3 young Chinese artists awarded prizes at inaugural Caochangdi PhotoSpring

PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL BEIJING AWARDS

As part of the launch of the first annual Caochangdi PhotoSpring festival, held in Beijing, China, from 17 April to 30 June this year, three young Chinese artists were awarded a prize for their outstanding work in photography. The three award winners were selected out of 20 semi-finalists who in turn had been chosen from over 200 submissions from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of the world.

International panel of experts awards photography prize

A panel of international photography experts including Eva Respini (Associate Curator, Photography Department, Museum of Modern Art, USA), François Hébel (Director of Les Recontres d’Arles, France), Karen Smith (Photography Critic and Curator, UK), Kotaro Iizawa (Photography Critic, Japan), and RongRong (co-founder of the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, China) made up the members of the jury and selected the recipient of the Three Shadows Photography Award 2010.

The festival was directed by well-known artist couple RongRong & inri, founders of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, together with Berenice Angremy. The director of Les Rencontres d’Arles, François Hébel, acted as guest curator. According to the event’s website, the award aims to support and encourage new talent and give them greater exposure both locally and internationally.

This year’s 3 winners

The winner of the third annual Three Shadows Photography Award and the 80,000 RMB cash prize was 28 year old Shandong province native, Zhang Xiao. In his They Series of 2009 he deals with ordinary people who, because of their jobs, are often relegated to the fringes of society. The artist describes his work: “In real life, they are a group of very ordinary people, with their own lives and careers, but in these photographs, they seem strange and absurd, and very unreal. Behind this ostentatious city there is always grief and tears, indifference and cruelty. I met them by chance and I longed to understand each of their lives and experiences. Perhaps our daily lives are all absurd. I long to understand the meaning of our existence.”

Zhang Xiao, They Series No.01, 2009. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

Winner of this year’s Shiseido Prize and a 20,000 RMB cash prize was Wang Huan. Born in Shandong Province in 1989, her Alley Scrawl Series (2009) of black and white images was taken of the people, animals and places of the small town of Zhuantang, near Hangzhou. The artist was drawn to recording the lives of its “simple, decent” inhabitants. “It was this simplicity that… made me want to record their lives and engage in this narration about life’s vicissitudes” says the artist.

Wang Huan, Alley Scrawl series No. 2, 2009. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

The haunting black and white works of the winner of The Tierney Fellowship a and 5,000 USD cash prize, Huang Xiaoliang, deal with memory and a yearning for a better future. The Hunan Province-born artist (1985) presented his An Expectation or a New Miracle Series (2008-2009), with its shadows and dream-like images drawn from the artist’s memory. The artist states, “Many things from my memory appear in these works; these things are from scenes that I remember.”

Huang Xiaoliang. An Expectation or a New Miracle Series No. 15 2008-2009. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

Caochangdi PhotoSpring and Arles in Beijing

The photo festival was held at one of Beijing’s top art districts, Caochangdi. Caochangdi PhotoSpring partnered with 40 year old French photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. This is the first time that the Arles’ exhibitions have been shown outside of France.

Caochangdi PhotoSpring offered a myriad of exhibitions from 27 participant galleries featuring both Chinese and international artists. The festival also featured slide shows and discussions, documentary film screenings, book launches and even musical concerts. Some exhibitions and activities run into the month of July.

The main hub of activity, including the venue for the opening ceremony and the announcement of the festival winners, was at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. This centre, which was opened in 2007, focuses solely on photography and video art. The Centre was designed by Chinese artist/architect Ai Weiwei.

The courtyard of the Ai Weiwei designed Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

The semi-finalists: 20 young and upcoming Chinese artists

The semi-finalists, whose work was showcased at the Three Shadows Photography Centre Galleries, are: Chen Ji’nan, Feng Li, He Yue, Huang Xiaoliang, Li Chunjun, Li Liangxin, Li Yong, Liao Wei, Liu Jia, Liu Ke, Mu Ge, Qi Hong, Song Xiaodi, Tian Lin, Wang Huan, Xiao Ribao, Xue Wei, Zeng Han, Zhang Jie, and Zhang Xiao.

Tibetan-born artist Qi Hong submitted hand-painted black and white images of the three gorges damn 15 years after they were taken with the intent “to gradually develop the landscape and life of the Three Gorges that I remember.” His images depict the inhabitants going about their activities of daily life such as boatmen pulling a boat against the current, or mountain inhabitants moving a house.

