This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Ji Dachun' at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, 7 February - 1 April 2007, one of two parallel solo exhibitions from two important painters of the middle generation, within the framework of the 'Chinese Window', that is, the presentation of some important aspects of the Sigg Collection following on from the very successful exhibition Mahjong in 2005.

'Ji Dachun was born in Nantong (Jiangsu Province) in 1968 and lives and works in Peking. In his paintings and drawings he combines Chinese tradition and western modernism to create an ironic, sometimes humorous, cocktail. On a white-primed background he carefully centres an object or figure, sometimes two objects or persons in a dialogue. The empty expanse of white is always an important element of the composition. Ji Dachun has two "styles": one is graphic, hailing from the traditional scholarly painting of the "literati" and reminiscent of the "scribble technique" of Cy Twombly; the other is more pictorial and is indebted to Picasso and American painting (for instance, Philip Guston). However, surrealist moments always play a part: bizarre images; peculiar combinations of objects and figures or body fragments; unusual perspectives. What is supposedly naïve can suddenly become cynical; the apparent woodenness of the figures conceals a bewildering intellectual mobility. Thus, Ji Dachun paints a male nude carrying the head of Adolf Hitler; a flayed Mickey Mouse; a teddy bear copulating with a pig; a traditional Chinese landscape intersected by flashes of lightning; a dry indigo root or scholar's stone leaning phallically sideways into the picture. Ji Dachun's finely done paintings conceal traps: one must step warily.' (from website of Museum of Fine Arts Bern)

Including artist biography.
Access level

Onsite

Location code
MON.JAC
Language

Chinese - Simplified, 

English, 

German

Publication/Creation date

2007

No of pages

96

ISBN / ISSN

9889960923

No of copies

2

Content type

artist monograph, 

catalogue

Chapter headings

The Perversities of Ji Dachun - Bernard FIBICHER

There Has Never Been a Savior of the World - ZHONG Acheng, 鍾阿城

Eccentricities - ZHAO Li, 趙力

The Redemption of Painting - PI Li, 皮力

Ji Dachun
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In Copyright

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Ji Dachun, 季大純