Top Australian media artists introduced at Art Taipei – public lecture by Antoanetta Ivanova

MEDIA VIDEO AUSTRALIA ARTISTS CURATORS AGENCY ACQUISITION ART FAIR EXHIBITION

Ela-Video “Encoded” was a special exhibition organised as part of the broader Ela-Video exhibition held as part of this year’s Art Taipei. Guest curated by Antoanetta Ivanova, also a producer and agent for Australian media artists, “Encoded” aimed to show the diversity and sophistication of media and video art being created in Australia today. Art Radar attended a public lecture in which Ivanova introduced the eight Australian media artists we have listed below.

Antoanetta Ivanova speaking at a public lecture on Australian media art at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Ivanova manages a company called Novamedia which has been in operation since 2001. Novamedia is unique in that it is the first media arts agency to be established in Australia; their focus is on media and digital art. They provide advice to private collectors and organisations looking to acquire new media works, and also try to generate opportunities to promote Australian media art overseas. An example of this, according to Ivanova, is the “very important exhibition on art and science collaborations” they took to China in 2006.

This list, generated from those artists discussed by Ivanova in her talk, shows “the diverse range of media art” produced by leading Australian proponents in this field. Only one of the artists listed here, Jon McCormack, had work in Ela-Video “Encoded”. The other artists in the exhibition were Jonathan Duckworth, Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs, Martin Walch, Jess MacNeil and Justine Cooper. The artists are listed below in the order Ivanova spoke about them. We encourage you to visit the artists’ websites to explore their work in more depth.

Matthew Gardiner

Matthew Gardiner is most well-known for his work with origami, namely robotic origami. He has completed a number of residencies with major scientific and new media research laboratories and has exhibited his origami work worldwide in galleries and public spaces. He is also the founder and director of Airstrip, a website design company.

“The artist will design his object on the computer and make it for the printer. The final artwork is interactive. The origami has a sensor in the middle and it can sense when people approach…. As you go across it the origami opens and if you move away it will fold in…. He has been making traditional paper origami for many, many years and he lived in Japan…. He translates [a] traditional art form into a very contemporary art form.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Matthew Gardiner's "robotic origami" work, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Stelarc

Since 1968, Stelarc has undertaken numerous performances during which he manipulates his body, most often in involuntary ways and using mechanical means. As described in his biography, he has “used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body.” In addition to his art work, he has been a research fellow and named an honorary professor for numerous Australian and international universities.

“[Stelarc’s] a performing artist. He has attached his body to various machines to show how there is a clash between the body and machinery in contemporary society.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Patricia Piccinini

“[Piccinini’s] a more traditional artist because she makes sculptures but her work raises important issues about the natural environment and artificial nature…. She uses organic … and artificial forms in her work. She’s fascinated by the modern sciences of biotechnology and genetic engineering and she says that if people are disturbed by her work it’s because [it] asks questions about fundamental aspects of our existence. With all these advances in technology, what kind of world are we really making?” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Patricia Piccinini's sculpture work, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Alex Davies

Davies graduated from The University of New South Wales in 2001 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Media Arts department of the institution’s College of Fine Arts. He is a prolific artist who creates his interactive, installation and performance art works using various media including sound and music, video and photography.

“As you go through the exhibition space you will see a … hole to look through. Audiences line up to look through to see what’s on the other side. But all they see is their own back plus a ghost person standing behind them…. The work mixes real time video captures of us and puts another person in there. He also did another [installation with] speakers in the space and you could actually hear people standing around you.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Chris Henschke

Henschke’s most recent work with the Australian Synchrotron is an art and science collaboration that has brought about an entirely new art form – using light beams to create artworks. As explained on the artist’s website, the Synchrotron “allows one to ‘see’ the spectrum of light energy from microwaves to xrays and look at objects at scales of a millionth of a metre.” The artist is participating in a three month residency with the Synchrotron, set up by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), in which he will use the technology to create “a ‘synchrotron art’ mural commission.”

Henschke is based in the Australian city of Melbourne and has been working with digital media for the past fifteen years. His main areas of research are in art and science relationships, interactive and hybrid media and experimental audio.

Lynette Wallworth

Lynette Wallworth is an Australian video installation, photography and short film artist who specialises in the creation of immersive and interactive installation environments. Her representing gallery, Forma Arts and Media Limited, describes her work as being about “the relationships between ourselves and nature, about how we are made up of our physical and biological environments, even as we re-make the world through our activities. She uses technology to reveal the hidden intricacies of human immersion in the wide, complex world.”

“People are given a glass bowl and with the glass bowl they go into a dark room and search to capture light that is beamed from the ceiling. When they capture the light, images of deep ocean and deep space are projected into the bowl and then people pass the bowl around to others to experience.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Lynette Wallworth's interactive tactile art, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Daniel Crooks

Born and educated in New Zealand, Crooks received an Australia Council Fellowship in 1997 to research motion control at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology which brought him to Australia. Since then he has participated in numerous exhibitions in Australia and abroad, working with a range of media including digital video, photography and installation. He is most well-known for his ongoing Time Slice project, begun in 1997, in which he uses the computer to manipulate video images to stretch time.

