Pi Li – författare

Considered the first Chinese artist to work in video, Zhang Peili (b. 1957) manipulates perspective, close-ups, and framing to create astonishing recordings of banal repeated actions, such as breaking glass, reading, washing, shaving, and blowing bubble gum. He is a pioneering figure, experimenting with a video camera in the late 1980s, exploring digital formats in the early 2000s, and developing large-scale, immersive scenes today. Despite Zhang’s pivotal role in the global history of video art, his oeuvre has received relatively little attention. This book, which includes insightful essays, color plates, and an illustrated chronology, is one of the few in-depth explorations in English of this important artist’s work. Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago(03/31/17–07/09/17)

The first book to explore the life and times of Chinese artist, businesswoman, socialite and style expert ‘Madame Song’, whose life was spent in the company of a Who’s Who of Cold War China and which paralleled the highs and lows of the country’s history. The extraordinary life story of Song Huai-Kuei, better known as Madame Song, follows the arc of 20th-century history. Artist, entrepreneur and impresario, Song broke cultural barriers for love, transcended Cold War borders for her art, and laid the foundations for a global fashion industry. With her cosmopolitan outlook, she defined an influential vision for Chinese culture on the world stage and asserted an Asian perspective in 21st-century art and design. Madame Song is a name that everyone interested in the roots of contemporary visual culture needs to know. At the heart of this volume is a critical biography that explores Song’s youth in revolutionary China, her cross-cultural marriage to Bulgarian fibre artist Maryn Varbanov, her success within avant-garde circles in Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War, and finally her efforts within China to revive traditional aesthetics in tandem with the explosive rise of global couture. Throughout her life, she cultivated an aspirational image of what a modern Chinese woman could be within a changing and opening world. A consummate networker, Song built bridges between people, disciplines and business interests, often in the elegant surroundings of Maxim’s de Paris, Beijing, the restaurant she famously helped to open. In tracking the highs and lows of the massive social changes that occurred throughout her lifetime, Madame Song’s exceptional life serves as a fascinating lens through which to view 20th-century China.

Stay Connected: Art and China Since 2008 is a landmark compendium produced by Tai Kwun Contemporary and Asia Art Archive. Bringing together over 80 artists from China and beyond, the volume maps artistic responses to the profound social, economic, and technological shifts of the 21st century. Structured around nine keywords, it features newly commissioned essays by curators, writers, and scholars, alongside short texts on artworks and an extensive archival section. With three in-depth curatorial essays, this richly illustrated book offers a panoramic yet incisive account of contemporary art’s entanglement with the realities of globalisation, making it an indispensable reference for understanding China’s place in the world today.

"Sculptuur Studies" is a publication from the Sculpture Institute, the research centre for modern and contemporary international sculpture affiliated to the Beelden aan Zee Museum, Scheveningen. In this edition the focus is on contemporary Chinese sculpture, art politics in Switzerland and the designer Benno Premsela. A portrait has been written of the latter to mark the fact that a bust of the designer was given to the Beeldon aan Zee Museum for its collection. An extensive account about Rembrandt, written by Piet Esser, is included in this second volume of "Sculptuur Studies" as a source publication, while Arie Hartog, curator of the Gerhard Marckshaus in Bremen, contributes an essay on the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck. The regular columns include the following topics: international sculpture diary, obituaries for Geurt Brinkgreve, Theo Scholten, Rudi Oxenaar and Ellen Joosten, plus an extensive list of acquisitions and publications from the Beelden aan Zee Museum and Sculpture Institute. Sculpture lovers can indulge themselves in this comprehensive and informative periodical. The text is in English and Dutch.