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

Related Posts:

• ‘A Red Carpet’ for Singapore’s Digital Nights Showcase, courtesy artist Tom Carr – September 2010 – a short news piece on this large scale public projection artwork
• 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

Advertisement

Tsong Pu discusses six artworks: Part I – Chasing lines across space

TAIWANESE CONTEMPORARY ART ARTIST INTERVIEW

You may have read our recently published post on a retrospective exhibition of works by Taiwanese contemporary abstract artist Tsong Pu, which wrapped up this month at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM). To follow up on this some say long-overdue show, we asked Master Tsong, with the aid of a translator, to talk about six of his works, selected by us from a huge body of work started in the 1970s.

Even with a career that spans forty years, Tsong Pu is still a prolific artist. He produces at least thirty new pieces, small and large, each year and this year will participate in three to four exhibitions, some joint and some solo. While he does teach at two Taipei art schools, has some private students and often judges art competitions, most of his time is spent creating new works at his studio in Taipei’s Da’an District and at his home in Huayuan Community (花園新城) in the mountainous Xindian City (新店市), on the borders of the sprawling Taipei metropolis.

Taiwanese contemporary artist Tsong Pu. Image courtesy of the artist.

This is part one of a three part series. In this part we explore two paintings, The White Line on Grey (1983) and Chasing the Horizontal Across Space (2008), created more than twenty years apart, which use Master Tsong’s signature techique, a 1 cm by 1 cm “stamped” grid pattern.

For more on what to expect from the second and third parts of this series, please read the notes at the bottom of this post.

I wanted to start with this image, The White Line on Grey. Why was the title chosen, what was the medium, and why did you use that medium, especially at that time, in 1983?

White lines on top of grey color.

During that era, in the 1970s before I studied overseas in Spain, during that period of time there was a lot of new art thinking, creative thinking, emerging internationally, particularly within conceptual art and abstract expressionism. Some of my seniors, masters, launched an abstract art painting campaign and exhibition in Taiwan.

Tsong Pu, 'The White Line on Grey', 1983, mixed media, 194 x 130 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

They were your teachers in Taiwan before you left?

No, no. They didn’t teach me; they had some influence on me because they had an exhibition. They combined Western abstract expressionism together with some of the Chinese traditional art painting and spirit.

I had the basic principles and knowledge from these masters, so I needed to develop some new things. When it came to my generation [of artists], we developed from the foundation they had built and moved forward.

During this period I tried to perform a kind of active art.

Like performance art, or…?

I intended to elaborate more on my process and development and express my differences from them [those master artists]. I tried to create a new way of thinking about art, a new art form.

And so, what was the performance aspect of this exhibition or this work?

Actually, I was no longer doing expression at the time of this painting [The White Line on Grey]; [I was] not into those very passionate paintings with intense emotion.

I understand. You moved away from what the other masters were doing. Maybe opposite, or not quite opposite?

I was not trying to do those action paintings [the abstract expressionist works by the masters before him]. I wanted more calm and dispassionate works. Because this is a canvas [Tsong Pu gestures at the image of The White Line on Grey], a canvas made of cotton or string. And the canvas itself is a kind of knit work. So I’m trying to use the paint’s grey color, then use the wire, the lines, to mix with the color in the horizontal and the vertical. Create grid boxes with the size of about 1 cm.

Like stitched, or just placed? Like thread art?

It’s wire [on the diagonal]. I used a pencil to make the lines, and I used a chop, 1 cm by 1 cm. [There is a detailed video, produced by Main Trend Gallery, which demonstrates Tsong Pu’s process].

It is kind of like Chinese embroidery, which was very well known in the past. The needle [and thread] follow the lines…one by one…. This way it is like stitching coloured paint onto the canvas.

I did not complete this by myself. I had help from my neighbors, some madams and housewives. We would have afternoon tea, chatting and working on this at the same time.

A closer view of Tsong Pu's 'The White line on Grey' (1983). Image courtesy of the artist.

Oh, so it was a collaboration?

Yes, my whole household, they helped me to finish this one. This feeling is like going back to the good old days when we [Taiwanese people] were in an agricultural society. We had housewives doing knitting and sewing work together, helping each other. So I invited everyone to help me complete this work, just like we were in that period. In Xindian [City], my other studio, I live there now, is in the mountains, and it’s kind of like the countryside.

