dance, film, books, and theater. The ''Rail's'' print publication is published ten times a year and distributed to universities, galleries, museums, bookstores, and other organizations around the world free of charge. The ''Rail'' operates a small press called Rail Editions, which publishes literary translations, poetry, and art criticism. In addition to the small press, the ''Rail'' has also organized panel discussions, readings, film screenings, music and dance performances, and has curated exhibitions through a program called Rail Curatorial Projects. Notable among these exhibitions is "Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum" co-curated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance. After the ruling House of Medici died out, their art collections were given to the city of Florence under the famous ''Patto di famiglia'' negotiated by Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici heiress. The Uffizi is one of the first modern museums. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public, formally becoming a museum in 1865. History The building of the Uffizi complex was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de' Medici so as to accommodate the offices of the Florentine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primavera (painting)
''Primavera'' (, meaning "Spring"), is a large panel painting in tempera paint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli made in the late 1470s or early 1480s (datings vary). It has been described as "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world", and also "one of the most popular paintings in Western art". The painting depicts a group of figures from classical mythology in a garden, but no story has been found that brings this particular group together. Most critics agree that the painting is an allegory based on the lush growth of Spring, but accounts of any precise meaning vary, though many involve the Renaissance Neoplatonism which then fascinated intellectual circles in Florence. The subject was first described as ''Primavera'' by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello, just outside Florence, by 1550. Although the two are now known not to be a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period. In addition to the mythological subjects for which he is best known today, Botticelli painted a wide range of religious subjects (including dozens of renditions of the ''Madonna and Child'', many in the round tondo (art), tondo shape) and also some portraits. His best-known works are ''The Birth of Venus'' and ''Primavera (painting), Primavera'', both in the Uffizi in Florence, which holds many of Botticelli’s w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piazzale Michelangelo
Piazzale Michelangelo (Michelangelo Square) is a square with a panoramic view of Florence, Italy, located in the Oltrarno district of the city. History This Florentine piazza was designed by architect Giuseppe Poggi and built in 1869 on a hill just south of the historic center, during the redevelopment of Oltrarno, the left (South) bank of the Arno river. In 1869, Florence was the capital of Italy and the whole city was involved in an urban renewal, the so-called "Risanamento" or the "Renovation" of the city's neighborhoods. Lungarni (riverside walkways; "lungarno", singular) were built on the riversides. On the right bank, the fourteenth-century city walls were removed and turned into the Viali di Circonvallazione, mimicking the French "boulevard" design, six lanes wide and lined with trees. On the left bank winding up the hill of San Miniato the Viale dei Colli was built, a tree-lined street over 8 kilometers long ending at the Piazzale Michelangelo which was built as a terr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Renaissance Painting
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas. The city of Florence in Tuscany is renowned as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and in particular of Renaissance painting, although later in the era Rome and Venice assumed increasing importance in painting. A detailed background is given in the companion articles Renaissance art and Renaissance architecture. Italian Renaissance painting is most often divided into four periods: the Proto-Renaissance (1300–1425), the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massachusetts Museum Of Contemporary Art
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the United States. Built by the Arnold Print Works, which operated on the site from 1860 to 1942, the complex was used by the Sprague Electric company before its conversion. MASS MoCA originally opened with 19 galleries and of exhibition space in 1999. It has expanded since, including the 2008 expansion of Building 7 and the May 2017 addition of roughly 130,000 square feet when Building 6 was opened. In addition to housing galleries and performing arts spaces, it also rents space to commercial tenants. It is the home of the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, where composers and performers from around the world come to create new music. The festival, started in 2001, includes concerts in galleries for three weeks during the summer. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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