The Oriental Ceramic Society is delighted to present an exclusive guided viewing of the exhibition ‘Hunters, Warriors, Spirits: Nomadic Art of North China’ at The Indra and Harry Banga Gallery, City University of Hong Kong.
The ancient nomads of North China were hunters and warriors, traders who facilitated exchange in goods, technology, ideas, arts, and were also builders of empires. Living a highly mobile life wedded to chasing the game and herding flocks of animals, they bequeathed a wondrous artistic legacy within which men and beasts, predators and prey, culture and nature, are interlocked in an unending cycle of life and death. Today, this world is vividly preserved in the ancient nomads’ artistic heritage, but also in the profound spirituality that pervades them, expressive of an ideal relationship between humans and nature that is more relevant today than ever before.
Presented through over two hundred and fifty art objects, mainly on loan from the Mengdiexuan Collection, this exhibition tells the story of the nomads from their dim beginnings, during the early 1st millennium, to the ‘golden age’ between the 10th and 13th centuries. To bring these objects to life, the narrative is filtered through the diverse lens of archaeology, art history, anthropology, as well as the broader perspective of cultural exchange across Eurasia.
The exhibition also features over twenty contemporary sculptures by Buryat maestro Dashi Namdakov, photography by Marc Progin, new media works by Jeffrey Shaw and Sarah Kenderdine, and animations by June Zhang.
Isabelle Frank is Consulting Curator of the Exhibition Gallery at City University of Hong Kong. Since joining City University, she has curated and co-curated exhibitions that connect technology and the arts across Western and Asian cultures. An art historian by training, she received her doctorate from Harvard University and has taught at Bard College. Frank has been Associate Dean for academic affairs at the New School, New York, and was Dean of Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies in New York. She has authored The Theory of the Decorative Arts (Yale University Press, 2000) and Die Rhetorik des Ornaments (Fink Verlag, 2001), and articles on Italian Renaissance art and decorative art.
Please note that as visitors will receive individual QR codes for entry to the university campus, registration will be closed on 10th August and last minute registrations will not be entertained. You are required to wear a face mask, and register / use the LeaveHomeSafe application to scan the venue QR code at the temperature screening station prior to entry.