Architects Tonkin Liu have designed the China Design Now exhibition, which has just opened at the V&A museum in London.
The exhibition, a major showcase of China’s creative industries, opened on 15th March and runs until 13th July.
The following information is from the V&A:
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China is huge. China is becoming topical. Yet China remains mystery to most people in the West. ‘Made in China’ has become a familiar tag, but the spectacular creative energy in modern China is barely known. During the last twenty years, the Chinese have rediscovered their pre-socialist past and begun to combine their own traditions with global influences to produce a cultural rebirth. At the heart of this lies a new culture of design.
This exhibition will take you on a journey along China’s coastal cities to experience the country’s creative landscape. The journey starts in the far south, where graphic designers in Shenzhen began to explore new directions in the early 1990s. Next we move up to Shanghai. Here consumerism and urban culture have combined to produce astonishing fashion and lifestyles. Finally, we travel to Beijing, where monumental architecture for the Olympic Games is transforming the skyline of this ancient capital.
China Design Now explores China’s dreams and hopes over the last two decades, from individual designers to the nation as a whole. It is our hope that this exhibition will bring contemporary China closer to you.
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Posted by Rose Etherington
It seems like an extremely interesting exhibition to me.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:02 amEasy Stan!!!!!
March 18th, 2008 at 12:42 pmoff the drugs Stan!
March 19th, 2008 at 2:53 amStan could you please explain me what is great? see the flickr link
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=China+Design+Now&d=taken-20080301-&ct=0
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm“China Design”? What an absurd joke!
There are three categories of design in China: (1) Design by foreigners (cf. Herzog & deMeuron), (2) Design by Chinese people who rip off foreigners, and (3) Design by thoroughly Westernized Chinese people (cf. Cai Guo-Qiang), most of whom live outside of China.
Since the dawn of the 20th century, there hasn’t been a single example of great Chinese design . That’s what happens when you kill off your aristocracy and your intellectuals, and you control every aspect of society for three generations. It’ll take another 3 generations or so to get things back on track.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 amRobert,
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 am-10 000 new designers by year,
- in 2009 = 45% of G8
- see the red dot award concept list (70% asian names )
- Starck has a company to dvp branding in China
I try to imagine a Japanese person’s reaction to an architectural exhibition on modernity–one with a strong tribute to Japanese architecture–would his/her reaction be as violent, simplistic, patronising, and entrenched? You’ve gone to the exhibition armed with the most predictable prejudices, and have taken nothing new away from it for yourself. Finally, is your anger directed at the Chinese authorities or the emergent young designers? You are not telling us anything new about the authorities, and certainly not doing the designers any justice.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:32 pmabove QiQi and KeKe tea sets are by Lin Jing 2001
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pmthe Ji Ji Panda toy figure 2006= Hayon toy
Hey, I saw this the other day for my gcse art coursework as i am basing my whole project on chinese culture - i found it very interesting but was very dissapointed to find you cannot use photography. If you have any photos, could you please mail them to me? It would be extremely useful for my project,
April 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pmthanks