Divorce rumors hit Web

Actor Wen Zhang has been troubled by rumors that he has divorced actress Ma Yili.

At a recent news conference to promote his new romantic comedy to be released on Nov 11, Lovelorn, Wen jokes that the rumormongers have made a bet on his marriage.

"Otherwise, why are they so crazy?" he says.

Wen married Ma, who is eight years his elder, three years ago. They have a daughter. The rumor of their split has been spreading on Sina.com's micro blog service Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. Wen says his marriage is fine.

Moving ahead with globe

Future Pass, from Asia to the World, a collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennale, will run from June 4 until Nov 6 at Abbazia di San Gregorio and Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana in Venice, Italy.

It will feature works by more than 100 artists from around the world. The show is structured around several pairs of complementary concepts, such as yin and yang, universal and individual, and virtual and real. It also includes a global contest for cosplay artists.

Future Pass is co-organized by Uneec Culture and Education Foundation from Taiwan, Today Art Museum in Beijing and several European art foundations.

"The event is meant to offer visitors a panoramic view of a new aesthetic paradigm proliferating from Asia to the rest of the world," co-curator Victoria Lu says.

Project makes progress

Frontman of the rock band New Pants Peng Lei and avant-garde video game designer Feng Mengbo joined The Creators Project 2011, which was launched by Intel Corporation and Vice magazine. The two artists performed at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival this April and released their new songs and artworks for the Creators Project. "It's great to show our original made-in-China music at the festival," Peng says.

"And because of that experience, we can hold a big concert at Beijing Workers' Stadium this August - the first large-scale concert in our 15 years."

At the festival, Feng showed his large-scale exhibition of Long March: Restart, a popular video game heavily influenced by the heroes he imagined as a child growing up in China. The Creators Project, a global cultural initiative by Vice and Intel Corporation, is evolving in 2011. This year, it will launch a major studio to produce multimedia works with leading and emerging artists, musicians, filmmakers and designers from around the world. Following up on its smash debut in 2010, The Creators Project intends to empower the next generation of innovators through technology.

"We are glad to show the dramatic multimedia visual experiences from young Chinese artists at Coachella," Vice's founder Shane Smith says. "Whether it's in film, music or the fine arts, a lack of access to production and distribution has left some young artists disenfranchised and frustrated." Throughout 2011, The Studio, operating out of Vice's international offices, will amass a diverse network of creators and works that will be accessible to millions.

Old TCM books reopened

An exhibition of valuable classical traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) books opened last week at the National Library of China. The exhibition lasts until June 30 and will show China's achievement in protecting its ancient TCM books and the historical development of TCM theories.

At the opening ceremony, monks from Shaolin Temple performed two sets of traditional gymnastics developed from TCM theories, and its abbot Shi Yongxin donated a complete set of Buddhist TCM Books to the library.

Co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture, the State TCM Administration Bureau, the National Library and the Chinese Academy of TCM, the exhibition will invite inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, including TCM therapy, to promote TCM culture with onsite demonstrations.

Ancient meds promoted

The Philanthropic Foundation of Instinct Theory and the Non-governmental Association of TCM Research and Development launched a philanthropic program to promote TCM through free mentorship and enhance the nation's health at the Beijing Academy of TCM on May 15.

In two years, the program will have trained more than 1,000 TCM practitioners from China's rural areas through open TCM classes and free mentorship offered by experienced practitioners.

The program was initiated by renowned TCM masters, including Guo Shengbai and Lu Guangsen, whose ages averaged nearly 90. It is also meant to develop TCM culture, and especially to improve people's understanding of traditional medicine's "preventive treatment" concept.

China Daily