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October 2

Curator’s Talk: Julia White on Sakaki Hyakusen

Exhibition curator Julia White introduces the first US exhibition focused on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen, the founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan.

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Exhibition

October 2 – February 2

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting is the first US
exhibition to focus on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen (1697–1752), the
founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan. A pivotal
figure in the history of Japanese art, Hyakusen served as a hinge
between two artistic traditions: working from close observation of
Chinese painting, he played a key role in the transformation of painting
in eighteenth-century Japan. Much like the literati painting tradition in
Ming dynasty China, where painting was appreciated as an expression
of the learned gentleman with deep knowledge of literature, poetry,
philosophy, and art, the Nanga school artists used painting as a means
to express their own deep thoughts and feelings. This presentation
brings together works by Hyakusen with stellar pieces by artists from
the first and second generations of Nanga painting, such as Ike Taiga
and Yosa Buson, drawn from the collections of BAMPFA as well as
major lenders including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

A richly illustrated catalog, with essays by Julia M. White, Felice Fischer,
Kyoko Kinoshita, and Tomokatsu Kawazu, is available in the Museum
Store.

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October 3 – November 6

Zheng Junli: From Shanghai’s Golden Age to the Cultural Revolution

Anchored by new restorations from the China Film Archive, this series explores the extraordinary career of Zheng Junli, an actor, director, film theorist, and victim of the Cultural Revolution.
https://bampfa.org/program/zheng-junli-shanghais-golden-age-to-the-cultural-revolution

Struggling
Shi Dongshan, 1932
Thursday, October 3, 7 PM
Introduction by Paul Fonoroff and Zheng Dali; live piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg

The tale of a young woman’s battle against her bullying father expands into a rousing cry against all tyranny in Shi Dongshan’s strikingly fresh 1932 melodrama, recently rediscovered through a brilliant restoration from the China Film Archive.

The Blood of Passion on the Volcano
Sun Yu, 1932
Friday, October, 4 7 PM
Introduction by Paul Fonoroff and Zheng Dali; live piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg

A warlord’s lusty nephew destroys a simple farming family’s pastoral idyll and sends its favorite son into tropical exile in Sun Yu’s delirious fusion of Chinese peasant drama with Hollywood-style island exotica.

Crows and Sparrows
Zheng Junli, 1950
Sunday, October 6 1:30 PM
Introduction by Paul Fonoroff and Zheng Dali

A Shanghai apartment building serves as a microcosm of China’s class struggles in Zheng Junli’s striking urban drama, filmed during the last days of China’s Nationalist rule and already looking forward to, as one character says, “a New Society.”

The Spring River Flows East
Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, 1947
Thursday, October 10 6:30 PM

Included on the Hong Kong Film Awards list of the greatest Chinese-language films of all time, this decades-spanning epic following a couple’s separation during the Sino-Japanese War has been called China’s Gone with the Wind.

Nie Er
Zheng Junli, 1959
Saturday, October 12 5:45 PM
Introduction by Weihong Bao

Shot in gorgeous color, this fascinating communist flipside to fifties Hollywood music biopics chronicles the life and tragic early death of Nie Er, the composer of the PRC’s national anthem.

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October 5

Colloquium: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting

Complementing Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting, this colloquium explores the fascinating relations between Chinese art of the Ming and Qing dynasties and Japanese art of the Edo period, especially Hyakusen’s role in the transformation of painting in eighteenth-century Japan.

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October 11 – October 13

Film Screenings

Homework
Abbas Kiarostami, 1989
Friday, October 11, 8 PM

In a series of interviews with grade-school boys on the topic of homework, much is revealed on the topic of life. With shorts Breaktime and Orderly or Disorderly.

In the Image: Palestinian Women Capture the Occupation
Judith Montell and Emmy Scharlatt, 2014
Sunday, October 13, 2:30 PM
Directors in person

Get a first-person POV on Palestinian life under Israeli occupation from this powerful film that grew out of The Camera Project, which empowered Palestinian women on the West Bank to capture their day-to-day experiences and struggles.

First Graders
Abbas Kiarostami, 1984
Sunday, October 13, 4:30 PM

Play meets punishment in Kiarostami’s documentary on first-graders reporting for their first day of school. With shorts Two Solutions for One Problem and Solution.

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