Craig Walsh

Craig Walsh works predominantly with site-specific large-scale image projection, most often in public places and always created in response to existing environments. He has, for example, projected huge faces onto trees in the Australian city of Melbourne and has projected sharks swimming in water onto the ground (first) floor windows of a corporate building.

“[Walsh’s] work takes a lot of time to develop and very powerful projectors and technology to set up. He works first of all with small block architectural models to the design the projection … and then he [conducts] many tests [to see] how the projection will work…” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Jon McCormack

“Jon McCormack is one of the very few artists in Australia who creates work by writing computer code. He was trained in both art and computer science – he has two degrees. For example, the work we’re showing here at Art Taipei is not an animation…. What you experience is actually the computer making the drawings…. The drawings happen before our eyes – it’s not recorded…. It never repeats…. The artwork is a programme that Jon designed.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Jon McCormack's computer programmed interactive work as displayed at Art Taipei 2010's Ela-Video "Encoded" exhibition on Australian media art. Image courtesy Art Taipei.

KN

Related Topics: Australian artists, biological (bio) art, new media art, technology, the human body

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• The 17th Sydney Biennale – Art Radar rounds up highlights, disappointments and critiques – August 2010 – a run-down on what the critics had to say about this year’s fare
• Will Youtube become a new platform for video art? Guggenheim experiments – July 2010 – an overview of this new technology collaboration
• Young Chinese artist Lu Yang brings anti-humanist elements to the Hong Kong art scene – June 2010 – an interview with this artist on art/science collaboration
• Debbie Han first Korean artist to be awarded the Sovereign Asian Art Prize – May 2010 – guest writer Kate Bryan on this artist work with the female form

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on new media art and art/science collaborations

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Follow “The Penguin” to the mountain – Tobias Berger on the NJPAC show

KOREAN CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS EMERGING ARTISTS

“The Penguin that goes to the Mountain“, an exhibition of contemporary art by young and emerging Korean artists, recently finished up this month at the Nam June Paik Art Center (NJPAC). It took the viewer on a journey from the ordered and well-known to the broken-up and disastrous. Embracing works beyond the visual arts, the exhibition presented practitioners that produced critical and demanding work often relating to the surreal and fictional. Below, Art Radar presents you with images from the exhibition and an interview with NJPAC curator Tobias Berger.

The Nam June Paik Art Center, established to celebrate and illuminate Nam June Paik‘s avant-garde spirit, finished running “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain” last week. The exhibition displayed various methods of expression, including the visual arts, stage productions, media, theatre and animated films from 23 emerging and relatively unknown artists and artist groups. These include:

Mano AHN, Sungeun CHANG, Eunphil CHO, Yeoja DDAN, Subin HEO, Intergate, Jaechoul JEOUNG, Dokyun KIM, Kimoon KIM, Minkyu KOH, Jihoi LEE, Jinwook MOON, Moowang MOON, Sohyun MOON, Adjong PARK, Seungwon PARK, post-EAT, Jinwoo RYU, Rhee SEI, Joonghyup SEO, Mongjoo SON, Hojun SONG, Vaemo, Donhwi YOUN

"The Penguin that goes to the Mountain", an exhibition held at Korea's Nam June Paik Art Center this year. Image courtesy of NJPAC.

Focusing on the concept of “intermedia”, the exhibition proposed imaginative alternative ways to look at artistic production. Deconstructing the art center’s existing space and previously defined exhibition criteria this exhibition pushed the boundaries of the working methodologies of all those involved in its preparation and reception – from the artists and curatorial and technical staff, to the gallery assistants, and even the audience.

The title comes from Werner Herzog‘s 2007 documentary film made in Antarctica called “Encounter at the End of the World“. The film chronicles the story of a penguin that leaves its normal habitat for the unknown world of a mountain. The idea for the exhibition came from the fact that pioneering artists such as the late Nam June Paik dared to explore new territories, combining many often unrelated genres.

Art Radar Asia spoke to Tobias Berger, Chief Curator of Nam June Paik Art Center, to find out more about the exhibition.

What prompted “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain”? What is the mission of NJPAC and how does this show fit with that mission?

It was the need to show some young, edgy new work by professionals from different disciplines; the try out of new curatorial concepts by using some ideas from theater productions; to blur borders between the different disciplines. These are all the parts of the misson of what the Nam June Paik Art Center is showing. Paik wanted this to be ‘the house where his spirit lives on for a very long time’ and showing interdisciplinary young works is certainly Paik’s spirit.

Moowang MOON, 'Neurogenic Plything', 2010. Image courtesy of NJPAC.

Can you tell us about how “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain” is organised? What are the themes?

We took a very strong curatorial approach to the exhibition and it’s basically a voyage from the rather clean and not minimal. The further you go through the exhibition, the more chaotic it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to navigate. There’s a chaotic room, where two walls in the middle are falling down and the works are very tied together … We tried to put in a more kind of theatric setting.

Are there styles or mediums which predominate in “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain”? Why do you think that is?

