Art beat: Art

The National Art Museum is hosting a grand show to commemorate the 70th anniversary of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong's delivery of a landmark speech on arts and culture.

On show are more than 500 paintings, prints and some 200 vintage photos, documents and revolutionary relics.

In his speech delivered in 1942 Yan'an, northwestern Shaanxi province, Mao called for artists to create works that truly reflect the life of the masses and to serve the cause of emancipation and independence among Chinese people. Yan'an was then a revolutionary base for the Communist-led armed forces in the War against Japanese Aggression.

"Over the past 70 years, generations of artists, guided by the spirit of Mao's speech, have created numerous works capturing the dramatic developments of Chinese society," says Cultural Minister Cai Wu at the opening of the exhibition.

9 am-5 pm, until June 3. National Art Museum of China, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6400-1476.

Acoustic drawings

Today Art Museum is holding Czech artist Milan Grygar's first solo show in Asia.

Grygar's art is unique in the contemporary art world, yet it stems from the simple act of observing.

Everyone certainly knows that a pencil drawing a line on paper can also emit sound, but only in Grygar's masterpieces did this inspire great art. Since 1965, he has made drawings by using pencils, brushes and a variety of objects, whose random sounds are recorded, thus creating "acoustic drawings".

Whoever has had the chance to experience the 86-year-old master's drawings "has gained one rare skill forever: the ability to see sounds and hear drawings", says curator Noemi Smolik, from Czech.

10 am-5 pm, until June 18. Today Art Museum, 32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5876-0600.

Innocent artists

The Capital Museum is holding a special show of artworks created by children aged between 4 and 14 from Beijing to mark Children's Day.

On show are about 1,100 works of calligraphy, paintings, paper-cuttings, clay figures, soft sculptures, and handicrafts.

9 am-5 pm, until June 31. The Capital Museum's underground Hall M, 16, Fuxingmenwai Dajie, Xicheng district, Beijing. 010-6337-0491, 6337-0492.

Color of Mexico

Ningbo Museum is running an exhibition titled Mexico: The Color of Harmony, focusing on the visual arts of Mexico in the last half of the 20th century. They include original paintings of Rufino Tamayo, Luis Nishizawa, Rodolfo Morales, Gunther Gerzso and many others.

The museum was designed by Wang Shu, the first Chinese winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, who received his award in a ceremony on May 25.

Wang, 49, works in Hangzhou, Zhejiang's provincial capital. He was praised by the Pritzker jury for blending traditional Chinese elements with modern lines and his attention to the environment. His masterpiece, the Ningbo Museum, was built in 2008 using recycled bricks from older buildings.

9 am-4 pm, until June 27 (closed on Monday). Ningbo Museum, 1000 Shounan zhonglu,Yinzhou, Ningbo, Zhejiang. 0574-8281-5533.

A display of more than 200 photos and two videos gives a vivid portrayal of the life of Siberian tigers in Northeastern China, and examines the relation between this endangered species and man.

Titled Tigers of my life, the exhibition provides a glimpse of Siberian tigers both living in the wild and being raised by humans in Heilongjiang province. Organizers hope to raise people's awareness of the dilemma of protecting those "big cats" and their uncertain future.

The photos were taken by Hong Kong photographer and environmentalist Vivien Chong, who chairs the Endangered Species Conservation Foundation. The organization presents the exhibition in a joint effort with China Cultural Foundation and Hengdaohezi Felid Breed Center of China in Heilongjiang province.

9 am-5 pm, June 2-July 1 (closed on Monday). B1 West Hall, Capital Museum, 16 Fuxingmen Waidajie, Xicheng district, Beijing. 010-6337-0491/0492.

Vintage sketches

The Hadrien de Montferrand Gallery is hosting a group show of vintage sketches entitled History in the Making.

The exhibition reveals to the public for the first time sketches and drawings created between the 1950s and 1980s by renowned artists such as Cai Liang, Dong Xiwen and Zhan Jianjun.

The show is put together by borrowing from the collections of China's major public Museums.

10 am-5 pm, until June 3. Hadrien de Montferrand Gallery, 798 art zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 139-1165-1353.