Press Release Summary = Homage to the Xiao family at the Hassan Museum in Rabat
Press Release Body =
Inauguration: 7th December 2006 Museo Hassan: 14, Avenue Mohamed Lyazidi, Villa Andalucia - Hassan, Rabat Open to the public: 8th December 2006 - 28th January 2007
The exhibition "Flowers from the East. Xiao Feng and his family" will be inaugurated on 7th December at the Hassan Museum in Rabat internationally directed by Paolo De Grandis; organised by Hassan Museum Foundation in collaboration with Arte Communications and by the Centro Italiano per le Arti e la Cultura, it is dedicated to a most particular family. Indeed it is not common, either in China or in Europe, to find such a high concentration of artists in a single family. Yet in Xiao Feng's family, composed of four members, all four express themselves through different artistic forms, in a personal and original way. Xiao Feng, the head of the family, is a very well-known artist in China. He was born in 1932 and at only eleven years of age he joined a travelling company of the young revolutionary group in the eastern part of free China, creating anti-Fascist propaganda pictures. In 1954 he was sent to study oil painting in the former Soviet Union; after graduating, he returned to China in 1960 and started teaching at the Zhejiang Academy. The work of Xiao Feng, of post-Impressionist derivation, is nevertheless steeped in the passions of Nordic expressionism, rooted directly in his Russian training. Having passed through the great school of socialist epic realism, he later devoted himself to portrait painting and then moved on to a form of strongly lyrical landscape painting with extraordinary pictorial qualities. A man with strong commitments, also of a social nature, he has held many important appointments in his lifetime, leaving in their wake a great popularity which, together with his artistic skill, has helped make him one of the most popular contemporary Chinese artists as well as one of the masters with the greatest following. Song Ren, his wife, is also an artist and teacher and has produced a great many oil pictures, the favourite subjects of which are revolution and history. The two artists often produced works together to praise the liberation campaigns, becoming with time the major exponents of the revolutionary artists. Some of their works, as well as being shown in many museums in China, were included in school books with the result that they became well-known to the general public. The sweet impressionism of Song Ren is indubitably her reinterpretation in a Chinese key of the tenets of the great French masters of the late nineteenth century; from them she learned the most noble and human part, reproducing on canvas her little world of people she loves and the Chinese countryside, always seen through the gentle eyes of a woman. When she turns to portrait painting, she does not shrink from the psychological and probing view of one who sees beyond the outer appearances, into people's hidden, inner soul. Xiao Lu, their elder daughter, took her diploma at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Peking. She immediately directed her research towards the international artistic avant-garde movements, with particular reference to installation and behaviour art. In this research, in 1988, during the inauguration of one of her installations, Dialogue - of which some photos can be seen in the exhibition - Xiao Lu and the artist Tang Son were arrested. Xiao Lu was later released, but she had to remain abroad for several years; the episode aroused great debate and consecrated both her work and her figure at an international level, making her a kind of icon of contemporary Chinese art.
Xiao Ge, the younger daughter, took her diploma at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts in Peking and subsequently at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She works between Europe and China, developing research poised between various genres, but with particular reference to the relationship between art and fashion and the deriving motifs of a strongly contemporary form of language. Using the fashion messages of "sensuality, behaviour, materials and glamour", revisited in her own way, she works with a particular means of expression, presenting us with this ephemeral world in the form of enthralling performances. In particular her performance in Paris for the Ecole des Beaux Arts at the Couvent des Cordeliers and the performance entitled "Passage", realised for the Open review in Venice, marked her entrance as a protagonist in the variegated world of contemporary art. Her artistic language is articulated in no only Chinese but international contemporary art, in a combination of painting, performance, installation and design with a highly personal result, making her one of the most interesting new artists of our time. The exhibition, organised by Vincenzo Sanfo and Paolo De Grandis, therefore extols the merits of this family which has been on the great Chinese artistic scene for more than sixty years now, so it cannot be ignored by the international cultural world. That is why it has been decided to hold the exhibition in Morocco, at Villa Andalucia, home of the Hassan Museum, which aims to become a point of reference both for specialists in the field and for a wider public, as part of the grand project for the cultural renewal of the city of Rabat and of Morocco, passing also - and above all - through art in all its forms
THE HASSAN MUSEUM IN RABAT: THE LOCATION AND THE AIMS OF THE PROJECT
The Hassan Museum, internationally directed by Paolo De Grandis and supervised by Fathiya Tahiri, Chairwoman of the Hassan Museum Foundation, is housed in the historic Villa Andalucia - built in 1929 - and the very name recalls the Spanish origins of its owners. The architectural structure and the decorations of the walls in Spanish-Moorish style bear witness to the building's imposing historic and artistic heritage. Both the inside and the outside are decorated with mosaics and ceramics. There are important mosaics illustrating "The Glories of Spain" in the fifteenth century, partly reproducing some famous paintings by Diego Velasquez. The garden comprises green areas and covered environments, finely decorated with the typical Zellige mosaics and with five fountains, rich in mythological elements. The museum is an integral part of a programme of cultural renewal of the city of Rabat and of Morocco, the aims of which are to present internationally known artists, to promote local artists, and to collaborate with the major institutions operating in the sector.
INFORMATION ARTE COMMUNICATIONS Tel. +39 041 5264546 Fax +39 041 2769056 pressoffice@artecommunications.com info@artecommunications.com www.artecommunications.com
2025
