LuxArtAsia

The first set of publicity photos from the set of What Women Want, with Andy Lau and Gong Li, have been released. For once, the Hong Kong heartrob seems to have been well matched with an actress looking his age. This Chinese remake of the 2000 Hollywood romantic comedy film is set for release next February.

SBin Art Plus pays tribute to Singaporean artists whose pioneering efforts in the local art scene have paved the way for the development and appreciation of home grown artistic talent.  From the avant-garde Chinese paintings of Chen Wen Hsi to the definitive watercolour works by Lim Cheng Hoe – ‘Selected Singapore Master Artists’ which opens on Friday brings together the synergies of several artistic masters.

Christie’s will be auctioning on Sep 18 in Hong Kong the SK Networks Collection, a single-owner wine sale. The wines are part of a corporate collection belonging to SK Networks – the Korea-based global business giant which encompasses trading, natural resources, petroleum, telecommunications, auto-service, fashion and wine business. This sale features lots from Wine Networks, a representative brand of the wine business division of SK Networks. The wines come from some of the world’s most renowned châteaux such as Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux and Haut-Brion, and are in pristine condition, having been cellared in the UK and Bordeaux since purchase. Featuring over 400 cases of wine from the top Bordeaux châteaux, the sale is expected to fetch in excess of HK$26 million (US$3.4 million).

This year's 47th Golden Horse Awards Lifetime Achievement Award will go to producer Hsu Li-Kong, while the Special Contribution Award will go to renowned actor Sun Yueh, who has won two Golden Horse Awards previously, one in 1969 and one in 1983.

Hsu served as the first Director General for Film Library (later upgraded as the Chinese Taipei Film Archive, CTFA) in 1979. During his ten-year service, he established the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, which broadened the horizon of Taiwan audience and promoted the development of Taiwan film industry. In 1991, Hsu entered the Central Pictures Corporation and then promoted lots of prominent new directors like Ang Lee (for whom he produced Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Tsai Ming-Liang, Sylvia Chang and Chen Yu-Hsun.

Stamp collecting in China basically goes back to the issuance of the first Chinese stamps in 1878 and has its own storied history. Among the first collectors were the Westerners who established the then postal system. As the Chinese communities gained wealth, major ethnic Chinese collectors also emerged .1949 saw a shift of much of the serious collecting in Greater China from Mainland China to Taiwan and Hong Kong. On the Mainland, stamp collecting was even being banned during the Cultural Revolution as “bourgeois.” But today a number of the leading collectors in the world are from Mainland China. Previews of the auction will be held at The Park Lane Hotel Hong Kong Thursday to Friday.

There is a new auction house on the block. Salcedo Auctions will hold its inaugural auction in Manila on July 24, highlighting the breadth and scale of Philippine artistic practice from the late 19th century to the present through paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Given the rising power of Filipino artists at auction, supported by Filipino collectors, it’s no surprise an auction should finally be held in Manila. Highlights of the sale include an exceptional and rare oil on wood by the old master Justiniano Asuncion, a drawing by Dionisio de Castro, only the fourth known authenticated work by the artist in existence an important sculpture by Isabelo Tampinco. There is a very nice painting by Ronald Ventura (photo). In total there are about 90 lots, including some jewelry and fashion

Theatre director Ong Keng Sen has been awarded the Fukuoka Prize for Arts and Culture. He is the first contemporary performance maker / theatre director to receive this prestigious award and he’s in illustrious company; past laureates include Cai Quo Ciang, Nam Jun Paik, Xu Bing, Zhang Yi Mou and Akira Kurosawa.


The citation said “Mr Ong is one of the most prolific theatre directors in the world. His productions are shaped by modern sensibility which brings together Asian and European performance traditions in striking way. He has won international acclaim as a director. He has been a pioneer at the international frontier of theatrical art: his plays do not disregard tradition, but still place a premium on physicality, and remain true to the spirit of pop art.”

“In all his activities, Mr. Ong is always asking himself the fundamental question, 'What does it mean, today, to li”ve as an artist?' As a theatre director, he has fixed his gaze at the geographically vast expanse of Asia and the Western world, and also across a long stretch of historical memory.”

