Dr. T.F. Chen’s Art & The Olympics :An Art for Humanity

New book, just published: special price now

Dr. TF Chen’s Art &
The Olympic’s: An Art for Humanity

Historical publication, first Art Book in 112 years of Modern Olympic history.
Perfect combination of Sports and Arts.
Abundant in images and text, timely in occasion, one of the best souvenirs and Collectible items of the Beijing Olympics, 2008.

This book is a collectible item of historical meaningfulness and artistic value---one of the best souvenir as well as gift of the Beijing Olympics, 2008.

Price: soft cover: USD 80 special for usd $40 ; hardcover: USD: 150 for usd $70,

Art in the Service of Humanity

In declaring years 2001 to 2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and non-violence especially for children, the United Nations was to acknowledge that “While the abolition of war, more than ever a scourge, must remain at the center of the priorities of mankind, this task requires the transformation not only of its institutional structures and manifestations, but also of its deep cultural roots and of the culture of violence and war into a culture of peace”. 

Humanity now is challenged to deploy its creative genius more effectively and utilize its resources including its artistic resources more efficiently，recognizing that，“Art in its broadest context is a modern tool of diplomacy. It is an instrument that should be used more frequently， knowing it will prove enormously effective in bringing out the differences that separate nations and in revealing the humanistic factors that bind all people together. Art in its diverse forms provides the seed of true understanding contributing to world peace”. (Joseph J. Jova. Former President. Meridian House International)

As the first Decade of the new millennium draws to a close it is clear that we are entering a new kind of world, where a darker side of humanity seem to be coming to light. The specter of terror，stalks the earth leaving in its wake a growing culture of fear, insecurity and anxiety and where no one can claim immunity or sanctuary. 

Consequently, the task of constructing a Culture of Peace has never been more urgent, nor the challenge to all sectors of society more immediate and direct. It is in this spirit and in response to this challenge that the Friends of the United Nations in cooperation with the number of partners has decided to launch a Global Campaign to promote the Building of a Culture of Peace and Tolerance through the Art. 

It is for these reasons that the Friends of the United Nations honored Dr. T.F. Chen with a “Global Tolerance Award” and designated him a “Cultural Ambassador for Tolerance and Peace”and that we join together to launch a“World Art Campaign”.

We welcome the Art for Humanity Initiative of Dr. T. F. Chen and its goals to: 

Utilize the Art as a tool to inspire, promotepopularize and sustain the message of

peace and tolerance as outlined by the United Nations

Generate global awareness towards the social, environmental and spiritual benefits of

the arts and artists and their potential contribution to global peace

Mobilize and empower youth in accessing the power of the Arts as a vehicle forexpressing their unique cultural identity and their vision of global harmony

Heighten the awareness of people everywhere to their respective cultural identities as well as to empower them to see themselves as a wider global community

Thuswe fully support the work of Dr. T. F. Chen and wish him every success in this most creative use of the arts in the Service of Humanity.

Dr. Noel J. Brown

President & CEO Friends of the United Nations

CONTENTS

Art in the Service of Humanity / Dr. Noel J. Brown 007

To: The Cultural Ambassador of the Friends of the United Nations: Dr. T.F. Chen, A Master-Artist 013

The Art of Dr. Tsing - Fang Chen / by Lawrence Jeppson 016

Dr. T.F. Chen: An Inspired“Event-Celebration”Artist 019

On Publishing this Book 021 Dr. T. F. Chen www.tfchen.org 025

Introduction to the“Arts for Humanity World Tour” in China / Lucia Chen 029

Beijing Olympic Series, 2008 033 Salute to the Olympic Games: Introduction to Dr. T.F. Chen’s

“2008 Beijing Olympic Series” / Dr. T.F. Chen 040

“Temple of Heaven ”Series 135

Introduction to the“Temple of Heaven Series” 137

Humanism Series: toward an Age of Love 179

Dr. T. F. Chen 186

Award Speech for the 2001 “Global Tolerance Award” 187

The Neo-Iconography of Dr. T.F Chen 191

Toward the 21st Century - Symphony of World Culture / Julie Chen 241

Toward an Age of Love: A New Renaissance of a Global Scale / Dr. T.F. Chen 246

A Global Renaissance in Love 259

Critics on Dr. T.F Chen’s Art 272

Dr. T.F. Chen’s Public Speaking 274

Afterword / Dr. T.F. Chen 279

Lucia Chen 289 The T.F. Chen Cultural Center 291

To The Cultural Ambassador of the Friends of the United Nations:

Dr. T.F. Chen, A Master-Artist

Sports realize Beauty Art transcends Beauty

Baron Pierre de Coubertin Father of the Modern Olympic Games

advocated the integration of the Beauty of Sports

with the Beauty of Arts

Master-artist Dr. T.F. Chen Creatively realized such kind of integration

Manifesting herein the transcendence of the Olympic Spirit

Shepherding people to cherish in their hearts the True Beauty

Wei Jizhong

Executive member，Beijing Olympic Committee Executive member，Standing Committee member，BOCOG

Chairman & Standing Committee member，the Olympic Council of Asia

May 26, 2008

The Art of Dr. Tsing - Fang Chen

by Lawrence Jeppson

Dr. Tsing-fang Chen is a painter of extraordinary talent and world-class importance. His visionary brush opens mixing canals between huge and forbidding cultural oceans and digs deep toeholds into the steep telltales of time. He is an illustrious painter who thinks and a profound thinker who paints.

