"New “China”: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910-2012" Exhibition

China Institute

poster for "New “China”: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910-2012" Exhibition

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A new exhibition of modern and contemporary porcelain art from Jingdezhen, the renowned porcelain capital of China, will be on view at China Institute Gallery. New “China”: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910-2012 will offer more than 45 works spanning over a century – including sculpture, paintings on porcelain, as well as vases and other objects.

For more than 1,000 years, Jingdezhen provided a major source of porcelain for the imperial court as well as for the entire world. The region’s unique geology offered an extraordinary white clay known as kaolin. During the Tang dynasty in the 700s CE in the north of China, kaolin was combined with other materials by skilled artisans to create the world’s first porcelain.

The Italian explorer Marco Polo traveled through China in 1271 and 1295 and refers to Jingdezhen as “where they make the most beautiful cups in the world; they are of porcelain and are manufactured in no other part of the earth besides that city.”

The ceramic trade from Jingdezhen was so influential that it may have led to the naming of the country. The ancient name of Jingdezhen, Changnan, became synonymous with ceramics, and it is said that over time, foreign ceramics traders pronounced the name to sound like “China.”

New “China”: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910-2012 includes work by such noted contemporary artists as Zhu Legeng, Ah Xian, Zhu Dequn, and Wayne Higby, all of whom have studied in or traveled to Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province. Bridging traditional and utilitarian practices with pioneering techniques, the exhibition opens with a selection of modern work by artists who worked in the first decades of the 20th century. Most of the work in the exhibition is on exhibit for the first time in the United States.

[Image: Ah Xian "China, China – Bust 3" (1999) Porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue 13 3/8 x 15 9/16 x 8 11/16 in.]

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Schedule

from September 21, 2012 to February 17, 2013

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