“Post adolescent” art on display in two Taiwanese museums – picture feast

EMERGING ARTISTS TAIWANESE ART MUSEUM SHOWS COLLECTIONS

An exhibition exploring the theme of “post adolescence” is presenting 72 works by younger generation Taiwanese artists, those between 25-35 years of age, in an effort to reveal their art creation processes and society’s influence on them.

Aptly titled “Post Adolescence“, the exhibition recently showed at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) and is finishing up at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, an institution managed by the Taipei National University of the Arts.

A partnership between these two art institutions, “Post Adolescence” is in part a way to showcase NTMoFA’s Young Artist Collection Program, started in 2005 and which now holds nearly 500 pieces by “post-adolescent” Taiwanese artists under 35 years of age. According to the museum’s website, the program aims to “cultivate young artistic talent, elevate and develop contemporary art in Taiwan and promote cultural industries.”

“Post Adolescence” is seen by Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts as an attempt to define the characteristics shared by artists in this age group:

The highly motivated generation of younger artists demonstrates novel art works using [the] special visual language of comics, aimless/purposeful cacophony of voices, or Internet-based technological devices.

The works of those artists embody innovative and surreal themes, reflecting their generation characteristics – passionate yet rebellious – and presenting an alternative form of art in Taiwan.

Many of the artists exhibiting works in the show have won awards – this is one of the criteria for inclusion in the Young Artist Collection. Standout participants include: Cheng-ta Yu, Kuo I-Chen, Su Hui-yu, Huan Wei-min, Chen Wan-ren, Wang Pei-ying and Wang Ting-yu. Cheng-ta Yu and Kuo I-chen featured in the Taiwan Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) and Su Hui-yu was nominated for the Taishin Arts Award.

Lo Chan-Peng, 'Youth Diary of the Strawberry Cell Division 3', 2008, oil on canvas, 194 x 194 cm. Image courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

Wang Chung-Kun, 'sound.of.bottles #3', 2009, kinetic installation, 200 x 180 x 180 cm. Image courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

Chen Ching-Yuan, 'We Catch the Land!', 2008, screen printing and acrylic, 270 x 550 cm. Image courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

Hua Chien-Ciang, 'The Divine Series', 2006, gauche, 200 × 60 cm (four panels). Images courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

Kuo I-Chen, Survivor Project《41°N，74°W》, 2007, digital print, 87 x 240 cm. Image courtesy Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

Wang Liang-Yin, 'Pudding of Consciousness', 2005, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 194 cm. Image courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

KN

Related Topics: Taiwanese artists, museum shows, museum collectors, emerging artists

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• 3 young Chinese artists awarded prizes at inaugural Caochangdi PhotoSpring – May 2010 – more on emerging Asian artists winning awards
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• Four Asian artists nominated for NYC PULSE Awards – March 2010 – offers some biographical details for these artists
• The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Art Awards – January 2010 – details on the winners of the 2009 awards

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Animamix Biennial – an alternative biennial pushes aesthetic of comic art – interview curator Victoria Lu

ANIMATION ART BIENNIAL

The Animamix Biennial is unique. The first was held in 2007, organised by Victoria Lu, an experienced curator and the Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. This years show, also curated by Lu, spans four galleries: the Museum of Contemporary Art (Taipei, Taiwan), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai, China), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China) and the Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou, China).

Animamix Biennial, 2009-2010, MOCA Shanghai

It presents art that develops or embodies the Animamix aesthetic, artwork that combines the styles of animation and comics.

The term “Animamix” was actually coined in 2004 by Lu when she became aware of the emerging stylistic trend while curating Fiction.Love at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Taiwan.

Fiction.Love, 2004, MOCA Taipei

Animamix is now entering the mainstream, pushing the artists who have developed this style into the spotlight, artists such as Takashi Murakami (Japan), mixed-media visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock (U.S.A.) and Brazilian painter Oscar Oiwa. As the style encompasses a broad range of mediums, and is often brightly coloured with bizarre narratives, it has an inherent ability to attract attention.

Animamix Biennial, 2009-2010, Guangdong Museum of Art, China

Always interested in exploring emerging trends, Art Radar Asia spoke briefly with curator Victoria Lu about the Biennial:

On Animamix as an artistic trend

The Animamix Biennial was inaugurated in 2007. Since then, has this art direction become more recognisable to mainstream audiences or does it still sit on the fringes?