Chen’s brilliance and erudition have no match in the world of art today, and although he has been an American citizen since 1983, his intellectual depth and artistic flowering transcend all national and cultural boundaries. Much famous contemporary art is superficial and fad driven, with little thought or foundation. Chen is an astonishing and welcome contrast. After exhausting the resources of Taiwan, he spent twelve years in Paris, polishing his technical competence in the finest academies and expanding his brain at the University of Paris and in the city’s great museums. He became the first Asiatic to earn a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne.

While in Paris Chen painted incessantly, exhibited, and wrote books and articles about art and other cultural subjects. He became the first to translate St. Exupery’s Le Petit Prince into Chinese, which has since been published in millions of copies.

Chen and I began our long association in 1973 while he was still a French resident. I was among the first to understand what he was doing with his paints, brushes, and canvases, and to explain this to people who had no clue, I coined the term Neo-Iconography, wrote and designed my first book about him, The Neo-Iconography of Tsing-fang Chen, and obtained Chen’s first museum exhibition in the United States at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 1978.

The book became a key to understanding how Chen takes familiar symbols and subjects from various periods of Western and Oriental art and visual habit-as well as from current events--and juxtaposes them in shattering visual images. Many passages have been widely quoted. The shortest of these is, “In Chen’s hands this recycling of images is not an imitation or a theft but a stroke of cunning.”

In June, 1984, Chen reestablished residence in New York City in the SoHo area. He says, “With a mixture of Asian, European, and American influences, I grew up very conscious of being a ‘World Citizen’.”

Working from a New York base, Chen created several thematic series of paintings: Liberty, a 100-painting commemoration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty; 100 paintings on the centennial of Vincent van Gogh, and other “Centennial Productions.” Over the years his mind and his brush developed a profound synthesis of art history and a universe of space, time, and a fifth dimension, love. Articulate, he has explained these concepts in as many as 300 lectures worldwide, written countless articles and many books, been the subject of over 200 exhibitions, and seen his work reproduced in more than 300 art histories, textbooks, social-studies volumes, periodicals, and other publications.

Driven by the idea that his unique art, Neo-Iconography, could help bring the world together with a shared visual language, Chen and his wife established a unique entity in SoHo, the T.F. Chen Cultural Center, and the T.F. Chen Art for Humanity Foundation. In the spirit of love, peace, and tolerance, the Foundation dedicates itself to the Art for Humanity World Tour and the advancement of art education and “art for humanity’s sake”.

Chen completed one of the most monumental outpourings in post-modern art, Towards the 21st Century, Symphony of World Culture, a seven panels of acrylic on canvas with a total measurement of 9’2” high by 46’8”long and a powerful amalgamation of dozens of the icons that mark his art. This blockbuster is intended for world tour. These efforts have brought unique honors to the artist, including the first artist to receive the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations, which also named him “Cultural Ambassador for Tolerance and Peace”.

In giving Chen its Global Tolerance Award, Dr. Noel Brown, President of Friends of the United Nations, said, “In taking this decision to honor you, the Board was most impressed by your art and multiculturalism and a lifetime of work dedicated to peace, tolerance and love and for creating a body of work expressing a shared vision of humanity…We consider it more urgent than ever to mobilize the arts in the service of peace and harmony among peoples.”

The latest manifestation of Chen’s thematic brilliance is his series of oil paintings created in Beijing interpreting the Olympic Games through his rich, exciting iconography. The Olympics are one of the greatest international manifestations, bringing together participants and spectators from every country in the world. Taking that inspiration, Chen injects into his Olympic interpretations images and icons equally as varied.

These disparate arrays of symbols, however, draw from a recurring common base: the games themselves and China and Chinese culture. as the underlying and unifying presence.

As I study these paintings, I am struck by their variety, esthetic marvels (the equestrian paintings), elegance (the discuss thrower), and frequent complexity (the five rings superimposed on a Jackson Pollack Drip masterpiece, surrounded by Asiatic figures and French doves of peace), and cunning (the panel of Chinese calligraphic figures, many of which are actual depictions of Olympic sports).

Chen’s Salute to the Beijing Olympic Series will stand as another testament to his extraordinary genius, in time perhaps the most notable.

Some critics consider him among the 20 most important artists working today. Others place him in the top ten. This is not too much praise. As an international exhibition curator, appraiser, art writer, and consultant in art investment for nearly half a century, I recognized Chen’s genius years ago. My early judgment has been fully justified, and I have no hesitancy in continuing to place my reputation and advocacy behind him and his work.

