Sunday, March 1, 2009
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Chinese Puzzles Exhibition Ends
The Chinese Puzzles exhibition closed at 4 pm on October 11, 2008, as planned. Many visitors came on the last day, including a group of Chinese children with their adoptive families from Sacramento.During the exhibition both Peter and I gave many guided gallery tours and puzzle workshops to groups.
We appreciate the kind and encouraging comments from the visitors — both directly and written in our gallery Guest Book. Thank you all very much.
Many visitors also asked us where we would exhibit next and suggested other venues. At present we do not have any plan, but we are open to suggestions.
Yesterday we took down the exhibition. Our photographer friend Niana Liu took the last gallery shots of the exhibits with the display cases open. She snapped this shot of me inside a display case cover, removing a pair of cabinet doors.
In the next few weeks, I will start posting the exhibition section signs and displays.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind
by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen
The book Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind is now available. Part exhibition catalog and part photographic exploration, this beautiful book uses as its subject matter the traditional Chinese puzzles on display in the Chinese Culture Center’s current exhibition. It is the first book to document the rapidly disappearing forms of handcrafted Chinese puzzles.
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind was written by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen, who collected the puzzles during twelve years of travels crisscrossing China and exploring Western antique markets. The forms, textures and colors of the antique puzzles are given new life through the eyes and lens of San Francisco-based painter-photographer-designer Niana Liu.
You can purchase the book in two ways:
1. In person from the Gift Shop of the Chinese Culture Center at 750 Kearny Street (3rd floor of the Hilton Hotel), San Francisco. Gift Shop hours are 10 am to 4 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
2. By mail order from Paragon Book Gallery.
The book Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind is now available. Part exhibition catalog and part photographic exploration, this beautiful book uses as its subject matter the traditional Chinese puzzles on display in the Chinese Culture Center’s current exhibition. It is the first book to document the rapidly disappearing forms of handcrafted Chinese puzzles.Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind was written by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen, who collected the puzzles during twelve years of travels crisscrossing China and exploring Western antique markets. The forms, textures and colors of the antique puzzles are given new life through the eyes and lens of San Francisco-based painter-photographer-designer Niana Liu.
You can purchase the book in two ways:
1. In person from the Gift Shop of the Chinese Culture Center at 750 Kearny Street (3rd floor of the Hilton Hotel), San Francisco. Gift Shop hours are 10 am to 4 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
2. By mail order from Paragon Book Gallery.
Interlocking Culture 互鎖交織的文化
After visiting the Chinese Puzzles exhibition, Alyssa Phillips of the Contra Costa Times wrote a very nice article Interlocking Culture about it. Alyssa's in-depth review also appeared in the September 11 editions of the Oakland Tribute and four other newspapers.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Review: Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind 益智遊戲展評論
by Norman L. Sandfield
I recently had the pleasure to attend an exhibition in San Francisco titled "Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind." While most of its visitors saw the artifacts as a wonderful and diverse collection of old Chinese puzzles, collectors of fine Chinese antiques also recognized them for the rare Chinese porcelains, books, and wood furniture that were present.
This exhibit, at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, runs from July 22 through October 11, 2008. But if you miss it there, do not worry. The collectors who have amassed this amazing collection of 1200 antique Chinese puzzles, only a small part of which is on display, have hopes that the show will travel. It will also live on in the catalog to the show, Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind, soon to be available from Paragon Book Gallery in Chicago, and a much larger book on Chinese puzzles that they are still at work on.
In only a dozen years, Chinese-born collector Wei Zhang and her husband Peter Rasmussen have quietly acquired a large, diverse and well-documented collection of Chinese puzzles, only a few of which are familiar to western collectors.
There are more than 150 puzzles on display in the show, with the oldest items on exhibit being from the Ming dynasty: a blanc de chine "fairness cup" (gong dao bei) and a brass paperweight made in the form of four boys sharing two heads. The largest puzzle is a specially commissioned six-piece wood burr puzzle measuring 33" x 33" x 33" that was made in China and was modeled after an antique Chinese burr puzzle also on display. Tangram sets, puzzle locks, puzzling images of the "four-happiness" boys, puzzle vessels, wire puzzles, and more, are shown along with artistic images of them in old Chinese prints, books and photographs.
The museum quality show is accompanied in the galleries by related "hands-on" puzzles for children of all ages to play with. And stay and play they do! On the day that I visited the gallery, dozens of people had come to a special Puzzle Party, where hundreds of modern puzzles were out on the tables for all to try. Even more special was the unexpected Chinese visitor who had come to the show, then gone home to get some pliers, wire cutters, and some wire. He came back to make his own copies of the nine linked rings and related "ingenious rings" puzzles for his own pleasure later. He had never done this before, but his interest was like other Chinese visitors to the show who remembered when the nine linked rings was a favorite puzzle in their childhoods in China.
