Posts Tagged ‘sculpture’
Posted by artradar on October 20, 2010
USA MUSEUM SHOWS CHINESE PHOTOGRAPHY
AW Asia, a private organisation that promotes the field of Chinese contemporary art through institutional loan and museum acquisitions, curatorial projects, publishing, and educational programs, has released a press release announcing that three major US institutions – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum – will include works by Chinese contemporary photographers in major group exhibitions.
Exhibiting artists include: Weng Fen (exhibiting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), Ai Weiwei and Zhang Dali (both exhibiting at The Museum of Modern Art in New York), Hai Bo, Liu Zheng, Song Yongping, RongRong, Wang Qingsong, Huang Yan, Qiu Zhijie, and Zhang Huan (all exhibiting at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles).
For more details on each exhibition, read the press release below:
For Immediate Release
June 15, 2010
MAJOR U.S. MUSEUMS EXHIBIT
CHINESE CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
THIS SUMMER SEASON& BEYOND
Contemporary Chinese photography is becoming increasingly prominent in the field of international contemporary art. In the coming months, three major US institutions – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum – will include works by Chinese contemporary photographers in major group exhibitions.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently acquired a collection of photographic works by Chinese artists from an anonymous donor. Contemporary Chinese artists whose photography is now represented in the Met’s permanent collection include Hai Bo, Sheng Qi, Song Dong, Zhang Huan, Hong Hao, Wang Qingsong, Xing Danwen, and Weng Fen. The upcoming group exhibition, Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography (July 2, 2010 – February 13, 2011), explores themes of dislocation and displacement in our progressively global society, and will feature work by Chinese artist Weng Fen. The exhibition will also feature works by international artists Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Jeff Wall, and Thomas Struth, among others.
At The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today (August 1 – November 1, 2010) will feature photography by Chinese artists Ai Weiwei and Zhang Dali. This show examines the intersection between photography and sculpture, investigating how one medium informs the analysis and creative redefinition of the other. Bringing together over three hundred photographs, magazines, and journals by one hundred artists, the exhibition showcases work by both sculptors and photographers, including Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brancusi, Man Ray, David Smith, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Kruger, Hannah Wilke, and Robert Smithson. Photographic works by Ai Weiwei and Zhang Dali entered MoMA’s permanent collection in July 2008; this is the first show in which these works will be displayed at the museum in a group-exhibition context.
Later this year the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will present Photography from New China (December 7, 2010 – April 3, 2011). Offering a contrast to the nineteenth-century views of China and other parts of East Asia by Felice Beato concurrently on view in the Getty Center for Photographs, this exhibition offers a cross-section of Chinese photographs produced since People’s Republic leader Deng Xiaoping ushered in a new era of opening and reform in the late 1970s. Highlighting the Getty’s recent acquisition of photographs by Hai Bo, Liu Zheng, Song Yongping, Rong Rong, and Wang Qingsong, Photography from New China showcases several approaches that are characteristic of recent Chinese contemporary art, including performance for the camera, the incorporation of family photographs, and an emphasis on the body. Supplemented by loans of work by Huang Yan, Qiu Zhijie, and Zhang Huan, the exhibition explores such themes as pre-revolutionary Chinese literati, vestiges of the Cultural Revolution, and newly rampant consumerism.
KN
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Posted in Chinese, Photography, USA | Tagged: Ai Weiwei, art press release, Auguste Rodin, AW Asia, Barbara Kruger, Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography, Bruce Nauman, Chinese art, Chinese artists, Chinese contemporary art, Chinese contemporary photographers, Chinese contemporary photography, Chinese literati, Constantin Brancusi, consumerism, Cultural Revolution, David Smith, Deng Xiaoping, Dennis Oppenheim, group exhibitions, Hai Bo, Hannah Wilke, Huang Yan, J. Paul Getty Museum, Jeff Wall, Liu Zheng, Man Ray, photography, Photography from New China, press release, Qiu Zhijie, Robert Smithson, RongRong, sculpture, Song Yongping, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture 1839 to Today, Thomas Struth, USA venues, Wang Qingsong, Weng Fen, Zhang Dali, Zhang Huan | 1 Comment »
Posted by artradar on October 19, 2010
AI WEIWEI CHINESE ART TATE MODERN UNILEVER SERIES INSTALLATION SCULPTURE
Ai Weiwei – artist, architectural designer, curator and social commentator – unveils his work for the prestigious Unilever Series for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall – Britain’s largest contemporary art commission. It features the first living artist from the Asia-Pacific region to be commissioned for this series. Guest poster Pippa Dennis provides an in-depth look into the production and exhibition of this breakthrough installation.
Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei is a sensory and immersive installation which sees the vast 1000 square meters of the Turbine Hall covered with over a hundred million porcelain replicas of sunflower seeds, ten centimetres deep and weighing in at 150 metric tons. Each seed is individually made, intricately handcrafted by over 1600 expert artisans brought together specifically for this project in the city of Jingdezhen, home to porcelain manufacturers since the days of Imperial China.
Each ceramic seed goes through a process of twenty to thirty steps in its production, they are molded, fired and ultimately hand painted. The artist jokes that he made a few himself, but his contribution was hastily rejected by the artisans in charge, such was the level of craftsmanship involved.
Ai Weiwei. Image courtesy of Tate Modern.
“Ai Weiwei has created a truly unique experience for visitors to this year’s Unilever Series. The sense of scale and quality of craftsmanship achieved in each perfectly formed sunflower seed is astonishing. In trying to comprehend their sheer quantity, Ai provokes a multitude of ideas, from the way we perceived number and value, to the way we engage with society at large.” Sheena Wagstaff, Chief Curator, Tate Modern
Initially, the audience was invited to touch, walk on and listen to the seeds shifting beneath their feet. Image courtesy of Pippa Dennis.
The effect is a highly simplistic and subtle creation, yet complex and powerful in its depth and potential for interpretation. The sunflower itself is a profoundly symbolic object for Chinese people. A common street snack shared by friends and enjoyed by everyone, but requiring a certain skill in breaking the husk and releasing the seed in a singular movement of the teeth and tongue. For the artist it has more personal significance as he remembers it as a staple during the Mao years when material goods were virtually non-existent and food was in short supply. At this time he remembers the sharing of them as a gesture of human kindness and generosity in a period of extreme poverty and uncertainty. It was also a symbol adopted by the Communists. Propaganda pictures from this era depict Mao as the sun, and the mass of people as sunflowers turning towards him.
Ai has used the sunflower seed repeatedly in his work since his period in New York, such as Hanging Man (1983), and here this simple motif works to examine the concepts of mass production and traditional craftsmanship, an important aspect of Ai Weiwei’s work. The phenomena of “Made in China” and the association that accompanies it – repetition, copying and mass production – are all themes deeply rooted in Chinese tradition whilst recently they have taken on a new significance in the current geopolitics of cultural and economic exchange.
Ai Weiwei believes the role of the artist is not only about raising issues but transforming them. Here the seeds also raise questions about ourselves and society, what does it mean to be an individual in China, an individual in this world? Individualism in China was heavily criticized during the Mao years but now with its radical economic and urban transformation China’s attitude is starting to shift, particularly amongst the younger generations. Ai has commented “From a very young age, I started to sense that an individual has to set an example in society. Your own acts and behaviour tell the world who you are and at the same time what kind of society you think it should be”.
Each seed is individually made, intricately handcrafted by over 1600 expert artisans brought together specifically for this project ... and goes through a process of twenty to thirty steps in its production, they are molded, fired and ultimately hand painted. Image courtesy of Londonist.com.
Ai Weiwei’s work has always had an element of political and social commentary and he has not only become an important contemporary artist on the international stage but also a leader of social thought in China and the world. He comments, “My art may be political but I never intended to create political art”. However in recent years these themes, particularly for public commissions, have become increasingly prominent and in interviews and on his blog he openly criticises the Chinese government, calling for freedom of press and speaking up for human rights. He has always said his life is ready-made, “I’m my own ready-made”, acknowledging his most significant influence, Marcel Duchamp.
Life for the artist is art, politics and exchange. The act of individuals voicing their opinions and communicating with one another is of great importance to him and his practice. In Remembering (2009), he harnessed the powers of the Internet to recruit two hundred local and regional participants in the research and archiving of the names of the children who lost their lives in the Sichuan earthquake. This project resulted in five thousand names being collated and recorded and is considered the first civil rights activity in China.
