1 . Must-see exhibitions of 2024
Cute at Somerset House, London
Explore the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture. From emojis to Internet memes, video games to plush toys, cuteness has taken over our world, but how has something so charming and seemingly harmless gained such attraction? Somerset House brings together cultural ephemera and contemporary artworks, alongside a spotlight on Hello Kitty, to coincide with her 50th anniversary.
Tickets: £18.50 per person/Concessions (减价票) from £11 per person
25 Jan. 2024 — 14 Apr. 2024
Barbie at Design Museum, London
Running with 2023’s Barbie mania, and coinciding with Barbie’s 65th anniversary, London’s Design Museum will tell the icon’s story through a design lens in their major new show. The exhibition will trace the legacy that began in 1959 when Ruth Handler sought a new female narrative for her daughter, Barbara. It delves into Barbie’s evolution through fashion, architecture, furniture, and vehicle design.
Tickets:TBC
05 Jul. 2024 — 23 Feb. 2025
Brâncuşi at Centre Pompidou, Paris
The Centre Pompidou presents an unprecedented Constantin Brancusi exhibition, featuring nearly 200 sculptures, photographs, drawings, films, archives, tools, and furniture from his workshop. This unique showcase, coinciding with the workshop’s relocation during renovation, offers a fresh perspective on the art of this immense 20th-century artist. The workshop, a jewel of the museum’s collection since 1957, forms the core of this retrospective, enriched by major loans from international museums.
Tickets: From €15 per person/Concession from €12 per person
27 Mar. 2024 — 01 Jul. 2024
Michelangelo: The last decades at The British Museum, London
In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence for Rome, never to return. This exhibition explores his final 30 years in Rome, showcasing new reunions with close friends, and his major works. It features numerous preparatory drawings for the Last Judgement fresco, the restored Epifania cartoon, and studies for St Peter’s Basilica’s reconstruction. Contrasting today’s youth-centric culture, the exhibition highlights lifelong practice, mastery, experience, wisdom, and experimentation, embodying Michelangelo’s enduring legacy.
Tickets:TBC
02 May 2024 — 28 Jul. 2024
1. How much will a couple pay for the first exhibition at least?| A．£37. | B．£11. | C．£22. | D．£18.5. |
| A．Cute at Somerset House, London. |
| B．Barbie at Design Museum, London. |
| C．Brâncuşi at Centre Pompidou, Paris. |
| D．Michelangelo: The last decades at The British Museum, London. |
| A．He passed away in Florence. |
| B．His works will be exhibited with objects from international museums. |
| C．He completed the Last Judgement fresco effortlessly. |
| D．His later years were spent in Rome. |
2 . Can you imagine a five-year-old boy writing and playing music on a child-sized violin? This was true of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart，a gifted boy who grew up to be one of the most creative composers (作曲家) of all time. Then you might think that the life of this child was easy all the time. Read on. Decide for yourself.
Mozart was born in January of 1756 into a musical family. His father, Leopold Mozart, knew the talent of his child and carefully taught him. Later, Mozart toured Europe, putting on concerts for the people of high social positions. He could listen to any piece of music once and then play it from memory. He could play the piano or the violin with his eyes covered. What’s more, music that Mozart wrote at the age of five was as good as works by many adult composers.
Mozart earned a living by selling his compositions, giving concerts and providing music lessons for the wealthy. Some of the operas Mozart wrote, such as The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni, are still performed today. He composed 41 symphonies (交响乐). However, none of them earned him much money, and he spent far more than he was able to earn. Mozart often waited until the last moment to work on pieces that had been asked for.
By the spring of 1791, Mozart was ill and sad. He was deeply in debt (债务). His health, which had never been good, was becoming even worse. A stranger asked Mozart to write a musical piece for a funeral (葬礼). Mozart agreed, but then began to fear that it was being written for his own death. His fears turned out to be true. Mozart died in December of 1791, at the age of 35.
