Celebrity Life

Fifty metres underground — this is the depth that local winemakers chose when they decided to store 10,000 wine bottles in the Aven d'Orgnac caves, an underground tourist attraction located at the southern end of the limestone plateau of the Gorges de l'Ardèche.

The experiment began in March 2018, when a new storage facility was specially created in a disused access tunnel to allow wine to mature in what amounts to a highly stable and peaceful environment.

A living product that ages best in undisturbed darkness, the wine will have benefited from ideal conditions: A constant temperature of around 12°C and an all-year-long rate of humidity of over 95%.

On December 12, 1,000 bottles of Côtes du Vivarais "Grand Aven 2017" from this treasure trove will be passed from hand to hand by a chain of human volunteers who will bring them back to the surface after two years underground. Thereafter, they will go under the hammer with a range of other local vintages in an auction with modest reserve prices.

Lots on offer will include 150 magnums of Terra Helvorum 2017 starting at 30 euros, 350 bottles of 2015 Terra Helvorum for as little as 15 euros and 350 bottles of Grand Aven 2016 from just 10 euros.

On land and sea

These days, experiments to store wine deep underground are very much in vogue in France. On June 3 of this year, 500 bottles were placed in racks at a depth of 103 metres in caves in Padirac under the watchful eye of Serge Dubs, the Best Sommelier of the World in 1989.

The first of these to return to the surface will be brought up for an initial tasting in the spring of 2021. And let's not forget that this experiment is focused on a very particular wine: A Clos Triguedina Cahors, christened Cuvée Probus, which has been produced to honour the 130-year anniversary of the Padirac Chasm.

Surprisingly enough, this new approach to maturing wine was initially inspired by a find at sea. In 2010, divers in the Baltic discovered a wreck containing what turned out to be a cargo of champagne, which was probably on its way to 1840s Russia.

The wave of experimentation that is now ongoing began when the bubbly, which was made by such houses as Veuve Clicquot, Heidsieck and the now defunct Juglar, was discovered to still be delicious after some 170 years under water.

In Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the French Basque country, winemaker Emmanuel Poirmeur has registered a patent for a process that involves vinifying wine in special vats at a depth of 15 metres under water. For its part, Leclerc-Briant set a record when it vinified one of its champagnes at a depth of 60 meters under the Atlantic in 2012, not surprisingly the vintage was christened "Abyss."

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The famed two auction houses are set to host a collaborative sale in Hong Kong this November.

For the first time, Phillips and Poly Auction will be joining hands to offer collectors and art enthusiasts an opportunity to view collections that feature the very best of 20^th century and contemporary art.

Partnering with China’s leading auction house Poly is a monumental step for Phillips. “As Asia continues to rise as an important art market region, this mutually beneficial partnership will enable Phillips to establish a broader foothold across Greater China, whilst offering Poly our global reach and commitment to expanding our presence further in this important market,” explains Edward Dolman, CEO of Phillips. 

Relatively new on the auction scene since its opening of its Asian headquarters in Hong Kong in 2015, Phillips has already gained increasing presence and popularity on this side of the world. This joint venture with Poly will be Phillips’ ninth auction series in Hong Kong. Expected to follow suit from its previous eight auctions, the sales in November is estimated to see record breaking results as well. 

In the November auction, guests and collectors can expect to see paintings, sculptures and other forms of media represented by both internationally acclaimed artists in the Evening Sale and emerging talents for the Day Sale at JW Marriott, Hong Kong. 

Notable Contemporary Artworks Auctioned by Phillips 

[gallery ids="209745,209746,209747,209749,209748"]

Notable Contemporary Artworks Auctioned by Poly Auction 

[gallery ids="209753,209752,209754,209751,209750"]

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Following Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong and Japan, KAWS: Holiday travels to out of this world for its fifth stop.

American artist KAWS has teamed up with AllRightsReserved to present The KAWS: HOLIDAY SPACE to celebrate Companion's 20th anniversary. "I decided to work on a project with @ARR.AllRightsReserved where we would send one of my sculptures 41.5 kilometers (136,296 feet) up into the stratosphere." KAWS stated in his Instagram post.

