![hong kong creation workshop hong kong creation workshop](https://cdn.happeningnext.com/events9/banners/8c55c2633f0f0c3a561b8309c157d1eb1f0d8406fde294185bb864cb70253248-rimg-w526-h296-gmir.jpg)
![hong kong creation workshop hong kong creation workshop](https://mpl.mpg.de/fileadmin/_processed_/c/b/csm_SmallPosterBackground_bfbbd6ea53.jpg)
The field of homotopy theory originated in the study of topological spaces up to deformation, but has since been applied effectively in several other disciplines. The overarching goals of the program are to establish and clarify the key questions driving each field, and to improve each group’s understanding of the tools, techniques, and perspectives of the others. The proposed semester program aims to bring together researchers working in diverse areas through the common thread of their interaction with braid and mapping class groups. For example, developing fast machine-based calculations of link homology invariants is a goal shared by representation theorists, low-dimensional topologists, symplectic and algebraic geometers, and string theorists. Computational applications and questions about braid groups have also emerged in disparate mathematical contexts in some cases, these coalesce around the same computational problem. For example, in modern representation theory, important equivalences of categories are organized into 2-representations of braid groups, and these same 2-representations appear prominently in parts of geometry and mathematical physics concerned with mirror dualities in low-dimensional topology, manifolds are presented and related to each other via braids and mapping classes. Braid and mapping class groups are prominent players in current mathematics not only because these groups are rich objects of study in their own right, but also because they provide organizing structures for a variety of different areas. In the last 15 years, fields with an interest in braids have independently undergone rapid development these fields include representation theory, low-dimensional topology, complex and symplectic geometry, and geometric group theory. Since then, braid groups, mapping class groups, and their generalizations have come to occupy a significant place in parts of both pure and applied mathematics. Tongson was bold and prolific, drawing on techniques of masters of Chinese painting to make his large-scale landscapes and intricate examinations of nature his own.Braid groups were introduced by Emil Artin almost a century ago. This has precedence in traditional Chinese painting, as with Gao Qipei, whose 18th-century “Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller” hangs in the show. The show also has examples of Tongson’s calligraphy, done using his hands and fingers rather than a brush. BAMPFA’s Picasso etching, “L’Homme à la guitare” (1915), hangs in the exhibit.
![hong kong creation workshop hong kong creation workshop](https://hksef.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/sen168-image-1-1080x608.jpg)
Pablo Picasso was his favorite Western artist, and you can see his influence in “Untitled” as well. Tongson studied at the Ontario College of Art for a few years and became fond of Cubism.
![hong kong creation workshop hong kong creation workshop](http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/modern/Strvnew004I.jpg)
Both artists look for the essence of the natural world, but don’t try to replicate it White observed how Tongson’s mountains are only lightly defined by their shape. The show has his scroll of a lotus from 1704 and “Reminiscences of Nanking,” from the same year. Tongson’s monochromatic “Untitled” (1997) shows the influence of Shitao, the Qing-era master that Cynthia Tongson says her brother most respected. Wesley Tongson (image courtesy the Tongson family) “He learned from his mentors and there’s a respect and a linkage.” “I wanted to focus on putting him in the context of greater Chinese historical perspective,” she said. White says she organized Spiritual Mountains with an eye to showing Tongson’s connection to the past. Everyone kept telling me how it was something they’d never seen before, and I realized I needed to share the work.”īecause of its collection of historical Chinese painting, as well as its ties to the University of California, Berkeley, Cynthia Tongson decided to donate Tongson’s paintings to Berkeley. “Even in Hong Kong no one knew how he’d progressed into finger painting. “I wanted people to know how Wesley had progressed as an artist,” she said about the show. Installation view, Spiritual Mountains: The Art of Wesley Tongson at BAMPFA (courtesy Impart Photography) They both hoped to expand the range of the collection, which has a wealth of Chinese classical work, but less modern ink art.Ĭynthia Tongson had decided to donate some of her brother’s art after the response she got to a show of his work, Ink Explorations: A Wesley Tongson Retrospective, which she organized in 2014, after his death. White met Tongson’s sister, Cynthia Tongson, at that show, and invited her for a meeting at the museum with White and Lawrence Rinder, then BAMPFA’s director. “His splash paintings are so ethereal and beautiful.” “I was flummoxed by the way he moved from one type of painting to the next,” she said.