Contact:  Carrie Ford

ph/214.271.4485

cell/512.663.6798

cford@crowcollection.org

CROW COLLECTION OF ASIAN ART: LinkAsia and Ka Yeung: China Impermanent Beauty, Photography 1996-97

February 20 through May 16, 2010

(DALLAS, TX)  LinkAsia, the newly dedicated gallery space at the Crow Collection, will present art works that provide a contemporary global path to understanding Asia through unique perspectives and mediums. Amy Hofland, Director of the Crow, comments, “LinkAsia is a response to our visitors’ passion for contemporary issues of Asia: the changing landscapes, technology, globalization and the impact on art and message.” Coinciding with the inauguration of the space is yet another launch, Ka Yeung.

Born in Hong Kong in the early 1950s, Ka Yeung has built a body of personal work in the photography medium, which will be presented for the first time in the Impermanent Beauty: Photographs of China exhibition. During the past thirty years of his commercial photography career, he has continued to extend his personal vision to subjects that express both his spiritual and poetic nature.

Yeung traveled to China in 1996 - 1997 for an opportunity to view the middle tributary of the Yangtze River before the geography of the area was altered forever by the Three Gorges Dam flooding. For Yeung, it was both a significant example of China’s transformation and of change in our world. Although he did not intend to create a body of work that signified change, it transpired naturally.

Hofland and curator Caron Smith met the Yeungs through Texas Collects Asia: Contemporary Art, an exhibition presented in 2008 at the Crow Collection. On a visit to their home they learned of Ka’s personal work and the museum invited him to participate in LinkAsia.

The scale of his black and white prints (as large as 44” x 44”)  endeavor to bring the viewer to the forefront of his discoveries and provide a portal into a fading landscape, a city of contrasts, a layered garden wall crumbling, a bicycle parking area obsolete while still in use and other moments of transformation. The images hold the audience in the present and allow an initial reaction of still, tranquil beauty to dream, without a melancholy longing for faded beauty.

While the images’ scale provides an open vista, the lack of color narrows the vision to the elements of importance: form and light. The power of the photography is in the documentation that was, and is, the past, along with the future. We can see through Yeung’s eyes that the

Crow Collection of Asian Art, Ka Yeung – page 2

simplest of views and objects are the beauty of the moment, as nothing is permanent in our world. 

These photographs interpret China during significant years and as Yeung aptly remarks: “Travel is visiting the past and the future through the same window.”

Yeung began his photography career as a commercial advertising photographer after graduating from the Los Angeles Art Center in the 1970s. He has achieved national recognition for his product photography and has vast experience shooting food, jewelry, products, interiors, and people. In his personal photography, Yeung strives to create an image that successfully evokes a spirit or power that could resonate in a very quiet and rhythmic way. His goal is to catch the living nature of the place.

About The Crow Collection

The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art is located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. The Crow Collection is a permanent set of galleries dedicated to the arts and cultures of China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia. The museum offers a serene setting for both quiet reflection and learning, which spans from the ancient to the contemporary.

IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

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