In the Show – 29th November 2011

The artist’s life can be a hard life. You’ve probably heard of the cliché of the suffering artist. But for mainland artist Yang Zhichao, suffering, and particularly his own suffering, is indeed a part of many of his art pieces. Yang is known for his performance art. The body, violence and pain inflicted onto the body are subjects to which he felt attracted. At 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, “Chinese Bible” is an exhibition of 3,000 personal diaries Yang collected for the past three years in the streets of Beijing. From unified thoughts and propaganda during the Cultural Revolution, to popular songs at the time to scientific research and mathematics calculations, Yang thinks these diaries are an insight into the Chinese behaviour and psyche over half a century.

“The Adventures of Tintin” is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Georges Rémi under the pen name of Hergé. It’s one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with more than 350 million copies of the books sold. The series, about the boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy (or Milou in the original) first appeared in French in 1929. The final story was published in 1986, three years after Herge had died. Now it’s been turned into a 3D, motion capture, CGI film by Stephen Spielberg. Gary Pollard reviews it.

American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 in New York, and died there in 1997. He’s particularly famous for his images during the 1960s based on comic books and advertising material. For some later works he also drew inspiration from traditional Chinese painting, in particular from the Song Dynasty. Until 22nd December the Gagosian gallery is featuring an exhibition of his art called ” Landscapes in the Chinese Style”.

 

 
At the Upper Station photo gallery until 15th December there’s a look at nature from a quite different perspective. In his works Hisun Wong captures images of flowers and leaves, which he then enhances electronically. The exhibition’s called “Intimate Impression series 2”.

 
Finally this week, even people who haven’t heard, or paid attention to, any other classical pianist have quite likely heard of today’s guest, Maksim. He was born in Croatia, took up piano lessons at nine, and at 28, in 2003 released “The Piano Player”, which has achieved Gold status in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, Platinum in Taiwan and Croatia and Double Platinum in Hong Kong, where he has a particularly enthusiastic fan base. This week, he’s playing in The Works studio.