 

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The whole space journey took about eight hours, including preparation for lift-off, departure to landing, and was recorded with a 360-degree panoramic video camera. “So many projects have been cancelled this year. I wanted to create one that could be experienced safely from home,” KAWS mentioned in a press release. “Because this year marks 20 years since I created Companion, I tried to find a way around all the restrictions and do something special. I felt so confined the past few months that creating a project like this has really given me a chance to escape.”

 

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The newest 11.5-inch figurines (available in gold, silver, and black), will be available to purchase for HK$2,980 exclusively AllRightsReserved starting on August 17 at 10 p.m. EST. Be sure to mark your calendar.

The post Here’s How to Get Your Hands on ‘KAWS: Holiday Space’ Companion Figurine appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s top selling female artists and most popular exhibitors made famous by her polka dot motifs, can rightly be called the matriarch of Pop Art.

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Yayoi Kusama was the youngest of four children in a wealthy but troubled family. Her father was a womaniser, her mother was cold and distant.

As a young child, Kusama was sent to learn Nihongo, or traditional Japanese painting, and surviving sketches from that time show clearly a talent well beyond her years. Kusama already knew that she wanted to be an artist, but found the traditional master-pupil regimen stifling. But her mother wouldn’t entertain the idea, instead telling Kusama that she was destined to be a dutiful wife to a wealthy husband. The mother frequently confiscated Kusama’s inks and canvases, which probably contributed to her obsessive creative drive.

[caption id="attachment_209248" align="alignnone" width="1078"] Kusama kicks back in a serpentine setting.[/caption]

Kusama’s burning desire to paint continued, and in the late 1940s and early 1950s she looked abroad, impressed by the new generation of American painters. She greatly admired Georgia O’Keeffe, with whom she corresponded for advice. O’Keeffe, who was more than 40 years Kusama’s senior, warned her that artists in America had “a hard time making a living”. Still, she advised Kusama to move to the United States and show her work to as many people as she could.

In her mid-20s, Kusama left to seek fame and freedom in New York, where she lived from 1958 to 1975. She would later acknowledge that “America was really the country that raised me”. Kusama has said that without her art she would have committed suicide a long time ago. Her “Infinity Net” dot paintings, which first won her critical acclaim in New York, originate from visual hallucinations that she claims have haunted her since childhood and became the overwhelming power in her life.

"One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space.”

[caption id="attachment_209251" align="alignnone" width="957"] A dot room, which started off stark white. Exhibition attendees were given booklets of different sized and coloured dot stamps to place wherever they liked.[/caption]

In 1977, two years after returning from overseas, she booked into a psychiatric asylum in Tokyo where she has lived on a voluntary basis ever since. However, she maintains a large and very productive studio across the road from the institution and describes her work as “art medicine”.

She views her recent paintings as diary entries. Whenever she is overcome with a nightmarish hallucination, Kusama sits down at a canvas and begins to document the vision, completing the work in one sitting. These are always completed on the same size canvas and create a visual log of her obsessive thoughts. Despite their bright colours, the works have titles such as The Far End of my Sorrow and All About Joy, reflecting a troubled soul.

Kusama’s output is prolific. According to Christie's, she was the world’s highest-selling living female artist with her Infinity Net paintings being the most sought-after. Her touring retrospective, Infinite Obsession, attracted the largest global audience of 2015.

[caption id="attachment_209249" align="alignnone" width="960"] Kusama's Infinity pumpkins.[/caption]

She is business-savvy and prolific Kusama’s CV reads like a roll call of creative industries; she founded an erotic newspaper entitled Kusama’s Orgy, has published eight novels, several books of poetry, designed a bus and has produced films – including one with British musician Peter Gabriel.

During her time in US and back in Japan, Kusama has never identified as belonging to any artistic movement, always describing her style simply as “Kusama art” despite her connections to major avant-garde artists. Still, Kusama often tells of how she craved fame when she arrived in New York. As a woman forging a career in a country that harboured post-war resentment towards Japan, it took dogged determination to get the attention she craved.

Sources: Christies, BBC, New York Times

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The 1937 Paris World’s Fair was intended to celebrate modern technology. But the inclusion of the Picasso’s most famous work, Guernica, at the Spanish pavilion turned it into a mass protest against fascist war crimes.

