‘White China’ exhibition revealed the greatness of Dehua ceramic culture

Mexico City. After its exhibition in various cities around the world, including Frankfurt, Germany, as well as New York and Chicago, United States, the exhibition Blanco de China: Porcelana de Dehua made a stop in Mexico City to show the magnificence of one of the main symbols and references of the culture of that eastern country since ancient times.

The exhibition was presented at the headquarters of the regional office for Latin America of the Xinhua News Agency, in the south of the Mexican capital, while Dehua county authorities established links with Talavera ceramic producers in the city of Puebla for future exchanges.

The exhibition consisted of around twenty pieces of porcelain that included everything from reproductions of fine ancient tea sets and domestic decorative objects, including vases, to amazing sculptures of dragons, elephants, Buddhas and traditional characters from that Asian nation, as well as more figurines. related to current pop culture.

Treasures of oriental art

At the presentation of the exhibition, held on Tuesday, Fang Junquin, mayor of Dehua, explained that the ceramic industry in that Chinese town has its origins in the Neolithic, and that it is 3,700 years old.

Such reasons, he indicated, not only place him as the place of chinese ceramic culturebut in 2015 the United Nations Organization awarded it the title of Ceramic Capital of the World.

In his opinion, Dehua ceramics have two great world-class artistic achievementsone is the chinese whitesince that population is known as the mother of the world’s white porcelain.

The other, he added, has to do with the artisans’ skills in carving porcelain; He mentioned that the ceramics from that place are considered treasures of oriental art and they are in more than 40 collections of the most important museums in the world, such as the British, Frankfurt and the National Museums of China.

Fang Junquin highlighted that this trip to Mexico is part of the international tour of Dehua ceramics in 2024, whose purpose is that various societies on the planet experience the charm up close of that technique.

According to Jiang Yan, director of the regional office of the Xinhua agency, the ceramics from that Chinese town have gained world renown for their quality characteristics. white as snow, soft as jade, fine as paper and sonorous as an instrument.

Export product

He recalled that in the Song (979-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties, Dehua white porcelain was constantly exported abroad and was one of the main commercial products of the ancient Maritime Silk Road.

In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), it had a profound impact on the ceramic industry in Europe and the world, becoming a cultural symbol that not only exhibited the beauty of oriental art, but also became an important vehicle for the commercial and cultural exchange between East and West.

Jiang Yan explained that there are currently more than 4 thousand ceramic companies in Dehua, with more than 100 thousand employees, and their products are exported to more than 190 countries and regions in the world, making that county one of the China’s main ceramic crafts production and export bases.

After highlighting that today China is Mexico’s second trading partner and that our country is the second largest trading partner of the Asian nation in Latin America, he assured that currently this region of the world is one of the main export markets for Dehua pottery.

He considered that the aforementioned exhibition and its promotion in our country It is an excellent opportunity to promote the entry of Dehua ceramics into Mexico and Latin America.which will help deepen economic and commercial cooperation, as well as bilateral cultural exchange between both geographies.