| Volume 5, Number 4, October 2008 |
Reflections on the Yellow Box in Qingpu
by 张颂仁 Chang Tsong-zung
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Portrait of Ruan Yuan in London
by 魏白蒂 Wei Peh-T’i |
AS a theoretical framework and curatorial practice, the Yellow Box project—a new concept for the display of Chinese works of art—is interested in the effect connoisseurship and regime of viewing have on creativity. The emphasis is on the role played by context, as its clear creative production is always physically situated, and mindful of its audience (whether real or imaginary). In terms of the institution of contemporary art, museums, exhibition sites and curatorship create a special culture (or regime) of art appreciation that strongly affects the way art is made. The question that needs to be raised is: what kinds of interesting artistic practices have been excluded from contemporary platforms on account of the institution of art exhibitions? What is there to be learned from these practices about art and creativity?
Ideas about the Yellow Box were first stimulated by problems that came out of exhibiting traditional Chinese literati art...
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IN June 2005, Dr Patrick Connor of the Martyn Gregory Gallery in London sent me a transparency of this stunning portrait, which had emerged at an English country house sale a few years earlier. * It is a grand portrait of a second-rank Qing official in ceremonial dress, with the sitter identified in Chinese and English. The Chinese colophon gives his titles and his surname, Ruan 阮. (1) In English, he is “Yuen, Viceroy of Canton”.
The provenance of this portrait is impeccable. It was brought to England by Sir James Brabazon Urmston, Supercargo of the East India Company and President of the Select Committee (1819-26) during Ruan’s tenure in Canton (1817-26). Legend connected to the work suggests that it was a gift from Ruan, with whom Urmston had crossed swords more than once, especially over the Topaze crisis (1821/22). I was overjoyed with this portrait, but its location from 1826 to 2001 makes it mandatory to...
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| Issue 5.4 |
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A Voice to
Be Remembered
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