Two years before the outbreak of the second world war, Pablo Picasso expressed his outrage against a full-scale modern air raid against unarmed civilians during the civil war in his native Spain with painting Guernica, an enormous mural, displayed to millions of visitors at the Paris World’s Fair. It is still regarded as the 20^thcentury’s most powerful artistic indictment against war, and remains just as relevant to civilians around the world who continue to be caught in today’s conflagrations. The work’s emotional power comes from its immense size of 349 cm times 776 cm (about 11ft tall and 25ft wide). It is a painting challenges rather than accepts the notion of war as heroic.

The Reina Sofia museum in Madrid digitised the entire mural. Check out their wonderful Rethinking Guernica website here.

Picasso was asked by the newly elected Spanish Republican government to paint an artwork for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, the official theme of which was a celebration of modern technology. Instead, Picasso’s giant painting was overtly political, which as a subject he’d shown little interest in up to that time.

[caption id="attachment_209226" align="alignnone" width="957"] Guernica Harbour.[/caption]

The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 between the democratic Republican government and the fascist forces, led by General Francisco Franco, who were trying to overthrow them. The painting is based on events on April 27, 1937, when Hitler’s powerful German air force, acting in support of Franco, bombed the town of Guernica in northern Spain, a city of no strategic military value in the heart of Basque country, in the first ever-aerial saturation bombing of a civilian population.

The raid’s purpose was to test a new bombing tactic to intimidate and terrorize the resistance. For more than three hours, 25 bombers dropped about 50,000kg of explosives and incendiary bombs on the village, reducing it to rubble. Twenty more fighter planes strafed and killed defenceless civilians trying to flee. Fires burned for three days, and 70 percent of the city was destroyed. A third of the population, 1600 civilians, were killed or wounded.

The Spanish Civil War attracted the participation of many artists and writers, mostly to the Republican cause. British artist and activist Felicia Browne was among the first to die.

News of the atrocity reached Paris several days later. Eyewitness reports filled local and international newspapers. Picasso, sympathetic to the Republican cause, was horrified by the reports. Guernica is his memorial to the massacre, and after hundreds of sketches, the painting was done in less than a month before being delivered to the Fair’s Spanish Pavilion, where it became the central attraction. Rather than the typical celebration of technology people expected to see at a world’s fair, the entire Spanish Pavilion shocked the world into confronting the suffering of the Spanish people.

Later, in the 1940s, when Paris was occupied by the Germans, it was reported perhaps apocryphally that a Nazi officer visited Picasso’s studio. “Did you do that?” he asked the artist while standing in front of a photograph of the painting. “No,” Picasso replied, “you did”.

[caption id="attachment_209225" align="alignnone" width="947"] Guernica post bombing.[/caption]

The Republican forces sent Guernica on a global tour to create awareness of the war and raise funds for Spanish refugees. It travelled the world for 19 years before it was loaned to The Museum of Modern Art in New York for safekeeping. Picasso refused to allow it to return to Spain until the country “enjoyed public liberties and democratic institutions,” which did not occur until 1981 following Franco’s death. Today it is on permanent display in the Reina Sofia, Spain’s national museum of modern art in Madrid.

Sources: Khan Academy, The Art Story

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The international curated art fair Untitled, Art and online contemporary art platform Artland have teamed up to present the world’s first virtual reality art fair called Untitled, Art Online.

Dubbed the “digital fair of the future,” Untitled, Art Online features an e-commerce platform and commission-based structure designed to minimise up-front costs to exhibitors. Collectors can engage in real time shopping, with features such as "buy now" and chat tools that support instant messaging. Visitors are also able to navigate fair aisles, adding to the sense of discovery and exploration that is lost in static online viewing rooms.

The inaugural edition of Untitled, Art Online, powered by Artland, features some 40 international exhibitors, set within Untitled, Art’s iconic light-filled tent that has come to define the Miami Beach edition. The dynamic online fair, which will be accessible 24-hours a day will showcase unique booth presentations and allow for life-like navigation through space, where visitors can virtually stroll the aisles looking for new discoveries and unexpected juxtapositions that have come to define the art fair experience. Exhibitors will also have the ability to customise their booth designs and exhibit artworks that have been sold.