The Opposite House hotel in Beijing is having some interesting art works by upcoming artist Feng Shu in its atrium. Part of his Post Period Inse series they include a crystal-like sparkly scorpion, new dragonflies and newly created butterflies. The butterflies were originally commissioned for a permanent installation at MTR Tai Wai Station in Hong Kong as a part of the “Art in Station Architecture” (AiSA) program. Another element of the exhibition is a large-scale ceramics and stainless steel skull entitled “Repair” from 2008. There is nothing naturalistic about Feng Shu's small army of oversized insects and arachnids. The detailed and refined painted surfaces of Feng Shu’s pieces combined with steel limbs, give a science fiction-like impression. Surfaces of the objects are hand painted in pastel floral patterns, abstract geometric triangles or irregular blobs.

Zhang Huan is one of China's best-known performance and conceptual artists. In the 1990s, he attracted notoriety and the government's censorship for his unsettling works, which involved subjecting his naked body to pain or torturous circumstances. After he moved to New York in 1998, he walked down the street with slabs of raw meat tied to his body creating the image of a giant walking piece of meat. For his solo show at the UCCA, Zhang exhibit remains of the train which crashed during the 5.12 Earthquake in Sichuan and stretch it over the whole exhibition space. “This exhibition is a way of showing the victims of the Sichuan earthquake that they haven’t been forgotten. It’s a curated social project, an artist and an institution working together to help solve a problem. Art isn’t about making pretty things, putting on spectacles and not showing any concern…it has to give something back” explains UCCA Director, Jérôme Sans.

Producer Daniel Yun oversaw Mediacorp Raintree for over 10 years before leaving last year to strike out on his own. Since then little has been heard of him, beside the fact he’d set up his own production and distribution company, Homerun Asia. Now, Yun has some news: After a capital injection from Peter Lim, a wealthy Singaporean businessmen, Homerun should start pre-production at the end of the year on two films: 1965, a political thriller set against the backdrop of Singapore’s struggle for independence (Peter Chan of Bodyguards and Assassin is also involved), and Singapore Sting, a heist movie scripted by Bruce Feirstein (Tomorrow Never Dies, GoldenEye) set during Singapore’s F1 night race and involving a high-tech art theft from ane ultra-secure bonded warehouse at Changi airport.

The Guardian is reporting that Harrods, this institution of British retailing, is eyeing Shanghai to cash in on China's new wealth. Two months after Mohamed Al Fayed sold the Knightsbridge store to an investment group controlled by the Qatari royal family for £1.5bn, Harrods bosses are working on ways to expand the empire. It quoted Michael Ward, managing director of Harrods, saying "China is the most probable, but we would have to do a lot of work first." The number of Chinese visiting Harrods is up 125% this year – and they like to buy. The average spend of a Chinese shopper is more than triple that of an American visitor to the store.

At the heart of Indonesian artist Augustinus Kuswidananto (a.k.a. Jompet)’s work is an exploration of the relationship and tensions between tradition and modernity. The Indonesian artist takes as a starting point the history of Java and his work can often be read as a discourse on post-colonialism and globalisation. In the video work War of Java, Do you Remember? #2, a traditional Javanese dancer moves gracefully through an old sugarcane factory, where his movements mimic those of the massive machines in the background, a potent symbol of modernity. Java, the War of Ghosts features ‘invisible’ soldiers made flesh by their uniforms—amalgams of the Dutch and Javanese military attire—and equipment. Suspended from the ceiling, each plays a different sound, synchronised into an electronic orchestra. The installation is a representation of Java’s patchwork heritage, the soldiers seem to represent ghosts of a distant past dragged into the present. This very interesting artist had several works at the recent ArtHK fair which sold like hot cakes.

Disguised History: The Paintings of He Jian,' is opening Saturday with 15 new paintings on show. This Chinese artist is known for his revival of traditional Chinese murals style using techniques and imageries of 14th century Taoist murals, and overlaying them with with everyday trivia, like mobile phones and laptops. In Tattoo No. 3 (photo), the deity-like men with fading dragong tattoo sing karaoke and drinks out of beer bottles . By expressing a mundane moment, such as a drunken karaoke night, with different periodic references, He Jian shows the paradoxical coexistence of vanishing traditions and today's consumer culture.