In Sunflower Seeds, he harnesses the powers of social media to take his “social sculpture” to another level. Combining online and video technologies, this commission has enabled the artist to engage in a global dialogue about the work. Below the Turbine Hall, Ai Weiwei has installed a series of video booths to record questions and comments to the artist, whilst outside the Turbine Hall the audience can connect with the artist via Twitter. One to One with the Artist also marks a milestone in the Tate’s use of new media technology and the Internet, transforming the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern into a hub of global conversation.
Marc Sands, director of audiences and media at the Tate said,
“In recent years, Tate Media has found a variety of new ways for visitors to engage with the Unilever Series commissions, from iPhone apps to interactive websites. Ai Weiwei’s own passion for new communication technologies has made it possible for us to develop something really special this year, which we hope people around the world will enjoy”.
'Sunflower Seeds' (2010). Image courtesy of Tate Modern.
Originally, the audience was invited to touch, walk on and listen to the seeds shifting beneath their feet. However, after a very enthusiastic response from visitors, staff noticed a fine dust rising off of the seeds, and after it was confirmed that the dust “could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time”, the Tate was forced to cordon the sculpture off. Visitors are still invited to view the installation “from a walkway above the hall.”
The immediate critical response has been extremely positive. The Guardian’s Adrian Searle comments, “I love it. It is a world in a hundred million objects. It is also a singular statement, in a familiar, minimal form – like Wolfgang Laib’s floor-bound rectangles of yellow pollen, Richard Long’s stones or Antony Gormley’s fields of thousands of little humanoids. Sunflower Seeds, however, is better. It is audacious, subtle, unexpected but inevitable. It is a work of great simplicity and complexity. Sunflower Seeds refers to everyday life, to hunger (the seeds were a reliable staple during the Cultural Revolution), to collective work, and to an enduring Chinese industry.”
The Telegraph’s Richard Dorment observes, “For the 11th commission in the Unilever Series, Tate Modern has offered the poisoned chalice to the Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei – and he’s come up with a masterpiece.”
With the seeming success of this event and Tate Modern’s curatorial commitment to show art from new territories, we can look forward to more opportunities to see art from the Asia-Pacific region in such significant spaces as London’s premier contemporary art museum.
About Pippa Dennis
Pippa Dennis is a Chinese art specialist based in London. She has an MA in Art History and spent ten years making documentaries for the BBC before living in Shanghai and working at Eastlink Gallery. She subsequently set up Asia Art Forum, an educational platform to promote the understanding of Asian contemporary art.
HH/KN
Related Topics: Chinese artists, installation art, participatory art, political art, London art
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Posted in Ai Weiwei, Ceramics, Chinese, Installation, London, Pippa Dennis, Sculpture | Tagged: Adrian Serle, Ai Weiwei, Asia Pacific, Chinese art, Chinese contemporary art, contemporary art, Hanging Man, Jingdezhen, Made in China, Mao, Marc Sands, Marcel Duchamp, mass production, One to One, One to One with the Artist, Pippa Dennis, porcelain, Remembering, Richard Dorment, sculpture, Sheena Wagstaff, Sunflower Seeds, Tate Media, Tate Modern, traditional craftmanship, Turbine Hall, Unilever series, video booths | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on October 19, 2010
INDIA FESTIVALS NEW MEDIA ART
Artists, critics, historians and art lovers gathered at the First National Art Week of New Media in late September this year at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh, India, through the collaboration between the National Lalit Kala Akademi and Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi. The six-day panorama is a showcase of contemporary artists exploring new mediums and possibilities when it comes to visual art. According to the Akademi’s chairperson Diwan Manna, “Art lovers will be amazed at the myriad possibilities in art.”
The first four days featured lectures and slide shows by some of India’s best known contemporary artists. For the first day Bharti Kher whose work encompasses sculpture, paintings and installations, delivered her talk. Her featured works tackled the topic of “traditional vis-à-vis modern” while at the same time explored the issues of feminism, class, identity and race.
Bharti Kher, 'Solarium Series I', 2007-2010, fiber glass and metal. Image taken from artnet.com.
