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An Unbroken Line The Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection 9 April to 16 August 2009 Wu Guanzhong's donation of 113 works to the Singapore Art Museum in 2008 is the highest valued donation presented to a public museum in Singapore. This exhibition will showcase all 114 works representing five decades of the artist's creative oeuvre. A key significance of Wu Guanzhong’s art is the crossing and synthesising of the two art forms of ink and oil which represent art historical and aesthetic contexts of traditional Chinese and western art. Wu started painting in ink only in 1974, when he was aged 55, but his earlier oil works were predicated on ink aesthetics as with his subsequent inks on oil foundation. A prolific writer of essays and art theory, his Formal Beauty of Painting foreshadowed a revolution in art in the immediate post-Cultural Revolution period when it was published in 1978. To Wu, the feelings of the individual were supreme. Equally important, however, was the individual's emotional link with the community. Hence his famed line, the "Unbroken Kite String", which expounds the connection between formal abstraction and everyday life, and acknowledges its source in the community. A strong advocate of developing culture and the arts, and a man who holds deep respect for intercultural values, Wu’s broad brushstroke gesture of presenting his largest donation to the Singapore Art Museum will be celebrated jointly by the art community as well as the Singapore public when the galleries open their doors on 9 April. This exhibition is co-organised by Singapore Art Museum, Shanghai Art Museum and National Art Museum of China. 人物20090709 -- 画界泰斗吴冠中 01 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqlYpVwJilg 人物20090709 -- 画界泰斗吴冠中 02 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5U2uIErMGo 人物20090709 -- 画界泰斗吴冠中 03 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpSVs2q46dM
Martin Luther King Jr quotes: "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ""The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy." "The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" "The time is always right to do what is right." "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." "All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." "Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." "To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing." "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."
"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life.." - Victor Frankl "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." - Saint-Exupery "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." - Albert Einstein "Two men look out through the bars: One sees the mud, and one the stars." - William Langland "People only see what they are prepared to see." - Emerson "The most important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." - Charles Dubois "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; For what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." - Anatole France "Minds differ still more than faces." - Voltaire "We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing." - R.D Laing "Nothing is permanent but change." - Heraclitus "I do not know what I may appear to the world but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." - Isaac Newton "Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him." -Aldous Huxley "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
A reading from Ransomed Heart Ministries (http://www.ransomedheart.com/ministry/default.aspx) For what shall we do when we wake one day to find we have lost touch with our heart and with it the very refuge where God’s presence resides? Starting very early, life has taught all of us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearnings of our heart. Life, for the most part, teaches us to suppress our longing and live only in the external world where efficiency and performance are everything. We have learned from parents and peers, at school, at work, and even from our spiritual mentors that something else is wanted from us other than our heart, which is to say, that which is most deeply us. Very seldom are we ever invited to live out of our heart. If we are wanted, we are often wanted for what we can offer functionally. If rich, we are honored for our wealth; if beautiful, for our looks; if intelligent, for our brains. So we learn to offer only those parts of us that are approved, living out a carefully crafted performance to gain acceptance from those who represent life to us. We divorce ourselves from our heart and begin to live a double life. Frederick Buechner expresses this phenomenon in his biographical work, Telling Secrets: [Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather. (The Sacred Romance , 5)
Just watched Les Choristes and wanted to post the lyrics of Rameau's La Nuit here because they are quite beautiful. Also going to get the soundtrack, too! :-) O nuit, viens apporter à la terre Le calme enchantement de ton mystère L'ombre qui t'escorte est si douce Si doux est le concert de tes voix chantant l'espérance [ Find more Lyrics on www.mp3lyrics.org/4WMi ] Si grand est ton pouvoir transformant tout en rêve heureux O nuit, ô laisse encore à la terre Le calme enchantement de ton mystère L'ombre qui t'escorte est si douce Est-il une beauté aussi belle que le rêve ? Est-il de vérité plus douce que l'espérance ? O Night, bring to the earth The enchanting calm of your mystery The shadow which follows you is so sweet It is such a sweet concert Your voices chanting hope Your power is so great Transforming all into a dream O Night, O leave still to the earth The enchanting calm of your mystery The shadow which follows you is so sweet Is there anything more beautiful than a dream? Is there any truth sweeter than hope? Here are some youtube video clips worth a listen: 1. The actual movie performance of La Nuit in Les Choristes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQg-3wkzJ3s 2. Live performance of Les Choristes' songs plus some http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faG6c1U_aSg&feature=PlayList&p=84C20F72913C5568&index=0&playnext=1 Some background information on the movie and the songs: The resounding success of French director Christophe Barratier's film Les Choristes (2004), in particular its Oscar-nominated, César-awarded soundtrack, spawned a couple different album releases. Inspired by the Jean Dréville film classic La Cage aux Rossignols (1945), Les Choristes (billed in English as "The Chorus") is graced with a soundtrack by celebrated French film composer Bruno Coulais. The songs are performed by Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc, a children's choir from Lyon, France. Critically acclaimed and showered with awards on the film festival circuit, Les Choristes was an international success, particularly in terms of critical acclaim. In France the film was awarded Césars for Best Music Written for a Film and also Best Sound; meanwhile, in the United States it earned Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Song ("Look to Your Path"), plus a Gold Globe Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Upon its European release in 2004, the film's commercial soundtrack topped the French albums chart for a total of 11 weeks and reached number three on the Belgian albums chart. The soundtrack was subsequently released in the United States in early 2005, around the same time the live album Les Choristes en Concert was released on CD/DVD. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
I attended my church's corporate prayer service recently. Praying for North Korea was on the agenda. It was then that I learnt about the importance of Pyongyang (in North Korea) to the rise of the Pentecostal movement in South Korea. In the early 1900s, Pyongyang was once called the "Jerusalem of Asia". That took my breath away because I could never have imagined that, given North Korea's current state. I went online to look for the links and here they are: http://www.kcgm.org/north_korea.html North Korea used to be very much a Christian country before the Communists took over in 1945. Pyung Yang, the Capital of North Korea, was once called the “Jerusalem of Asia.” That’s where the great revival took place in 1907 and 1932. http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal/countries/?CountryID=194 The Origins of Pentecostalism in South Korea 1880s-1910s: American Presbyterians and Methodists establish the first resident Protestant missions in the mid-1880s. A 1907 revival in Pyongyang involves more than a thousand adults and children, some of whom receive charismatic gifts, fueling nationwide evangelism. By 1910, there are more than 150,000 Protestants in the country (I. Kim 2003: 34, 41; Y. Lee 2001: 75-79). During the corporate prayer, what was impressed upon the congregation was that God would bring a third revival to North Korea. I'm not very sure whether this will happen in my life-time but I'm praying and believing in it. What a revival that would be! WOW! Amen!
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, 'My son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.? The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The grandson thought about it for a minute And then asked his grandfather: ?'Which wolf wins?' The old Cherokee simply replied, 'The one you feed.'