So, you were using traditional methods and making them new, another way of creating a new painting style by basing it on the old?

Yes. Because of these processes and ideas, this work was totally different to that of my seniors.

So, this work was the first of that kind of painting that was so different in Taiwan?

I’m not very sure. Maybe it is not…. But it is totally different to my seniors’ creations.

Tsong Pu, 'Chasing the Horizontal Across Space', 2008, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 193 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

The 1 cm by 1 cm grid pattern that you make with a chop, I believe this is your most well known style or method, or what most people know of your work in Taiwan or abroad. Is that correct?

This [Chasing the Horizontal Across Space (2008)] uses the same method. I use a chop, too.

So Chasing the Horizontal Across Space and The White Line on Grey are part of a group, a similar kind of style?

Yes.

So the diagonal lines in this painting, what do they mean? Do they have a similar meaning to the diagonal lines in The White Line on Grey?

This one [Master Tsong refers to Chasing the Horizontal Across Space] and this one [Master Tsong refers to The White Line on Grey] have twenty years between them. Everybody is talking about communication, mobile communication, signals. Just like the [computer] monitor; you can see the reflection of the monitor, the light of the monitor. It represents the different kinds of signals in modern society.

So, is this representing many different types of communication crossing each other?

Yes. This [Master Tsong refers to Chasing the Horizontal Across Space] was painted in 2008. In 2008, we were all talking about mobile communication. You look at the computer screen every day, the light from the computer screen. This work tries to express messages delivered via communication in our current world.

And the grid pattern, does it have any relationship, do Chasing the Horizontal Across Space and The White Line on Grey have any relationship to each other, the grid pattern and the overlaying lines?

No. There is no connection. The content is different but the skill, the technical skill, is the same. It’s like a habit. My process and procedure is the same. Just the content is different.

About this series

This Art Radar interview with Taiwanese artist Tsong Pu has been presented in three parts. In part one, Master Tsong discusses two works in which he has used and adapted his most well known technique, a 1 cm by 1 cm grid pattern. In part two, the artist speaks on two very different installation pieces, close in date of construction but not in their theory of development. Part three talks about some of the artist’s most recent installation work.

We have also premised each part with some of the artist’s views on the current Taiwanese contemporary art industry, as developed from his roles as mentor, curator and master artist.

KN

Related Topics: Taiwanese artists, interviews, painting

Related Posts:

• Not-so-underground artist showcased in basement gallery: Tsong Pu’s TFAM solo – June 2010 – Art Radar‘s first post on Tsong Pu contains some excellent biographical detail and more images of the artist’s work
• Controversial “Kamoan” artist Andy Leleisi’uao to complete inaugural Taiwanese arts residency – profile – April 2010 – an overview of the career of a ground-breaking young New Zealand-Samoan painter
• Taiwan’s “father of printmaking” Liao Shiou-ping wins national award – profile – March 2010 – a detailed biography of a Taiwanese master artist
• Three sculptors who influenced the Taiwanese art landscape: Yang Ying-feng, Ju Ming and Pu Hao-ming – February 2010 – essential background information on sculpture in Taiwan
• Touring Taiwan: 50 of Taiwan’s top artworks on display at the Busan Museum of Arts, Korea – January 2010 – wonderfully large images of three of the selected works by modern Taiwanese painters

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on contemporary art in Taiwan

Will Youtube become a new platform for video art? Guggenheim experiments

YOUTUBE GUGGENHEIM VIDEO ART ONLINE BIENNIALS

The world’s most popular online platform for video sharing, YouTube, will soon be put to the test as a potential new platform for art expression in joint initiative with the Guggenheim Museum. Launched this year, YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Videos is a creative video competition and art project committed to the exploration of online video art.

A media and an art institutions are cooperating to find out how the internet is changing the video art form and whether there is art in online videos – an emerging media which is continually establishing new ways to create, distribute and consume videos.

The promotional imagery for YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video.

“This collaboration with YouTube gives us a chance to explore digital media, bring it into the museum, and see how it functions, see if it functions. And through the process learn more about the phenomenon, because we would like to believe that art is transformative.” Nancy Spector, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Foundation (as quoted in the Otago Daily Times)

For the competition, each applicant may submit one original video entry of ten minutes or less that he or she has created in the past two years. When the competition closes for entry at the end of this month, a team of Guggenheim curators will review all the entries and create a shortlist of 200. A separate jury of nine professionals – from various disciplines such as visual arts, filmmaking, animation, graphic design and music – will then select twenty to be screened in four Guggenheim museums worldwide. All 200 entries will be available to view on the YouTube Play channel.