Day two presented Sudarshan Shetty and his innovative and uncanny installations that re-establish his reputation as an acclaimed conceptual artist.
Sudarshan Shetty, 'Untitled' (from the Stab-series), 2009, wood and scissors. Image taken from artnet.com.
The third day was for Raqs Media Collective, a group of three media practitioners – Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. In addition to their degrees in Mass Communication, the trio has extensive experience when it comes to curating exhibitions and planning events, as well as working with various writers, architects and directors that have greatly contributed to the contemporary art of India.
Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra’s collaborative work in several diverse media such as painting, sculpture, video and fashion have also been well-received.
On the fifth day, Dr. Alka Pande, curator, professor and author on Indology and art history delivered her lecture. The sixth and final day featured a panel discussion with professors Dr. Alka Pande and Dr. Awadhesh Misra, journalist Rahul Bhattacharya, writer and art critic Dr. Rajesh Kumar Vyas, and artists Sheba Chhachhi and Vibha Galhotra.
Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, 'Now in Your Neighbourhood', 2008, plastic bottles. Image taken from artinfo.com.
The event was an interactive and absorbing series inviting guests, students, critics and art lovers to explore more than the usual two or three-dimensional way of experiencing art. Talks from the artists themselves provided an insight into artistic creation and people from different areas of the industry provided another kind of perspective in viewing the works and Indian art in general.
The National Lalit Kala Akademi and its Chandigarh chapter, the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi are institutions established for the promotion and preservation of the fine arts of India.
CMMS/EN/KN/HH
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Posted in Events, Festival, Indian, New Media | Tagged: art critics, art history, art scholars, art writer, artist groups, Bharti Kher, Chandigarh, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, class, CMMS/EN, collaborative art, conceptual art, contemporary indian art, contemporary indian artists, Diwan Manna, Dr. Alka Pande, Dr. Awadhesh Misra, fashion art, feminism, festivals, First National Art Week of New Media, Government Museum and Art Gallery, identity, India, Indian, Indian artists, Indology, installations, Jeebish Bagchi, Jiten Thukral, Lalit Kala Akademi, Mass Communication, Monica Narula, National Lalit Kala Akademi, New Media, New Media Art, Now in Your Neighbourhood, paintings, race, Rahul Bhattacharya, Raqs Media Collective, sculpture, Sheba Chhachhi, Shuddharbrata Sengupta, Solarium Series I, Stab-series, Sudarshan Shetty, Sumir Tagra, traditional vis-à-vis modern, Vibha Galhotra, Video art | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on October 13, 2010
INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITIONS LONDON VIDEO
Between January and May this year, Indian contemporary artist Jitish Kallat displayed seven pieces, paintings, sculptures and installations, at Saatchi Gallery, London with 23 other contemporary Indian artists in an exhibition called “The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today”. In a video produced by The Economist titled “Jitish Kallat: perspectives on modern Indian art”, Kallat discusses his and the other artists’ work from this exhibition.
In the video, Jitish Kallat reveals what it is about contemporary Indian art that makes it so interesting for him; Indian art today is influenced by almost every aspect of Indian culture and the repositioning of the country on the global map is aiding the development of the art scene.
“The Empire Strikes Back” shows different contemporary Indian artists expressing political statements through their work. The pieces “actually travel and gather art miles…and as they gather art miles in different locations they share and gain meaning.” For Jitish, this repetition of artists’ intentions through different cultural stimulants in different parts of the world remains a great area of interest.
As people around the world are able to access different cultures more easily they feel more empowered to deconstruct the culture code from different places around the world. However, as he states in the video, Jitish Kallat feels that “the world has this peculiar ghostly sense of sameness within which these objects travel with baggage of tales and stories and meanings and metaphors and I think I find this process exciting, challenging and also instructive.”
The first piece discussed by Kallat in the video is Eruda (2006, black lead on fibreglass, 419 x 169 x 122 cm). Eruda is a massive black lead sculpture, the development of which stemmed from a series of photographs of boys selling popular books at the traffic lights. As Kallat relays in the video, this boy represents the spirit of the city, most particularly the quintessential Indian city of Mumbai.
Jitish Kallat, Eruda, 2006, black lead on fibreglass, 419 x 169 x 122 cm.
Related to Eruda, Kallat’s “Eclipse” series of paintings also capture these boys smiling back. The paintings represent someone who not only lives in Mumbai but is themselves a portrait of the city. One of the images in the video reveals that the hair of each boy almost merges together and is actually made up of interconnecting images of people and streets. As Kallat states on the video, this is meant to show that “everyone who lives in the city of Mumbai is somehow tied into one conjoint reality.”
Public Notice 2 (2007, 4,479 fibreglass sculptures, dimensions variable) is an installation using words from Mahatma Ghandi’s historic 1930’s speech. For Kallat, given the everyday rhetoric that has created some sort of terror-affected world, voices such as Ghandi’s become carriers of a message that can help overcome the foolishness of the contemporary world. The piece is large in size which, for Kallat, is central to the creation of the meaning of the piece. However, once the video moves in to focus on the letters it becomes clear that each alphabet is a sculpture of a letter morphed out of bones.
The final piece in the video, Death of Distance (2007, black lead on fibreglass, a rupee coin and five lenticular prints, sculpture 161 cm diameter, prints 46 x 60 cm), refers to two texts that entered the public domain around the same time. The first is the story of a girl who committed suicide because her mother could not give her one rupee for a meal in school due to extreme poverty. The second article is a press release by a telecommunications company which claimed the “arrival of new India.” The press release famously called this event “the death of distance in India” and stated that it would now cost only one rupee to call from any part of India to another.
The installation includes five frames carrying both texts on each frame. They flip according to where you stand. It also includes a coin of one rupee enlarged to a size of an average person from India. Kallat states in the video that the flipping texts “become like reality in India itself: [the] India you see on that day depends on where you stand at that particular moment.”
Jitish Kallat, Untitled (Eclipse) 3, 2007, acrylic on canvas, triptych, 274 x 518 cm.
Jitish Kallat was born in Mumbai in 1974. He received his BFA in painting from Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art and his work has been exhibited worldwide, appearing in New York, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Madrid, Zurich, Amsterdam, Mumbai, and New Delhi.
To see video, click here.
EN/KN/KCE
Related Topics: Indian artists, videos, gallery shows
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Posted in Indian, Jitish Kallat, Painting, Sculpture, Videos | Tagged: "Eclipse" series, alphabet, art gallery shows, art video, black lead, contemporary indian art, contemporary indian artists, Death of Distance, Elena Nikolaeva, Eruda, fibreglass, gallery shows, Indian contemporary art, Jitish Kallat, London, Mahatma Ghandi, Mumbai, Painting, photography, Public Notice 2, public speech, Saatchi Gallery, sculpture, the city, the death of distance in India, The Economist, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, urban art, Video, Video Interview, words in art | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 26, 2010
ART FAIRS TAIWANESE ART EVENTS INTERNATIONAL ART ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ART
Art Radar presents a Sunday at Art Taipei 2010 in nine images accompanied by quotes from Korean gallery director Jung Yong Lee and the refreshingly honest Pearl Lam, panel members at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum, five gallerists presenting their thoughts on the fair, and Australian new media artist Josephine Starrs who spoke at the one of the Art Taipei 2010 Weekend Art Lectures.
Pearl Lam, Director of Contrasts Gallery, and Jung Yong Lee, Director of Gana Art, speaking at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Pearl Lam, Director, Contrasts Gallery, as heard at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum conversation, Asia International Galleries: The Next Movement: “When the price goes up very high it goes down very fast. It happens to design and it happens to contemporary art. So in the last six months people have been very careful and very cautious about contemporary art, but in blue chip artworks like the post-war or the impressionist it is just going up. And there are a lot of private sales, a lot of secondary market sales. So most of the galleries are actually making money from the secondary market.
Collectors are actually referring to the auction prices as a reference and a lot of young collectors need the auction to validate the price. But I have my thoughts about auctions because auction prices, for me, are never accurate unless they are a really high price like 20, 30, 40 million USD 1. Because it’s very easy; you can put a painting in an auction, we can get all our friends sticking our hands up, push the price up…. So my way of seeing things … most of the auction houses are making money from private clients.”