… we have sculpture to video to photography to big installations. As usual in contemporary art you do have quite a lot of videos.

Sohyun MOON, 'Poisoning of Light', 2007. Image courtesy of NJPAC.

How did you select the artists for “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain”? What characteristics were you looking for?

I think we looked for artists that really went to the edge or over the edge. That is the idea of this penguin that goes to the mountain. It’s a penguin that leaves the others and just goes this way. We more collected different works. It was not a show where we selected ten artists and asked them to do new works. It was more a show where we saw certain works that fitted into the idea of ‘The Penguin’ or into our curatorial context.

Which of your artists has drawn the most interest at “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain”?

There are some controversial video works that are quite challenging. One is talking about the subject of sex, which is a little bit of an interesting subject in South Korea. The other one is an animated video, where [the subject] kind of begins to cut off her fingernails and then her fingertips and then her fingers. It’s an animation, but it’s also quite visual. I think these works are quite controversial, but also in a good way controversial.

Mongjoo SON, 'The Animals Were Gone', 2008. Image courtesy of NJPAC.

The artists in “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain” are all emerging or young artists. What problems do you see for young artists compared with older generation artists working today? In what ways are young artists fortunate, as compared with older artists?

They all have problems and challenges. It’s going to be interesting, how do we justify and how do we not justify them? How do we relate to the art of the older generation? How do we look at it and how do we look at the artist in their mid-career. How do we judge them? You need curators, writers and critics that can evaluate different types of art. Museums can be stiff and kick out the most avant-garde. Maybe because they’re not commercial, maybe they’re a bit too challenging, maybe they’re too critical. So it is the question of the entry into the galleries or the museums or the institutions. A lot of times, the most interesting artists don’t find galleries because if you’re a media artist or performance artist your work doesn’t sell as easily as a painter. But you’re still certainly a much more interesting artist than a certain painter. How do we find a way to deal with that problem? So it has nothing to do with older or younger. It has more to do with genres.

How do you find dealing or working with young artists as opposed to established artists?

They are certainly much more involved in the process and much more interested in what’s going on, more than the established artists that have done big shows in museums many times. For [the young artists], it’s the first time to do an institutional exhibition and that brings a certain tension, but it’s basically good tension that brings out new works and quite interesting work.

Does NJPAC intend to feature other works from students, graduates or emerging artists?

In [“The Penguin that goes to the Mountain”], we cared if the work fitted into the context of the exhibition. Certainly we didn’t care if it was a young artist or an established artist, or if he’s Asian or European. But sure, we will in the future invite students or just-freshly-graduated artists again.

Hojun SONG, 'G.O.D.', 2009. Image courtesy of NJPAC.

Have there been any unusual, unexpected or interesting responses to “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain” from the viewers and critics?

It’s Paik Art Center. People expect tough or different art…. I think the people who come here know what they can expect. There was nothing surprising or unusual, because people expect the surprising and unusual at Nam June Paik Art.

“The Penguin that Goes to the Mountain” ran from 5 June until 22 August this year at South Korea’s Nam June Paik Art Center.

Tobias Berger also spoke with us about the Korean contemporary art scene: how accessible it is to non-Korean speakers; the current worldwide popularity of Korean art; the innovative non-profit art spaces in Korea. We will present this interview on Art Radar in the coming weeks.

JAS/KN/KCE

Related Topics: Korean artists, museum shows, interviews, installations

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• 27 contemporary Southeast Asian artists featured in ASEAN-Korea photo exhibition – July 2010 – this post names the artists and has a number of images of their work
• Art about curators: Korean artist Yang Ah Ham’s No Nonsense solo show – April 2010 – links to some articles and videos on the show
• Four Asian artists nominated for NYC  Pulse Award – March 2010 – Korean artist Shin Duk Kang among the nominees, contains biographical details and links
• Korean Eye exhibition in Saatchi Gallery London extended due to popularity – August 2009 – Simon de Pury comments on why the show was extended
• Troubles for Korean art at home, better reception abroad – Korean Herald, New York Magazine – January 2009 – article summary, Korean artists move into the global market

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New York’s first major show of Anime, Manga and Video Games KRAZY! Japan Society

Takashi Okzaki, Afro Samurai, Film Still

 

JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ART MANGA ANIME

KRAZY! The delirious world of Anime, Manga and Video Games March – June 14 2009 New York

The influence of these three forms of Japanese contemporary art and popular culture has been sweeping across Asia and around the world.  This unique traveling survey of contemporary Japanese culture was organised by Vancouver Art Gallery.

“The Vancouver Art Gallery is committed to fostering new and dynamic understandings of visual culture. With the exhibition KRAZY!, we seized a tremendous opportunity to forward the study of some of the world’s fastest growing art forms,” said Kathleen Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. “Despite the pervasive presence of these media, little has been done to assess the ties that bind them. By offering an interdisciplinary account in a major survey exhibition for the first time, we will illuminate their importance as a sustained cultural force.”

From the Japan Society website:

KRAZY! will be New York’s first major show dedicated to the Japanese phenomenon of Anime, Manga, and Video Games-three forms of contemporary visual art that are exercising a huge influence on an entire generation of American youth.