Qi Hong, Backpacker in the Ra, Three Gorges series. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

With regards to his Stone City Series 2009, He Yue states, “Cities are created by piling things up and such is the case with life and thoughts.” For example, in Moth (2009) we admire the beautiful pattern on the wings of a moth only to realize that it is resting on a toilet seat. Or in Electric cables (2009) we can still find beauty in the pink hued cloud that is hovering in the blue sky, even if this view is intersected by electric cables.

He Yue, Dove, 2009, City series. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

Li Yong presented his Daily Series 2006-2009 in which he documents the effects of rapid economic development in China and its often harmful impact on the environment. One of his photographs depicts a man fishing in a pond that has a partly submerged building in it without any concern as to how this might affect the toxicity of the fish he will later consume. Another depicts a man calmly sitting in the water surrounded by submerged buildings and trees heedless of its possible effect on his health. The artist states, “The people in these photographs are like me in the sense that we cannot change this environment; we can only indifferently accept it and calmly live in it.”

Li Yong, Fishing, 2008, Daily series. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

Song Xiaodi has no formal training but managed to capture the attention of the judges and the public with her images of fish and flowers in ultra-bright colours.

Song Xiaodi, Light Series, 2009. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

Haunting images of China’s Xinjiang region were taken between 2005-2009 by Tian Lin, her series, Children of Yamalike Mountain, depicts the inhabitants of the main shanty town in this region, known as the “slum of Urumqi.” These children, from migrant families, play and live in this dusty rubble with a sprawling modern city as their distant backdrop. According to the artist, tens of thousands of migrant workers from different ethnic backgrounds, such as Uighur, Hui, Han and Kyrghiz live here but with no legal papers or standing.

Tian Lin, from the series Children of Yamalike Mountain, (2005-2009). Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

Taiwanese artist Xue Wei used a scanner to construct full-size images of her body. She had to scan her body section by section between 18 and 24 times to reach her desired effect.

Xue Wei. Self-Portrait - Side, 2005. Image courtesy Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

For more information about the festival visit the website.

Watch for part two of Art Radar Asia’s coverage of Caochangdi PhotoSpring which will highlight a number of exhibitions including some from the Arles program.

Read part two here: Beijing first to host Arles program outside France

NA/KN

Related posts:

• Debbie Han first Korean artist to be awarded Sovereign Asian Art Prize – May 2010
• The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Arts Awards – January 2010
• Hong Kong artist ‘anothermountainman’ debuts solo photo exhibition in UK – April 2010
• Emerging artists Min Xiaofang, Kang Yongfeng and Song Yongjun win Chinese Art Prize awards 2008 – January 2009
• Ullens Center shows three Chinese Contemporary Art Award winners – December 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on award winning artists

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The Problem of Asia: Para/Site art exhibition explores Asian identity in Sydney

PARA/SITE ASIAN IDENTITY ART

Ai Weiwei Beijing: The Second Ring, 2005. Video. January 14 – February 11, 2005. 1 h 6 m

The Problem of Asia, an exhibition presented 30 April – 22 May, 2010 at Chalk Horse Sydney in partnership with Hong Kong’s Para/Site Art Space, deals with an array of issues, not all of which are politically correct.

The exhibition considers how Asia is perceived and constructed, both from within and outside, and the contemporary challenges being presented to societies in general.

The exhibition is proposed as a catalytic, discursive device, activated through the artists that are part of the first installment of this improvised project. The show’s narratives address themes of growth, corruption, memory, history, language, colonialism and freedom.

This project is conceived as a work-in-progress, and is open to other additions and network plug-ins.

Australia is a unique location to launch this exhibition, as its multilayered relationship with the idea of Asia provides a provocative cultural framework.

Curated by Para/Site’s Executive Director and Curator Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, contributing artists include:

Ai Weiwei –      Luke Ching Chin-wai     Huang Xiaopeng     Michael Lee      Leung Chi Wo     Dinu Li      Tintin Wulia

Ai Weiwei’s videos document Beijing ring roads, focusing on the ‘process of pure observation and the nature of time…and the urban reality that defines Beijing’.

Urban reality versus urban utopia is explained through Michael Lee’s Spiral Supermart, a new project from the series Second-Hand City, where rubbles of collapsed buildings arrive at a futuristic factory in China to be analyzed, resurrected and displayed for resale.

