Great Wall Photographs and Driftwood Sculpture Comprise
Inaugural Exhibition at Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Special Viewing Times for Interchurch Center's Tenant
Exhibitions:
China's Great Wall: The Forgotten Story
Driftwood Sculptures
Location: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is located in the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 900
Time: The exhibitions is open to Interchurch Center's tenants, Monday through Friday, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. by appointment only.
Appointments: To view the exhibits, please contact Leona Hewitt at lhewitt@rbf.org or 212-812-4200
About the Exhibits
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is proud to announce the inaugural exhibits on display in its new, eco-friendly offices at the Interchurch Center: China’s Great Wall: The Forgotten Story, a collaboration between photographer Jonathan Ball and historian David Spindler; and a series of driftwood sculptures based on the great tradition of Chinese scholars rocks by former Asia Society president Robert Oxnam. The Great Wall exhibit will run through June 2010, while the driftwood sculptures will be on display until November 2009. Both exhibits showcase part of the rich cultural heritage of China, the location of one of the Fund’s Pivotal Places programs.
The Great Wall project brings historical realism to modern depictions of the Great Wall, a landmark that is universally recognized, but sometimes poorly understood. China’s Great Wall: The Forgotten Story illustrates sites on the Wall where important Mongol and Manchu raids occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries. In order to heighten the accuracy of the photographs, these sites were photographed on the anniversaries of the raids, as close as possible to the time of day when the raids occurred.
David Spindler exhaustively analyzed Ming-era documents held by libraries across China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States in order to piece together the timeline upon which the photographs were based. Jonathan Ball photographed the locations using panoramic and 4 x 5 cameras using conventional film, and then digitally stitched the images together in order to create the resulting composites of the sweeping Chinese landscape. The resulting images allow the viewer to experience the Great Wall from the historical perspectives of the raiders and the defenders.
Meanwhile, Robert Oxnam reinterprets the art form of Chinese scholars’ rocks through the medium of driftwood in his sculptures. Traditionally, Chinese scholar-officials commissioned these unusual rocks and displayed them in the gardens and studios of mansions. In his take on the pieces, Oxnam replaces stone for driftwood. Found along Long Island’s north fork, these driftwood sculptures are virtually identical to the original shapes in which they were found, having been cut only to remove a sculpture from a larger piece of wood. They are then cleaned and painted with organic “milk paint” so that the driftwood’s natural high and low reliefs may be revealed.
