China Art Palace (10/14/2012)

Sunday, October 14, 2012
Another day more suitable for visiting a museum. The former China Pavilion of the Shanghai 2010 Expo has just opened up as the China Art Palace, housing the China Art Museum. It is supposed to be the largest art museum in the world:

You need to book tickets for special exhibits online on a Chinese website. However, we were just going to see all the free sections!
Apparently all the works in the Shanghai Art Museum in People's Park have been moved to the China Art Palace.
When you enter the queue, you are given a free admission pass. On the back of the pass there are written rules, including no photos and no "flashlights." Upon going through security and into the hall, we immediately saw cameras flashing. It was happening all over, so we thought perhaps it was okay to take photos:

We went through a couple galleries featuring art depicting historical events.
When I took this photo, a gallery guard shook his finger "no" at me:

Oh, so actually there is no photographing allowed!
I "grabbed" a couple photos anyway.
Shanghai landmarks carved in wood:

We saw galleries of the Masterworks: the art of modern Chinese painters (not contemporary, that's another whole museum!).
Cheng Shifa:

I had seen his childhood home in Fengjing.
Lin Fengmian apparently lived at 53 Nanchang Road in Shanghai.
We saw one of the famous horse paintings of Xu Beihong.
A sculpture titled "Subway" which is an accurate depiction!

One of the total of 27 galleries had calligraphy and carved seals/stamps.
Another gallery featured the ethnic minorities. There was a painting of a yak titled "Tibetan Rhinoceros" by Xu Kuang.
Another section had cartoons, including several by Zheng Leping about his character, San Mao (three hairs).
One gallery had wood block prints.
We did not see the galleries with Western artists, which was likely in the paid-ticket portion of the museum.

We stopped in Tianzifang for lunch at New York Style Steak and Burgers:

We were going to check out a photograph exhibit in Tianzifang, but par for the course, the BeauGeste Gallery was locked up. This time there was an employee who arrived with us, but she did not have a key, and no one answered her mobile phone call. Maybe, next time...