1. What is the purpose of the writer by saying “Read on. Decide for yourself ”in paragraph1?| A．To increase your reading interest. |
| B．To tell you it is your business to read it or not |
| C．To introduce that the child always led an easy life |
| D．To introduce the reason why you should read |
| A．He could play any music wonderfully |
| B．He could write good works at an early age. |
| C．He held concerts for the people of high social positions |
| D．He could listen to any piece of music once and then play it from memory |
| A．Mozart could support himself by working so hard |
| B．Mozart led a poor life although he wrote many pieces |
| C．Mozart’s compositions sold well and he made a lot of money |
| D．Mozart led a happy life because of much money |
| A．Mozart’s lifetime | B．Mozart’s talent | C．Mozart’s works B. Mozart’s father |
3 . As a child, Liu Wenwen disliked the suona, a “loud, high-pitched” traditional Chinese musical instrument, an ancestral heritage of her family that was to become her career.
Her peers at primary school laughed at her, saying her whole family was engaged only in “weddings and funerals.” Indeed, these are the two major occasions where the horn-like wind instrument is played in China’s rural areas. Liu felt ashamed. People admired things that were modern and international. “Suona, in comparison, was considered an art of the hillbilly.” Her father’s family has performed suona for seven generations.
The music is rooted in Liu’s DNA, but it takes time and hard work to become a skilled musician. The instrument was so loud that it annoyed the neighbors when she practiced at home. “So my parents would wake me up at 4 a.m. every day and take me to practice outside in a park.”
While she followed her parents to play the suona as a child, she only fell in love with the instrument at university. She found suona music beautiful for the first time in 2008, when she entered Shanghai Conservatory of Music to learn the instrument more systematically.
On China’s social media platforms, her name is often followed by a video of her live performance at a concert in Sydney, Australia, alongside award-winning composer Tan Dun in 2017. For her debut on the international stage, she was playing Hundreds of Birds Paying Homage to Phoenix, a masterpiece that often represents excellence in suona performance.
Liu promoted the “hillbilly” music to an international audience, thanks to Tan and his team, who recomposed the traditional music and arranged the piece into an orchestra. “It was a smooth dialogue between a Chinese instrument and a Western orchestra, loved by the musicians and audience alike,” she said. “I felt my hard work had paid off. I trained for over 20 years, probably just to win cheers and applause for traditional Chinese music on the international stage.”
1. What can we learn about Liu from the first two paragraphs?| A．She was born into a musical family. |
| B．She enjoyed playing the suona as a child. |
| C．She showed a talent for suona when she was young. |
| D．She felt ashamed of admiring modern and international things. |
| A．To get more time for her practice. | B．To avoid disturbing the neighbors. |
| C．To spend more time with her parents. | D．To make practising the suona a habit. |
| A．Audience like Chinese instruments better than Western orchestra. |
| B．Liu’s performance at a Sydney concert got her recognized by the public. |
| C．Liu promoted traditional Chinese music to the whole world with her parents. |
| D．Social media is a major platform to carry forward traditional Chinese music. |
| A．Technology. | B．Education. |
| C．People. | D．Entertainment. |
4 . Shane Grammer’s artwork can be found in cities in Mexico, South Korea, Dubai and beyond.In the past years, it’s the murals (壁画) he painted on damaged walls throughout the town of Paradise, California that have gained attention and touched viewers.
In 2018, the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, swept through Paradise, flattening entire communities, killing scores of people, and displacing tens of thousands. Grammer,whose hometown was just 15 miles from Paradise, was living with his family and working in the Los Angeles area when he saw accounts of the destruction on his friends’ social media pages. A single mother he knew shared a photo of ash and rubble where her home once stood. A childhood friend’s post showed her burned-down house. After he saw a photo of a friend Shane Edwards’ home, which had been reduced to a brick wall with only a chimney standing, he was driven to paint it.
With Edward’s permission, Grammer then used spray paint to transform Edwards’ burnt chimney into a strikingly black-and-white portrait of a woman, a piece he called “Beauty Among the Ashes.” Once the image was posted on Instagram, the victims of the fire, especially, could not contain themselves. “You bring beauty and hope.” one posted. Over three months, the 47-year-old created a series of more than a dozen spray-painted murals on the remains of buildings and vehicles rendered useless by the flames. The images included a victim of the fire, a young girl who survived but lost her house, and a series of religious characters.