“We are, in a sense, inviting people to raise the standards of YouTube. This is aspirational for people who are interested in seeing their work be taken artistically.” Nancy Spector, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Foundation (as quoted in the Washington Post)

The project provides an opportunity for anyone, albeit art professionals or amateurs, to submit an innovative, original video to YouTube Play to compete for the chance of having his or her winning entry shown in October in four Guggenheim museums simultaneously: the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. The jury is looking for innovative works that debate on, discuss, test, experiment with and elevate the video medium. They expect to see something “different” – not “what’s now” but “what’s next”.

“People who may not have access to the art world will have a chance to have their work recognized. We’re looking for things we haven’t seen before.” Nancy Spector, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Foundation (as quoted in the New York Times)

To express your thoughts and opinions of the biennial visit The Take, a platform for commentary and discussion of the project by Guggenheim-invited guests, staff, and web site visitors.

CBKM/KN

Related Topics: media – video, themes and subjects – technology, events – biennials

Related Posts:

• This is Hong Kong: video art exhibition highlights differences between Hong Kong and the mainland – March 2010 – read about a recent Hong Kong touring video program
• A perspective on Viewpoints and Viewing Points – 2009 Asian Art Biennial – January 2010 – Art Radar contributor Kate Nicholson’s experience of this comprehensive biennial
• Sound art, trickery and time – interview Hong Kong new media artist Chilai Howard Cheng – November 2009 – explores this artist’s innovative use of new media
• Shahzia Sikander questions authority with new video art medium at Para/Site in Hong Kong – September 2009 – What was the product of Sikander’s 5 year study of moving image?
• Bani Abidi on Indian video art, a medium on the rise – interview Tehelka Magazine – August 2009 – names some Indian artists who are working with video as a medium

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more coverage on biennials and art events

Young Chinese artist Lu Yang brings anti-humanist elements to the Hong Kong art scene

CHINESE ART HONG KONG ART GALLERIES BIOLOGICAL ART

Chinese artist Lu Yang has shocked and electrified the Hong Kong art scene with her recent solo new media exhibition, “A Torturous Vision“, held at Input/Output (I/O).

Lu Yang's exhibition "A Torturous Vision" was presented by Input/Output in Hong Kong from April to June this year.

Showcasing her latest music video work Dictator, Lu Yang takes the audience onto a mind-boggling journey that aesthetically explores the biology of control systems in living frogs and amphibians. Progressing from her previous work Happy Tree, which shows living animals being treated with a centrally controlled pulse of electricity in a small tank, Lu Yang extracts some footage from the work and transforms them into highly aesthetical and technical forms that are presented with the accompaniment of sound composed by Wang Changcun.

Lu Yang’s ‘Dictator’ and ‘Happy Tree’ in I/O gallery’s latest bio art show.

“This work was created after I determined Happy Tree would not be exhibited again, and I had to find another way to complete the work besides including living animals. At that time Happy Tree remained incomplete in my mind, and I felt there were a number of possibilities related to the work that still needed to be pursued. I also felt there was a need to complete the work, so I chose to create a music video, but I must say apologetically, that I used the same electrical current to create the video track.” Lu Yang, quoted taken from an interview with Robin Peckham.

Despite Lu Yang’s vow to never again exhibit Happy Tree, she has been persuaded by I/O to show it again alongside Dictator and another video showing the process of applying electricity to frogs. On top of the three video installations, the exhibition also presents canvases showing two of the four projects with which Yang cooperated with science teams, including Zombie Music Box – Underwater Frog Leg Ballet and Ultimate Energy Conversion – Instruman.

Lu Yang is a graduate from the China Academy of Art in the Master of Arts New Media department. Although she is not the first to exhibit bio (biological) art in Hong Kong, nor the first to explore bio art in China, where the art form is growing among young graduates, she has radically challenged the boundaries of art set by Chinese philosophy with her anti-humanistic approach.