Too often I step into a new Asian luxury hotel only to feel: I’ve seen it all before: the brown-beige colour scheme–check, the occasional ethnic cushions or throw – check, the nice bathroom with a glass wall – check, check. All very nice, but feels sooo déjà-vu and dated early 2000. So I was pleasantly surprised with the rooms of the just-opened Fullerton Bay hotel. Yes, the brown and beige are there, along with the other usual suspects, but the use of polished rosewood throughout the room (from the wardrobe doors to the desk), along with some interesting leather details like the handles of drawers, make the design very “now” and fresh. The rooms are surprisingly spacious for Singapore and have balconies. Of course the best (and most expansive) rooms are the ones facing the Marina Bay Sands, but the side rooms still offer some interesting views. I love the Molton amenities in the bathroom, with a few unusual surprises like a hair brush (not a comb) and mouth wash baby bottle. My only complaint – while they have the usual chichi espresso coffee machine, they’re not storing my Singaporean favourite brand! Luxury hotels should serve luxury teas. 

The Four Seasons Hotels are zooming in on China. So far, the luxury hotel chain only has hotels in Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong. But it has big expansion plans in the pipeline. It should open a Four Seasons in Hangzhou on the West Lake in September and will follow with another property in Guangzhou by the end of the year or early next year. For 2011, it is also planning to open a second property in Shanghai, in Pudong this time, and another hotel in Shengzhen. Ritz-Carlton has just also opened a second property in Shanghai. Another sign that luxury hotels are looking beyond the primary coastal towns and moving inwards

Three young filmmakers from Singapore are shortlisted in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s 2010 Faith Shorts Film competition– winning films to be premiered at BAFTA on Jly 22 in London. Faith Shorts is a global film competition run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation providing young people with the opportunity to express their faith through film. Entries have been shortlisted from around the world including Singapore, Jordan, India, the USA, Egypt, Argentina, Pakistan, UK, New Zealand, Lebanon and the Philippines. Young people of every background with no access to equipment took part – by sending their written “pitches”. The Foundation sent flip cameras to the best 50 entries in these countries to ensure they could bring their ideas to life. The films from Singapore reflect the countries diversity and include a young woman exploring her family history where both her grandparents were disowned for entering into an interfaith marriage, a heritage that has taught her the importance of religious tolerance. In another short film Nurhasanah Dzulkurnain explores the comfort she found in Islam after the loss of her brother.  The judging panel included Tony Blair, Jonathan Caplan QC, Hugh Jackman , Anil Kapoor, Amr Khaled , Jet Li, Kishore Lulla, Wendi Murdoch, Natalie Portman, Nik Powell , Queen Rania of Jordan, Rabbi David Rosen, June Sarpong, Deepak Verma, amongst others.

Contemporary Chinese photography is becoming increasingly prominent in the field of international contemporary art. In the coming months, three major US institutions – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum – will include works by Chinese contemporary photographers in group exhibitions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently acquired a collection of photographic works by Chinese artists from an anonymous donor. The works of Weng Fen (photo) is now part of the group exhibition ‘Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography’ which runs until February and explores themes of dislocation and displacement in a progressively global society. Weng Fen has always been interested in the transitional phases and changes China has been facing in the last 30 years. In his earlier series 'Sitting on the Wall' and 'Bird's Eye View', Weng's epic images focus on the upraising of urbanism in cities such as Haikou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. His subjects stood as outsiders looking into this overwhelming transformation with anticipation, fear and curiosity. In other series, the artist looked beyond the physical changes to investigate emotional and spiritual transformations, moving his camera from urban cities to rural countries, exploring the possibility of finding an otherworldly utopia.


At The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today (August 1 – November 1, 2010), a show that examines the intersection between photography and sculpture, will feature photography by Chinese artists Ai Weiwei and Zhang Dali.

Later this year the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will present Photography from New China (December 7, 2010 – April 3, 2011). Offering a contrast to the nineteenth-century views of China and other parts of East Asia by Felice Beato concurrently on view in the Getty Center for Photographs, this exhibition will offersa cross-section of Chinese photographs produced since the late 1970s. Highlighting the Getty's recent acquisition of photographs by Hai Bo, Liu Zheng, Song Yongping, Rong Rong, and Wang Qingsong, Photography from New China will showcase several approaches that are characteristic of recent Chinese contemporary art, including performance for the camera, the incorporation of family photographs, and an emphasis on the body.

After Jeff Koons, it will be the turn of Takashi Murakami to take on the Château de Versailles, this emblem of French history and elegance. The Japanese artist is so excited he describes the experience as being “the Cheshire cat that welcomes Alice in Wonderland with its diabolic smile, and chatters away as she wanders around the Château.” Little details have been officially released beyond the running date, from mid-Sep to mid-Dec.