As a street artist, Grammer has committed his life to creating more art installations (装置艺术) all over the world that connect people through tragic life events. He has started a foundation called the Art Through Hope Foundation where he intends to bring peace through his art to those affected by tragedy. “I want to do something powerful and make art that emotionally influences people,” said Grammer in an interview with KRCR. “I think any artist would consider that as their ultimate goal. And to me, that is the biggest miracle I feel like.”
1. What has led to Grammer’s rise to fame?| A．The Art Through Hope Foundation. | B．The post of a burnt-down house. |
| C．His paintings on the ruins in Paradise. | D．His art installations all over the world. |
| A．To record the wildfire. | B．To bring hope to the victims. |
| C．To add beauty to the ashes. | D．To remember his friend's home. |
| A．Creating touching art. | B．Working miracles in art. |
| C．Bringing peace through art. | D．Doing something powerful. |
| A．From Ashes to Art: Street Artist’s Murals of Hope |
| B．From Paradise to Worldwide: Street Artist’s Journey |
| C．From Tragedy to Hope: the Story of Shane Grammer |
| D．From Mural to Miracle: Shane Grammer’s Art Mission |
5 . During the 19th and 20th centuries, Qi Baishi (1864-1957) was one of the best-known Chinese artists. He grew up in a poor peasant family, but this did not prevent him from pursuing his interest in painting.
Qi was schooled for less than a year due to illness, and he dropped out of school. However, he was too weak to do much of the work and this was why he became a carpenter. As a carpenter, he showed his creativity. He could carve figures of animals, woodblock prints, and sniff-boxes. At the age of 20, he taught himself to paint with Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. He met many mentors who greatly influenced his painting skills through his painting journey, among whom are the renowned artists Zhu Da and Xu Wei. When he was 28, he became a student of the famous artist Hu Qinyuan, and he began to study Chinese painting.
Qi arrived in Beijing in 1917. While he was in Beijing, he stayed devoted to painting. Most of his paintings represented Chinese tradition. Qi’s works are now found in several famous museums, including National Gallery Prague and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. His works now are the most expensive ever sold at auctions.
Qi got noticed by many institutions, one of which is the Ministry of Culture. In 1954 he was selected as the representative of the Chinese people. Also, in 1956, he was awarded the World Peace Prize by World Peace Council. A college was also named after him, the Baishi School of Art in Hunan University of Science Technology.
1. Why did Qi Baishi drop out of school?| A．He suffered from illness and was too weak. |
| B．He wanted to devote himself to painting. |
| C．He wasn’t interested in what he learned at school. |
| D．His family was too poor to afford his schooling fees. |
| A．He learned Chinese painting on his own. |
| B．He showed great creativity of art since childhood. |
| C．His works are one of the costliest ever sold at auctions. |
| D．At first he learned to paint from some renowned artists. |
| A．His painting style. | B．His painting works. |
| C．His achievements. | D．His contributions to his hometown. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By using data. |
| C．By raising questions. | D．By following the order of time. |
6 . Mary Shelley bends over her latest creation. Although the carving is only half complete, the image of a waitress holding a plate of eggs comes out from the board. Of Shelley’s nearly seven hundred carvings, many show scenes with cows on farms and people in restaurants.
From memories to carvings
“My work is a visual diary, ” Shelley says. “The carvings describe things I have experienced and felt at different times in my life.”
Every one of her carvings tells a story. Many of the stories in Shelley’s woodcarvings come from memories of her childhood in a rural (乡村的) area outside of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Shelley’s family managed a small farm. Mary was a serious girl who spent a lot of time raising animals, exploring outdoors, and reading. Although Shelley never felt especially artistic as a child, there was always an art project in the works in the Shelley household. Her grandmother painted. Her father was a commercial artist, who drew and wrote to make a living.
______
Shelley attended Cornell University and hoped to become a writer, but an unusual present took her in another direction. At age 23, she received a gift her father had made-a woodcarving of her as a girl on the farm. The gift caught her interest. After gathering boards from a building site where she worked as a carpenter, Shelley bought some tools and taught herself to carve.