The exhibition, organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, will be presented in an environment designed by cutting-edge architectural practice Atelier Bow-Wow, featuring life-size blowups of popular figures from the worlds of anime and manga within an intriguing sequence of spaces that evoke Tokyo’s clamorous cityscape.

 Co-curated by leading North American and Japanese specialists, KRAZY! will give visitors a direct experience of new forms of cultural production and offers fresh insight into the interdependence of three art forms of the future.

Source: Japan Society website

• Event details
• Video  – Brief trailer describing how visitors can interact with the show – 6 movie theatres, a sound room, games consoles etc.
• Krazy! Cosplay party event details  March 28 2009 – dress up as characters

Artists:

Anime:

Ichiro Itano (Super Dimension Fortress Macross), Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf’s Rain), Satoshi Kon (Paprika), Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor 2: The Movie), Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Makoto Shinkai (The Place Promised in Our Early Days), and Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game).

Manga:

Moyoco Anno (Sakuran), Hisashi Eguchi (Stop!! Hibari-kun!), Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White), Junko Mizuno (Pure Trance), Mamoru Nagano (The Five Star Stories), Hitoshi Odajima (Mu: For Sale), Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai), and Yuichi Yokoyama (New Engineering).

Video Games:

Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man) and Shigeru Miyamoto (Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)

Review links:

• Popcultureshock.com – appears to be full press release for original Vancouver show May 2008, details of exhibits which have ‘shaped the history of contemporary visual culture’ and bios of 7 participating curators
• Anime Today – preview of New York show, listen to Joe Earle director of Japan Society talk about it
• Krazy! at Vancouver Art Gallery stretches visual vocabulary – May 2008 – Straight.com – comment on cross over of high art and pop culture, interviews Vancouver Art Gallery about their art mandate and how this show fits within it
• Canadian Art – May 2008 – asks ‘is it art?’, information about artworks and several images

Click to buy catalogue of show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

• Takashi Murakami on why the War helped create Japanese pop culture Dec 2008
• Survey of Japanese photography at Paris Photo Nov 2008
• Takashi Murakami’s one-of-a-kind art fair grows in size Sep 2008
• World’s first show of bamboo sculpture in New York Sep 2008
• Chinese Cosplay artist Cao Fei is one to watch Sep 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for news of events which document and influence

ARCO Madrid 2009 international art fair news round-up – galleries drop out, public funding prop, Indian art

INTERNATIONAL ART FAIRS

ARCO Madrid, one of the largest and most important international art fairs holds its 28th edition from 11 February to 16 February 2009  in a new location:  Halls 6, 8 & 10 at Feria de Madrid, Spain. 238 galleries from 32 countries are participating.

Financial downturn hits art world – BBC – 16 Feb 209 – video clip – An insubstantial very brief video story about how the crisis is affecting the art fair: some artists are using the crisis as inspiration for their art: interview with art fair director Lourdes Fernandez who says it is more difficult for some dealers this year.

Dealers reported mixed results at Spain’s monster contemporary art fair Arco – Financial Times – 14 Feb 2009 – Georgina Adam reports that Spanish museums budgets have melted and prices of artworks have been reduced. Artists attracting interest/buyers included Georg Baselitz, Amaya Gonzalez Reyes, Eugenio Merino’s take off of Damien Hirst ‘For The Love of Gold’.

Click to buy

Arco Beep New Media Art Award  – We Make Money Not Art  – 13 Feb 2009 – Post written by a member of the jury about the award, the entries and the winner. The award was won by Ubermorgen.com for its EKMRZ Trilogy, a fascinating triptych about the three kings of ecommerce Google, Amazon and ebay. The Google art work ‘Google will eat itself’ involves the artists raising money with google text ads and using the money to buy Google shares.

Panorama India Artslant provides a list of artists and galleries from India, Arco’s special guest country 2009.

Tatsumi Orimoto performs Punishment at Arco 2009 video – Vernissage TV

Hirst statue stars at Madrid show as dealers aim to defy slump – Bloomberg – 13 Feb 2009 – A Florida collector bought Merino’s sculpture of Hirst committing suicide “Hirst is always trying to think of ways to make his art the most expensive. If he killed himself, then the value of his art would increase a lot.” Despite India being guest country only 13 galleries from there. US galleries dropped from 26 last year to 7 this year. Plenty of bargains. Russian GMG Gallery sold 2 photographs by Anatoly Zhuravlev to a prominent Swiss collector of Chinese art.

Image carousel – Telegraph – 19 images of artists: Isaac Montoya, Filomena Soares, Jose Batista Marques, Enrique Marty, Madeleine Berkhemer, Vivek Vilasini  (India), Jitish Kallat (India), Valay Shende, Eugenio Merino, Yi Hwan-Kon, Samuel Salcedo, Bernardi Roig.

Indian art draws Europeans – IANS via Zee News – 13 Feb 2009 – New trend in Indian art away from works on canvas towards installation and new media apparent in gallery shows and  Panorama, the show of Indian art curated by Bose Krishnamachari. Dayanita Singh in solo show, Shilpa Gupta work finds European buyer.

