1 . Hungarian artist Zoltan Viczan has revealed his love and memories of his homeland in a series of new glass artworks at the exhibition, Layers of Hungary, which is taking place at Picnic Gallery in downtown Shanghai from Oct 13 to Nov 15.

Born in Hungary in 1979, Viczan began his studies in glass art at an early age in Budapest.     1    He is known for having developed his own style and techniques for glass engraving(雕刻).

Traditional glassmaking in the West originated in Italy, where the royal court forced master crafts people to live on an island and create fine goods, Viczan says.     2    Then they took the technique to other parts of Europe, such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Viczan came to Asia 10 years ago, spending four years in Japan and two years in Hong Kong before moving to Shanghai in 2016. Generally many expatriates socialized with people from their countries to overcome homesickness.     3    

In the exhibition, visitors will see a map of Hungary sculpted in cast glass and decorated with traditional Hungarian glass patterns, and works describing the city of Budapest and Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe.

    4    For example, he removed the protective and reflective layers of the mirror to create a window on the surface that reveals the layer underneath. He even placed multiple layers of these windows in front of each other, creating a 3D effect that changes when viewed from different angles.

    5     “We live in an infinitely complex world that we have no way to fully understand,” he says. “Through our experiences, we form a worldview that becomes our reality, which will be challenged when we are exposed to new ideas. These layers of realizations are the signs of our personal development.”

2 . It's hard to say goodbye to your favorite pair of jeans, even when they're way beyond wearable.     1    

Netherton-born artist Ian Berry has made quite a name for himself after his unique art took the art world by storm. It's hard to believe the idea of using old denim (牛仔布) as medium for his art came after a call from his mother, Christine, asking him to clean out his room. “It was about six or seven years ago, my mum was clearing out my old room and she wanted me to go through my things. I found loads of old jeans and denims and I noticed the different colors and shades. I kept hold of them but it was only about 18 months later that I began to do something with them.”     2    

Ian Berry quit his full-time job in advertising to focus all his attention on art.     3     And he remembers his girlfriend's parents asking if artists could make a living in this day and age. But his gamble(冒险) paid off and soon his denim artworks were the stars of sell-out shows in Sweden and the US, and his pieces were sold to private and public collections all over the world.

Iain Barratt, director of the Catto Gallery, told the Examiner, “what Ian Berry does is extraordinary.     4     And what absolute treasures they are. Ian makes remarkably detailed portraits and urban landscapes using nothing more than discarded (丢弃的) jeans – the effect is extraordinary.”

    5     Ian Berry uses old jeans, a pair of scissors and some glue to create all his incredible detailed works of art. After 12 years of working with denim, the English artist has managed to fill seven closets with old pairs of jeans, so it's safe to say he has plenty of material for his future works.

3 . Born in 1921, Paul Smith was diagnosed with a severe disease that affects motor abilities and strength. Since he could not grasp the artist’s tools, his creations turned to the typewriter.

His works include his childhood fascination with trains, spiritual leaders, war scenes and country heroes. It’s not so much the subject that is remarkable about Paul’s work, it’s the painstaking skill of using symbols on a typewriter to form perfect copy of existing work, and creative representations of his surroundings.

Paul’s images employed only a handful of symbol keys - !, @, ≠≠, ％, ∧, (, &, ) — which were accessible along the top row of his typewriter keyboard. Remarkable, when a person considers that hand typewriters required the ribbons to be positioned, the roller to be adjusted, and the paper to be secured. Typewriters, of that time, left no room for error since erasing mistaken keystrokes was not a clean option.

As he typed, he would lock the shift key in a safe position not to type numbers. He used his left hand to steady his right. Different symbols created the look of varied textures (神韵), and depending on the look to achieve, he would adjust the spacing to type the symbols near or far. And, he adjusted the roller to perfect spaces between lines.

Depending on its size and complexity, it could take anywhere from two weeks to three months to complete one piece. He worked, on average, a couple of hours every day on his art. After all of that work, one wouldn’t blame Paul if he sought to sell his work, but by all accounts, he would give away his pieces. As his distinctive art form gained interest from others, the number of orders for his artwork increased.

In 2007 the world lost Paul Smith at the age of 85. For this American, creating art was a leisurely pursuit and a form of expression. To the art world, he set a high bar for typewriter artists that many have tried to match, but few are able to repeat it.

