RE-

chinoiserie

2012

noEditions

Apostolos Ntelakos

RE-

chinoiserie

12

3 Jean-Étienne Liotard /// Still Life: Tea Set /// Swiss, Geneva, about 1781 - 1783 /// Oil on canvas mounted on board // 14 7/8 x 20 5/16 in. /// 84.PA.57 ///

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Jean-Étienne Liotard /// Isaac-Louis de Thellusson // 1760 /// oil on canvas mounted on board // original size: unknown

re-chinoiserie

The work re-chinoiserie was designed for the first biennale of international design academies that took place in 2010 in the city of Xuzhou, in the Province Jiangsu, China. The title of the biennale was ‘the power of copy’, obviously refering to the stereotypic idea of China as a paradise of cheap reproductions.(extracts from the work proposal):

Looking back at the history of the Applied Arts (in relationship of course to China) one cannot avoid

Jean-Étienne Liotard /// Isaac-Louis de Thellusson // 1760 /// oil on canvas mounted on board // original size: unknown

but come across to the term Chinoiserie. A French term, meaning “Chinese-esque”, normally used to characterize a European style in art that flourished in the late 17th and 18th …… "a complex phenomenon that has taken many different shapes and produced a wide variety of objects and styling – from splendid works of art and excellent examples of craftsmanship to mass-produced pieces of rubbish1".

Images of chinoiserie vases (found in various archives) were thereference of re-constructions in stoneware. By zooming-in at the decoration those vases carried, I re-constructed parts of them in on-glaze colour (luster) and had them sent back to China.

1 (Arie Pos, (2008) “Het paviljoen van porselein. Nederlandse literaire chinoiserie en het westerse beeld van China (1250-2007)”, proefschrift (Leiden 2008), https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/simple search?query=Chinoiserie&submit=Go

Jean-Étienne Liotard /// Still Life: Tea Set /// Swiss, Geneva, about 1781 - 1783 /// Oil on canvas mounted on board // 14 7/8 x 20 5/16 in. // 84.PA.57 /// http://www.getty.edu ///

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re - chinoiserie // ongoing series ofobjects// 2010 / glazed eartenware fired on 1100 oC // variable dimensions // maximum H 40 cm /// black luster applied with brush

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a printed, signed by the artist,version of this booklet /// 20 x 25 cm //accompanies the acquisition of the object(s).

Jean-Étienne Liotard /// Still Life: Tea Set /// Swiss, Geneva, about 1781 - 1783 /// Oil on canvas mounted on board // 14 7/8 x 20 5/16 in. /// 84.PA.57 /// http://www.getty.edu

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