Yesterday, I did not get to work on my marking as I did Skype calls in the AM and then met with Zhou Bo and one of Wang Min's assistants to go to the museum. I had already gone before, but I find Zhou Bo's view of the world so fascinating that I was willing to see it again for his commentary.
The one mistake I made was to not each lunch. If someone invites you at noon, it means lunch. If someone invites you at 13:00, it is assumed that you have eaten.
The Museum was great. There was an amazing exhibition of Chinese painting masters during the National Beiping Art School (1918-1950). Zhou Bo pointed out the differences of the influence of different styles (Sui and Tang, Song and Yuan, Ming and Qing) as well as Western styles, as many of the masters had studied in Japan or Europe.
I revisited the photo exhibition of donated works by Weng NaiQiang, a former professor. He photographed some of the most famous images of Maoist China. The pageantry of red books and blue, green, and gray uniforms is amazing. It was fascinating to hear Zhou Bo recall the effort his father went through to see Chairman Mao give a speech. The ideas of communism must have seemed so appealing to so many. We remarked that to understand it you would have to travel to North Korea.
I was not impressed again with the Unfold cultural responses to climate change exhibition, where 20 international artists travelled to the Artic and Peru to respond to the issue of climate change.
We saw more galleries but my blood sugar was dropping rapidly, so I was not very focused.
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