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Almine Rech

Nothing Still About Still Lifes Three Centuries of Floral Compositions

Permanent exhibition | Deji Art Museum, Nanjing, China

The Deji Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of  'Nothing Still About Still Lifes: Three Centuries of Floral Compositions,' the inaugural edition of the 'World of Flowers' exhibition series from the Deji Art Museum’ s modern and contemporary art collection. Focusing upon the progression of global modern and contemporary art from the second half of the 19th century to today, this exhibition shows over one hundred works with floral compositions by nearly one hundred Chinese and Western masters starting with Impressionism, challenging traditional views on floral still lifes with a fresh transcultural and transdisciplinary perspective. Drawing upon nearly three hundred years of Chinese and Western history, the exhibition aims to contextualize changes in artistic style within the narratives of flower species circulation through global trade. Thus, this exhibition anchors the artistic production of still lifes within the greater landscape of political, economic, scientific, technological and cultural development that has nurtured rich dialogues between China and the Western world over the centuries. Through the dialectical relationship between “stillness” and “movement,” the exhibition looks back upon the special significance of floral still lifes in Chinese and Western art history, exploring the vital force within these works that inspires our perception and imagination today.

The 'World of Flowers' collection of modern and contemporary artworks from the Deji Art Museum has been established over ten years of systematic acquisition, with modern and contemporary Chinese and international floral still life works forming the main body of the collection. 'Nothing Still About Still Lifes: Three Centuries of Floral Compositions' is the first exhibition curated from the 'World of Flowers' by Dr. Joachim Pissarro, Professor Emeritus at Hunter College of the City University of New York and former curator at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Exhibited artists include Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi, René Magritte, Georgia O’ Keeffe and other milestone figures of Western art, members of the first and second generations of Chinese artists to study abroad such as Sanyu, Pan Yuliang, Wu Dayu, Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun, modern art pioneers from other Asian countries such as Lê Phổ, and finally major figures in contemporary art such as Andy Warhol, Yayoi Kusama, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst.
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