RAS Art Focus

New Perspectives of Art in Shanghai

Shanghai Palimpsest: Historical RAS at RAM

Sunday, 24 March 2024

2:15 pm Registration

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Continuing our examination of New Perspectives of Art in Shanghai, please join us in the ongoing series curated and moderated by the Art Focus Convener and Art Historian Julie Chun as we critically assess the pluralist aspects of local encounter and reception of art from abroad and within China.

This month, we turn our attention to the intersection of the past with the present at the Rockbund Art Museum's newly opened exhibition Shanghai Palimpsest: Restaging the R.A.S. Library (1900-1930).

Inaugurated in 2010, the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) is a contemporary non-profit art organization, housed in the former headquarters of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (NCBRAS), constructed in 1933.

Organized by RAM, Shanghai Palimpsest commences with an exploration rooted in its architectural legacy highlighting the prominent figures associated with the NCBRAS: John Calvin Ferguson (1866–1945), Florence Ayscough (1875-1942), Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885-1954), along with his wife Clarice Sara Moise, Wu Lien-teh (1879-1960), and Tang Wangwang (1886-1932). From this starting point, it delves into themes of transnationalism, identity, knowledge production (with a particular focus on natural history), and the multifaceted socio-cultural landscape of a vibrant international Shanghai in the early decades of the 20th century.

In parallel, a mid-career solo exhibition of Hu Yun (b. 1986), a Shanghai-born artist currently based in Belgrade, will occupy the 4th and 5th floors of the museum. The historically-rooted and archive-centric exhibition on the 3rd floor serves as both a backdrop and a dialogue to Hu's artistic interpretation of Arthur de Carle Sowerby and Robert Sterling Clark's famous expedition to Shan-Kan from 1908 to 1909.

Additional works by the contemporary artists Ming Wong (b. 1971), Zhang Ruyi (b. 1985) and Chen Ronghui (b. 1989) will also be interspersed and interwoven throughout the museum to provide a measured counterbalance to the historical archive.

Karen Wang, the Curatorial Assistant of the Rockbund Art Museum will guide us through the historical part of the exhibition on the 3rd floor. This will be followed by a guided talk of Hu Yun's solo exhibition on the upper floors by XU Tiantian, the Curator and Curatorial Manager of the Rockbund Art Museum.

For more information about the exhibition, please visit: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/sbyFNbvC-SCVtdhgrrAXIg