Nina Hald, co-curator of 'Wallace Chan: Half a Century,' shares the story of how the exhibition details Chan’s life as an artist and innovator
Wallace Chan: Half a Century
The Entrance to the Exhibition
Wallace Chan’s latest exhibition at the newly opened Shanghai Museum East is also the largest and most encompassing to date with more than 200 of his creations in a space that properly represents his life’s work. The only unfortunate thing is that the three-month exhibition will end Monday (October 7).
A Seeing Eye View
The Shanghai Museum is dedicated to ancient Chinese arts and crafts. Chan’s exhibition, “Wallace Chan: Half a Century,” is the first to feature a contemporary artist and is the first in a series of contemporary exhibitions at the museum, titled “Drawing Inspiration from the Past.” Whatever exhibit that follows is going to have a tough time topping this installation.
Exhibition Features
Upon passing through the entrance framed by an enlarged representation of Chan’s creation, “Return of the King,” it’s the enormity of the gallery space that first hits you. The vitrines with his bejeweled artworks are juxtaposed with Chan’s other creations, such as giant human-like figures, androgynous faces and eyes that peer at the jewels from inside some of the displays. At least four screens in different parts of the space have a video of Chan on a constant loop discussing his art, philosophy and craftsmanship.
I’ve seen several of Chan’s exhibitions over the years at different venues. This is the first that truly captures the scope and scale of his masterworks. Chan is always hands-on with his exhibitions, building the display cases himself, designing the lighting inside the cases and arranging the objects in the space. He benefitted greatly from working with the professional staff at the Shanghai Museum and co-curator, Nina Hald.
Lighting and Atmosphere
In particular, the lighting was magnificent, giving the best views of Chan’s colorful titanium and gem-encrusted creations. Chan works as much in the spiritual realm as in the physical, and the lighting cast shadows that add to the mystical presence of his work.
Notable Works
In one instance, there’s a wall display with a seven-foot high flower sculpture with every part of the floral arrangement in spectacular detail, further enhanced with the vivid colors of anodized titanium and gemstones. In the showcase, there appear to be multiple identical versions of this flower, but it’s an illusion created with mirrors. It’s much like the illusionary Wallace Cut, an intaglio gem-cutting technique that creates 3D versions of the same image. There were a few examples of this technique, as well as examples of creations made with his unbreakable porcelain and pieces using his unique jade-cutting technique. A collection of his colorful butterfly brooches was in flight inside a wall display.
The showstopper was “Stilled Life Transformed,” a jade brooch of a cicada placed on a sculpture of leaves and a branch made of jade, colored gems and diamonds. It attracted a constant queue of more than 30 persons that stretched through the center of the space. Going through anymore of the individual pieces is a fool’s errand. The creative process and the overall scale and ambition of the exhibition are greater than a description of each piece.
Artistic Activity
Chan remains active as an artist, perhaps more than ever, so he doesn’t like to describe his recent exhibitions as retrospectives. But it’s a term difficult to avoid as it does present a proper retrospective of his work for the past 50 years.
Co-Curator's Background
Nina Hald, Danish author, journalist and curator, served as co-curator of the exhibition. What follows is an email discussion with Hald who explained some of the processes behind the scenes.
What is your background?
I have a bachelor degree and a Master of Arts degree from Copenhagen University in Denmark from 2002. I have written 12 books on gemstones, pearls, precious metals and jewelry, and curated 13 exhibitions. Most of my Danish books are published by Gyldendal, the publishing house that published the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the existentialism of Søren Kirkegaard.
Of the 13 exhibitions I have curated, 12 were group exhibitions. Four of those were royal jewelry exhibitions. Mr. Chan’s exhibition was my first solo exhibition. As a freelance jewelry and gemstone journalist, I have written approximately 10,000 articles published in 25 publications in 14 countries. I’ve been the editor of the Danish goldsmith and watch trade publication for the past 16 years. My fifth royal jewelry exhibition has just been accepted and is scheduled to open in 2026.
When and how did you meet Chan?
The first time I experienced Wallace Chan’s creations ‘live’ was in London, at the Masterpiece fair in 2016. I was floored! Mesmerized! I was covering the fair as a freelance jewelry and gemstone writer for the Danish Financial Times, the luxury/lifestyle section called ‘Pleasure’ (equivalent to ‘How to Spend it’), and I came across the Wallace Chan stand. I had to return several times during the fair.
Cherry Rao [Chan’s heritage director] noticed me coming back time after time, so she kindly approached me, asked me for my opinion, and I had to confess that I had never seen anything quite like it, being a Dane. Denmark’s design tradition is very minimalist and almost devoid of colors. Wallace Chan’s art is literally everything but. I felt struck by lightning that afternoon, and so a kinship began. Having had the privilege of working with royal jewelry and art objects before 2016, I had by then seen some very special objects and pieces of jewelry, and thanks to having studied art history at Copenhagen University in Denmark, I could also place Wallace Chan’s works in the larger scheme of things. But seeing the jewelry live, having the opportunity to look over a large Wallace Cut gemstone in my own hands was such a treat.
Is this the first time you curated Chan’s exhibition?
Yes, but I have had Chan creations represented in three of my previous exhibitions:
- For my ‘Jewels of Nature’ jewelry exhibition which was held at a zoological historical museum in Denmark in 2019, Mr. Chan made the neck-ring Wallace’s Flying Frog. The theme of the exhibition was the eternal inspiration goldsmiths and jewelry designers have found in the animal world.
