Top 10 Chinese cultural events of 2012
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 27, 2012
The following are a series of cultural events and trends that have shaped Chinese cultural and its creative landscape over the past year. Please join China.org.cn in a review of how China's softpower matured in 2012.
TV host accused of destroying relics
"Tian Xia Shou Cang," a popular television show in Beijing, is known for its exciting approach to identifying genuine and fake antique art pieces.
The program features famous artist and host Wang Gang, as well as a panel of expert judges. When a porcelain piece is brought out on the show, the judges examine the item to determine whether it is genuine or a forgery. If the panel rules that the item is a fake, Wang Gang will quickly do away with fraudulent piece by destroying it with a hammer.
"Tian Xia Shou Cang" and Capital Museum, a leading authority for cultural preservation, held a joint exhibition to examine a collection of porcelain artifacts. Out of the 300 pieces destroyed by Wang Gang, 30 were selected to compare with the auth entic pieces displayed in the museum.
However, Yao Zheng, a famous art collector and director of the Jade Collecting Committee of China Collectors Association, said that many of the "fake" items destroyed on the television program were actually genuine, with some of them being highly valuable.
Therefore, is Wang Gang a guardian or destroyer of valuable antiques? This caused a huge controversy. After Yao Zheng's complaint, a collector standing in front of the remains of the "fake artifacts" carefully examined the leftover pieces and told a journalist that she considered the "fake" pieces to be of high quality. Another relic evaluation expert Ning Yuxin said "more that 90% of the 'fakes' here are genuine and 30% of them are quite valuable.
Yao said he wished the Capital Museum would cancel the exhibition and stop misleading people, and that the program should stop destroying porcelain pieces.
But according to the program's producer Han Yong, each episode of "Tian Xia Shou Cang" includes a panel of three judges who are experts in identifying and appraising cultural relics and they have "never made a single mistake." Han has explained that there is a large group of experts operating behind the panel of judges, and represent a host of professional institutes, auction companies and high-end artwork galleries.
When asked whether or not the program was afraid of making mistakes, Han just replied by saying: "The items we appraise are not difficult or complicated, and we are completely confident of the results."
Wang Gang himself eventually said all the pieces have been repeatedly examined. "It's okay for other people to comment. But if I really destroyed a real antique, this equals murder!"
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