Luke Ching Chin-wai and Huang Xiaopeng focus on language, although their research leads them through different concerns from translation software to impromptu Cantonese lessons for Japanese residents.

Dinu Li addresses the problem of Asia with a more direct strategy, through a video performance denouncing corruption, put in context with the inclusion of archival images from Chinese propaganda films.

Leung Chi Wo enacts a new performance based on his My Name is Victoria series, which encompasses references to the colonial past of Hong Kong.

Tintin Wulia’s installation is a research on the notions of nationality/nation/border through the relationship between citizenship, mobility, and political power, and between territory, mapping and cartography.

EW/KCE

Related Posts

• Ai Weiwei is next artist in Unilever Series at Tate Modern – March 10
• This is Hong Kong: video art exhibition highlights differences between Hong Kong and the mainland – March 10
• {Inter}Viewing Possession with Leung Chi Wo, Hong Kong artist at Asia Art Archive – interview – Jan 10
• Embedding the Bed in Public Space – interview Hong Kong artist and ParaSite director Tim Li – Aug 09

Ai Weiwei is next artist in Unilever Series at Tate Modern

Ai Weiwei is first artist from Asia Pacific to create installation in Tate’s Turbine Hall

 

Ai Weiwei, Remembering 2009, 2009

Prominent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will be the next artist in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall for the Unilever series (12 Oct 2010-25 Apr 2011). He will be the first artist from the Asia-Pacific region to undertake an installation there.

In the past year, Ai Weiwei has created the installations Remembering 2009, a memorial to schoolchildren who were victims in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and Soft Ground 2009 in the Haus der Kunst in Munich. He has also had a solo show at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.

Click here for more information at Art Knowledge News.

AL/KCE

Related Posts:

• Picasso of China or voice of dissent? Who is Ai Weiwei? Profile – Sept 2009
• Questioning “Made in China”- Interview Avant-Garde Bejing Artist Huang Rui – Oct 2009
• Liquidity propels prices, Chinese political pop is back – Sothebys Contemporary Asian Art Auction 2009 Hong Kong – Oct 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia to learn more about contemporary Asian artists.

Which museums are collecting Chinese contemporary art? New database just released

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS CHINESE ART

The AW Asia gallery in New York has just released a valuable new resource for collectors and researchers intererested in Chinese contemporary art. Searchable by artist or museum its database, which is available online at no cost, lists Chinese artists held in permanent museum collections around the world.

According to AW Asia, the “Chinese Contemporary Art in Museum Collections” database is the first international compilation of its kind, which currently represents 42 contemporary Chinese artists and 67 domestic and international museums.

Artists include heavyweight internationally-recognised multimedia artists such as Ai Weiwei, Cai Guoqiang, Zhang Huan and Xu Bing, photographers such as Cang Xin, Hong Hao, Weng Fen and Hai Bo, ink artists Gu Wenda and Yun-fei Ji , Cynical Realist artists such as Yue Minjun, sculptors including Zhan Wang  and video artists Yang Fudong and Yang Zhenzhong.

AW Asia, a private organization in New York City that promotes Chinese contemporary art through institutional loans and acquisitions, curatorial projects, publishing, and educational programs.

Although the database is not yet comprehensive, it starts to shed light on which international museums are validating contemporary Chinese art. If you are a curator or museum representative with additional information regarding Chinese contemporary art in a permanent museum collection, AW Asia would like to hear from you. Please write to  info@awasiany.com. 

As the database is still under development Art Radar would like to suggest an additional feature:  a feed so that news sources can be alerted to the latest additions to museum collections. In the meantime, congratulations on creating a useful new resource.

Click to visit the Chinese contemporary art in museums database.

 Related Posts:

• Outlook for Chinese art market – interview with Larry Warsh founder of AW Asia – May 2009
• Top 10 most influential art collectors – April 2009
• Which artists from Asia are in the Pompidou Centre’s collection? – December 2008
• Artist to watch Cao Fei – September 2008
• Art museums suffer in downturn – Nov 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more collector and museum news

SF/KCE

Picasso of China or voice of dissent: Who is Ai Wei Wei? Profile

Ai Weiwei's middle finger at Tiananmen.

CHINESE ARTIST PROFILE

Ai Wei Wei is vying with Cai Guo Qiang to become the most famous contemporary Chinese artist in the world claims Artinfo in its must-read quote-dense 4 page profile produced on the occasion of  Ai Wei Wei’s first large-scale solo show world-wide (Ai Wei Wei: According to What? at Mori Art Museum July to November 2009).

