Press Releases
October 2007
THREE NEW EXHIBITIONS OPEN AT UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM
Chen Qiulin: Recent Work (Main Gallery/First Floor)
Revelation: Lane Twitchell, Drawing and Painting (Main Gallery/Second Floor)
Chinese Shadow Figures from the Collection of Dr. Fan Pen Chen (West Gallery/ Second Floor)
Opening Reception: Friday, November 2, 5-7 p.m.
Friday, November 9, 7:00 p.m.
Tiger Tales, production by Chinese Theatre Works
Saturday, November 10, noon & 2 p.m.
Overhead Projector Shadow Puppetry Workshops, conducted by Chinese Theatre Works
Saturday, December 8, 2 p.m.
Puppet Theatre in Folk Ritual Activities in Fujian, lecture by Mingsheng Ye
ALBANY, NY--- The University Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of three new exhibitions: Chen Qiulin: Recent Work; Revelation: Lane Twitchell Drawing and Painting; and Chinese Shadow Figures from the Collection of Dr. Fan Pen Chen.
The museum’s first floor will feature videos and photographs by Chen Qiulin, a Chinese artist whose work explores the effects of rapid urbanization on contemporary Chinese culture. Over the past four years, Qiulin’s work has documented and recorded the changes resulting from the Three Gorges Dam project. Set in
post-industrial spaces, her richly choreographed narrative imagery often includes theatrically dressed characters whose tentative and mysterious actions play out against the panoramic backdrop of China’s changing landscape.
Born in Hubei province, China in 1975, Qiulin currently lives and works in Chengdu where she is a full member of the Chengdu Painting Academy. Since her graduation from Sichuan Fine Arts Academy in 2000 she has participated in numerous exhibitions including Gao Minglu’s The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art and This is Not for You: Sculptural Discourses at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna, Austria. In 2006, she was awarded a 6-month grant by the Asian Cultural Council to work in the United States.
The second floor exhibition, Revelation: Lane Twitchell, Drawing and Painting will feature fifteen large-scale paintings made by applying paint to cut paperwork, in which folk handicraft, technological history, and Pop culture iconography are woven into a kaleidoscopic view of the contemporary American landscape.
Lane Twitchell was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1967 and currently lives in Brooklyn New York. He received his MFA at the School of Visual Arts (New York) in 1995 and has exhibited at such venues as Deitch Projects, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and Corcoran Gallery of Art. Revelation: Lane Twitchell Drawing and Painting is organized by the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, New York and curated by Thomas Piché, Jr., Director, Gibson Art Gallery, SUNY Potsdam.The museum’s West Gallery features Chinese Shadow Figures from the Collection of Dr. Fan Pen Chen. This dynamic installation brings to life a one thousand-year old popular folk art that continues to engage audiences of all ages. The Chinese shadow theatre tradition evolved into a sophisticated art form, closely related to Chinese opera. Delicately carved and colored animal-skin figures are manipulated behind cloth screens to portray characters from literature, folktales, and religious parables.
In addition to featuring actual shadow figures, this exhibition will include original play scripts and documentary video material shot by Dr. Fan Pen Chen (UAlbany East Asian Studies Department).
Dr. Fan Pen Chen is an assistant professor in the Chinese Studies Department at the University at Albany and is the author of Chinese Shadow Theatre (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007) and Visions for Masses: Chinese Shadow Plays from Shaanxi and Shanxi (Cornell East Asia Series, 2004).
Chen Qiulin: Recent Work and Chinese Shadow Figures will be presented in conjunction with the Fall 2007 China Semester.
For further information or visual materials on these exhibitions, please call (518) 442-4035 or visit our website at www. albany.edu/museum.
MUSEUM HOURS: Tuesday through Friday 10 am to 5 pm; Saturday and Sunday noon to 4 pm