This answer is rather difficult to define. If I judge by the growing numbers of Animamix direction artworks in the international art fairs, I can say yes. The Animamix direction is growing internationally.

Is this style popular internationally (for audiences, dealers and buyers) or is the popularity restricted to the Asian region?

There is more Animamix kind of artworks available in Asia market for the moment, so I believe Animamix art is more popular in Asia. But there are more and more artists in Europe working [with an] Animamix direction.

On the Biennial

Why did you want to start this Biennial?

I am tired of the current international biennials. There are a group of curators [which have been] leading the conceptual direction for too long. You will find [that] very similar artists list no matter where you go. So I want to try something new, something different. My concept for the Animamix Biennial is an ongoing evolution of art exhibitions and activities. This kind of biennial can really reflect the local art scene.

Would it be fair to say this Biennial is an Asian-initiated event focussing on an art trend that is becoming more globalised?

International biennials were started in Europe in the early last century. Now biennials are becoming more and more popular in the Asia, starting from the beginning of this century. Many cities in Asia are competing for the exposure of their art and culture.

Generally, how has the exhibition been received by critics and museum patrons?

My Animamix shows are very well received by audiences. So far we have also been well received by the critics.

Which artists have been well received by critics and audiences? Are there any “stars” of the Biennial?

I cannot say who the stars are. They are all important to me.

Animamix Biennial, 2009-2010, Today Art Museum, Beijing

The final leg of the Animamix Biennial, Dazzled and Enchanted – New Age Animamix, is now showing at the Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou, China. The show will close on 28 February 2010.

KN

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• Top 5 sites for Japanese contemporary art news by Matthew Larking – June 2009
• New York’s first major show of Anime, Manga and Video Games KRAZY! Japan Society – February 2009
• Takashi Murakami’s one of a kind art fair Gesai grows in size – September 2008

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• Chinese Cosplay artist Cao Fei is one to watch Sep 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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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

Takashi Murakami’s one-of-a-kind Japanese art fair Gesai grows in size – Saatchi Online

ART FAIR JAPAN

Saatchi Online Magazine reports that art fair GEISAI #11 to be held in Tokyo on September 14 “will be significantly larger than all previous editions, offering space for one thousand exhibitors in individual booths”. Founded by the prolific rule-breaking contemporary artist Takashi Murakami in 2001, Gesai art fair usually takes place in Tokyo twice a year and  “differs from typical art fairs in that it allows artists to represent themselves and present their work directly to an audience of collectors, art professionals and art enthusiasts in a professional art fair setting”. Gesai had its American debut in Miami last December to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach.

On the day of the event, art works will be awarded medals by a jury of international art professionals. Judges include Jack Bankowsky, Editor-at-Large, Artforum; Alison Gingeras, Chief Curator, the Pinault Collection; Carol Yinghua Lu, Independent curator and art writer; Philippe Segalot, Art Advisor, Giraud.Pissarro.Ségalot; and Marc-Olivier Wahler, Director, Palais de Tokyo, Site de Creation Contemporaine, Paris.

GEISAI #11 will also feature a special celebration of the unique anime and otaku subcultures that grew from southern Tokyo’s electronic and computer shopping district Akihabara and are now taking the world by storm. As part of this celebration, GEISAI #11 will debut a special festival space featuring working shops inspired by those in Akihabara, and special surprise performances.

GEISAI #11 will be followed by the second edition of GEISAI Miami, which will once again be hosted by PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, and take place in the Wynwood Art District, December 2008, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach.

See (in new window)

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Niubi kids and American art – Top ten shows in Hong Kong September 2008 part 2 – Saatchi Online

 EXHIBITIONS HONG KONG

Top ten shows in Hong Kong this September part 2 published in Saatchi Online Magazine and written by Art Radar Asia’s editor Kate Evans.

Lee Waisler: Portraits and Abstractions
11 September to 11 October
Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Sundaram Tagore’s first solo show in its new gallery in Hong Kong features the eminent American artist Lee Waisler whose works are in permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lee Waisler presents two series of works: portraits of iconic figures and abstracts, both in a trademark style in which he loads the canvas with layers of paints and organic materials to create thick sweeps of pigment separated by knife-sharp ridges. His portrait series includes the stylized over-bold faces of, amongst others, Marilyn Monroe, Mahatma Gandhi, Kafka and Albert Einstein. Their textured planes draw our hands to hover over the surface, curious, wanting to touch but not quite daring: a potent echo of the real life lure of iconic idols and our visceral compulsion to draw near, look closely and touch. For this show Waisler has created an interesting new body of work incorporating Chinese culture and imagery including a portrait of Anna May Wong, a famous Chinese-American actress of the 1930s and 1940s and Doctor Ho, a renowned healer from China.

 

Larry Yung: Desire – Loss

Amelia Johnson Contemporary
4 September to 27 September 2008

In the works of this much anticipated show two years in the making, Chinese American artist Larry Yung places idealized images of American and Chinese people alongside material objects of desire and cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse. Smiling characters are painted with a flatness reminiscent of the iconography of Chinese propaganda posters and 1950’s US advertisements of the American Dream. This juxtaposition invites us to examine the complex relationship between the demise of the American Dream and the rise of Chinese aspirations. His stiff stylized figures appear artificial and remind us material prosperity is impermanent and illusory: part of a fleeting cycle of lack, desire, success and loss. His work has been commissioned by Proctor & Gamble, Pierre Cardin and Nordstroms and is held in various private collections including those of Marvel Comics, Esquire Magazine and Microsoft.

 

Niubi Newbie Kids
Mixed media group exhibition: Chen Fei, Chen Ke, Zhou Jin Hua, Zhang Ye Xing, Zhou Yi Qian, Feng Wei
19 September to 13 October 2008
Schoeni Gallery

Schoeni was pivotal in the nineties in promoting the art of then unknown Chinese political pop artists such as Yue Min Jun, Zeng Fan Zhi and Zhang Xiaogang, many of whom have since gone on to achieve iconic status and high auction prices. This September the gallery is showing the next generation of 80s born unknowns, the rebellious Niubi Kids. Untranslatable and a play on Chinese slang curse words, the word ‘Niubi’ is used by young people to identify the new wave of rebellious cool young Chinese. Also termed China’s ‘Me’ generation, a product of China’s One Child policy, they are less concerned with politics than with themselves, issues of identity and alternative worlds. This provoking not-to-be missed show of mixed media works, replete with influences from the internet, comics, video games and Japanese culture, is the result of two years work by the gallery and is the first in a biannual series.

Manga, ink and new generation Chinese – Top ten shows in Hong Kong September 2008 part 1 – Saatchi Online

EXHIBITIONS HONG KONG

Yoshitaka Amano

Yoshitaka Amano – New Works

Art Statements Gallery
30 August to 10 October 2008

Fans of Japanese cartoons and animations are in for a treat this September at Art Statements Gallery where legendary Japanese manga artist Yoshitaka Amano is presenting a solo exhibition of new works. No longer a subculture with a limited following, manga has grown into one of the most significant creative forces exported from Japan in recent history and its influence on mainstream popular culture in film, advertising, industrial design, fashion and graphic design is now regarded as nothing short of a phenomenon. Born in 1952 Amano shot to fame in the 1970s with his cartoon series ‘Gatchaman’ (G-Force) and since then has created many popular epics including the hugely successful video game series ‘Final Fantasy’. Featuring several 2 metre long aluminium panels depicting fantastical creatures, warriors, heroines and superheroes, this is a must-see show for manga buffs and manga neophytes alike.

Chan Yu

Showcase 82 Republic!

Mixed media group show: Chan Yu, Liu Ja, Guo Hongwei, Wan Yang, Zhou Siwei
Connoisseur Gallery
1 September to 30 September 2008

September is going to be an exciting month for Connoisseur’s stable of young artists who will be exhibited in four locations across Asia. Known as the 82 Republic artists, this generation Y group of four painters and one sculptor was born in the eighties and incubated in their own dedicated gallery of the same name. Now ready for the world, their work will be shown in two of Connoisseur’s gallery spaces in Hong Kong – Connoisseur Art Gallery and Connoisseur Contemporary – as well as at the international art fairs at ShContemporary in Shanghai and KIAF in Seoul, Korea and in Connoisseur’s Singapore gallery as a parallel event of the Singapore Biennale 2008. Zhou Siwei’s cartoon-like character in ‘Infection – Astroboy no 7’ and the flat translucent shapes of Chan Yu’s ‘Where is My Childhood? No 9’ exemplify the new ‘spirit’ of this era which has been powerfully influenced by animation, toys and digital culture.

Xue Song: A Tale of Our Modern Time
Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery
4 September to 27 September

An alarming accident was responsible for a crucial turning point in Xue Song’s art practice: “In 1990, a big fire broke out in my dormitory”. His books, magazines, newspapers, pictures and prints, damaged and burnt, were “released from their frames” leaving Xue Song with a new deeper understanding of the fragmentary, mutable nature of life. From these ashes emerged the embryo of his own significant unique visual language quite distinct from his contemporaries: a language of burning, restructuring, collage and drawing. The retrospective show exhibits Xue Song’s range of interests since the fire from his pop art-coloured Mao series made in the 1990s inspired by leader portraits, model operas, big-character posters (Dazibao) and Red Guards to his more recent preoccupation with modern Shanghai and the intriguing relationship between people and cities.

New Ink Art: Innovation and Beyond
Group exhibition
Hong Kong Museum of Art
22 August to 26 October 2008

“Ink has been part of our history for over 3,000 years,” says guest curator Alice King. “I want to show people how Chinese ink painting has evolved through the ages. It is no longer painted the way it was even twenty years ago”. Comprising 64 works by nearly 30 artists from Hong Kong and the mainland, this thorough survey places the increasingly popular Chinese contemporary ink genre in its historical context with a particular emphasis on the part played by Hong Kong master Lui Shou-kwan who, with his New Ink Movement, has inspired ink artists since the 1960s, amongst them Wucius Wong, Leung Kui-ting, Irene Chou and Kan Tai-keung. The exhibition looks to the future too with some controversial exhibits in the boundary-pushing section called “Is it Ink Art?” Some would say that works such as Cai Guoqiang’s gunpowder images, organic installations and digital works are not ink art at all. This show asks us to question our view of ink as a medium and to appreciate it as an essence, an aesthetic which can find expression in a variety of forms.

See (in new window)

• story on Saatchi Online
• recent posts on Chinese contemporary art
• events on now or upcoming
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• manga, anime and cartoon art stories
• more about contemporary Japanese art

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Survey exhibition in Vancouver, New York shows Manga, cartoon art in context

SURVEY OF MANGA ANIME COMICS AND ART IN VANCOUVER NEW YORK to March 2009

The influence of manga, anime, video games and cartoons on contemporary art is one of the most prominent current trends.

The exhibition “Krazy” brings the worlds of anime, comics, cartoons, video games, manga, graphic novels and contemporary art together in one exhibition.

The exhibition is co-curated by some of the art forms’ most influential artists and cultural producers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman, The Sims video game creator Will Wright, comic artist Seth and DreamWorks animated feature film director Tim Johnson. Conceived and developed by Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator Bruce Grenville, the exhibition will travel to a New York City arts institution in March 2009.

One of the largest exhibitions ever organized by the Gallery, “Krazy!” will occupy two floors of gallery space and is designed in collaboration with Tokyo-based architectural firm Atelier Bow-Wow-a design team renowned for their understanding of informal culture and ability to enhance communal visual experiences.

Divided into seven sections defined by medium, the exhibition takes viewers through ever-changing gallery environments, including a mini-theatre for viewing animated cartoons and anime, immersive video spaces and innovative reading environments for visitors to experience a deluge of manga, graphic novels and comics.

The exhibition comprises more than 600 artworks, including original sketches, concept drawings, sketchbooks, storyboards, production drawings, films, video games, animation cels, three dimensional models, sculptures, books, manga and much more.

Other participating artists: Lynda Barry, Marcel Broodthaers, Chester Brown, Milt Gross, Pierre Huyghe, Tim Johnson, Harvey Kurtzman, John Lasseter, Roy Lichtenstein, Christian Marclay, Winsor McCay, Sid Meier, Claes Oldenburg, Nick Park, Raymond Pettibon, Seth, Chris Ware

Asian participants include Iwatani TORU, Mamoru OSHII, Mamoru NAGANO, Shigeru MIYAMOTO, Yoko KANNO, Ichiro ITANO,  Moyoco ANNO.