Gloom at major European art fair as boom in sales seen over  – AFP  – 12 Feb 2009 – This is a prediction story about the mood prior to the event. Galleries predict  limited cash, prices down 25% for contemporary art, buyers will take time over purchases. Artist view: lower prices an opportunity for young. Includes image carousel.

Arco Madrid 2009 opens – calm forecast  – Art Daily – 12 Feb 2009 – This is a facts piece with a promotional tone. It covers details of the move to the new location and the fair’s programmes and projects: India is showcased, three curated shows cover performance art, contemporary art and technology in art, there is a list of talk forums by experts and a description of the section showcasing capsule collections from private museums.

Recession triggers improvement in Indian art quality– SindhToday via IANS – 11 February 2009 – This is a views piece about how the collector base for Indian art is changing and broadening particularly in Europe and is based on interviews with Bose Krishnamachari curator of the special Indian Panorama section and Peter Nagy of Nature Morte, an exhibitor.

Fine Art Publicity - click to buy

Galleries drop out of ARCO– Artinfo – 5 Feb 2009 – Edited version of Der Standard story below.

ARCO hit by crisis– Artforum via APAvia Der Standard – 3 Feb 2009 – 20 galleries of 270 cancelled – dropouts include 2 from South America, one from Spain and Lisson Gallery London. Portugese Ministry of Culture provided funding to prevent more.

Related links: ARCO website

Related posts:

• Which are the top 10 international contemporary art fairs?Artprice Jan 2009
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• New art fair in London to focus on Russian collectors  FT Nov 2008

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New roles for art collectors, organisations created by Cao Fei on Second Life – Uli Sigg is RMB City governor

Cao Fei RMB City A second life city planning 2007

 

INTERVIEW CHINESE ARTIST CAO FEI

Editor of Asia Art Archive’s Diaaalogue, Sue Acret spoke to Chinese artist Cao Fei about her Second Life project RMB City which was officially launched in January 2009. In this project which uses as a medium the online virtual world called Second Life, Cao Fei develops new roles for collectors and art institutions which blur the lines between digital and real.

Susan Acret: Please tell us about your avatar China Tracy and the RMB City work and how the online world of Second Life became a platform for these works.

RMB City – a city utopia with Chinese aesthetics

Cao Fei: During the creation of i.Mirror and the China Tracy Pavilion (A machinima-documentary about China Tracy’s first explorations of Second Life, and the large-scale installation where it premiered at the 2007 Venice Biennale), I started to think about creating a place that belonged to China Tracy within Second Life… her own ‘city utopia’. China Tracy felt that since most cities within Second Life were Western in style, she wanted to represent some of her concepts about Chinese urban development in a space that incorporated Chinese aesthetics and identity, albeit in a surreal hybrid style.

Blurred boundaries between real and virtual for modern generations
S.A: You’ve said that your generation, brought up in a digital world, ‘will always compare virtual and real’ and that sometimes the boundaries between the two can be blurred. Your art reflects this movement between these two spheres. What opportunities do virtual worlds offer artists that are not available in the ‘real’ world?

C.F: Second Life is a world where the conventional free-market economy still applies. Although we call it a virtual world, its economic structure and the virtual currency is tied with the ‘real’ economy. From a visual perspective, Second Life appears to be hyper-real and excessively imagined. Combined with its uncertain identity, it can be mysterious and enigmatic to people. On arriving in this virtual world, China Tracy was attracted by the hyper-real prison, but also felt an unavoidable sense of oppression.

Cao Fei, i Mirror Second Life Machinima, 28 minutes

Although the boundary between virtual and real is becoming more and more blurred, the way the virtual world contradicts and coincides with reality offers something ambiguous and complex. This, to a certain extent, enhances our lives as a whole, providing a reference for the exploration of individuality and the nature of life.

Another reason that the virtual world appeals to me is that it transcends obstacles in reality, despite being hyper-real. It offers a virtual platform for human beings to experiment with a possible utopia, such as building an individualistic heaven, drafting laws and systems, generating new discussions and thoughts, etc.

 
S.A: How many collaborators have you worked with for your RMB City project? How do you find your collaborations with these ‘real’ people?

C.F: Collaborators involved in RMB City include collectors, galleries, scholars, researchers, artists, schools, various exhibition projects, commissioned projects, biennials and triennials, etc.

New roles for art collectors organisations, Uli Sigg is RMB City governor

1. Collectors
We invite collectors to actively participate in the actual development of the city. For example, we invited Mr Uli Sigg to be the first governor of the city (for 3 months), in order for him to oversee and propose a blueprint for the utopia of RMB City in terms of its systems, construction and direction.

2. Public organizations
We are now working closely with Serpentine Gallery. They are one of the real information centres for RMB City. Also, UCCA which will collect RMB City, will have a virtual art gallery and other independent projects. Some art organizations are willing to rent spaces to be involved in this project and also develop their own projects.

