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New Scholar Rocks in Galleries

We have updated our gallery of small-sized scholar rocks with 10 new scholar rocks.
We have updated our gallery of medium-sized scholar rocks with 8 new scholar rocks.
We have updated our gallery of garden scholar rocks with 3 new scholar rocks.
We have updated our gallery of ancient scholar rocks with 2 new scholar rocks.

Willi and Gudrun will be visiting Boston in June, 2009. Congratulations Willi!

It is our honor to kick off this new section with a poem called “ROCKS” by poet Andrea Litkei.

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Experience the power of scholars’ rocks or “spirit stones”- cherished by the Chinese for generations and gaining appreciation in the West. AsiaStore delights in presenting a newly acquired collection from Kemin Hu. Autographed copies of Kemin Hu’s books, Spirit of Gongshi, Scholars’ Rocks in Ancient China and Modern Chinese Scholars’ Rocks: A Guide for Collectors, are available for purchase.

AsiaStore, located at Asia Society and Museum, 70th & Park NYC and on-line at AsiaStore.org

1/21/2009 Update: Holiday Special Prices have officially ended. If you missed this promotion, be the first to be notified of our next promotion by subscribing via Free Email Updates or Free RSS Updates [?]

Due to the positive response to the 37 new scholars’ rocks posted just last month, we’ve added 30+ more rocks for purchase. Holiday special prices end 1/4/09.

New Scholar Rocks and Jade

We have also updated our gallery of small-sized scholar rocks with 5 new scholar rocks.
We have also updated our gallery of medium-sized scholar rocks with 4 new scholar rocks.
We have also updated our gallery of large-sized scholar rocks with 2 new scholar rocks.
We have also updated our gallery of ancient scholar rocks with 3 new scholar rocks.
We have also updated our gallery of Jade with 3 new jades. ]]> http://www.spirit-stones.com/2008/11/27/even-more-scholars-rocks-for-the-holidays-30-more-for-purchase/feed/ http://www.spirit-stones.com/2008/11/27/even-more-scholars-rocks-for-the-holidays-30-more-for-purchase/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Spirit-stones/~3/NglwqwKGJ2M/ http://www.spirit-stones.com/2008/10/26/get-ready-for-the-holidays-with-37-new-scholar-rocks-for-purchase/#comments Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:44:47 +0000 Kemin Hu http://www.spirit-stones.com/?p=123 New Small and Medium-sized Scholar Rocks

We have updated our gallery of small-sized scholar rocks with 10 new scholar rocks.
We have also updated our gallery of medium-sized scholar rocks with 7 new scholar rocks.

New Holiday Special of Scholar Rocks
As many of you know, once a year, we include a Holiday Specials gallery to prepare for the upcoming Holiday season. This year, we have included two galleries with 20 new scholar rocks for sale.

Asia Society’s AsiaStore is holding a Scholars’ Rock - Special Sale Event featuring Scholars’ Rocks from Kemin’s collection. Kemin will be at the event and she hopes to see you all there!

September 12-15, 2008 (Friday - Monday)
11 AM - 6 PM, Friday until 9 PM, Free Admission

Personal Appearance by Author and Collector Kemin Hu,
September 12-15, 1 PM - 4 PM

AsiaStore at Asia Society and Museum is located at:
725 Park Ave. at 70th Street, New York City; 212-327-9217

Read more: Asia Society’s Interview with Kemin Hu

As always, you will find Scholars’ Rocks for purchase in the purchase section. Please feel free to explore the new site starting with the links on the top of the page. We realize the navigation of our new home is somewhat different from our old “red” website so please let us know what you think by writing to us with your feedback and comments. Thanks!

Best Regards,
Kemin

This year’s International Asian Art Fair (March 14 to 20th 2008) was held at 583 Park Avenue in New York City. The fair was born grand 12 years ago, and for a while grew only grander, sailing along as the flagship of Asia Week of sales and auctions in New York, and becoming a gold standard for art fairs in general.

This is the third year Kemin has participated in the International Asian Arts Fair. Below are photos of this year’s booth. Many artists and celebrities like Martha Stewart stopped by to learn and admire the Scholars’ rocks display. The Lingbi Stone in the middle was sold to be displayed at a University Museum in Florida.

More Photos from the Show

Let’s imagine that early Chinese lived in limestone caves. We know that karst limestone caves are common in China, and that among their characteristics are endlessly winding tunnels. They have underground streams and lakes, skylights, even fish. The geography of this world was so complex, that people would not be able to explore and map them in a dozen lifetimes. Paradoxically, when they emerged from these caves, they could readily see and walk around the small mountains that contained these ‘worlds within worlds’.

This is connected to one of the strangest facts about Chinese culture. it is widely thought that they are the only people who began their history without a creation myth; such myths were later developments. We can speculate that because the Chinese were familiar with a world that is larger ‘inside’ than it is ‘outside’, and that it has no end, they were not preoccupied with explaining the world’s beginning.

Another connection between caves and Chinese art is the garden. Nothing seems stranger to westerners than the fact that in Chinese gardens, rock, water, and buildings predominate over flowers and trees. Above all, gardens are built in such a way that you can never see the whole panorama, only its parts. This evokes the interior worlds of karst limestone caves.

The unparalleled significance of scholar’s rocks in Chinese art arises in large part from the fact that it is the representation of the mountain, the cave, and the garden. It carries the full weight of this unique aesthetic and spiritual symbolism.

The following excerpts are from Richard Rosenblum’s essay ‘An Artist Collects’ which appeared in the catalogue World Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholar’s Rocks.

“The power that particular works of art have over us is difficult to define, but for me, as an artist, it is almost always connected to my work. The rocks influenced my sculpture immediately, and eventually changed my work completely. Part of their attraction was that they held a strange puzzle. They were much like modern abstract sculpture; I wondered why they had been so thoroughly and unaccountably omitted from modern-day encyclopedic museums and from the contemporary art world, which actively tried to be receptive to and inclusive of all art.”

“A rock is also transformed by its mounting. When it is removed from its stand, it converts back into a natural object. When it is replaced on its stand, it is transformed from stone to art. A rock can have more than one mounting, changing its character entirely.”

“For me, the most powerful presentation of the idea is in rocks that have holes within holes, which I call ‘infinity stones’. Varying in size and orientation, these holes create the sensation of an ever-changing and infinite world within a finite object. Transformation, not miniaturization, is the key to the magic of ‘a world within a world’.”

“I believe that Chinese scholar’s rocks are finding their place in contemporary sensibilities, in part because we now have a context for understanding them on their own terms. Modernism was driven to create an art form commensurate with the science and technology of the time.”

Richard Rosenblum is an American sculptor and outstanding contemporary gongshi collector. Richard has the sensitivity of an artist, great intelligence and an idiosyncratic passion for rocks. He is uncompromising in his pursuit of artistic quality. In addition to writing books on Scholars’ Rocks, Richard’s wonderful collection has toured museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.

This Essay was written for Kemin Hu’s book The Spirit of Gongshi: Chinese Scholar’s Rocks