The artist expressed to Art Radar Asia that there are certainly boundaries that she sets for her art, but that these boundaries cannot be marked with tapes or frames. Asked how she draws the line between science exploration and science exploitation, Lu Yang made the following reply:

“Since I have not had another professional background for science, I just understand it through self-learning and I create works in between arts and science by combining them. However, my arts are not always in this format; I still have many other different works. My limited abilities in science prevent me from investigating it professionally, but the ultimate goal of science is to serve and explore for mankind, while art challenges certain questions.”

Lu Yang's canvas work 'Ultimate Energy Conversion – Instruman'.

In Hong Kong, where new media art is marginalized and considered quirky, the gallery was established a year ago to become the only art space in in the region that is primarily focused on the genre.

“The only way to raise it [new media art] out of it [the state of being marginalized and considered as quirky] is to engage in dialogues about it.” Rachel Connelly, Assistant Creative Director of I/O

Asked why the gallery decided to show Lu Yang’s work despite its ethical controversy, Connelly says that since the work inspires people to reconsider their identity and know more about themselves, the topic is rich and interesting enough to make the ethical concerns relatively less important.

“A Torturous Vision” has attracted a great range of visitors from tourists and interested individuals to students, architects and engineers. It has provoked conversations and discussions among visitors, – just what Rachel Connelly wanted and expected – while exploring different topics such as the definition of new media art and bio art versus science.

CBKM/KN

Related Topics: Chinese artists, gallery shows, venues – Hong Kong

Related Posts:

• Gao Minglu’s maximalist exhibition blurs boundaries between traditional and contemporary Chinese art – June 2010
• Interventions explore art industry relationships in curator Meenakshi Thirukode’s Guild Art Gallery show: interview – June 2010
• Conflicting views about Chinese impact on art market – June 2010
• This is Hong Kong: video art exhibition highlights differences between Hong Kong and the mainland – March 2010
• Sound art, trickery and time – interview Hong Kong new media artist Chilai Howard Cheng – November 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on new media and bio art

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

Related Posts:

• A Perspective on Asian art Biennial 2009 – January 2010
• Top 17 Asian artists 2009: Art Radar’s most searched artists – January 2010
• 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

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more interviews with art professionals

New technologies for spotting art fakes gain acceptance – Forbes

 ART FAKE TECHNOLOGY

$6 billion a year is the sum the Federal Bureau of Investigations says is paid for forged, misattributed and stolen art. Until now serious connoisseurship and provenance researchers have been the main resource in helping the market to avoid fakes but recent developments in technology now available or currently in development are gaining acceptance says Forbes. And while some technologies are still prohibitively expensive, software tools in particular are affordable and in some cases even free.

Spectroscopy: FTIR and Raman

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy – a staple in medical and weapons research labs for a decade or two – have gained acceptance in the art world in the past five years.

Both provide a nifty way to tell what the ingredients in a surface coating are because there’s no need to chip off a sample of the paint. Just shoot a light beam at a surface–a Raman microscope can zoom down to areas as small as one-1,000th of a millimeter–and then match the pattern of absorbed or altered wavelengths detected to those of known materials. Most major museums still don’t have this equipment, which can cost $100,000 to buy.

Canvas thread analysis software

This software, developed at Cornell University by Professor Richard Johnson, is currently being offered free although there are plans to charge for it later.

 Curators have known for years that the slight irregularities in the spacing of threads in old canvases, particularly those woven on hand-operated looms, are almost as distinctive as fingerprints. Alas, measuring the spacing between canvas threads by hand is painstaking, so it’s virtually never done.

Designed to run on Windows XP, this software doesn’t even require curators to make new scans of their paintings. It interprets the drawer-fulls of X-ray scans that most museums have already taken of their paintings.

Johnson has been asking museums who accept his free software–two of the recent takers are the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Rice Museum in Georgetown, S.C.–to publish reference catalogs of their canvases for use by other curators and art authenticators.

Brush stroke analysis software looks promising

Some experimental new computer programs seem to be able to spot a fake by mathematically comparing brush stroke patterns–how many, how long, how thick–to brush strokes on better-known works by the same artist. Last summer the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam commissioned a forgery of one of its paintings and presented a high-resolution image of the fake along with shots of four authentic Van Goghs to three teams of brush stroke-analysis researchers. All three teams succeeded at ferreting out the forgery.

Penn State computer science professor James Z. Wang, who headed one of the three teams, admits his software probably isn’t good enough yet to catch a master forger whose brush strokes would match the original artist’s closely. But there’s enormous promise for the future.

Forbes for full story

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia