id:			172598
accession number:	2015.80
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2015.80
updated:		2023-08-24 01:12:35.217000

New Primordial Chaos, 2014. Michael Cherney (American, b. 1969). Photograph in handscroll format, ink on mitsumata washi paper; image: 29.7 x 86.2 cm (11 11/16 x 33 15/16 in.); overall: 31.6 x 337.2 cm (12 7/16 x 132 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust 2015.80

title:				New Primordial Chaos
title in original language:	新渾淪圖
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			2014
creation date earliest:		2014
creation date latest:		2014
current location:		
creditline:			The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust
copyright:			

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culture:	China
technique:	Photograph in handscroll format, ink on mitsumata washi paper
department:	Chinese Art
collection:	Chinese Art
type:		Painting
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

* Michael Cherney (American, b. 1969)  - artist

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measurements: Image: 29.7 x 86.2 cm (11 11/16 x 33 15/16 in.); Overall: 31.6 x 337.2 cm (12 7/16 x 132 3/4 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

	inscription:	Artist's seal "Qiu" 秋 impressed in the lower left corner of the photo
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Rhythms of Abstraction: The Landscape Duets of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney
	opening date:   2015-07-12T00:00:00
	<i>Rhythms of Abstraction: The Landscape Duets of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 12, 2015-February 7, 2016).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	Collection of the artist
	date: 2014–2015
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	(Kaikodo America Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
	date: 2015
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: 2015–
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact:
On the day Cherney took the photograph, Beijing’s Air Quality Index was 517 (150 is unhealthy).

digital description:


wall description:
Michael Cherney has a "painterly" style of landscape photography much inspired by the aesthetics of Chinese painting. Here, he superimposed a photograph of the sun onto the composition of <em>Hunlun tu</em> by Zhu Derun (1294–1365), a famous 14th-century Chinese painting variously translated as "Primordial Chaos" or the "Cosmic Circle." Zhu Derun depicted a circle to convey the Daoist cosmological idea of primordial chaos—the great undifferentiated matter out of which heaven and earth and all forms emerged. <br> <br>Cherney's <em>New Primordial Chaos</em> revisits the chaos after creation, a human-generated chaos that is so overwhelming and toxic that it can cloud the sun, making it look like not itself but the moon. Polluted air and clouds shroud the sun on a Beijing day. The resulting image, which resembles the moon shining in the night sky, is the artist's deliberate attempt to create confusion and subtle critique of the contemporary environmental crisis.
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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

	"Elegant Solutions." <em>Kaikodo Journal </em>XXXI (Spring 2015)
	page number: 	Reproduced:  cat. no. 60, pp. 132-133, 213-214
	url:		

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IMAGES