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• more posts on Japanese art
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Asian Art Triennial Manchester UK 5 April – 1 June 2008

INDIA SINGAPORE CHINA KOREA TAIWAN The UK’s first Asian Art Triennial opens 5 April -1 June 2008 and is conceived by Shisha, the UK’s premier international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts, in partnership with Castlefield Gallery, Chinese Arts Centre, Cornerhouse, The International 3, Manchester Art Gallery and Manchester Metropolitan University.  

 

Asia Triennial Manchester 08 shows fresh and innovative work that represents the best of contemporary visual art from Asia: a festival of visual culture that not only celebrates Manchester’s diverse communities but also explores cultural, artistic and political debates of the 21st century. The international programme features stunning venue-based exhibitions, surprising site-specific new commissions, innovative residencies and extraordinary publicly sited work by artists from Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. None of the work featured has been seen in the UK before and for some of the artists ATM08 will be their UK debut. 

 

The inaugural Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM08) programme echoes Manchester’s radical political and social history, reflects new artistic practice, and seeks resonances between the city and Asia by exploring the notion of ‘protest’ – in its widest sense.  

 

Castlefield Gallery is working with Channel A (Hongjohn Lin and Ella Raidel) from Taiwan and p-10 (Woon Tien Wei, Jennifer Teo working with collaborators Jeremy Chu and Kai Lam) from Singapore who will reside in Manchester in the lead up to ATM08. The gallery space will become a hive of activity with both groups presenting new site-specific work that has been developed through their time in the city. 

Channel A will reinvent the identity of the 18th century bogus Taiwanese, George Psalmanaazaar, as an estate agent, in order to explore the notion of property and fantasy in Manchester and Taiwan. p-10 will create a symposium platform for an accumulative research based investigation into different notions of ‘localness’ within the context of the international Triennial and Biennial. Chinese Arts Centre has initiated both a residency and exhibition programme. 

There will be two artists’ residencies, March – April with Chinese artist Mao Yan Yang, who will continue his interrogation of the media’s depiction of events focusing on the Triennial’s theme of protest and May – June with Hong Kong comic artist Kong Kee. 

For the exhibition, the Centre is working with two Mainland Chinese artists, Chen Shaoxiong and Qiu Anxiong, who both use Chinese ink painting in an experimental way. Using their daily life story and a modern city portrait, they create new ink paintings and animation, which illustrate a sense of insecurity of the rapid urban development in China.  

Cornerhouse is staging “What do you want?” with artists Tejal Shah, Jasmeen Patheja, Shilpa Gupta, Surekha and Shaina Anand, all living in India and working amongst a new generation of artists with activist concepts. The exhibition and community project challenges traditional cultural opinion, contemporary political issues and controversial social situations, the artists use photography, performance, sculpture, video and new media to analyse problems faced by Indian women and those living within conventional family structures. 

 

The International 3‘s project features Chinese artist Han Bing whose work uses photography, video and performative social interventions to question everyday living and the impact of human progress. Han Bing’s art manifests a kind of amor mundi — love of the world — investing ordinary objects with a subtle sense of the sacred. For ATM08, Bing is planning to involve approximately 100 local people in the European premiere of a surprising outdoor performance in Manchester on Saturday 12 April. 

Manchester Art Gallery presents contemporary work by two Korean artists, Gwon Osang and Choe U- ram. Gwon Osang makes extraordinary life-size sculptures of people. He uses hundreds of photographic images to build up the surface appearance of his models, including the face, their hair and their clothes. The process gives his beautifully crafted figures both photo-realist and surreal qualities.  Following a recent Manchester residency, Gwon is now creating new work including a sculpture of the musician Graham Massey – best known as a member of Manchester’s electronic pioneers 808 State. This will be exhibited from 5 April together with an existing work Control. 

Manchester Art Gallery also presents Gwon’s first major UK solo exhibition from 21 June – 21 September 2008. Choe U-ram uses precision cut and polished metals, machinery and electronics to create stunning kinetic sculptures inspired by sea creatures and plant life. Two of the artist’s enormous robotic works, Urbanus Female and Urbanus Male, will be exhibited for the first time in the UK in the gallery’s atrium 5 April – 21 September 2008.  

Source: press release 

 www.asiatriennialmanchester.com