3. Exhibition/ Project
I have realized personal projects for biennials and triennials via RMB City, for example, for the 2008 Yokohama Triennial and New Orleans Biennial, as well as on some consigned projects, such as H Box’s video project. I would like to some overseas artist residency programs to take place the RMB City’s platform.

4. Other
We invite different parties (not just limited to the art field) in the real world to participate in the virtual world. We also invite Second Life avatars who are interested in our project.

Therefore, RMB City insists on ‘the cooperation of virtual and real’: collaborators should come from both worlds. Through this process, we hope to improve conventions and develop a new path.

Cao Fei Cosplayers, video 2004

S.A: Your use of internet platforms such as You Tube and Second Life is a democratic, open way of creating work, insofar as it is available freely to large numbers of people all over the world. Do you often get feedback from ‘non-art’ audiences on the internet?

C.F: Yes. I have received emails and messages to China Tracy in Second life, and comments on my YouTube videos, and friend-offers via My Space and Facebook.

I quite like these different forms of feedback from different channels, and meeting different people in different worlds.

S.A: Born in the late 1970s and brought up in the ’80s, can terminologies such as Generation X (the consumerist generation) or Generation Y (the Net-generation or Generation Why) describe who you are? From COSplayers to the RMB City project, are your art projects the result of generational influence or your personality?

C.F: Since 1978, China has undergone an inevitable reorganization. Before we were ready to respond, we were already receiving all kinds of influences from a new time. Everyone is the product of a generation; ‘I’ am an individual as well as a transcendental object. Perhaps a young person who attempts to influence the world or China Tracy who surfs around the virtual world, are indeed coming from the same route. And as for me, I remain extremely close to yet with an appropriate distance from any of these worlds. This gives me a macro view of the ‘world’. And then I decide how I should deal with it and derive my system to process all the complex messages of life. In Chinese terms, it involves entering (reality) and renouncing (the virtual) the world simultaneously. This journey is to experience both worlds while constituting the two.

This interview is edited. For the full version of this fascinating interview and more images go to Asia Art Archive.

Related categories: Chinese artists, virtual art, reports from China, video art, emerging artists,  new media, Uli Sigg, art collectors

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• Cao Fei’s first solo museum show in Germany Jan 2009
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Emerging Chinese artist Cao Fei’s first solo museum exhibition in Germany

Cao Fei Mirage

EMERGING CHINESE ARTIST SHOW to 15 February 2009

Born in Guangzhou in 1978, Cao Fei is one of the most important Chinese artists of her generation. Since the turn of the millennium, she has gained considerable attention from international curators such as Melissa Chiu of the Asia Society in New York and renowned Chinese art collectors Uli Sigg and Wang Guanyi.

Cao Fei’s work was recently shown in London at China Power Station: Part 1, an off-site Serpentine Gallery exhibition of contemporary Chinese video, sound and installation art co-produced by The Red Mansion Foundation at Battersea Power Station.

Cao Fei is now particularly concerned with developing the technical possibilities of film, animation and the Internet in order to depict the swift and radical social and cultural changes in China. The exhibition presents her latest projects such as RMB City and i.Mirror. Since 2007 Cao Fei has been developing these utopian cities and future forms of living on the Net – on ‘Second Life’ – as her avatar China Tracy.

The exhibition in the Kunsthalle Nuremberg is the first comprehensive solo exhibition of the Chinese artist’s work in Germany, organised in collaboration with Vitamin Creative Space, Peking/Guangzhou and Le Plateau, Paris.

She grew up in a world dominated by advertising and the electronic entertainment industry as developed in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and in her video films and sculptural installations she combines the influences of a global post-Pop culture with traditional elements of opera, the theatre or dance.  Very quickly, Cao Fei developed a pictorial language entirely her own, in which she superimposes reality and fiction, and history and the present day. In ‘docu-dramas’ like Nu River (2007) or Cosplayers (2004) she consciously adopts a perspective that mediates between the inside and the outside viewpoints, interlocking documentation and fiction. 

 Kunsthalle Nuremberg Cao Fei exhibition

Related:

• Artist to watch: Cao Fei September 2008 post
• Cao Fei’s website

Russian new media artists at MOMA Moscow where interest in electronic art grows

 

 

SURVEY NEW MEDIA ART RUSSIAN ARTISTS to 19 October 2008

CRITI-POP

Dates: September 19 – October 19, 2008
Location: Moscow Museum of Modern Art at Ermolaevsky lane, 17 (floors 2-5)

“It seems incredible, but interactive and communicative art in Russia is practiced only by Chernyshev, Shulgin and Efimov, working together or individually” says curator and gallerist Elena Selina. “Recently, interest in new media art has increased in Moscow. Not only professionals, but also collectors and the public, have overcome inner barriers that prevented (their acceptance) of the new media language”.

Presented by the Moscow Department of Culture, Russian Acacademy of Arts, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art with XL Gallery, the CRITI-POP exhibition showcases three artists, two creative groups, forty works and plenty of themes including information overflow, reconstruction of identity, genetic pop-engineering, the poetry of stock-exchange deals and news broadcasts, aesthetics of data transmission and science art.

