ARSCIVES GALLERY

Withstanding the tests of time is the silvery surface of the Nam Wan Lakes but the scenery along the waterfront has not. Erected from the reclaimed land where fishing boats once were jammed together and fishermen sun-dried their fishing nets, is the magnificent Macau Tower dwarfing everything around it including the century old banyan trees dotted along the opposite shore. The sharp contrast between the old and the new overwhelms people with the passing of time and changes of life...

To the eyes of a Westerner — namely one of greco-latin roots — a childish, grotesque feeling has always been attached to puppet theatre. During the Middle Ages, at fairs, markets, village squares, puppeteers performed through their puppets the narrative of stories known to all but whose expression was exaggerated, amplified, either due to the appearance of the puppets (caricatures of actors) or to the unreal tone of the voices that emerged from behind a curtain...

Yamada Hiroshi san satisfied my old aspiration of having a print by Kitagawa Utamaro, one of the leading exponents of Ukyio-e. The picture depicted a young maiden, the green kimono languidly open, holding a black lacquer mirror, getting ready for the affairs of the day. I bought it from him, printed on Japanese washi paper, and carefully carried it to the ryokan where I was lodging in Kyoto. On the way back, walking unhurriedly and...

If clothing is apparently the first of human needs, there is no doubt that shelter was, in the relationship with the elements, the necessary protection. Since its inception, the human being shall carry within himself, in a unending cycle of repetition, the vague forgotten memory of life in the womb. This protective comfort evolves in a succession of projection through the ages of Man - from cave dwelling - which remains still a womb-like...

Millennia-old rules dictated that the artist should only apply the exhaustively trained brush to the paper once the complete scene was set on his mind. The completion was then an act of dexterity, of technical precision, the flowing arm following the hand, obedient to mental command. Such was the practice for thousands of years - the knowledge of the external world overbearing artistic creation, even if itself governed by other wisdoms and...

When I lift up my writing brush and throw on the paper the first drop of ink, the pure white paper instantly turns into a world of matter. Through the process of extension of the drop of ink to the completion of the flourishing motion, I intend that I may experience from within the sensational world of my hand to the unconfined imagination and sophisticated motive...

There are places that seem predestined to witness the development of a specific production, of an industry, of an art, and whose history is inseparably linked to that activity. If in the immense Chinese territory we find numerous artistic expressions supported by the most disparate materials, such as silk or porcelain, the name of Shi Wan is certainly, from time immemorial, unmistakingly linked to the working of clay...

Yu, the Great, knew the art of melting metals. He knew how to distinguish between male and female metals. The hares of Wou, of whose bile a pair of swords was made, were a couple, hence each of the swords has a different sex. The temper comes from the union of water and fire. At that very instant, swords may some times transform into a dragon. Yin swords remain in the creeks were they are tempered. Thus the tendency of swords to plummet into the waters to seek for their lost partner. The most famous waterway...

From image to sound, the several register procedures are , one by one, becoming obsolete in face of the technological developments which are opening the door of oblivion for them. In that context, oblivion becomes a source of innovation for infinite possibilities of recovery where techniques, if obsolete, undergo new processes of regeneration transporting yesterday to the full light of now, reshaping the original meaning of...