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

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Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander impresses judges of SCMP|ART FUTURES at ART HK 10

PAKISTANI AMERICAN ARTISTS ART PRIZES AND AWARDS ART HK 10

Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, represented by London gallery Pilar Corrias, has been brought into spotlight on the stage of contemporary art after impressing the judges of SCMP|ART FUTURES at ART HK 10 and becoming the winner of the year.

Shahzia Sikander working on a mural in the USA.

Standing out among artists from sixteen galleries that have been set up for less than five years, Sikander won a cash prize and an opportunity to design the front cover of Post Magazine, published by the South China Morning Post (SCMP). According to SCMP, she has been praised by one of the judges, Serpentine Gallery co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist, for being a “very special artist” and a worthy winner.

Sikander’s I am also not my own enemy (2009) was exhibited at ART HK 10. It is a decorative work on paper made with gouache, hand painting, gold leaf and silkscreen pigment on paper.

Shahzia Sikander's 'I am also not my own enemy'.

Since graduating from the National College of Arts in Lahore for undergraduate study and the Rhode Island School of Design for master study, Shahzia Sikander has been “instrumental in [the] rediscovery, re-infusion, and re-contextualization of Indo-Persian miniature painting.” She has worked within a wide range of art genres including painting, drawing, animation, installation, video and film. She was named as an honorary artist by Pakistan’s Ministry of Culture and the Pakistan National Council of the Arts.

CBKM/KN

Related Topics: events – fairs, artist nationality – Pakistani, prizes

Related Posts:

• World’s top collectors and art professionals attend ART HK: a testament to fair’s growing importance – June 2010
• What did the galleries say about ART HK 10? Art Radar Asia speaks to 19 dealers – June 2010
• 15 artists in Hanging Fire, first show of contemporary art from Pakistan in US – video – January 2010
• Shahzia Sikander questions authority with new video art medium at Para/Site in Hong Kong – September 2009
• Asia Society brings historic show of Pakistani art to US Sep 2009 – August 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more coverage on art fairs in Asia

The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Arts Awards

Taipei Arts Awards celebrates works of talented up-and-comers

Four winners have been selected from 380 submitted works in the Taipei Arts Awards 2009. Ni Xiang, Chang Li-ren, Chang Huei-ming and Tao Mei-yu won with large-scale mixed-media installation pieces.

The judging panel was comprised of renowned Taiwanese art professionals Wang Jun-Jieh, Wu Ma-li, Manray Hsu, Kao Chung-li, Rita Chang, Lu Hsien-ming and Wu Chao-ying.

The four winners

Ni Xiang’s Compensation Soon uses handmade cardboard to form the shape of the body of a car and this has been placed over an old style red motorcycle. Both the paper car and the graffiti on the walls show the effort to restore missing parts by drawing in a way often seen on TV screens.

Compensation Soon, Ni Xiang

image courtesy of TFAM

Chang Li-ren’s Model Community is a hand made white-walled apartment community. When the crosshairs of the sniper’s scope fall on residents and the sound of a gun being fired is heard, bullet holes appear in the white walls and the people inside the apartment are destroyed, a scene that is projected onto five screens and can be viewed live from different angles.

Model Community, Chang Li-ren

image courtesy of TFAM

Chang Huei-ming’s Watching Dust In the Sunlight 14:05 portrays afternoon sunlight shining onto a corner of life in which an everyday spilled cup vibrates quickly, the ripples making the inverted reflection of the multicolored curtains in the center of the spilled water hazy.

Watching Dust In the Sunlight, Chang Huei-ming

image courtesy of TFAM

In Tao Mei-yu’s Language, ten LCD screens have been hung in a cylindrical space and people from different countries mimic the call of the same animal, using a picture of a single animal to contrast the linguistic modes of different countries. The artist has attempted to use anthropological observational and measuring methods to investigate the differences in the process of communication in different language systems.

Language, Tao Mei-yu

image courtesy of TFAM

The Taipei Art Awards

Established in 2001 and organised by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Taipei Arts Awards aim to reward works that have unique artistic style and reflect contemporary culture, providing a stage on which new artists can show their talent. Uniquely, the competition does not divide works by medium nor does it limit size.

“The winning works in previous years have been displayed to widespread acclaim, showing that the holding of this competition injects a burst of vitality into contemporary art in Taiwan,” said Hsiao-yun Hsieh, Director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

KN/KCE

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• First of its kind in Asia – Taiwan’s Digital Art Centre officially opens – July 2009
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• Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2008 – emerging artists on show in Hong Kong – October 2008
• Art Fair Shanghai breaks new ground with Best of Discovery emerging artists – Financial Times, Artkrush – September 2008

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Emerging artists Min Xiaofang, Kang Yongfeng and Song Yongjun win Chinese Art Prize awards 2008

CHINESE ART PRIZE
The winners of the Chinese Art Prize 2008 are: Min Xiaofang (Gold) and Kang Yongfeng (Silver). The Viewers’ Choice Prize went to Song Yongjun.
In 2008 more than 1,000 emerging Chinese artists applied for the CAP. The jury narrowed the field to 25 finalists.
Gold Prize winner Min Xiaofang’s renders two meter-tall paintings of children’s homework – mathematics, grammar, English – all graded and corrected in red ink. 10cm-wide patches of white, which looks like correction fluid, add to the authentic appearance of the paintings. In certain pieces, hints of text on the reverse side of the original notebook pages are visible. Female artist Min’s work inspires viewers to ponder the content and meaning of what is being taught to children as if being viewed under a microscope.
CAP Silver Prize winner Kang Yongfeng paints twisted, mangled vehicles, with extremely thick chunks of metalwork-looking paint protruding off the canvas. Kang’s brushstrokes are so intertwined that the pieces appear to be almost abstract when viewed at close proximity.
The top 25 artists’ portfolios can be viewed online at: http://www.ChineseArtPrize.com. Also view other works by the prize winners on the site.
The Chinese Art Prize is the only annual art prize that focuses on young, emerging Chinese painters and hais the highest cash prize, 66,000 CNY [9650 USD], for any art competition in China.

CAP 2008 jury includes:

• Gerard Goodrow (Director, Phillips de Pury, Germany; former Director, Art Cologne),
• Daniela Bousso (Director, Paco das Artes, Brazil),
• Ami Barak (Curator, “Art for the World,” Shanghai World Expo 2010; Curator, Art Forum Berlin 2007),
• Linel Rebenchuk (Director, Toronto International Art Fair),
• Du Xinjian (contemporary Chinese artist and former professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts),
• Alexandra Seno (Writer).

Chinese Art Prize website

Min Xiaofang

Song Yongjun