- For my ‘Macabre Masterpieces’ exhibition (my fourth royal jewelry exhibition), held at the castle Sønderborg Slot in spring 2022, I got to show the existing The Emblem of Zen in the resurrection section. The theme of the exhibition was the cultural history of death as expressed in jewelry and art objects for the past 3,500 years.
- For my ‘Silver Tales’ exhibition, which was held at the Karen Blixen Rungstedlund museum in Denmark in autumn 2022. Mr. Chan made the creation Wings, inspired by the Danish-born world-famous author’s love of birds. The theme of the exhibition was the life and tales of Karen Blixen. (Perhaps you know the Meryl Streep/Robert Redford film ‘Out of Africa,’ which is about the life of Karen Blixen.)
Since Chan does much of the work himself at these exhibitions, what were your responsibilities?
I curated the exhibition with the Chan team – so it was my responsibility to come up with some kind of order to arrange the creations. We didn’t want to show the creations chronologically as they have been made, as that wouldn’t necessarily make sense for a person new to his universe. So, the three themes and the underlying structure had to be formulated. In addition to this, I wrote the catalogue’s three themed texts, brief as they are.
What was it like working with Chan and on the project itself?
My best description of Mr. Chan is poetic elusiveness. Sometimes I have tried to ask very specific, concrete questions – but the answers I got were usually very spiritual. The project has been an experience of a lifetime; my first time curating a solo exhibition and my first time visiting China. It was the largest exhibition I have been attached to so far in terms of square meters exhibition space, the number of creations on display and the size of the catalogue.
I did not have anything to do with the staging of the exhibition. That was all Mr. Chan in collaboration with Shanghai Museum’s exhibition team. Of course, his divine giants, androgynous faces and silhouettes (and of course eyes) make up most of the staging, and most of the lighting is just spot-on.
What is the overriding theme of the exhibition?
To tell the story of Wallace Chan’s life, oeuvre as an artist and innovator over five decades of dedicated work.
A representation of Chan’s creation, ‘Return of the King’ was enlarged and served as the entrance to the exhibition. Why was this piece chosen?
The piece was chosen for the entrance portal, because it is now in the permanent collection of Shanghai Museum. The circles and sparkles resemble a painterly style in the modern West as the white jade carving demonstrates a motif from the Warring States period in ancient China. It is a juxtaposition of old and new, east and west – a special protective charm full of myths, inspiring curiosity. The nostalgic mutton-fat white jade is all about tenderness and humility but the diamonds speak of sparkling power. A contrast is formed, like yin and yang they nurture each other’s growth and create harmony.
How was the exhibition arranged?
Together with Chan’s team, three themes were decided upon for the arranging of the jewelry and contemplative art objects in the exhibition. The first, titled ‘Engraving and Embodying,’ revolves around the body, its senses and the first learning processes. The second, titled ‘Entangling and Enchanting,’ is about the creator’s mind and his creativity. The third section, ‘Enlightening and Empowering,’ focuses on the spirit and how that leads to eternity.
The three themes – each understood as an entrance to higher levels of craftsmanship and consciousness – can be interpreted as a labyrinth, and as a ritual ‘walk-through.’ It charts the connection between everyday conscious life and what we would like it to be, our dreams and hopes, and the collective unconscious. The ancient labyrinth as a symbol also serves as a display for various of Chan’s creations, as he completed them in past decades. The root of the word labyrinth, ‘la,’ means stone, referring to something firm, solid and grounded, and in Chan’s case a literal material, most often precious. The twists and turns represent and assist spiritual experience. It preserves psychic order and is a symbol of the individuation process, as no two are alike. The labyrinth’s overriding purpose is to focus the mind on visualizing goals for this world and then to still the mind to experience transcendence; hence, it is a fitting way to present his creations.
There was a huge queue for one of the exhibits, ‘Stilled Life Transformed.’ Was that piece presented as the focal point or did it turn out that way by accident?
No happy accident there. The piece is a focal point for so many reasons – so it sounds fitting that it will always draw long lines. The masterpiece is important because of its size, because of the luminosity of the jadeite, because of the craftsmanship involved in the making of it, because Mr. Chan keeps coming back to it, reworking its outer dimensions in significant ways, and because the cicada is such an important motif in Chinese tradition, history and religion.
Did the exhibition meet your expectations?
Yes. Massively so. When I did the first run-through, before the opening ceremony, I got to say a very brief hello to Mr. Chan who was also walking through the exhibition rooms. He asked me what I thought, as he caught me getting the first manifest experience of what we had been working on for 18 months. And during that first run-through I had three physical reactions: One, I felt like the exhibition knocked my legs out from under me. The number of creations, the gorgeous gemstones, and the accumulative effect of seeing all gathered in physical reality in front of my eyes – decades and decades of dedicated work and love, lined up, was rather overwhelming. Two, I was feeling almost winded, because it has been a wild crazy ride to work on the exhibition in the wings and witness just some of the creativity of the artist. And three, that I needed at least three days of just walking around the glass showcases. I think he was mighty pleased with all three.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Some of Chan’s pieces feature symbolization, the expression of emotion, and the exemplification of sensuous properties. Some emphasize intellectual endeavors or examine scientific facts, and others relay impassioned Chinese narratives. Most of the struggles and efforts required for their realization are not noticeable at first glance. Presented on pedestals in the Shanghai Museum, they stand as monuments of the artist. They are part of his traditions and history. They are part of Chan’s universe; they were born in his universe; and, in his universe, they will live for eternity.
Anthony Demarco,Senior Contributor