Zhou Chunya's Green Dogs Invade Indonesia

Green Dog Sculpture 2006

Contemporary Chinese artist Zhou Chunya's famous Green Dogs are on display at the Indonesian National Gallery from now until February 1. Zhou's work, an intriguing mix of traditional Chinese painting and German Expressionism (he recieved his master's degree in Kassel, Germany) has become identified with his famous Green Dog, who is based on his pet German Shepherd who he painted for over 10 years.

Sadly, the dog has since passed away from suspicious circumstances. Zhou believes he was poisoned by a neighbor. But much like George Rodrigue found solace in painting his beloved Blue Dog after her death, Zhou's Green Dog continues to inspire him and dog art lovers around the world.

I couldn't determine which pieces are in the show, so I curated my own exhibition here at Dog Art Today. Enjoy.

Green Dog No.1, 2006

Brotherhood, 2006

Green Dog

Titi Nr. 3 2007

Green Dog No.10, 2004

Green Dog Bronze

Green Hai Gen No. 10, 2001

All images courtesy of Artnet.

P.S. If you're interested in contemporary Chinese art, I highly recommend Nell Freudenberger's novel The Dissident. It takes you from the edgy art scene of Beijing's East Village in the 90s to contemporary LA where a celebrated Chinese artist comes to live with a dysfunctional American family. The author's books about China selected reading list is added value to this breezy, intelligent debut novel. OK, I'll come right out and say it, I don't hate Nell Freudenberger!

Comments

[Linda O'Neill]

Definitely edgy but very unique, cool art. I really like the last one...although Mr. Shepherd needs his nails clipped!:)

[WendyB]

Green dog...blue dog...you should work on Red Dog. Or Yellow Dog. Some good color.

[WendyB]

Help me, Moira! Can you please check out my backup blog? I have a link to Blogger there (You can click the URL on this post...I updated it to the backup URL)

[eurodog]

I find it aggressive. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid.

[Rebecca]

Great stuff here! Much wider variety of styles than the blue dog artist. At first I thought these pieces were by several different people.

[moira]

I just love them. Since he's done this work a lot of political interpretation has been imposed on his Green Dogs, but Zhou claims he painted them simply because the dog was part of the family.

Rebecca -- you're post about Jamie's dog portrait made me break out my camera and take lots of Darby shots.

Wendy -- Darby would make a cute orange dog, but sometimes he has navy highlights.

Michele - that's what makes art interesting.

Thanks for commenting, everyone!