Obedient or defiant? Contemporary Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei who was raised in China and has lived in the U.S for 12 years, integrates his social beliefs into his artwork with audacity and temerity.  Behind the title of design consultant for the Beijing Olympics “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, Ai Wei Wei remains a mystery figure who flaunts multifarious identities:

According to Chinese authorities, he is a dissident to be watched, one whose inflammatory blog needed to be silenced. But to others, the Chinese conceptual artist, architect, photographer, and curator — loathed and loved for his human rights activism — is the courageous voice needed in today’s repressive China.

He’s been called a headline grabber, a master of borrowing from other artists, and a “scholar clown,” and he’s been denounced for criticizing symbols of elitism and authority ranging from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to the Chinese government to the Eiffel Tower.

Ai’s philosophies about society and his willingness to expose and explore the issues are evident in his artwork:

Chandelier by Ai Weiwei. 236'' by 165'' by 165'', crystal, scaffolding, 2002

Chandelier, a satire of the bizarre Chinese state aesthetic in the shape of half a chandelier that hangs in the museum’s entrance lobby.

Snake Ceiling is a serpentine installation formed from hundreds of new black-and-white backpacks sized for elementary and junior high school students. The coiled snake, suspended from the museum’s ceiling, alludes to an aesthetic form, the snake as ancient monster, and the tragedy and systematic cover-up at the heart of the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project, a focus for Ai’s guerrilla investigative activism.

Map of China by Ai Weiwei. Tieli wood from destroyed Qing Dynasty temples, 20 X 70 X 63 in., 2004.

Map of China (2006) is a 3D object made with intricately-assembled old wood pieces and traditional joinery that poses subtle questions and a critique about China’s perceived domination of Taiwan and regions such as Tibet.

Fairytale, premiering at the exhibition, is a 150-minute film consisting of video and images from Ai’s historic 28-day journey with 1,001 Chinese citizens to the 2007 Documenta 12 exhibition in Kassel, Germany.

Not only does Ai unify art and society in his artwork, he is also an activist blogger on the net.

…the high number of school fatalities was due to local officials siphoning money from school building costs. Grieving families said the structures were badly built and collapsed easily during the quake. But officials refused to list the names of the dead students, which could be used to unveil a possible cover-up, so Ai formed the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project with researchers and volunteers who discovered the names of 5,190 students.

Is it a coincident that he’s also the son of Ai Qing, an enemy of the state?

One of China’s most esteemed poets, he was sent to labor camps in northern Heilongjiang Province and western Xinjiang Province for 20 years for criticizing the Communist regime.

A fighter for freedom of choice, Ai also expresses challenging views about the Olympics last held in China and cultural censorship.

The Olympics became a very superficial activity that didn’t lift China into another possible condition but rather created great difficulties for [Chinese] society today.

China is still culturally under strong censorship, so a state museum would certainly never invite me,” he says. “If I have a show, I don’t want to be censored. … That’s not my principle. I don’t care if I ever have a show in China.

Read full article on ARTINFO for more about Ai Wei Wei: his personality, his canon and his views which have led Artinfo to make a bold statement about the importance of Ai Wei Wei.  After this MAM exhibition and

a larger one opening at Munich’s Haus der Kunst in October, Ai may overtake Cai Guo-Qiang as China’s most famous contemporary artist. Although Cai is a skilled, popular showman famed for his spectacular fireworks display at the Beijing Olympics, his work lacks the depth that is so integral to Ai’s many projects.

-Contributed by Wendy Ma

Related Links:

• Wikipedia
• Mori Art Museum in Tokyo
• Art and Culture
• Art Zine China

Related Posts:

• Hugs in Hong Kong by mainland artists formerly branded national criminals – interview Gao Brothers – Sep 09
• Thai Chinese artist Nipan Oranniwesna shows installation art made of baby powder in Hong Kong – review – Aug 09
• Embedding the Bed in Public Space – interview Hong Kong artist and ParaSite director Tim Li– Aug 09
• Young Chinese Artists The Next Generation – book review – Jun 09

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more profiles on contemporary Chinese artists

Ullens Center shows three Chinese Contemporary Art Award winners

An exhibition of the works by the winners of the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards is on at the Ullens Center until December 21 2008.

