Jia Lu

Shanghai World Expo

You may have noticed the blog has been quiet over the last thirty days. We've been traveling again! Jia was invited by the Shanghai World Expo to present her concept for Transcendance, a stage production she designed with Las Vegas in mind. So we made a trip to Shanghai to see if there might be a fit. Although the World Expo doesn't offer a suitable venue or business model for so large and expensive a production, Jia's creativity and design sense was greatly appreciated and she has been asked to help out in other areas of World Expo development.

Shanghai is an amazingly dynamic, vast, and textured city. Life there moves at many times the pace of Los Angeles, and though we have visited before, even in the short span of a few years it has grown and changed beyond recognition. Nowhere is that change so evident as in the New Pudong Administrative Area, built from nothing over the past fifteen years across the Jiangpu river from the Shanghai Bundt. It has become a financial center rivaling Hong Kong in importance, an attractive metropolis for residents who overcome their  for living in the old city, and a playground for architects.

We love the city's energy and entrepreneurial spirit. Old friends go out of their way to help Jia meet new collectors and introduce her work to new fans. New friends have spent much time getting to know us and helping us understand the city. We attended several performances, including a large scale production of Dream of the Red Chamber with costumes by Michael Cheung at the

Creation and Harmony

Most of Jia's paintings feature a single figure whose calm expression and silent surroundings make for a very peaceful, contemplative image. These paintings introduce two characters, both in the act of creation.

The conflagration in Creation suggests the creative impulse has a destructive aspect as well: the new often sweeps away the old, and Jia's childhood during the Cultural Revolution burned that impression into her imagination. The artist's respect for traditional forms of representation and her academic commitment to beauty hint at her ambivalence to indiscriminate innovation. Yet there is something mesmerizing about the flames, even if the two figures creating it seem oblivious to their heat and fury. It is a stylized inferno, but on the point of becoming real, and this apparent miracle is taken for granted by the women holding their brushes. 

In Harmony, the flames of creation are domesticated, contained and turned into a screen of candles that Jia first saw in Berlin. The models are now in the act of turning themselves into a work of art, a theme that Jia has revisited many times. The artist sees her own progress as a continuous process of self-realization and self-refinement, and one should look for true beauty not in the canvas, or on the skin, but in the person and attainments of its creator. 

Soaring

 
Completed just in time for International ArtExpo, Soaring arrived in Las Vegas with the oil paint still glistening wet. Jia explains that when she traveled in Southern Xinjiang Province in the early 1980s and had to flee an Islamic uprising late in the year, she found refuge high in the Pamir mountains among the Tajiks of Tashkurgan, where the Kunlun, Kara Kunlun, Hindukush and Tian Shan mountains come together, at the borders with Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kashmir. The men and women she met there had never seen a Han Chinese woman before in their lives, and she was invited to every wedding in town. The residents trace their ancestry to the eagle, and their dances recall the bird's graceful movements on the air. This is an image Jia has wanted to paint for nearly thirty years, and we think it was worth the wait. Here are two images of the work in progress:

ArtExpo Artists

One of our greatest pleasures attending ArtExpo is the chance to meet fellow artists and publishers, many of whom we've known for years, but only meet at shows like this because everyone is so busy throughout the year. Blu Fine Art Gallery Director John Nassar hosted a superb dinner with talented landscape artist Michael Flohr and his publishers Ruth-Anne and James Thorne.

Henry Acensio also found time to visit our booth. Both artists have admired each others work for years, but this is the first time they had met.

ArtExpo Las Vegas

Another International ArtExpo has come and gone! This was our tenth. We participated in the first Las Vegas incarnation of the show, held at Mandalay Bay, sparing ourselves the long haul to New York this year. Jia presented several new large paintings that she has been working on all summer: Soaring, Rebirth, Creation and Harmony. We saw many old friends and met many new ones. Many thanks to Phil Sacks, normally found at Visions Fine Art Gallery in Sedona, who lent us his time to help in the booth over the busy weekend. 

Our booth was designed to be a little different: lots of work went into designing and manufacturing the custom fabric wall coverings, but we did stand out in the central court. Thanks to Michael Campbell for the stunning photograph.

