Fondation Louis Vuitton celebrates artists from the Far East
No one expects to discover Chinese contemporary art in France but from now until April this year, the window to exquisite Oriental art is open, thanks to Fondation Louis Vuitton. The French art museum is keeping to its word of dedicating much of its capacity this year to the exciting Chinese contemporary art scene with a new exhibition and art collection. As such, its first exhibition showcasing artists from the Far East also marks the first time Chinese art has been exhibited on such as scale in France in over ten years.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s exhibit, named “Bentu”, celebrates Chinese artists in a time of turbulence and transformation. The literal translation of Bentu, ‘The Native Soil’, however does not connote nationalism but represents a dialectical concept. Bentu aims to reconcile the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ in a Universalist and critical rediscovery of identity.
The exhibition brings together 12 artists of different generations who live on Mainland China. Artists who will be featured include contemporaries such as Cao Fei, Liu Shiyuan, Liu Wei and Xu Zhen. Each artist’s work was chosen based on their ability to utilise a wide variety of techniques and media drawn from local tradition and culture, as well as newer cutting edge technologies.
Following Bentu is the Fondation’s new hang of the collection, which opened recently in late January. Held until early September 2016, the exhibition presents the works of 11 Asian artists from the Collection of Fondation Louis Vuitton. The collection features works such as Tree by Ai Weiwei, works by Huang Yong Ping and the head of Buddha by Zhang Huan.
Since its opening in 2014, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, has already housed works by acclaimed artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gilbert & George and Jeff Koons. For site-specific installations, the Fondation has commissioned works by Ellsworth Kelly, Olafur Eliasson, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller to name but a few.
Photo credits: Fondation Louis Vuitton