Shelley soon realized that she loved the slow, thoughtful process of working with wood and painting. “A carving is like a jigsaw puzzle (拼图游戏),” she explains. “I didn’t know how it would all fit together, but the process of solving the puzzle kept me going.”
The Shelley style
Early in her career, people hired Shelley to carve special pieces that took four or five weeks to complete. The money she received motivated her to try more complicated scenes created by carving deeper in the wood. Over time, Shelley’s art began to have its own style. In a typical Shelley woodcarving, some objects seem to reach out of the frame while others drop back, creating a feeling of depth.
1. What can we infer from the “From memories to carvings” part?| A．Art is from but beyond life. | B．Life is short and art is long. |
| C．It is great art to laugh at your own misfortune. | D．Knowledge without practice makes but half an artist |
| A．Life in School | B．A Dream Come True |
| C．A Life-Changing Gift | D．Jigsaw Puzzles and Carving |
| A．The dream to be an artist in her childhood. | B．Her father’s low-relief carving for her. |
| C．The rugs hooked by her grandmother. | D．Her school life in Cornell University. |
| A．is very popular | B．is very expensive |
| C．has simple scenes | D．creates a feeling of depth |
As the daughter of a painter, Artemisia Gentileschi was afforded access to the art world at a young age. Early on, she was in her father’s workshop mixing paints and he supported her career when he noticed that she was gifted. As a famous painter of the Italian Baroque period, Artemisia Gentileschi did not let her gender hold her back from her subject matter. She painted Biblical and mythological (神话的) paintings, just like male painters.
Angelica Kauffman (1741—1807)Born in Switzerland, Angelica Kauffman was the daughter of the artist Johann Joseph Kauffman. She received artistic training while acting as her father’s assistant from a very young age and copying the works of old masters as they traveled for commissions (委托). As a young woman, she also trained in Italy, where her historical paintings and portraits were well received.
Rosa Bonheur (1822—1899)Like many female artists at the time, Rosa Bonheur’s father was a painter. The French Realist painter is considered one of the most famous female artists of the 19th century, known for her large-format paintings that featured animals. She showed her works regularly at the famous Paris salon and found success abroad in both the United States and Britain.
Berthe Morisot (1841—1895)Considered one of the great female Impressionists, Berthe Morisot had art running through her veins. Born into a noble French family, she was the great-niece of celebrated Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Her art often focused on family scenes, and she preferred working with pastels (粉彩), watercolor, and charcoal (木炭).
1. What artistic style do Artemisia Gentileschi’s paintings belong to?| A．Rococo. | B．Baroque. | C．Realism. | D．Impressionism. |
| A．Artemisia Gentileschi. | B．Angelica Kauffman. |
| C．Rosa Bonheur. | D．Berthe Morisot. |
| A．They all learned painting from their fathers. |
| B．They all loved copying classic paintings. |
| C．They were all born into a noble family. |
| D．They all grew up in an artistic environment. |
8 . Four Self-Portraits (自画像) by Famous Artists
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino)—“Self-Portrait”, 1506
One of the beautiful self-portraits by famous artist Raphael was drawn at the age of 23. It measures around 45cm×33cm and is located at the world-famous Uffizi Gallery. The Italian painter used oil on board to draw his self-portrait, which was the clearest and the most recognizable self-portraits of Raphael himself.
Leonardo da Vinci—“Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk”, 1512
“Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk”is a self-portrait of da Vinci at the age of 60 and measures around 33.3cm×21.6cm, which is on display in Biblioteca Reale, Turin, Italy. It is drawn with red chalk on paper and represents the head of an elderly man in a three-quarter view. In the portrait, the length of the hair is uncommon in Renaissance (文艺复兴) portraits.
Rembrandt van Rijn—“Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-up Collar”, 1659
Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn painted his self-portrait in 1659 when he was 53 years old. It shows his worried expression that clearly portrays the troubled condition of his mind at that point of his life since the year 1659 was a year of anxiety for him. This self-portrait found its place among the Benjamin Altman Collection, which has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1913.