Interactive installations by Vladislav Efimov and Aristarkh Chernyshev, who worked together from 1996 to 2005, bring us art that deals with genetic engineering, statistical modeling of processes, computer games and robotics. The viewer becomes a hero of the work — a colleague of an insane scientist modeling DNA, a creator of 3-D avatars, a conqueror of robots or a terminator hunting for artists.

Electroboutique  (Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin since 2003) is a unique art group that unites artists, developers of electronics, programmers and designers. Using techniques taken from social psychology and perception theory, the artists transmit their critical message directly into the unconscious of the viewers and entertain them with bright colors and garish forms. In his solo projects, Aristarkh Chernyshev creates art from information streams like TV-channels, Internet-news or stock-exchange tapes while the solo work of Alexei Shulgin  looks at our addiction to technologies and gives variants of creative rescue. One of the historic exhibits is a legendary rock band 386 DX, made of an outdated computer playing ever-young hits of British-American and Russian rock.

Related:

• Website of Moscow Museum of Modern Art
• More stories about contemporary Russian art
• More on new media art in Asia
• Other significant museum shows of Asian artists
• Latest events on now and events coming

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Artist to watch Cao Fei

ARTIST TO WATCH

As we scan the news every day, some new artists and new trends emerge out of the cloud of informaton bigger bolder and brighter than the rest. This is the first in an occasional series in which we beam in and take an in depth look at one artist or art trend.

CAO FEI

Cao Fei  is a female artist who was born in 1978 in Guangzhou China and is now based in Beijing.

What people are saying

Red Mansion Foundation, London: “Cao Fei is no doubt one of the most remarkable and powerful artists of this generation.”

Serpentine Gallery London: “Cao Fei is one of the pre-eminent Chinese artists of her generation”

About the art

Photographs, videos and installations.

Influences include superheros, avatars, electronic entertainment, pop music, TV drama, computer games and new subcultures such as Japanese Manga, American Rap, and Hong Kong films.

Why her work is interesting

Cao Fei fearlessly experiments with new media, in particular virtual media such as Second Life. She is fascinated by the contrast between urban reality and fantasy-perfect etopia and how it is possible to move between the two at the flick of a switch. Her art presents the issues and zeitgeist of her generation.

I am interested in “the premise that people can choose characters that are very different from their real selves. They can use their character to create a “second life,” to change their friends, family, and lifestyle — like switching a TV channel “says Cao Fei in an interview with Artkrush.

“I started to confuse my two lives, and so I compared them. The younger generation, like 15-18 year olds, I don’t think they ask as many of these questions; that kind of lifestyle is their real life — they belong to a technological world — but for my generation, we will always compare virtual and real”

Her work

 

Cosplayers: King Kong at home

 

She first attracted international attention in 2004 with COSplayers, a video and photo series about Guangzhou teens dressing up as Japanese manga characters.

At the 52nd Venice Biennale 2007, she premiered China Tracy Pavilion, a project exploring the virtual worlds of Second Life that merged role-playing, ethnographic documentary, and animation.

After discovering Second Life, Fei embarked on a six-month journey through the wonders of the digital realm, as China Tracy, and many came across her through a YouTube stream in which she introduced herself in machinima footage with Chinese subtitles.

According to Fei, all sorts of typical activities occurred during that period: ‘Fly, chat, build, teleport, buy, sex, add friends, snapshot…’

 

I.Mirror Documentary Video 2007

 

These experiences were documented and generated the three-part, thirty-minute epic, ‘i.Mirror’ that Fei exhibited at Venice’s Arsenale back garden as well as on YouTube.

A recent project RMB City, an online art community in the virtual world of Second Life is on show at the Serpentine Gallery and on-line.

Institutions and collectors are invited to buy buildings in RMB City and programme events and activities in them. The project is an experiment exploring the creative relationship between real and virtual space.

Career highlights

Cao Fei has exhibited around the world in premier institutions such as Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Beijing, Mori Museum Tokyo, San Francisco Art Instute, Serpentine Gallery and Red Mansion Foundation.

She has been shown at the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Biennale of Sydney and her work has been included in important survey exhibitions such as “Between Past and Future – New Photography andVideo from China” Asia Society New York.

Collectors of her work include Guy Ullens, Carnegie Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, Uli Sigg, Guan Yi amongst others.The famous Chinese collector Guan Yi names Cao Fei along with a handful of other artists as an important artist of her generation.

 

Cao Fei Siemens project

 

In the Siemens sponsored art project “What are you doing here?”, the artist Cao Fei worked with employees from subsidiary OSRAM China Lighting to turn their individual ideas, hopes and expectations into art.

Auction history

As at September 1 2008, Cao Fei is still much under-appreciated at auction. She has only had 3 photographs at auction, one at China Guardian May 2007 which sold for US$21,890 including premium (over double the estimate) and two at Sotheby’s New York 2007 which were bought in.

