It doesn’t matter whether the chicken or the egg came first, because this year it’s all lucky with the rooster. As the new moon rose on Wednesday, the Chinese welcomed the new lunar year and the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies welcomed the public for a gallery talk in celebration of its current exhibit “Red Rooster: Welcoming the Lunar New Year.”
The exhibit features both original prints and digital reproductions created for New Years past and present. Traditional New Years woodcuts, called “ninhua,” focus on traditional values and most importantly, wealth and prosperity for the New Year.
In addition to ninhua, bright lights, the color red, loud noises and puns all play roles in the celebration of the New Year. During Wednesday’s gallery talk, Patrick Dowdey, Curator of the Freeman Center, gave his opening remarks despite a loud blast in the background The blast turned into many, and while the large crowd crammed into the entrance of the Freeman Center couldn’t see the bright lights outside, they were able to experience the loud noises of New Year’s fireworks.
The exhibit opens with an explanation of the holiday and a photo from the 1980s of a woman sweeping between her print-adorned doors. As the woman symbolically sweeps bad things out of her entrance to prepare for a prosperous year, gallery visitors are invited to the gallery for a more intimate introduction to the visual culture of the lunar New Year.
Initially, the visitor’s attention is pulled to the bright red back wall featuring a large reproduction of a traditional papercut, as well as three pairs of prints.
“You’ll never see red on museum walls because it will kill the paintings,” Dowdey said. “But in this exhibit, it’s no problem!”
Instead of detracting from or overwhelming the hand-painted prints, the red wall brings out the bright yellows, blues, greens and purples of the works themselves. An auspicious color in Chinese New Year’s celebration, red appears often in the prints as well.
The prints on this back wall are traditional door guards, like those that hang on the doors in the opening photo. Traditionally the door guards are hung in pairs and are thought to keep demons and other evils away from the home. The door guard prints in this exhibit are either offset lithographs or woodcut prints, each featuring a male figure with a long beard dressed in bright patterned robes.
“I enjoy the door gods because I like how it’s printed in the same method throughout history,” said Jean Park ’07.
The combination of both original prints and digital reproductions allows “Red Rooster” to expand its breadth, both visually and in terms of the information it relays. A series of nine reproduced photographs show the process of making the traditional New Years prints.
The photos show all phases of creating the print, from carving the wood template to selling the prints at a market. This production series allows a broader appreciation and understanding of the ninhua hanging in the rest of the gallery.
While the door guards and prints of other characters serve to watch over a home or family for the New Year, many other prints celebrate the prosperous year that hopefully lies ahead. One of the digital prints illustrates this concept of wealth in the representation of a student returning home. The student symbolizes knowledge, which in turn signifies technology that helps to increase the production of food and riches. As he returns home a mass of people surround him.
“Everyone wants a piece of him,” said Desmond Lim ’06, one of the student curators of the exhibit.
A print from Beijing made in 1995, a pig year, features animated and humanized pigs illustrating the themes of wealth and prosperity. While one of the pigs holds a stack of American $100 bills high above his head, another holds a large colorful fish. In Chinese, the words for “fish” and “surplus” sound very similar. Therefore the fish is a common visual pun in New Years prints, having a similar message to the stacks of money.
The bright colors and animated characters give the exhibit a kid-friendly feel.
“This exhibit was designed with kids in mind,” Dowdey said. “We tried to introduce images kids would like and relate to.”
In fact, in addition to Wednesday’s gallery talk, a special event for children will occur February 20.
Chinese tradition strictly and specifically states that the New Years door guards should be taken down on the second day of the second lunar month. This year, that falls on March 4, which is also the day that “Red Rooster” closes at the Mansfield Freeman Center. Until then, the vivid prints will be on display, providing both a visually pleasing exhibit and an excellent introduction to Chinese traditions celebrating the New Year.
“It’s not a prized artwork in China,” Park said. “But in here, it’s interesting.”
Leave a Reply