About the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards

The  awards were founded by Uli Sigg in 1997 as a nonprofit entity to enhance the position of Chinese contemporary art both domestically and internationally. With the growth of the art market in the ensuing decade, the purpose of the awards has shifted to emphasize a critical position on the conversation over what constitutes meaningful art in current Chinese production. In the words of Uli Sigg, “The market is today the dominant force to validate artworks. To balance and enrich this debate, an institution such as the CCAA plays an important role.” The awards offer a platform for artists to become recognized on the world stage and to allow foreign curators to identify some of the most interesting art in greater China.

About the exhibition at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art

”We are really proud to present CCAA at UCCA. In showing the 2008 award winning artists, UCCA is committed to the future of Chinese art and recognizes its value beyond market forces” said Jerome Sans, UCCA Director.

Liu Wei, Tseng Yu-Chin, Ai Weiwei, were selected by a jury committee consisting of

• Hou Hanru, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and Chair of Exhibitions and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute;
• Ken Lum, Canadian artist of Chinese heritage who has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, enjoyed a career in education, and has participated in many major exhibitions;
• Gu Zhenqing, curator and critic in charge of the recently opened gallery Li Space;
• Chris Dercon, Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich;
• Ruth Noack, curator of Documenta 12;
• Huang Du, independent curator and critic who co-curated the sixth Shanghai Biennale;
• and Uli Sigg, founder of CCAA.

The artists were judged on the display of ‘original and unique talent in artistic creation’  to help stimulate debates about artistic value in the currently booming art market.

The exhibition of the winning artists’ works is accompanied by a publication written by Pauline Yao, who received the newly-established Chinese Contemporary Art Award for independent art criticism in 2008. (Buy book here)

Liu Wei (1972) – Best Artist

Liu Wei was born in 1972 and is based in Beijing. His installation and conceptual artworks have achieved great success on the international art scene. In his experiments, he continually revises his system of artistic production and methodically interrogates that which most artists take for granted. He has shaken our understandings of both the definition of contemporary art and the role played by the exhibition in this system. Liu Wei does not fear failure, and often begins again after unsatisfactory projects. In this way, he gestures towards a future beyond the current boom in the Chinese art market against a background of global production and consumption.

 

 

 

 

Tseng Yu-Chin – Best Young Artist

Tseng Yu-Chin, born in 1978 and based in Taipei, is recognized with the Best Young Artist award, creates work characterized by a deep and subtle humanism. He is largely concerned with the role of the individual in the context of a changing contemporary society, especially in terms of the perceived demise of traditional configurations of community and family; his practice, however, is also filled with hope and redemption. His films and videos are in turns compassionate and voyeuristic, pushing depiction of his subjects almost to a point of representational crisis. In this way, he pays homage to the pioneering video art of Zhang Peili while developing a unique aesthetic voice. These pieces often appear as video vignettes borrowed from a particular model of Taiwanese cinema, allowing his work to act as a bridge between the changing modernities of mainland China and Taiwan.

Ai Weiwei – Lifetime Achievement award

Ai Weiwei, born in 1957 and based in Beijing, is recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Perhaps no artist has mirrored the volatile and challenging history of Chinese contemporary art more deeply and accurately than Ai Weiwei. His work has transcended the category of contemporary art and penetrated the very heart of Chinese society, engaging with China’s complex social and political dynamics and contributing to its radically changing architectural and designed spaces.

“These exhibitions and this book will shed more light on the winning artists Liu Wei, Tseng Yu-Chin, and Ai Weiwei. They were selected in a very intense jury meeting and they deserve all the attention the CCAA book and exhibitions can create!”
-Uli Sigg

• Buy catalogue by Pauline Yao at Art Radar shop
• Ullens Center website
• images Liu Wei on Saatchi
• Youtube video Tseng Yu-Chin

More posts on recent art prizes

• Singaporean Yeo Chee-kiongs installation wins richest Asian Art Prize November 2008 
• Korean Canadian artist Tim Lee takes Canada’s premier art award October 2008
• Pakistani artist Huma Bhabha takes Aldrich Museum emerging artist award August 2008

For the latest news on up and coming artists subscribe to Art Radar

Book: Chinese Contemporary Art 7 Things You Should Know

BOOK OVERVIEW CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART

Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know – Melissa Chiu

In China today, contemporary art is readily available in public museums and private galleries in burgeoning gallery districts, and in three new art fairs in Beijing and Shanghai. Abroad, Chinese artists are the subject of museum retrospective exhibitions and grace the covers of international art magazines.