"The Legend of the White Snake” is one of the most famous Chinese tales. The story of a young scholar bewitched by a beautiful woman who is really a powerful white-snake demon has given rise to countless Chinese opera productions, films, and TV series. It is now also a Western-style opera performed in English that is set to tour China. Written by Kansas-based Chinese composer Zhou Long, the score of Madame White Snake follows musically in the grand tradition of European operas but also borrows from Chinese opera, integrating traditional Chinese instruments such as the bamboo and clay flute and the erhu, a two-string fiddle.

In many ways, the new opera exemplifies the rising importance of China on the Western classical-music scene. After years of completely shunning classical music during the Cultural Revolution, China has embraced it with gusto. In the last two years, countless municipalities have been hard at work building grand concert halls, and more than 10 classical-music festivals have been mounted throughout the country. At the same time, millions of Chinese children are reportedly learning to play Western musical instruments in the hopes of becoming the next Lang Lang or Yundi Li.

But Chinese influence on Western classical music goes far beyond the rise of new star soloists; it’s affecting the music itself. In recent years a flurry of Western-style operas with distinctive Chinese flavors have premiered internationally, including Bright Sheng’s Madame Mao (2003), Tan Dun’s The First Emperor (2006), and Guo Wenjing’s Poet Li Bai (2007). In October a new four-act Western opera, tentatively called Farewell My Overlord and written by Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, will premiere at the Beijing Music Festival, where Madame White Snake, first staged in Boston earlier this year, will be reprised. Read the whole NEWSWEEK story

I’ve always been a fan of Banyan Tree Phuket, but never a fan of the island itself, always preferring Koh Samui. Now the resort chain is opening next week its third Thai location there. I love the architecture of the villa embedded on the hill over looking a cove. Looks like a real little sanctuary.

Like many cities in China, Guangzhou has built a top-notch performing arts arena in the hopes of lifting its cultural credentials and offering new forms of live entertainment to the increasing numbers of middle-class and wealthy Chinese. Those stages now need content, and that has Western producers and promoters looking at the Chinese market, and at ways to build new audiences and expand their activities — and earnings. Yet many arts professionals from the West say China has a long way to go. Audiences remain small. Many of those who attend are not accustomed to paying for tickets. And after years of state-financed performances, the government is increasingly looking to the private sector to support both foreign and domestic arts troupes. Tracking the number of foreign performing arts troupes that visit China is difficult. According to data from the Ministry of Culture, the number of state-sponsored cultural exchanges seems to be declining; China’s government invited 44 overseas artistic troupes to perform in 2009, half the number it sought in 2008. But 600 to 700 commercial performances from abroad were staged in 2009, a slight increase from 2008. To read the full  IHT story .

Malaysian artist Eric Can first made his name on the Southeast Asian contemporary art scene with his slightly blurred floral paintings that looked like photographs taken through a diffused lens. A few years ago, he moved into a new direction by depicting, in large scale, reverse negative portraits done by old European masters (16-18th century), stripping the figures to the bare essential as if X-raying the original paintings and their central characters. His latest works, now on show at the Ion Art Gallery in Singapore, is coming full circle by juxtaposing colourful floral and faunal motifs with these reverse monochromatic portraits. In “The Romantic of Betrayal” the artist creates tensions by juxtaposing incongruous images like a security guard from a 1970s photograph against the Michaelangelo's David, a giraffe looming over a section of the The Death Of Marat painting. Apart from a few exceptions, the artist has picked lesser known images. I like the one below opposing Bernini’s marble bust 'Anima Dannata Condemned soul' creaming in the ear of the unflappable Emperor Kangxi. In case you wonder (I did), for each composition, the artist draws the figure in an outline and projects it on to the canvas then draw them with charcoal. Each part is painted with a very tiny brush enabling him to control the tones better and then lightly smudged across with a bigger brush.