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“We are beyond excited to be launching Untitled, Art Online at a time when the art world is relying more heavily on digital engagement,” says Jeffrey Lawson, founder of Untitled, Art. “This platform, the only virtual reality experience available in the art market, is something we have been hard at work on with Artland for nearly a year now and have decided to launch it earlier than intended in an effort to help reinvigorate the global art economy. Not only have we created an original and innovative virtual experience that is as close to being at Untitled, Art Miami Beach as virtually possible, but we are also providing our clients with a state-of-the-art e-commerce platform at a time when they need it the most.”

Participating galleries hail from New York to Beijing and include Addis Fine Art, Altman Siegal, Vigo Gallery, The Pit, Jane Lombard Gallery, Denny Dimin Gallery, among others. The fair runs from 31 July to 2 August, 2020.

Shop the fair here.

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Lévy Gorvy Gallery’s latest exhibition provides a rare glimpse into art history with concurrent exhibitions of works by two great artists, France’s centenarian Pierre Soulages and the late New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

This summer, Lévy Gorvy inaugurated its new global initiative, called Reveal, an ongoing series of single-work focused exhibitions devoted to showcasing post-war and contemporary masterpieces. These are presented along with in-depth contextual materials and educational programming in their gallery spaces and online.

The exhibition, which opened in Hong Kong on July 7, presents a seminal painting by France’s greatest living artist Pierre Soulages, titled Peinture (1953), which hasn’t been exhibited in public in almost 60 years.  As an artist who is still actively painting at age 100, Soulages has offered an extraordinary continuity across his oeuvre. The exhibition strives to provide viewers with a historical perspective on Soulage’s career by contrasting this formative early work with an exhibition of six of his recent Outrenoir paintings, highlighting a period during which he gained international recognition.

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Peinture was painted by Soulages as he entered his stylistic maturity and represents a breakthrough moment for the artist. In this work, he introduced a sense of vigorous movement that is also anchored by a powerfully structured composition. The work is also permeated by a compelling sense of inner light created by his brushstrokes in varying hues of black, grey, white and brown, which creates a dramatic luminosity and showcases his lifelong exploration of darkness and radiance. Peinture, along with all six of Soulage’s Outrenoir paintings are for sale, half of which have already been sold.

At the same time, a rare painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat is also being exhibited as a second Reveal exhibition, titled Jean-Michel Basquiat: Royalty, Heroism, and the Streets. This is the first Asia gallery presentation of Basquiat’s work, and Untitled (1982) is one of his most impressive and important works. The work consists of an electrifying portrait of a Black hero figure that is part self-portrait, part idol, standing proud amid the chaos of abstracted forms on a background of blue.

[caption id="attachment_209060" align="alignnone" width="1543"] Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled (1982)[/caption]

Untitled (1982) is one of a famous trio of large-scale paintings on the theme of a prophet that Basquiat made in 1982, a pivotal year of the artist’s meteoric rise to international stardom. It was in this year that Basquiat was able to realise an ever-more extraordinary sequence of hauntingly powerful paintings with the support of his first dealer Annina Nosei, who provided him with his first supply of high-quality working materials as well as a dedicated space to paint.

“We are excited to launch Reveal, a new series of focused exhibitions that will bring major works of art to our galleries around the world,” co-founder Brett Gorvy says. “At a time when travel is heavily restricted, we look to engage with collectors and the public on the ground while simultaneously connecting to a global audience using our digital platforms to introduce these preeminent artists and their masterworks.”

The exhibitions run until 10 September, 2020 .

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A neo-Georgian building on the banks of the River Erne is the home of  Ireland’s oldest craft pottery, Belleek. For nearly 170 years, Belleek has been a collectors’ item and prized family heirlooms. The pottery’s founder, John Caldwell Bloomfield, declared that any piece with even the slightest flaw should be destroyed. “This rule is still […]

The post Belleek, Ireland’s Oldest Craft Pottery Continuing an Age-Old Tradition appeared first on Upscale Living Magazine.

It’s been called the China’ most popular painting and even China’s Mona Lisa. It’s a prize possession of the Palace Museum in Beijing and is only unveiled to the public every few years, at most. It truly is a magnificent treasure, that astounds all who can catch a rare glimpse of it.