Chinese contemporary art has come of age; yet there are few reference books for the reader who wants a quick but precise history of the field. This book aims to fill that gap. Short and to the point, it is arranged into seven sections outlining the rudiments of Chinese contemporary art: what you need to know about the artists, the art market, and what can legitimately be called a new art movement, perhaps the first great art movement of the 21st century.

Sections:

• Contemporary art in China began decades ago
• Chinese contemporary art is more diverse than you might think
• Museums and galleries have promoted Chinese contemporary art since the 1990s
• Government censorship has been an influence on Chinese artists, and sometimes still is
• The Chinese artists’ diaspora is returning to China
• Contemporary art museums in China are on the rise
• The world is collecting Chinese contemporary art

 Artists:

Weiwei AI(艾未未), Guoqiang CAI(蔡國強), Xin CANG(蒼鑫), Fei CAO(曹斐 b.1978), Danqing CHEN(陳丹青 b.1953), Zhen CHEN(陳箴), Xiuwen CUI(崔岫聞 b.1970), Lijun FANG(方力鈞), Mengbo FENG(馮夢波), Jianyi GENG(耿建翌), Dexin GU(顧德新), Wenda GU(谷文達), Bo HAI(海波), Duoling HE(何多苓 b.1948), Hao HONG(洪浩), Lei HONG(洪磊), Rui HUANG(黃銳), Yan HUANG(黃岩 b.1966), Yongping HUANG(黃永砅), Shan LI(李山 b.1942), Shuang LI(李爽), Tianmiao LIN(林天苗), Yilin LIN(林一林 b.1964), Wei LIU(劉煒 b.1965), Xiaodong LIU(劉小東), Desheng MA(馬德升), Liuming MA(馬六明), Zhilong QI(祁志龍 b.1962), Zhijie QIU(邱志傑 b.1969), Rong RONG(榮榮), Dong SONG(宋冬), Jianguo SUI(隨建國), Du WANG(王度), Gongxin WANG(王功新), Guangyi WANG(王廣義), Jianwei WANG(汪建偉), Jin WANG(王晉 b.1962), Jinsong WANG(王勁松), Keping WANG(王克平 b.1949), Qingsong WANG(王慶松), Shanzhuan WU(吳山專), Lu XIAO(肖魯 b.1962), Danwen XING(邢丹文), Bing XU(徐冰), Lei YAN(顏磊), Peiming YAN(嚴培明), Fudong YANG(楊福東 b.1971), Jiechang YANG(楊詰蒼 b.1956), Shaobin YANG(楊少斌), Xiuzhen YIN(尹秀珍 b.1963), Minjun YUE(岳敏君 b.1962), Fanzhi ZENG(曾梵志), Wang ZHAN(展望), Dali ZHANG(張大力), Huan ZHANG(張洹), Peili ZHANG(張培力), Xiaogang ZHANG(張曉剛 b.1958), Chunya ZHOU(周春芽), Ming ZHU(朱冥 b.1972)

Buy this book on Amazon.

Click here for recent posts on Chinese contemporary art, museum news, market watch, recommended research resources.

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Asians, women show momentum and banks tumble in Art Review’s Power 100 2008

INFLUENCERS ART

Art Review monthly magazine has published its Power 100 list for 2008.  Produced annually since 2001 it is a ranking of the most influential participants in the art world and includes artists, gallerists, auctioneers and collectors.

Trends this year include

• Higher rankings and numbers for women in a market tradtionally dominated by men – Kathy Halbreich is first woman to appear on her own in the top 10. Ranked third, behind Hirst and gallerist Larry Gagosian, she is the newly appointed Associate Director of MoMA, New York.
• Tumbling influence of banks  – as the global credit contagion spreads, financial institutions take a tumble  with both UBS and Deutsche Bank, longtime key art sponsors, ranked 62 and 63 respectively in 2007, falling off the Power 100 in 2008. 
• Asian participants showing momentum or appearing for the first time.

Takashi Murakami (28), a superbrand not dissimilar to Damien Hirst’s model comes in at 61 places above his 2007 ranking for a year that saw a major exhibition of his work, including a Louis Vuitton store selling Murakami’s own branded products, travel across the US and draw record numbers of museum goers.

