The Press Conference of the Exhibition “Eternity, Mawangdui Art of the Han Dynasty” held in Hong Kong

On September 18th, 2015, the press conference of the exhibition Eternity Mawangdui Art of the Han Dynasty was held in Eslite Bookstore, Hong Kong. Wang Wei, director of Long Museum, Yu Yanjiao, curator of Hunan Provincial Museum and Zheng Yan, Professor from Central Academy of Fine Arts and curator of the exhibition attended the event and delivered speeches.
　　
Wang Wei was the first speaker, who introduced the unique art form of “a museum with two branches in one city” to the Hong Kong media. Long Museum presented many exhibitions featuring tradition art based on its own collections. However, in 2015 Long Museum made many bold attempts at staging exhibitions on contemporary art with the aim of building a top-level platform for the exchange of art. Long Museum was committed to sharing the art with the general public.

Then, Yu Yanjiao, curator of Hunan Provincial Museum introduced the general information about Hunan Provincial Museum and talked about the reasons for staging Eternity Mawangdui Art of the Han Dynasty in Shanghai Long Museum. First, due to its renovation and expansion project, Hunan Provincial Museum was closed at this period, thus many cultural relics were available to be exhibited in other places. Moreover, during the museum’s closure, the general public expressed their strong wish for viewing the cultural relics of Mawangdui Han Tombs. Hence, finding the proper venues for displaying those cultural relics had become one of the priorities in the work of museum. Secondly, as a great international metropolis, Shanghai boasted of its enormous influence in the art world; while “as a masterpiece”, the huge Mawangdui Han Tombs would present the ultimate value. This exhibition held in Long Museum, a modern art museum with great vitality and a broad international vision, would substantially enhance the artistic charm of Mawangdui Han Tombs. In addition, Yu explained the great value of cultural relics of Mawangdui Han Tombs and illustrated the highlights in the exhibition:

Highlight No. 1: It is to be the largest and highest-rank exhibition organized by Hunan Provincial Museum beyond its walls, with 259 sets and 328 pieces of cultural relics in total.

Highlight No. 2: Four silk paintings dating back to the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) were exhibited together, which was unprecedented.

Highlight No. 3: This is the first time that more than 51 pieces of cultural relics from this museum are to be exhibited outside Hunan Province.

Highlight No. 4: The great majority of the valuable exhibits in Mawangdui Han Tombs are to be presented.

Finally, Professor Zheng Yan, curator of this exhibition, explained his ideas regarding his curation of the exhibition from the following two perspectives: first, the relationship between cultural relics of Mawangdui and the art history; second, people’s artistic creation and their ideals in the face of death embodied in the funeral customs. He put forward that the relationship between Mawangdui and art history extended beyond the paintings, sculptures, artifacts and other cultural relics categorized by traditional art history. As a matter of fact, the forms of modern art shared many similarities with the tombs as well as the funeral rituals. The tombs resembled a kind of “installation art”, as various material objects, modeling and the visual language were employed in them.

Eternity Mawangdui Art of the Han Dynasty will kick off on October 28th, 2015 at Long Museum (Pu Dong). As the key part of the 17th China Shanghai International Arts Festival, this exhibition consists of 259 sets of valuable cultural relics unearthed from Tomb No. 1 and No. 2 of Mawangdui. This is to be the largest and highest-rank exhibition of Mawangdui organized by Hunan Provincial Museum beyond its walls and there are as many exhibits in it as that of the former permanent exhibition Cultural Relics from Mawangdui Han Tombs.