{"id":403,"date":"2020-06-29T18:38:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T09:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artfront.co.jp\/en_2025\/?p=403"},"modified":"2025-10-21T10:36:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:36:58","slug":"reopening-of-clouds-gathering-and-unfolding-paper-an-contemporary-chinese-art-exhibition-at-ichihara-lakeside-museum-until-july-26-2020-an-interview-with-guest-curator-zheng-yan","status":"publish","type":"news_blog","link":"https:\/\/artfront.co.jp\/en\/news_blog\/reopening-of-clouds-gathering-and-unfolding-paper-an-contemporary-chinese-art-exhibition-at-ichihara-lakeside-museum-until-july-26-2020-an-interview-with-guest-curator-zheng-yan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cClouds Gathering and Unfolding: Paper\u201d
a contemporary Chinese art exhibition
An Interview with Guest Curator Zheng Yan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Re-questioning the Relationship Between Humans and Nature through Paper<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClouds Gather and Unfolding: Paper\u201d an Exhibition of Modern Chinese Art on Paper\u201d<\/a> reopened at the Ichihara Lakeside Museum<\/a>, which had been temporarily closed since April as a preventative measure against the spread of the novel coronavirus infection. Organized as one of the main programs of \u201cBoso-Satoyama Art Festival: ICHIHARA ART x MIX\u201d <\/a>postponed until March next year, the exhibition was prepared via remote instructions from the participating artists and guest curator who were unable to travel to Japan from China. What did they feel, and under what kind of mindset did they send off their works? What did they wish to communicate? We spoke with guest curator Zheng Yan online, and asked her to share her thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2015\u2015This group exhibition invites seven Chinese contemporary artists with the theme of \u201cpaper,\u201d which is one of the four great inventions of ancient China along with gunpowder, the compass, and printing. It was introduced to Japan in the seventh century, and is also an important \u201cmaterial\u201d in art. What kind of aspects of paper does this exhibition bring focus to?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zheng Yan:<\/strong> The invention of paper has contributed greatly to the development of kanji, calligraphy, painting, information transmission, and media, and is something that has a long and deep tradition common to both Japan and China. That being said, in this exhibition I did not wish to focus on the history and understanding of paper itself, but rather, on the spiritual aspects of \u201cpaper,\u201d which is an extremely common everyday thing. In addition, as it was also a part of the Boso-Satoyama Art Festival, I wanted to present a theme that brought attention to \u201cSatoyama*\u201d<\/a> and \u201cnature.\u201d Since raw materials used for making paper are derived from nature, paper could be described as a product of humans having transformed nature into a medium, and in this respect, I felt that it was a theme that reflected the relationship between humans and nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Satoyama: consisting of the words sato <\/em>[village] and yama <\/em>[hill\/mountain], satoyama refers to the area between mountain foothills and arable flat land, developed through centuries of small scale agricultural and forestry use<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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