For Art's Sake

It’s easy to overlook the importance of material in an age defined by the virtual, yet the permanence of bronze outlives any historical boundaries. For a different perspective on art in Nanjing this month, herein three bronzes from radically...

“Dense Forrest and Layered Peaks” by Ju Ran, Tang Dynasty, British Museum. One of only two surviving works of the foremost landscape master. Fake. “Riverbank” by Dong Yuan, Southern Tang, Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Art history would not have happened...

The face is a picture of calm – dark eyes with a soft yet confident gaze, cheekbones accentuated by a warm pink glow, glossy skin and the stubble of what would be thick hair. A healthy looking man, were...

For such an influential and famous artist, Andy Warhol was in fact a rather shy and quiet figure. His subjects, on the other hand, were not. Marilyn Munro and Elvis Presley made some of his most iconic portraits, reflecting...

When art is destroyed, it often make big news, and rightfully so. Whether by accident, such as the 20 million objects reduced to dust by a devastating fire at the National Museum of Brazil; or by calculated cruelty, such...

This article begins with a squat toilet in Jingdezhen. As I reached for the flush, in an act most mundane, I was compelled to question: Who on earth decided to make the flush button shaped like the Apple logo?...

It is not an exaggeration to say that everyone who learns Chinese calligraphy will at some point come across Wang Xizhi, China’s most celebrated historical calligrapher. Fewer perhaps know that his iconic work, the Lantingxu, was written while under...

The Longxia (or crayfish) Festival held in Nanjing in June had nothing to do with those blighted crustaceans that hang onto life as they await their garlic-heavy fate. In fact, this small scale festival of performance art packed a...