Monday, February 02, 2009

Avant Garde China アヴァンギャルド・チャイナ

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We spent Saturday the 24th of January in Osaka for a day of art, shopping and food. We began our day at The National Museum of Art, Osaka, where we saw the exhibition Avant Garde China: 20 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art. The museum is all housed below ground, and the dramatic above ground structure is meant to imitate the properties of bamboo.
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The exhibition covered nearly 25 years of Chinese Contemporary Art and included the works of 16 artists. I was especially struck by the works of Cao Fei, Yang Fudong, Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang, and Wang Guangyi. Avant Garde China balanced a variety of media including video, painting, and sculpture, and provided visitors with a sampling of various movements within Chinese Contemporary Art including Cynical Realism, Political Pop and Tactile Art. Personally I am attracted to art that is political in nature, and many of the works in the show appealed to me for their strong statements on the social and political conditions of late 20th and early 21st century China.
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After we left the museum we stopped by Calo, a small art bookstore, cafe, and gallery that I had found on the internet while looking for a speciality art magazine. We next took the subway across the city and encountered this adorable poster for the Osaka Rainbow Family of Busses!
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After an afternoon of art viewing, we headed to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner to satisfy our craving for nachos and veggieburgers. It may be overpriced and homogenized the world over, but the HRC corporate franchise is still one that I like, and it is still the only veggieburger we have found in Japan. I guess my interest stems from the opening of HRC Chicago when I was in junior high and was highly impressionable. I still remember my first visit, for a friend's birthday dinner (I'm guessing it was an 11th birthday). Regardless, I have a collection of pins from all the various locations I've been to, and continue to collect them (click here for my new Osaka pin).
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An evening street shot of the Umeda area of Osaka.
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Before heading home we stopped into Yodobashi Camera so I could pick up some new headphones and Joe could get some wires he needed. Here he is, at home in the electronics heaven of Yodobashi.
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Me at Sannomiya Station as we head back home.
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