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Aimer Group, founded in 1993, is one of China’s largest lingerie manufacturers, with several in-house brands, including La Clover (sounds French, but have no idea what it means!), around $300 a set. The group is flexing its muscles internationally and just opened its third Aimer boutique in Singapore. Aimer is their mid range brand from about $70-$200. Love some of the very feminine designs. Brand ambassador Gong Li was in attendance and managed to appear into two different outfits in the space of an hour. She looked lovely in that little Aimer nightie-cum-dress. She also confirmed she's in midst of shooting What Women Want with Andy Lau (see previous posts on this)

Singapore is getting a chic new 'boutiquish' hotel. The Fullerton Bay Hotel opens tomorrow with 100 rooms and five individually-themed suites plus a luxurious presidential suite, each with magnificent water views. Each suites has been individually themed to reflect the wealth of local cultures (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Peranakan and British colonial), and adorned with artwork and antiques mixed with contemporary pieces. I got a sneak preview today of the hotel, and from the moment I stepped inside, and smelled the subtle but delicious air perfume especially created for it, I was hooked. On the ground floor, you’ll find Clifford, a modern brasserie with 10-metre-high floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the waters and an opulent 800-bottle fine wine 'library', but the top selling point of the hotel is Lantern, an uber stylish rooftop bar surrounding the hotel’s 25-metre rooftop swimming pool. Decked out with decorative lanterns (hence the name) and some comfy lounging sofas, one selling point is the amazing panoramic views of the bay. Needless to say, this is going to be the ‘in’ place for the next few months.





The buzz is going to be reinforced by the nearby opening of the Customs House, as a food and beverage destination with a Cuban-bar-cum-restaurant (which serves a mean Mojito), a Japanese restaurant with a twist (ever tried foie gras sushi?) plus an oyster and champagne bar. With plenty of outside boardwalk space overlooking the water, this is a great place to unwind at the end of a long day.

To celebrate the Year of the Tiger, Shanghai Tang and LUXE City Guides have launched thelimited edition White Tiger Chest. Each individually numbered and engraved collector’s box is handmade in maple and ebony veneer maquetry, lined in kumquat silk satin and contains 30 Guides.

Five years ago, Hong Kong film director and producer Peter Chan got an intriguing call from Warner Brothers: would he be interested in remaking The Bridges of Madison County with Chow Yun-Fat reprising Clint Eastwood’s role and Chinese actress Gong Li stepping in for Meryl Streep? Chan thought transposing the action to China would work, but he couldn’t spend the time on development, so nothing happened. Today it’s a different story. Inspired by the rise in box-office receipts in Asia—especially China—directors and producers are remaking a growing number of Hollywood hits for Asian audiences. Last year Cellular, the 2004 kidnaping thriller starring Kim Basinger, became the first Chinese remake of a Hollywood film. At this year’s Berlin Film Festival, veteran filmmaker Zhang Yimou presented A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, his retelling of the Coen brothers’ neo-noir thriller Blood Simple, with the action transported from small-town America to the desert landscapes of northwestern China. In June, production started on a remake of the 2000 romantic comedy What Women Want, with Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau and Gong Li filling the roles played by Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt.

While these remakes are driven by local producers, Hollywood studios are also joining the fray. Having remade a number of Asian films for American audiences over the past two decades—including The Ring, The Departed, and The Lake House—some American studios are now looking into their vaults and “adapting” movies for new audiences in the East. This summer, Disney is releasing a Chinese-language version of its High School Musical franchise, in a coproduction with two local partners. Paramount Pictures Japan and Shochiku Co. just started filming a remake of the 1990 supernatural movie Ghost with Japan’s Nanako Matsushima and Korean actor Seung-heon Song taking over the roles played by Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze. “Certain themes are universal, and this is why remakes work,” says Dede Nickerson, the coproducer of What Women Want. “Studios are more than happy to exploit their existing intellectual property as well.” Read the full NEWSWEEK story

Cai Guo-Qiang: Head On presents three well-known works by the Chinese contemporary artist. The eponymous installation Head On, where replicas of 99 life-sized wolves, run fearlessly and collide one after another into a glass wall (A reflexion on humanity being easily blinded by a kind of collective mentality and action); Illusion II, a two-channel video installation that also documents the explosion project by the same title; and Vortex, a gunpowder drawing depicting hundreds of thousands of wolves chasing one another in a circular motion. The work is accompanied by a video that features the artist creating the drawing. My favourite is the visually stunning Head On installation which was first premiered at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin in 2006 and has since been exhibited in many institutions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. What makes the new installation here unique is its presentation in a gallery completely painted in black. The wolve’s silvery mane against the black backdrop makes the work extremely dramatic.

Whether he paints lotus, flowers or birds, there is always a dreamlike quality to Zhang Weimin’s works. “Dreamy Wonderland – Fine Arts Exhibition of Zhang Weimin” showcases more than seventy of his pieces. While I'm not drawn to his themes, I love his use of colors.