Giuseppe Castiglione – Lang Shining New Media Art Exhibition combines analog and digital technologies to present the masterpieces of Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), an Italian Jesuit missionary who became a highly influential painter at the imperial court of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors.

This exhibition results from a unique collaboration between City University of Hong Kong and the National Palace Museum, representing a milestone in cultural exchange between Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The exhibition’s innovative design combines historical artworks, new media and contemporary interactive art to create a compelling, multi-sensory, visitor experience. Full-size facsimiles of Castiglione’s paintings, famous for their merging of Eastern and Western styles, are presented side by side with creative, digital interpretations of these works. The result is a fascinating meeting of traditional and contemporary models of representation.

The presence of Jesuits such as Castiglione, both in Beijing and in other major Chinese cities, resulted in new artistic practices and in a sharing of Eastern and Western philosophical, scientific, and artistic knowledge. In the “Castiglione in Context” section, the exhibition makes visible, through porcelains, prints, paintings, and publications, the intellectual and artistic exchanges occurring between European Jesuit missionaries and the late Ming and Qing courts from the seventeenth through to the twentieth centuries.

The exhibition's engaging and stimulating synthesis of historical works, media art and cutting-edge technology represents a benchmark for public museum experiences in the new digital era.

Exhibited artworks:

N7 communication, Reflections of the Peacock
Victoria Lu (Institute for Information Industry), Castiglione’s Road to China Three Hundred Years’ of Memories; Eight Thousand Miles of Travel
Jeffrey Shaw, Interactive Folding Fan
Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw, Discover the Painting in Castiglione's Drawing
National Palace Museum and Digimax, The Emperor’s One Hundred Horses: New Media Animation of the One Hundred Horses
Jeffrey Shaw, Interactive "One Hundred Horses" Scroll
Jeffrey Shaw, Everyone can paint "One Hundred Horses"
National Palace Museum and Vick Wang, A Tour of the Imperial Garden: The “Immortal Blossoms in an Everlasting Spring”
Jeffrey Shaw, Spectral Flowers
Jeffrey Shaw, Another Kind of Chess Game
Jeffrey Shaw, Discovering Castiglione
Jeffrey Shaw and N7 communication, Copperplate Engravings with Sound Effects
National Palace Museum and Liu Yu-Shu, Adventures of the Mythical Creatures at the National Palace Museum
National Palace Museum and udn production, Documenting Victory in Etching: A Documentary about Giuseppe Castiglione’s Art and Emperor’s Victorious Engravings