In Search of the Picturesque

The picturesque, as an aesthetic tradition, became popular in the latter part of the 18th and early 19th centuries. This small exhibition of prints curated by George Wallace illustrates some of the characteristics of this type of imagery.

Using prints from his private collection, Professor Wallace lets us glimpse The Picturesque in landscapes filled with varied foliage and interspersed with waterfalls, rocky promontories or ruined buildings.

Japanese Literati Paintings

This exhibition features approximately 35 scroll paintings by members of the literati or bunjin class. They were greatly influenced by Chinese literati painters and rejected the court-patronized painting schools. Although they all had an idealistic and romantic view of the world, each of these artists had his own style according to his own temperment. Their favourite subjects were landscapes with figures, trees and flowers.

Recent Asian Acquisitions

This exhibition shows Asian art donations to the AGGV for the years 1998,1999 and 2000. These donations include an impressive selection of paintings, ceramics, sculptures, textiles, prints, lacquerware, cloisonn? etc. from Asian countries including China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand and India.

Slippage: Taras Polataiko, Gerhard Richter, Lucio Fontana

Through the work of three prominent international contemporary artists – Ukrainian-Canadian Taras Polataiko, German Gerhard Richter, and Argentinean Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) – slippage addresses representation, the painted surface, and the device of the mirror in relation to the artists’ paintings, photographs, installations, and prints.

When painter/sculptor Lucio Fontana first pierced his paintings, he called attention to the dimensional quality of his canvas. The painting was not, for Fontana, simply a pictorial vehicle. In these ruptured paintings, called Concetti Spaziali or Spatial Conceptions, Fontana explored the expression of space through gesture. His puncture of the painting surface challenged trompe l’oeil illusion, replacing it with the material presence of the canvas. Through representational painting, abstraction, and photography, Gerhard Richter also experiments with the elusiveness of representation, and with the viewer’s grasp of the fullness of reality through painting. Taras Polataiko’s parallel uses of photography, trompe l’oeil and a disrupted surface in several series further investigate the uses of reflection and illusion in contemporary practice.

Stencil Prints by Sadao Watanabe: 1913 – 1996

Sadao Watanabe’s work reflects a unique combination of Japanese folk artistry and Christian influence. Watanabe studied the traditional stencil techniques of Japanese folk artists and made his stencils on rough and wrinkled handmade paper, giving his work a crude, folk-art simplicity.

While his works were originally inspired by folk art, Watanabe’s work stands apart from other Japanese folk artists and printmakers through its subject matter. A converted Christian, Watanabe took his themes from passages in the Old and New Testaments. His religious stencil prints are beautiful and appropriate works for the Christmas season.

Watanabe’s prints also show an indebtedness to the work of Edvard Munch, the great Norwegian graphic artist working at the turn of the century.

Stencil Prints by Sadao Watanabe

1913 - 1996

Sadao Watanabe’s work reflects a unique combination of Japanese folk artistry and Christian influence. Watanabe studied the traditional stencil techniques of Japanese folk artists and made his stencils on rough and wrinkled handmade paper, giving his work a crude, folk-art simplicity.

While his works were originally inspired by folk art, Watanabe’s work stands apart from other…

Send in the Clowns: The Circus in Prints

Send in the Clowns features a selection of video and graphic works exploring the theme of the circus in historical and contemporary art. The exhibition includes pieces by Picasso, Chagall, Dame Laura Knight, along with Columbian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s highly entertaining video work, Flea Circus, from the AGGV video collection. The exhibition, presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, parallels the exhibition Circus Magicus, at the Royal BC Museum.

Jade: The Ultimate Treasure of Ancient China

Jade is no ordinary stone to the Chinese. It has been worked and revered in China for use as sacred objects, for treasure, and for decoration and ornament since Neolithic times. Chinese emperors valued jade even more than Western kings did gold and silver. For the rulers of China, it became not only a reflection of beauty but also a symbol of wealth and authority truly it was the ultimate treasure of ancient China.

Jade was given many mythical powers including that it was a protective agent against decay. Complete jade suits were made to fit the corpses of high-ranking aristocrats. The jade suits were sewn together with gold, silver, or bronze thread depending on the rank. The 2nd century BCE mortuary jade suit of Princess Dou Wan, which is in this exhibition, is composed of 2,156 plates of jade sewn with 703 grammes of gold thread. It has been estimated that it would take an expert jadesmith of the Han dynasty more than ten years to complete a single suit.

This exhibition is comprised of 120 pieces and sets of jade from the People’s Republic of China. Most pieces are from important archaeological digs. The jade items date from Neolithic times (3rd millennium BCE) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). This exhibition is the finest jade collection to ever go on tour from China.

Jade

The Ultimate Treasure of Ancient China

Jade is no ordinary stone to the Chinese. It has been worked and revered in China for use as sacred objects, for treasure, and for decoration and ornament since Neolithic times. Chinese emperors valued jade even more than Western kings did gold and silver. For the rulers of China, it became not only a reflection…