MON renews Asian exhibition in a dialog with contemporary art from that continent
"Living in harmony with impermanence", curated by Géraldine Lenain, is the new edition of the exhibition "Asia: the Land, the Men, the Gods", organized by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), on display in Room 5.
Luciana Casagrande Pereira, Paraná's Secretary of State for Culture, notes that the renewal of the Asian exhibition reinforces MON's commitment to offering the public a broad and diverse cultural experience. "This exhibition invites us to reflect on impermanence, transformation, and for the first time since the Asian collection arrived at MON, there will be an integration between the past and the contemporary, which should really excite the public," she says.
"The arrival of the Asian collection at MON years ago raised MON to the level of the great international museums," says the institution's director, Juliana Vosnika. The exhibition, which presents a cross-section of this collection, donated by diplomat Fausto Godoy, has already been reformulated and has toured the state of Paraná, reaching thousands of people.
"Now, in a bold and unique way, the exhibition is being renewed, with the aim of reaching an ever wider audience, further democratizing access to this rich collection," she says. This time, MON's intention is to create a dialog between classical Asian art and contemporary artists from that continent.
"Contemporary art seeks to show us that there can always be beauty in imperfections and processes. We're all constantly changing, and art is a path to the shifting balance that is life," says Juliana.
How to be in harmony with impermanence is the proposal of this intervention at the Asian show. Among other new features, the public will find immersive experiences in real time, an interactive video library, a video installation and a "Virtual Museum" with 16 works by 12 Asian artists. In this way, MON maintains its premise of offering unique and transformative experiences to visitors.
The beauty of impermanence
"Impermanence is one of the fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. This means that nothing is unchanging, everything is in constant movement," says the curator. We therefore need to adapt to the inevitable changes in our environment and, consequently, review our certainties, our behaviors and our habits. "In Asia, impermanence is as old as time, and it's still relevant today," says Geraldine.
She explains that the work "My house in the air", a performance by Korean artist Jisoo Yoo, which is part of the exhibition, presents a familiar space (the house) in an ephemeral and unstable way. "In his work, uncertainty and fragility are not necessarily negative. As Buddha said, there is nothing constant except change," she says.
Virtual museum
The Asian contemporary intervention also presents the virtual exhibition "Like a wheel inside a wheel", curated by Martina Köppel-Yang, which brings together works that address the notion of change and impermanence.
The works presented in the exhibition approach this subject from different angles and in different media: sculpture, photography, video and painting. The aspect of agency is more prevalent in the works of Adel Abdessemed, Chen Zhen, Shen Yuan, Tian Dexi and Zheng Guogu, while An Xiaotong, Chen Shaoxiong, Jia Aili, Jin Jiangbo, Wang Du, Wang Qingsong and Yang Jiechang address other facets, such as memory, loss and visions of harmony and beauty.
The artists represented in this show are: Adel Abdessemed, An Xiaotong, Chen Zhen, Chen Shaoxiong, Jia Aili, Jin Jiangbo, Shen Yuan, Tian Dexi, Wang Du, Wang Qingsong, Yang Jiechang and Zheng Guogu.
Interactive library
The interactive library brings following videos: "Jiang Nan Poem" (2005), by Qiu Anxiong, which combines traditional Chinese visuals of tree branches, birds and space, using subtle shifts between static and dynamic elements to create a temporal and spatial relationship.
"Post Pause" (2004), by Jiang Zhi, presents a poetic and dreamlike narrative set on a quiet morning in Shenzhen, mixing everyday urban life with the artist's intersection of poetics and sociology.
"Joss" (2013), by Cheng Ran, with critical-social comments on Chinese cultural globalization with a stylized critical cinema.
"Speech" (2005), by Li Songhua, features a young Chinese man reading a speech about China's glorious economic future. And finally, the video "Wing and Water - Zheng Guogu", stars contemporary Chinese artist Zheng Guogu and is directed by Felicitas Yang.
There is also the DSL Collection, with "Phantom Landscape" (2009), an animated film by Yang Yongliang, which mixes urban growth with modern life and stagnant cultural traditions.
Asian collection
Competed for by other institutions in Brazil and by collectors from abroad, MON's Asian collection consists of 3,000 works of art. When it arrived in 2018, there was a discussion about the definition of a new curatorial line by the Museum's cultural council.
This was when space was opened up in the collection, with an emphasis also on Asian, African and Latin American art, in line with the great museums of the world, making it distinct from the Eurocentric tendency that dominates Western culture.