Edgar Degas—“Degas Au Porte-Fusain’”, l855
Edgar Degas made this self-portrait only when he was twenty-one years old. It was one of the most remarkable of his fifteen self-portraits. Degas was seated as seemingly without fear and anxiety. The pose in the painting was formal and academic. The painting is located in the musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
1. Where should visitors go if they want to admire Raphael’s self-portrait in 1506?| A．Uffizi Gallery. | B．Biblioteca Reale. |
| C．The musée d’Orsay. | D．The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
| A．The red clothing. | B．The formal pose. |
| C．The long hair. | D．The worried expression. |
| A．Raphael. | B．Edgar Degas. |
| C．Leonardo da Vinci. | D．Rembrandt van Rijn. |
9 . For more than 40 years, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has annually selected a group of Jazz Masters. Here are the NEA Jazz Masters selected for 2024.
Amina Claudine Myers
Amina Claudine Myers grew up in Dallas, Texas. She moved to New York City in the 1970s. The former elementary school teacher also worked in theaters and cooperated with musicians around the world.
Willard Jenkins
Willard Jenkins is familiar to jazz fans in New Orleans and Washington, D. C., where he’s hosted radio programs on stations such as WWOZ and WPFW. The Pittsburgh native first started writing about jazz for the Black student newspaper as an undergraduate at Kent State University. He also taught at various universities and contributed to leading jazz publications.
Gary Bartz
Gary Bartz has played with generations of jazz stars. In the 1960s, after graduating from Juilliard, he joined the Max Roach/ Abbey Lincoln Group and the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop. In the 1970s, he played with Miles Davis and founded the Ntu Troop, which united jazz with African folk and other kinds of music. He has published more than 40 personal albums.
Terence Blanchard
It’s almost amazing that Terence Blanchard was named the NEA Jazz Master. He is only 61. It’s relatively young for the recognition.
Born in New Orleans to an opera-loving father, Blanchard started playing the trumpet (小号) as a child. Over the years, he has won multiple Grammys and a Peabody Medal. He made history in 2021 when his opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones became the first by a Black composer to be staged by the Metropolitan Opera.
1. Who was born in Pittsburgh?| A．Gary Bartz. | B．Terence Blanchard. |
| C．Willard Jenkins. | D．Amina Claudine Myers. |
| A．In the 1950s. | B．In the 1960s. | C．In the 1970s. | D．In the 1980s. |
| A．He is the first Black composer to be the NEA Jazz Master. |
| B．He is the youngest to be selected as the NEA Jazz Master. |
| C．He won a Grammy and a Peabody Medal in the same year. |
| D．One of his works was performed by the Metropolitan Opera. |
10 . Best known as an author of fairy tales (童话), Hans Christian Andersen (1805—1875) wrote such children’s stories as The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. However, he was also an actor, a singer, and an artist. As an artist, he was particularly good at paper cutting.
Andersen had many reasons for making his paper cuttings, but the main one was to give pleasure. Andersen loved to tell his interesting stories to anyone who would listen. As he spoke, he would take out his scissors (剪刀) and make a wonderful paper cutting to help his words.
He also found that his paper cuttings helped with a better communication between himself and others. Although a shy man, he still loved to tell his stories face to face with his listeners. His stories and paper cuttings helped him to communicate when he would have otherwise felt uncomfortable.
The paper cuttings also became great gifts for friends and families. He would give his cuttings not only to children but also to grown-ups. When his writing became famous, these gifts were even more valued.
Now more than 100 years old, many of Andersen’s fine paper cuttings still exist in a museum in Denmark devoted to his works. While Andersen will always be remembered for his fairy tales, his beautiful works of art also remain for all to enjoy.
1. This passage mainly discusses Hans Christian Andersen as a(n) .| A．singer | B．artist | C．actor | D．writer |
| A．1500s | B．1600s | C．1700s | D．1800s |
| A．live quite a busy life | B．become a well-known writer |
| C．get along well with others | D．write wonderful stories for children |
| A．Why he was fond of paper cutting. |
| B．Which fairy tales he had published. |
| C．How he became good at paper cutting. |
| D．When he became famous as a story-teller. |