At every Jia Lu exhibition we've helped create, something magical happens. Jia's work is so moving, her personal story so inspiring, and her collectors are so sensitive to beauty that sooner or later tears begin to flow. It never fails, and that sort of sincere, personal response makes all our efforts worthwhile. This collector from Singapore has just bought Self-Realization

Berlin

Anson departs for college, where he will study astrophysics, next month. We promised a European vacation before he flies from our nest, and he chose London and Berlin. Jia had meetings for Transcendance and on preparing work for ArtExpo, so Geoffrey took Anson to London, Stratford and Oxford; Jia joined them in Berlin for a quick, five-day visit.
Berlin was cold and quiet, but offered much for the art-loving family. Classical sculpture and architecture on Museum Island, a wonderfully restored Schloss Charlottenburg filled with paintings, chamber music and antique furniture, and all the treasures of the Gemaldegallerie.
Alas the meals were not always to our liking: very salty and rich. One doesn't feel the exuberance of Italy or France among Berliners, rather the oppression of a dark history seems to have made its inhabitants dour and untalkative. But Anson enjoyed himself and our eyes were opened, and we felt we could have spent another week or two getting to know the city better.

Miss Chinese Cosmos 2007

Jia was asked this week to serve as a judge at the Miss Chinese Cosmos 2007 Beauty Pageant Finals in Los Angeles. Who else can better judge the inner and outer beauty of a Chinese woman? On the judge's panel she was joined by Jiang Kun, comedian from Beijing; Tsai Chin, who has acted  in The Joy Luck Club, Memoirs of a Geisha, Red Corner, Casino Royale, and Grey's Anatomy,  and others.

The lovely and talented contestants (we have always wanted to say that) were chosen from among winners of regional competitions from Canada, the US, and South America. It wouldn't be a beauty contest if it weren't a little over the top, but it was all in good fun, and the winners and losers didn't seem to mind one way or the other! Produced by Phoenix Television and broadcast around the world!

Cross Talk Comedy

Geoffrey and Jia spent the afternoon and evening with comedian Jiang Kun and his wife, actress Li Jingmin, while they were visiting Los Angeles today. Jiang Kun is a master of the art of Cross-Talk Comedy, a popular form of stand-up entertainment featuring a straight man and a trickster - much like the Abbott & Costello skits of the late 30's, 40's and 50's. Jiang Kun always has a sparkle in his eye, and a joke a the ready. We had all met nearly ten years ago, and so there was much renewing of friendships and catching up. We were well fed by our generous hosts, Eiji and Tiffany, in their beautiful home.

David Moser has a well-written critical article on the art of cross-talk comedy. One of Geoffrey's classmates is Da Shan, a famous Canadian cross-talk comedian in China, who got his start as Jiang Kun's student.

Under Protection

Anne and Nam, both collectors of Jia's work, were able to pay us a visit this summer, and arrived bearing gifts! Anne is a geriatric psychiatrist in Pennsylvania whose true avocation is orthodox iconography. Both these beautiful images of the Mother of God and St. Michael are by her hand. Each brushstroke is painted with a prayer, and the proportions and colors are in divine proportion and based on ancient, deified prototypes. Church Tradition traces the first icons back to the lifetime of the Saviour, and celebrates the knowing God through the Holy Spirit, as opposed to merely believing that God is. Every step in the creation of an icon, from the preparation of the panel, to the grinding of the pigment and mixing of the paints, to the application of the gold leaf, is performed by the icon painter. "Thus matter too, offered in the icon as a gift to God by man, in its turn emphasises the liturgic meaning of the icon." (Leonid Ouspensky)

Time spent with friends

For his birthday, Charles came to spend the weekend with Jia and Geoffrey. Jia and Charles went searching for Nemo and managed to find their own way to Disneyland on Saturday (Jia drove and Charles navigated, and they almost did not get lost). Then we all Buddha Bar'd our way to Peter & Elaine's where we met up with Klim and Philip and Janet.  Peter and Elaine have a wonderful art collection (and a spot reserved for their next Jia Lu), a cool textile arts studio watched over by multitudes of mooses, and a wine cellar guarded by Fidel Castro himself.

We dined superbly at a supper club in which Peter has an interest, and Klim, Geoffrey & Peter compared the size of their ... cel phone screens.

Thank you for a wonderful evening!