[caption id="attachment_208840" align="alignnone" width="1373"] Section 1 of the Qingming scroll[/caption]

But for all its fame and glory, it remains an enigma – concealing much more about its mysterious past than has been established as fact. Indeed, no-one in modern times knew of the scroll’s existence until scholars discovered it in the bowels of the Palace Museum in Beijing in 1954, after it was returned from Manchuria after the second world war. By some accounts, the scroll was a favourite of Puyi, the Last Emperor.

[caption id="attachment_208841" align="alignnone" width="1596"] Section 2 of the Qingming scroll[/caption]

Apart from the technical brilliance with which it was completed, there is so much that remains unknown about is handscroll measuring 25.5cm high and 5.25 metres long, depicting everyday life in a busy Chinese city.  And while the sheer technical brilliance of the scroll is there for all to see, just about everything else purported to be fact about its location, provenance and even its purpose is conjecture.

The work is attributed to Zhang Zeduan, who is to have lived from 1085-1145 and is often referred to as “the most popular court artist of the Song dynasty”. But the only historical mention of Zhang that has ever been found is in a written message (called a colophon) on the scroll itself, signed by one of its first owners in the subsequent Jin Dynasty when it was already some six decades old by its own account. No further hard evidence of Zhang has been found, either in other paintings or written accounts by other. Zhang Zhu, the colophon’s author and presumably no relation, was an official curator of paintings for the non-Han Chinese Jin Dynasty that conquered North China in 1126.

[caption id="attachment_208842" align="aligncenter" width="1553"] Section 3 of the Qingming scroll[/caption]

The colophon said that “Zhang Zeduan (styled Zhengdao) is a native of Dongwu [today’s Zhucheng, in Shandong province]. When young, he studied and travelled to the capital for further study. He showed talent for ruled-line painting (draughting and rendering), and especially liked boats and carts, markets and bridges, moats and paths. He was an expert in other types of painting as well.”

He concluded: “On the day after the Qingming festival, in 1186, Zhang Zhu from Yanshan wrote this colophon”.  This, as far as is known, is the only contemporary official mention of Zhang Zeduan.

Another problem for scholars is the scroll’s name, Qingming shanghe tu, which roughly translated from the same characters could be A stroll along the river during the Qingming Festival or Peace reigns over the river. The first name implies a period of stability and peace, while second implies a more volatile epoch.

Scholars are also divided over the location of the scroll. Some say it is Kaifeng, the venerable Song capital, while others say there is no reason to presume, especially as none of the buildings in the painting resemble ones known from records. The scene, they say, is of an idealised city. Many copies, some of them twice the length of the original, were made in subsequent centuries.

[caption id="attachment_208843" align="aligncenter" width="1174"] Section 4 of the Qingming scroll[/caption]

Valerie Hansen, a US professor of Chinese language and history who also supports the idealised city hypothesis, wrote in a 1991 essay The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History: “We can only speculate about [the artist’s] unrecorded motives. It would have been natural for him to make his scroll as a reminder of the past glories of the Song, before the humiliating defeat [by the invading Jurchens] of 1126. If Zhang created his scroll under non-Chinese rule, and the first records place it in the Jin-dynasty imperial collection, he would have a good reason to depict a generic city defying easy identification. His scroll evokes a bygone time in which cities prospered and their residents flourished. Like more recent Chinese critics of the government, he left it to the viewer to deduce his target.

[caption id="attachment_208844" align="aligncenter" width="1790"] Last section of the Qingming scroll[/caption]

“The Qingming scroll is a masterful artistic creation, whose many layers of meaning defy a pat reading. With each viewing, the observer gains new understanding of the people and the city show in such vivid detail. The spellbinding artistry of the scroll, coupled with the lack of documentation about its maker and his subject, guarantee that future generations will fund the study of the scroll just tantalising – as their predecessors.”

The post Arty Facts: The Enigma of China’s Favourite Painting, the Qingming Scroll appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Twenty years after working on Wong Kar-wai’s seminal movie In the Mood for Love, photographer Wing Shya talks to us about capturing the essence of that film, and his own career as a director.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Wong Kar-wai’s In theMood for Love, arguably the Hong Kong film -- and certainly the one that exported a romantic, nostalgia-tinged vision of our city to a global audience.

This year’s Cannes film festival, though cancelled due to Covid19, was expected to celebrate the movie, on which a relatively inexperienced photographer, Wing Shya, captured still photographs of protagonist lovers Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung under moody lights and dramatic shadows.

