The Dwelling of the Heart – Exhibition of Xu Xiutang’s Works Presents at Yada Culture & Art Center

On September 15^th 2019, Chinese Arts and Crafts Master and Chinese Ceramic Art Master Mr. Xu Xiutang opened his first personal painting and calligraphy exhibition at Yixing Yada Culture & Art Center. The exhibition was sponsored by Propaganda Department of the CPC Yixing Municipal Committee and Yada Health Ecological Park, and hosted by Yixing Yada Real Estate Company and Yixing Chang Le Hong Ceramics Company.

Secretary of CPC Yixing Municipal Committee Mr. Shen Jian, Propaganda Department Director of Standing Municipal Party Committee Ms. Shen Xiaohong, Vice Mayor Mr. Chu Hongbiao, Chairman of Yada International Mr. Jiang Jianning, Co-founder of Yada Academy Mr. Yang Kui, Chinese Arts and Crafts Master Mr. Xu Xiutang and many other leaders, guests and social celebrities attended the opening ceremony.

At the opening ceremony, Yixing Municipal Party Committee Secretary Mr. Shen Jian and Master Mr. Xu Xiutang jointly unveiled the purple ceramics statue of Su Shi (named Dongpo Hermit), newly created by Mr. Xu, and donated the work to Yada. Chairman of Yada Mr. Jiang Jianning awarded the donation certificate to Mr. Xu, and invited him to serve as the Honorary President of Yada Academy.

Born in an old and well-known purple ceramics family at Shushan, Yixing, the pottery capital of China in 1937, Mr. Xu Xiutang is the outstanding representative of purple sand culture heritage. He is not only good at teapot design, but also a master in the paintings and calligraphy. Moreover, he carries forward the purple ceramics sculpture to form a unique trend of his own. In virtue of outstanding achievements in many fields, he is known as the "all-rounder" in the history of purple ceramics craft. His works have been collected by many world-class museums such as the Palace Museum and the Victoria Museum of Britain.

Mr. Xu Xiutang is diligent and eagers to study in his life. His Chinese zodiac is ox. For this, he often says, “ox who doesn’t keep learning would get older faster. Happiness is generated by accumulating knowledge.” In his 80s, Mr. Xu is still passionate in creative thinking and has made a lot of outstanding works that received good reputation. The purple ceramics sculpture Dongpo Hermit and all paintings & calligraphy exhibited are his new works in this year.

This exhibition, the first personal painting & calligraphy exhibition of Mr. Xu Xiutang, is also the opening event of Yada Culture & Art Center, the new cultural landmark in Yixing.

In 2017， Yada focusing on China’s aged-care, healthcare and tourism industries, invested in Yixing to create the compound aged-care health ecological park Yada Yangxian Xishan, a new project after Wuzhen Graceland in Yangtze River Delta. The project was listed in 2018 Jiangsu Key Projects and 2019 Jiangsu Key Tourism Projects. Yada Culture & Art Center is one of the cultural and art venues of Yada Yangxian Xishan.

The exhibition named as the Dwelling of the Heart has deep meaning.

Yixing was called Yangxian in ancient times. Celebrities were attracted there and stay for its landscape and rich products. Among whom, Mr. Su Dongpo is a well-known representative. Although he experienced a hard official career in his life, Mr. Su also kept his enthusiastic in life to find and create beauty.

Yada started a new journey of life aesthetics in Yangxian landscape that is loved by Mr. Su Dongpo under the theme of leisure, wellness and aged-care as well as the concept of elegance, opening and sharing. The project combines the spirit of Yangxian landscape and connotation of Dongpo culture into the environment to create a national well-known compound culture & tourism town. The verse “Where my heart belongs is my hometown” by Mr. Su Dongpo is the original aspiration of Yada to create Yangxian Xishan.

In this May, Yada invited Mr. Xu Xiutang to open a personal exhibition at Yada Culture & Art Center that would be in service soon. In the next months, Mr. Xu Xiutang made great efforts for the exhibition preparation, including reading great number of books and materials about Mr. Su Dongpo. Talent, spirit and lifestyle of Mr. Su inspired him a lot and brought him inspiration, in particular his understanding on the original aspiration. According to him, the original aspiration means the starting point of his works, the base of all creations and the source of works. For the purpose of creation, all works should go back to the scenes and built up cultural links.

The Dwelling of the Heart – Exhibition of Xu Xiutang’s Works could be regarded as a musical dialogue between the descendent of Yangxian and Mr. Su Dongpo after hundreds of years as well as a severe collision on the original aspiration among Mr. Su Dongpo, Mr. Xu Xiutang and Yada. The culture as the soul of the times, the exhibition does not only bring a grand art banquet in painting and calligraphy, but also inspires thinking: where is the real home of my heart.