Ongoing artistic and financial strength in emerging markets has seen new listings for collectors Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova (54) and a strong rise by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (69, from 99 in 2006), with first-time appearances by the Beijing-based Long March Project (93) and Delhi-based gallerist Peter Nagy (95).

 

Asian artists

• Takashi Murakami no 28 (Japanese) wiki site
• Ai Weiwei no 47 (Chinese)
• Cai Guo Qiang 69 (Chinese) wiki
• Subodh Gupta 92 (Indian)  pics
• The Long March Project 93 (Chinese) pics  site

 

Collectors from Asia

• Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan no 30
• Roman Abromovich and Daria Zhukova no 54

Asia-based gallerists

• Peter Nagy Artkrush interview

Entrants are judged on the following four criteria, each of which carries a 25 percent weighting.

1. Influence on art development: entrants must exert influence over the type, style and shape of contemporary art being produced in the previous 12 months.

2. International influence: as the list is international, entrants must exert influence on a global scale rather than as big fish in small-to-medium ponds.

3. Financial clout: entrants are judged on the extent to which they have shaped, moulded or dominated the art market, whether as artists, dealers or collectors.

4. Activity within the last 12 months: entrants are judged on having actually done something during the period September 2007 to August 2008. It’s not enough to sit on your powerful behind.

Survey of Chinese contemporary art at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

CHINESE ART SURVEY MUSEUM to 5 October 2008

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art

This selection of contemporary Chinese art from the Logan Collection reveals a spectrum of individual responses to the utopian dreams that have been driving Chinese society since 1949. Approximately 50 paintings, sculptures, and installations spanning 1988 to 2008 convey a sense of the shadows, masks, and monsters that have haunted the nation’s collective psyche during its process of modernization. The exhibition offers insight into the post-Tiananmen Square art and cultural scene, and features a diverse range of artists.

Artists include: Zheng Li, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Huan, Zhang Dali, Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun, Yu Youhan, Yu Hong, Yin Chaoyang, Yang Shaobin, Yan Lei, Xu Bing, Wang Gongxin, Sui Jianguo, Sheng Qi, Liu Xiaodong, Liu Wei, Liu Hung, Lin Tianmiao, Li Songsong, Li Dafang, Gu Wenda, Fang Lijun, Cui Guotai, Ai Weiwei

See (in new window)

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website
• latest news on survey exhibitions
• more posts on Chinese contemporary art
• latest posts events on now
• latest posts events coming

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Asian artists on show in Liverpool Biennial September to November 2008

EVENT BIENNIAL LIVERPOOL

Celebrating 10 years of commissioning ambitious and challenging new work by leading international artists, the 5th edition of Liverpool Biennial’s International exhibition MADE UP runs from 20 September to 30 November 2008.

Artists from Asia include:

Khalil Rabah

Khalil Rabah (Palestine 1961)

Using narratives that hover between fiction and reality, Palestinian Khalil Rabah’s installations, objects, videos, actions and interventions articulate the effects of war on Palestinian society, its economy and identity.

His ongoing Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind, for instance, which has had manifestations in Athens, Istanbul, Amsterdam and elsewhere, playfully interrogates history as an accumulation of fact and artifice. This fictionalised museum also questions the notion of archiving and the idea of the museum itself as a repository of objects and construction of collective knowledge. Similarly, in constructing a London office for the United States of Palestine Airlines in 2007, or planting olive trees – uprooted from their original home in Palestine – outside the United Nations in Geneva in 1995, Rabah provocatively plays out ownership of the past and reclamation of a future currently denied.

Yayoi Kusama (Japan 1929)

Working across a broad range of media, Kusama is perhaps best known for her compulsive repetition of a recurring vocabulary of forms – polka dots, or phallic tubers, for example – often rendered on bright yellow or red backgrounds.

U-Ram Choe (Korea 1970)

Kinetic sculpture maker U-Ram Choe’s work is a fanciful dialogue of aesthetics and machinery, and explores themes of biological transformation, flight, and movement.

Guy Ben-Ner (Israel 1969)

Low-tech, but ingeniously inventive, Guy Ben-Ner’s videos often centre on home and family, exploring, exposing and exploiting the relationship he has with his children.

Atelier Bow Wow (Japan) and Ai Weiwei (China) are also on show.

See (in new window)

• Liverpool Biennial website
• more news about contemporary Korean art
• more posts about Japanese art
• latest video art news

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