[caption id="attachment_208567" align="alignnone" width="1388"] Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in In the Mood for Love[/caption]

“We worked day and night on that film," says Shya. “At that time we just worked like that. It was a small team and not a big budget ... And we really didn’t know the film would become so huge and famous."

Twenty years on and the man who subsequently became Hong Kong’s most famous photographer is fast becoming an established film director in his own right, with some of his movies - like the ones he’s been shooting lately - being produced by Wong Kar-wai’s film company, Jettone. The tight-knit duo have been working together on-and-off in some capacity for 25 years.

“When I started taking photos for Wong Kar-wai on his films,"Shya says, “the first film job was for Happy Together with Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung, in Argentina. I didn’t really know anything about photography ... and it was kind of the same with being a film director. I learned so much on the job just on my first movie, Hot Summer Days, with Tony Chan.

“It’s so different from doing photography - when you’re a photographer you can be very emotional. You take the picture and it can be very focused. As a film director you always have to think about all these different elements - the visual, the actors, the dialogue, the mood - constantly thinking every second of shooting. It’s hard work and so difficult."

[caption id="attachment_208569" align="alignnone" width="1384"] Leslie Cheung[/caption]

Acclaimed writer and film director Tony Chan teamed up with Shya for Hot Summer Days, after asking him to help direct a script that he’d been working on. Shya says it involved almost a year of sitting down with each other in Starbucks to work on the film. Remarkably, especially for directing newbie Shya, it became the first Hong Kong

Chinese film made by the giant 20th Century Fox “We went for a five-minute presentation with the guy from Fox, as he was about to go to the airport. It was so rushed but he loved it, and three months later they decided to fund the film. It was really crazy, they met a lot of other directors in Hong Kong and China but decided to choose us."

Now Shya is in the midst of directing his third and fourth feature films (in addition to a few shorts) - shooting in Shanghai was temporarily stalled because of the virus, but will resume shortly. All his films have been quirky romantic comedies set in Hong Kong or mainland Chinese cities.

[caption id="attachment_208566" align="alignnone" width="1398"] Angelababy and Jing Boran in Hot Summer Days[/caption]

Along with Hot Summer Days (2010), his second film Love in Space (2011) really established Shya’s nostalgic, witty and light-hearted style and genre. When I ask why he chose comedy, he says it’s something that he always wanted to do. “I love comedy," he says. “I want to go to a movie theatre and laugh out loud."

In terms of stars and celebrity, Shya has worked with almost all of them, capturing images of the late golden era of Hong Kong stars, such as Leslie Cheung, Shu Q, Faye Wong, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung as they acted or waited on set. Shya was a deft hand at shooting these stars off-guard, a style so different from the glossy, cultivated looks of Hong Kong celebrities that the media had previously been used to.

In the last 10 years as a filmmaker, he’s directed the likes of Aaron Kwok, Eason Chan, Nicholas Tse, Angelababy, Barbie Hsu, Daniel Wu and Rene Liu, and continues to work with some of China’s biggest rising screen stars.

When I ask if he has any favourites, since there are a few names that regularly come up, Shya diplomatically replies, “Sometimes I don’t choose the stars, actors and actresses ... Jettone is producing my films now and sometimes they’re chosen by the producers. Sometimes there are so many investors to take care of, and they also have a say in casting the stars," he says with a laugh.

It’s Shya’s laidback attitude, wit and sense of humour that have made him such a unicorn in the world of photography, fashion and film. There are no airs nor graces, despite his having achieved cult fame in Hong Kong and China. He’s exhibited in London’s V&A and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and has shot for the likes of iD Magazine,Vogue Italia and Numero. Today, Shya remains one of the most down-to-earth talents I’ve met in this city. Even when talking about his remarkable reputation and success, his take is very typically Shya. “Everything that happened in my life and career has been partly luck ... All the moves and new directions have been natural and organic ... I didn’t really plan it, I just kind of go with the flow and how I feel."

As for that instantly recognisable signature mood, aesthetic and style, Shya says that meeting Terry Jones of iD and shooting for the magazine early on was a defining moment in his career. “Terry was kind of my mentor in establishing my style. When I met him, he just gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted; that creative freedom was amazing and not something that I could find easily in Hong Kong. I could shoot naked people, or blurry pictures - it was the freedom that gave me the inspiration to create my style."