Where to buy

Dealers:

• The Courtyard Gallery Beijing
• Pekin Fine Arts Beijing
• Grace Li Zurich

See (in new window)

• Cao Fei’s website
• Cao Fei’s up to date bio on artfacts.net
• Latest price history on artnet artprice findartinfo
• more posts on Cao Fei including participation in Mori Art Museum video weekend 2008, Ullens Center show 2008, RMB City at the Serpentine to 2009
• Cao Fei excerpt from Robert Adanto documentary video ‘The Rising Tide’ on Saatchi website

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Western art advisors turn to Asian new media art for their corporate clients – International Herald Tribune

NEW MEDIA ART FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA FOR COLLECTORS

Fortune Cookie projects, an art consulting service with clients who include Clifford Chance, Hermes, UBS and Saatchi, plan to set up headquarters in Singapore this year and they are on the look out for Asian new-media artists whom they can introduce to the West.

“Chinese artists have been the flavor of the month for the last five years,” founder Rutkowski said. “That will not cool, but it will change a bit. International collectors that went in early have got their works and they won’t buy an artist that they got for $20,000 a few years back for $4 million now; if anything, they’re going to sell. So many are looking along the Silk Road, and there is a very strong interest in the Southeast Asian region.”

 See (in new window)

• article on IHT website
• more posts on collectors and collecting
• more art news about video art

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Russian collective AES+F talks to the Art Newspaper about their meteoric success over the last year

Last Riot AES+F

 

RUSSIAN TOURING SHOW 2008 On the eve of their latest show, Russian collective AES+F discusses multiculturalism, the market and their new work.

One of the most talked about works at the last Venice Biennale was a slick digitalised three-screen video in the basement of the Russian Pavilion in which a host of beautiful youths worthy of any Gap ad engaged in stylised slow motion battles in a fantasy landscape to the strains of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung”.

The piece was Last Riot by the Moscow-based collective AES+F—the name comes from the initials of members Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovitch and Evgeny Svyatsky, who joined forces in 1987, with photographer Vladimir Fridkes arriving in 1995.

Although the group were no strangers to the art world, this epic, bleakly futuristic extravaganza has catapulted it onto the international stage. They have just had a major exhibition at Macro in Rome and this month they open their first UK solo show at RS&A which then tours to Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, the Salzburg Museum and the Ormeau Baths in Belfast.

The Art Newspaper: Did you intend Last Riot to be a criticism or a celebration of our high-tech, perfection-obsessed world?AES+F: It has some kind of criticism but we try not to be very didactic in our criticism so it is both admiration and criticism—all the time we try to be on the border as we have very mixed feelings about what is happening now.

 

TAN: It created a weird world where technology and fashion fused with direct references to art history.AES+F: We wanted to make compositions reminiscent of mannerist and Baroque painting and especially Caravaggio but also to construct a virtual world which refers to contemporary virtual culture and virtual reality and all these kinds of computer games, video games and Hollywood movies; it’s a landscape that is continuous throughout and goes from a desert at night to a snowy morning in the mountains.

 

TAN: What is it about mannerism and the Baroque that appeals to you?AES+F: We feel that contemporary visual culture is very similar to that of the Baroque: everything is extremely expressive, figurative and very visual and founded on images and at the same time very decadent. We try to make it seductive but when you make it too beautiful it begins to be ugly so we are also trying to establish the border between ugliness and beauty. It is also not clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy and it is very important to us that it should not be clear.

 

TAN: Last Riot has spawned a series of pristine white sculptures which you are now showing in the UK for the first time.AES+F: We are premiering the whole series of eight aluminium figures painted with white enamel paint that is usually used for cars. They come from Last Riot but in the Last Riot prints and videos they are just normal figures. In these sculptures they became mutants, they are part monsters: for example one girl has the tail of a dinosaur.

 

TAN: Another work that you are showing for the first time is Europe-Europe, a series of porcelain figurines in the 18th-century style of amorous couples. But instead of presenting frolicking shepherds and shepherdesses, you depict more controversial contemporary couplings: a skinhead and a Turkish girl, a blonde female police officer in full riot gear undressing for an Arab teenager, a western manager and three Chinese toy factory workers—what is the intention of this piece?AES+F: This is generally a very interesting question for us, what is Europe now? And what is so-called multiculturalism? The task was to put some questions about contemporary European identity and so we made this kind of impossible utopia—and the question is, can these communities live together culturally, or not? So we wanted to present this utopia of possibility, this idyllic situation.

 

TAN: Last Riot and the large sculptures are created by, and use the language of, digital technology but these new pieces rely on more traditional, handcrafted techniques.AES+F: We just use any techniques according to the ideas of the project so we can use very traditional bronze sculptures and porcelain and also digitally manipulated video and prints. They are all tools.

 

TAN: Russia is now becoming a major player in the global art market. What do you feel about that?AES+F: It’s just the beginning of the boom—it is going to get bigger and bigger. New private museums are opening and also state museums, and the public interest inside Russia is growing very fast. Step by step these new rich people are turning from collecting antiques to collecting contemporary and also international contemporary art. Hopefully after, the art that is just marketable will follow more deep and serious engagements.

 

See (in new window)

• Full interview from The Art Newspaper here
• Youtube video of Last Riot here

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