(Lawrence Jeppson is an art critic, consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser).

Dr. T. F. Chen www.tfchen.org

In our age of computers and communication, not only do we need hardware and software, but also soulware, S. O. U. L.ware. （at UN, NYC. 2001.）

Dr. T.F. Chen is a master artist with historical vision and cultural mission, who has dedicated his life to creating artwork that reflects the achievements of our humanity and inspires worldwide cultural harmony and progress.

Dr. Chen is also a painter, art historian, writer, philosopher, visionary, and founder of the T.F. Chen Arts For Humanity Foundation as well as his own Cultural Center in SoHo, NYC. In 2001, he was honored with the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations and designated a Cultural Ambassador for Tolerance and Peace, for his lifetime of work dedicated to peace and for his art of multiculturalism. T.F. Chen’s “Arts for Humanity World Tour 2005-2010” aims to promote Art Education and A Glaobal Culture of Peace.

Renowned for his artistic style, philosophical visions, and honorable character, Dr. Chen is a true Renaissance man who embodies the merging of Western and Eastern Cultures. Born in Taiwan, Chen was awarded a scholarship in 1963 from the French government to study in Paris. He lived there for twelve years, earning his M.A. in French Contemporary Literature and Ph. D in Art History from Univ. of Paris (La Sorbonne), while simultaneously studying painting at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts for seven years. In 1969, Dr. Chen established “Five-Dimensional World Culture” in theory and initiated his signature style of “Neo-Iconography” (Neo-I) in art.

Recognized as “one of the twenty most influential artists in the world today” (Art Critic, Dr. Thomas McEvilley), Dr. Chen has conducted more than 200 one-man exhibitions world-wide. He has published over 20 books in English, Chinese and French regarding his art and theories; and is frequently invited to lecture and exhibit around the globe. Chen’s works are featured in over 200 textbooks (including art history textbooks such as Arts & Ideas), countless articles, newspapers, etc.; and are collected widely both privately and publicly. In 2007-2008 Dr. Chen concentrated his exhibitions in China, enriched the content with “Temple of Heaven” and “Salute to the Beijing Olympics” Series while publishing this book: “Dr. T.F. Chen’s Art and the Olympics: an Art for Humanity”.

Introduction to the

“Arts for Humanity World Tour” in China

By Lucia Chen, Executive Director

( Before my brief introduction to the World Tour Please refer to Page 186-187 of this book for the initiation of the World Tour ).

It is our great honor and pleasure to bring the “Arts for Humanity World Tour” to China on the momentous occasion of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. We are so delighted to pay our respects and to add our Art and Cultural activities to the Olympic Events.

This year, the Arts for Humanity World Tour focuses in China. So with the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Dr. Chen was inspired to enrich the contents of the World Tour with more Chinese themes, and created his “Temple of Heaven Series” and “Salute to the Beijing Olympics Series.”

To Dr. Chen, the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) stands as a perfect “I con” symbolizing Chinese traditional culture and their ancient concept of “Wangdao”-the“Kingly Way”-an idealistic way of governing which embodied benevolence and righteousness to win the hearts of the people, within and beyond. Confucius heartily advocated Wangdao as the idealistic achievement in China statecraft. In his “Temple of Heaven Series,” Dr. Chen revives this worthy concept and icon for modern day China. 

Recently, Dr. Chen became inspired to paint a series of 60 paintings in honor of the upcoming 29th Summer Olympics in Beijing, a truly historic event. His devotion doubled when he discovered that one of the traditions of the ancient Greek Olympics was the “Sacred Truce”-an agreement by participating nations to cease all hostilities during the period of the Games. This noble goal is earnestly shared by our “Arts for Humanity World Tour.” So we are honored to add Dr. Chen’s “Salute to the Beijing Olympics Series” to enrich our World Tour and the Olympics in China this year.

Besides this, Dr. Chen has been invited to be a “theme-painter” for the International E-sports Festival (IEF); they are related to the Olympics and will launch an ice-breaking Digital Olympics this year as part of the Games.

Please also keep an eye out for the new book we are publishing, entitled: “Dr. T.F. Chen’s Art ＆ the Olympics: An Art for Humanity”. The book is composed of a trinity of three parts: the“Salute to the Olympics Series,” the“Temple of Heaven Series,” and the “Humanity Series-Towards an Age of Love.” These three series converge and resound, to connect and honor the Chinese spirit, in a global context, in homage to the Olympic Movement.

As we share our Global Village, let us continue to work together, hand in hand, heart to heart, to create a peaceful, more harmonious world for all of us. Let us continue to utilize the universal languages of Sports, Arts and Culture to advance solidarity, friendship, and mutual respect.

Many blessings as we sincerely wish you a very successful “New Beijing, New Olympics” Event! Lucia Chen

Executive Director of the “Arts for Humanity World Tour” President of the “Arts for Humanity Foundation”

Executive Director of the “TF Chen Cultural Center”