4 . Christo Javacheff the artist who worked to turn landscapes and buildings into massive, temporary works of art, died on March 2021 at age 84. Christo surprised the world again and again with the imagination and size of the artworks he created.

Christo, born in Bulgaria in 1935, met his wife Jeanne-Claude in Paris in 1959. Together, the two formed a strong partnership that lasted the rest of their lives. They worked as a team to create huge works of art called installations. In these installations, Christo and Jeanne often changed the way buildings or large areas of land looked — a kind of art known as "land art”.

The two were most noted for “wrapping” things so large that most people would never think to wrap them. Many of their projects used huge pieces of cloth or plastic. For example, in 1969, they wrapped 1.6 miles of rocky coastline near Sydney, Australia and it was the largest artwork ever made. In 1995, they used cloth to wrap up the Reichstag, a famous and historic building in Berlin, Germany.

Being extremely large, their art works cost a fortune to create. The artists paid for the projects themselves by selling the plans, drawings, and models they made for each installation. Many projects seemed so unusual that the couple had to work very hard to get permission to create them.

But, like almost all of the artist's work, it was only meant to last a short time. Most of the installations only stayed up for a few weeks or months before being taken down.

“I am an artist, and I have to have courage,"   Christo said. "Do you know I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished."   Christo himself has gone away, leaving behind an art world forever changed by the memory of his huge and daring artworks.

5 . The British Museum's rich collection of ancient Chinese paintings has attracted many visitors. At the heart of this preservation and revival of Chinese art history is senior conservator (文物修复员) Qiu Jinxian.

Joanna Kosek, head of Pictorial Art Conservation at the British Museum, told the Times Publications that Qiu is considered one of the museum's most priceless treasures. "We let the treasure treat the treasure," Kosek said.

In 1987, Qiu was introduced to Mrs. Jessica Rawson, director of the British Museum. At the time there were no conservators specializing in ancient Chinese art at the British Museum. The large collection of Chinese ancient paintings and cultural relics in the museum was mainly repaired by Japanese and British methods and materials. As these methods were not suitable for Chinese paintings, the art collection was kept in storage for a long time instead of on pubic display.

Just before Christmas in 1987, Qiu Jinxian had her first appointment at the British Museum. She was asked to repair an ancient scroll (卷轴) by Fu Baoshi, which had been badly damaged by fire. Qiu's methods, which included washing with warm water to separate the glue in order to repair the paper, stunned people on the spot. Some of them even got out the camera to record her methods as they'd never seen this way of restoring ancient art. Mrs. Rawson was completely amazed by Qiu Jinxian's incredible skills. She immediately invited Qiu to join the British Museum.

Chinese ancient paintings are notoriously difficult to repair because of their large size, complex materials, diverse colors, and rich composition. The most important thing is to understand the long history, meaning and culture behind the painting. Repair is an extremely time-and-energy intensive process.Each painting normally takes several months from cleaning to restoration and drying. Since 1987, Qiu has repaired more than 400 artworks.

Oiu told the media that she is very proud of her work. She wants more people to understand and appreciate Chinese history and culture through art. Although the artworks originated from China, they now belong to the people of the world.

6 . After written art had to fight a tough battle for attraction during the first decade of social media, owing to a certain group of writers, it is now on a significant rise. How Instagram and Twitter have offered jumpstarts to careers of authors like Dean Cocozza sets a blueprint for thousands of ambitious writers.

Cocozza started writing lyrics for his music as a teenager. He immediately had to experience that translating art to social media is not as simple as posting whatever his pen put down.

“Anyone who uses the platform with an intent will quickly learn that you only have the glimpse of a moment to catch the viewer’s attention. So the work I shared shifted to be more to the point, often one-liners. Then stuff started to go viral.”

The success and demand for more poems resulted in his first book Zero Dark Thirty, which sold out quickly. Despite the book containing mostly short writings, even said one-liners, Cocozza emphasizes that he doesn’t write for social media. “It was a very personal project resulting from a certain period of time” in his life. There are much bigger things that he works on and plans to get involved in.

Dean Cocozza has brought back emotional depth. In-between monetized (货币化的) content, blatant (明目张胆的) advertising and “perfect lives”, social media holds a spot for a new generation of artists, including literature. Critical thinkers and authentic writers remind the app’s consumers of their emotional human nature. Art galleries and bookstores might have lost a big part of their audience to digital media — but the art itself will always find ways to survive.