[caption id="attachment_208570" align="alignnone" width="1383"] Shu Qi opposite Du Juan[/caption]

In late 2017, the Shanghai Centre of Photography held a retrospective exhibition of Shya’s work, titled Acting Out - a collection of personal work as well as broad selection of images from his time as Wong Kar-wai’s on-set stills photographer - curated by noted Chinese art critic and curator Karen Smith from his entire image archive (outtakes and mistakes included). The opening, attended by Shya’s family, was an emotional event for him.

Today, the once-prolific fashion photography has mostly stopped. He still shoots for a select few clients and magazines, but is kept increasingly busy by film protects. But that doesn’t mean Shya doesn’t still keep an eye on the photography and fashion scenes, and the many young photographic talents coming out of Hong Kong, China and Asia.

“My style is already vintage style, a bit nostalgic, and honestly I’m not really up to date any more, but I love what the young photographers are doing -- it’s so exciting. It’s not the same stuff that I can do -- but I love it."

The post Photographer Wing Shya on Light and Shadow appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Arty Facts has on various occasions highlighted the long tradition of art worlds colliding, especially in Eastern and Western Art. Dating from the earliest contacts, including the works by a gifted Italian Jesuit master painter with a Chinese name who was court painter to three generations of Qing emperors.

Giuseppe Castiglione, let alone Lang Shining, are hardly household names in the West. And while most Chinese art students might not recognise the first name, there is an excellent chance they are familiar with the second. We are talking, of course, about the same person, an extraordinarily talented young painter from Milan, Italy, who travelled to China in the 16th Century as a young Jesuit missionary to spend the rest of his life teaching and painting three consecutive Qing emperors.

Castiglione was born in 1688 in Milan, and by 19 had been identified by the Jesuits for his artistic skill and was taught the greatest techniques of the Italian Renaissance. On the day of his initiation into the Jesuits in 1707 he was assigned to China, where his mission was to serve the imperial court as a painter so as to promote Jesuit policy in Beijing. While he appeared to have limited success in attracting religious converts in the Qing Court, he lasting legacy was, as Marco Musillo wrote in The Shining Inheritance: Italian Painters at the Qing Court, 1699-1812 was to “integrate, fuse, and translate European and Chinese techniques and elements to create a distinctive high Qing court style”.

“The Qing dynasty Kangxi Emperor had requested that Jesuit experts in astronomy, painting, cartography and mechanics be sent to his court in the Forbidden City, where the Jesuits had attained a well-earned reputation, since the days of [Jesuit leader] Matteo Ricci, of bringing the most advanced Western knowledge and skills in science, mechanics and the arts in addition to their missionary work.”

Whereas many Christian missionaries around the world at the time tried to impose their religion with condescension – and often by force – China has been an advanced civilization for millennia was not about to adopt an alien religion from warlike foreigners on face value. But when Matteo Ricci arrived in China in 1582 he put aside the bible and attempted to create trust by engaging with Chinese culture while sharing the most recent advances in Western technology, science [in particular cartography and astronomy] and the arts. Jesuit missionaries in China also learnt the language and adopted Chinese names.

[caption id="attachment_208538" align="alignnone" width="1468"] Gathering of Auspicious Signs, Giuseppe Castiglione, 1723.[/caption]

Castiglione arrived in Beijing in 1715, taking up the challenge with aplomb of learning the Chinese language and artistic skills. In good time he began painting works that combined European techniques like chiaroscuro (the effect of contrasted light and shadow), linear perspective and realism with Chinese painting, symbolism and pigments. Castiglione differed from his Jesuit artistic predecessors by overcoming aesthetic chasm between European and Chinese tastes by combining the best of both into a new style that continues to astound and charm art lovers around the world.
Castiglione’s new Xianfa (“line method”) school of painting quickly became the favoured style of Emperor Kangxi, then his son Yongzheng. During the latter’s reign, Castiglione’s most famous paintings, Gathering of Auspicious Signs (1723) and the 7.7-metre-long scroll One Hundred Horses boosted his fame.