One of the accompanying videos demonstrates how some of the ceramic puzzle vessels work, and a beautiful half-hour-long video documents the past and present state of puzzles in China and the role that Wei and Peter have played in their resurgence. This exhibit demonstrates their love and passion for this interesting, but relatively unknown, art form.
Norman Sandfield is a well-known antique dealer, puzzle collector and expert on Chinese ceramic puzzle vessels. His website is www.internetsuke.com.
I recently had the pleasure to attend an exhibition in San Francisco titled "Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind." While most of its visitors saw the artifacts as a wonderful and diverse collection of old Chinese puzzles, collectors of fine Chinese antiques also recognized them for the rare Chinese porcelains, books, and wood furniture that were present.
This exhibit, at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, runs from July 22 through October 11, 2008. But if you miss it there, do not worry. The collectors who have amassed this amazing collection of 1200 antique Chinese puzzles, only a small part of which is on display, have hopes that the show will travel. It will also live on in the catalog to the show, Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind, soon to be available from Paragon Book Gallery in Chicago, and a much larger book on Chinese puzzles that they are still at work on.
In only a dozen years, Chinese-born collector Wei Zhang and her husband Peter Rasmussen have quietly acquired a large, diverse and well-documented collection of Chinese puzzles, only a few of which are familiar to western collectors.
There are more than 150 puzzles on display in the show, with the oldest items on exhibit being from the Ming dynasty: a blanc de chine "fairness cup" (gong dao bei) and a brass paperweight made in the form of four boys sharing two heads. The largest puzzle is a specially commissioned six-piece wood burr puzzle measuring 33" x 33" x 33" that was made in China and was modeled after an antique Chinese burr puzzle also on display. Tangram sets, puzzle locks, puzzling images of the "four-happiness" boys, puzzle vessels, wire puzzles, and more, are shown along with artistic images of them in old Chinese prints, books and photographs.
The museum quality show is accompanied in the galleries by related "hands-on" puzzles for children of all ages to play with. And stay and play they do! On the day that I visited the gallery, dozens of people had come to a special Puzzle Party, where hundreds of modern puzzles were out on the tables for all to try. Even more special was the unexpected Chinese visitor who had come to the show, then gone home to get some pliers, wire cutters, and some wire. He came back to make his own copies of the nine linked rings and related "ingenious rings" puzzles for his own pleasure later. He had never done this before, but his interest was like other Chinese visitors to the show who remembered when the nine linked rings was a favorite puzzle in their childhoods in China.
One of the accompanying videos demonstrates how some of the ceramic puzzle vessels work, and a beautiful half-hour-long video documents the past and present state of puzzles in China and the role that Wei and Peter have played in their resurgence. This exhibit demonstrates their love and passion for this interesting, but relatively unknown, art form.
Norman Sandfield is a well-known antique dealer, puzzle collector and expert on Chinese ceramic puzzle vessels. His website is www.internetsuke.com.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Video: Puzzle Vessels 益智酒具
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Media: Jon Carroll's Column 專欄報道
On July 15, 2008, popular columnist Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle published a column about the Chinese Puzzles exhibition and announced that it would open "next Tuesday" (July 22). However people started arriving on July 15 while we were busy installing it! Some visitors came long distances, so we managed to give them a quick "preview."
Read Jon Carroll's article Ingenious Pieces.
Read Jon Carroll's article Ingenious Pieces.
Photos: Opening of the Chinese Puzzles Exhibition 中國傳統益智遊戲展開幕
The photos were taken by Michael Goff, Frank Jang and Qin Zhu.
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind opened on July 22, 2008.
Chinese Puzzles gallery views. View Picasa slide show of gallery photos. 展厅照片
Opening photos. View Picasa slide show of opening reception. 开幕剪影
Hands-on at the opening. View Picasa slide show of hands-on activities. 动手动脑
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind opened on July 22, 2008.
Chinese Puzzles gallery views. View Picasa slide show of gallery photos. 展厅照片
Opening photos. View Picasa slide show of opening reception. 开幕剪影
Hands-on at the opening. View Picasa slide show of hands-on activities. 动手动脑
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Video: Chinese Puzzles: A Documentory 中國古代益智遊戲：春节央视十台节目
This video was excerpted from a program by CCTV-10 that aired in China on February 7, 2008.
The program is in Chinese, so I added the English subtitles.
中國古代益智遊戲：春节央视十台节目：
The program is in Chinese, so I added the English subtitles.
中國古代益智遊戲：春节央视十台节目：
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind 中國傳統益智遊戲
Slide show of "The Making of Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind"
Our Chinese Puzzles exhibition will be at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco from July 22 to October 11, 2008.
View CCC announcement.
View "The Making of Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind"
我們的展覽將在舊金山中華文化中心展出：
７月22日—10月11日
中國傳統益智遊戲展預告
“先睹為快“
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
