From Nov 2008 - Feb 2009. Located in downtown Coral Gables, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries continues its 35-year tradition of introducing important artists and art movements to this area with the exhibition SAVE AS: Contemporary Chinese Art Born of Ancient Traditions, the first major exhibition of paintings in the US by Cao Xiaodong.
Well known in China for his 500-portrait mural of Chinese who were famous from 1911 to 1949, Xiaodong’s favorite subject matter is to contrast Western cultural icons with their Chinese counterparts, such as Playboy Bunnies with young women wearing Mao-era uniforms, or Marilyn Monroe with Mao Zedong, both in bathing suits. As an example of that theme, in one painting a runner bearing a 1936 Berlin Olympics torch is paired with another carrying the torch for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the latter painting both torches clearly symbolize democracy and each torch carries its own irony: Berlin, just as the Nazis began their ascendancy, and Beijing, capital of a nation ruled by a single party.
Several of Xiaodong’s paintings compare photos taken during the Tiananmen Square protests with such other mass protests as the May 1968 protests in France, considered a watershed event in that nation’s political evolution. The monumental “goddess of democracy” carved by students during the Tiananmen protests is flanked by the “goddess of democracy” monument in Washington, D.C., dedicated to victims of communism.
ArtSpace Virginia Miller Galleries 169 Madeira Ave Coral Gables, Florida 33134 305.444.4493 www.virginiamiller.com
Victoria Lewelling
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oil painter
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2009-01-05 21:25:13
Hi, just checking to see if you are accepting any more artist. My work can be seen at www.artvalet.com, to artist rolodex and then my name, Victoria Lewelling. Thanks, Victoria
Located in downtown Coral Gables, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries continues its 35-year tradition of introducing important artists and art movements to this area with the exhibition SAVE AS: Contemporary Chinese Art Born of Ancient Traditions, the first major exhibition of paintings in the US by Cao Xiaodong.