The now ageing Italian’s success peaked with Kangxi’s grandson, Qianlong, who loved him like a member of his own family, and who protected and championed him during a time when it was increasingly dangerous to be a Christian in China. Qianlong elevated Castiglione to official court painter in 1736, then in 1748 to administrator of the imperial parks and vice-president of the six boards, the highest rank ever attained by a Jesuit.

[caption id="attachment_208537" align="alignnone" width="1454"] Inauguration Portraits of Qianlong the Empress and the Eleven Imperial Consorts, Giuseppe Castiglione, 1736.[/caption]

The Emperor also recognised the power of this higher mode of artistic expression. To help keep the fragmented, multi-ethnic Chinese empire unified, Qianlong commissioned Castiglione to represent his image to different constituents, including Manchu warrior, Han royalty and Buddhist reincarnation.

Castiglione continued to blend European and Eastern aesthetics. He was even a competent architect, whose most important works included the magnificent Western-style pavilions in the Old Summer Palace, commissioned by Qianlong in 1747. Sadly, these were razed, ironically, by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War in the 1860s. Castiglione died in Beijing in 1766, 51 years after he arrived in China. Most of his surviving works, however, are housed in Taiwan’s National Palace Museum in Taipei.

The post Arty Facts: Giuseppe Castiglione’s Surprising Crossovers in Eastern and Western Art appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

If you're anything like us, your Instagram feed may have a few too many cute puppies and delicious-looking food pics.

No worries, we're here to help you freshen up your feed with this list of 7 amazing Hong Kong-based photographers, whose sole purpose is to document the world through a lens and share their inspirational images. From the world's most stunning natural landscapes to atmospheric urban scenes and perfect portraiture, ahead is our pick of the best local photographers to follow on Instagram today.

Above image: Vivien Liu @vdubl

Harimaolee

Followers: 373k

Freelance photographer Harimao's Instagram is best for travel inspiration. In fact, you'll start noting down your travel wish list immediately after viewing his photos. His silhouettes have also inspired us to turn our back to the camera and let the lens do the work.

 

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A post shared by Harimao Lee | Hong Kong 🇭🇰 (@harimaolee) on Jun 23, 2020 at 4:49am PDT

2.25c

Followers: 30.1k

Like a moth to a flame, we just adore images full of bright colour, and that's where Samuel's Instagram comes in. This young photographer and filmmaker captures light like no other, and what would normally be a plain static image is brought to life because of it.

 

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A post shared by Samuel Chan | Hong Kong🇭🇰 (@2.25c) on Feb 21, 2019 at 5:42am PST

Hurtingbombz

Followers: 34.7k

Justin Lim's style of photography is very fine-art-meets-documentary. But what we love the most are his striking portraits and his ability to capture emotion within the shot. Intimate and almost always sultry, the photographs feel a little Wong Kar-wai-esque to us.

 

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A post shared by Justin Lim (@hurtingbombz) on Feb 25, 2020 at 8:47am PST

Veeceecheng

Followers: 163k

You may recognise some of Victor's shots from another well-known Instagram account --his fiancée's Samishome-- who often features in his shots. What you'll find here is a colourful grid of pastel-hues that feel like they belong in a Wes Anderson film. And with many of them taken in Hong Kong, it really does make you fall in love with our city every time he posts.

 

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A post shared by Victor Cheng (@veeceecheng) on Mar 14, 2020 at 6:40am PDT

Vdubl

Followers: 250k

Vivian's shots look like they're straight out of a glossy magazine, so it's no wonder brands such as Audemars Piguet and American Express have worked with her. A background in architecture lends a distinct urban style in which clean lines and building patterns are heavily featured, but it's when she uses them as her backdrop in portraits that it is most impressive.

 

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A post shared by Vivien (@vdubl) on Feb 8, 2020 at 5:15am PST

Kelvin_yuen_

Followers: 45.8k

As the winner of a National Geographic photography award, Kelvin's images are the unbelievable kind of scenic snapshots that tell the story of our natural world. Think misty mountain tops, cascading waterfalls, northern lights and more that inspire us endlessly. So much so that we're inclined to save a few as our desktop wallpapers.

 

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A post shared by Kelvin's Landscapes (@kelvin_yuen_) on Jul 5, 2020 at 5:57am PDT

The post The Hong Kong Photographers to Follow on Instagram Right Now appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.