Joanna Li, Fish Art Center, beside Huang Poren's stainless steel sculpture 'What the heck!'. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Joanna Li, Fish Art Center: “This is my fifth time at Art Taipei. In the past two years we have brought brand new artworks [to the fair] and all the artists are Taiwanese. They’re still young, around 26 years old. We also have modern artists…. We have sculptures, oil paintings. We have sold more medium priced artworks…. [The collectors are] from Taiwan, a few customers are from Hong Kong and China.”
Outside Art Taipei 2010's main exhibition hall. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Mizuma Sueo, Director, Mizuma Art Gallery (Tokyo, Beijing): “This is our second time at Art Taipei. Today’s audience, there are so many people … but the last three days a little less. It’s a little less than last year. Sales are stable. We have sold some [works by] young Japanese artists and Chinese artists, but we have sold only one piece to a Taiwanese collector. The other pieces were sold to a Korean collector, Hong Kong and Japan. The audience is mainly Asian.”
Inside Art Taipei 2010's main exhibition hall. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Jung Yong Lee, Director, Gana Art, as heard at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum conversation, Asia International Galleries: The Next Movement: “When the crisis came we had a very hard time,… I’m from a commercial gallery and we have to sell a lot of artwork to maintain our operation. But when the crisis came there were literally no sales for at least six months to over a year. So what we ended up doing was, since we couldn’t find a client who was investing, who was collecting art for their collections, finding clients who were companies and local governments who had a lot of promotional money to spend. We did consulting for companies. We made outdoor sculptures, we decorated lobbies for hotels, the façades of buildings; we did a lot of projects like that. And we also helped to make art parks or small private museums.”
Chen Liu, 'Blue Blossom Standing above the sea', 2010, oil on canvas, 200 x 140 cm. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Junghwa Ryu, Curator, Arario Gallery (Cheonan, Beijing, Seoul, New York): “Art Taipei 2010 is more organised than the last one. Many visitors are interested in new contemporary art and we feel that the Taipei government has supported the fair well with their policy of focusing on an international base. However, the results for the sales are … not good as of now. Hanna Kim (1981, Korea) and Osang Gwon (1973, Korea) have been paid much attention. I guess in general the Taiwanese love a more light and cozy style than heavy and serious.… They are sensitive to trends and new skills.”
Sculptures by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
James Hsu and Elise Chen, Ping Art Space (Taipei): “This is our third time here. Obviously it’s more international this year because there are more galleries participating in this art fair and we have collectors from Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia. In the past we would mainly have Taiwanese collectors…. Five years ago there might be just one Japanese gallery here but after this year there is this reputation in Japan that there is a good market in Taiwan. So this year there are 26 galleries from Japan. Also, in Taiwan, we have this history of collecting contemporary art for 20 years [and] after this period of time you can see that the market is getting better and better. Last year the economic crisis affected the market a lot and so this is like a rebound.”
Digital print by Australian media artists Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, part of their 'Downstream' installation, as exhibited at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
Josephine Starrs, as heard at the weekend art lecture, Recent and emerging trends in Australian media art: “This is some of the work that we are exhibiting here at Art Taipei in the <Encoded> exhibition. ‘Downstream’ explores new ways of representing the relationship between nature and culture. We are imbedding poetic text into [satellite] images of landscapes at particular risk from climate change. The work focusses on the degradation of the Murray-Darling, the largest river system in Australia, but it could be any river system in the world that is in danger from changes in climate.
We have changed the satellite imagery to write text in the landscape imagery, as if the landscape is sending us messages. When we started looking at this landscape imagery we noticed that the river almost looked like writing already. So we decided to change the river and embed this text from a famous Australian poem. The words say, ‘and the river was dust’.”
Shen Bo-Cheng's 'Read- Lleine Eschichte Der Photographie' (2010), exhibited as part of Art Taipei's MADE in TAIWAN - Young Artist Discovery event. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
E.D.Lee Gallery Co., Ltd (Taipei): “We have been to Art Taipei twice. This year it is more international, a lot of foreign galleries have joined us here and there are a lot more people. We have sold many works today. This year all of our artists are from Taiwan. Almost all of our collectors are Taiwanese but we also have collectors from Japan and Korea.”
Yan Chao, 'The Width of the Strait', 2009, mixed media on canvas, 150 x 180 cm. Image property of Art Radar Asia.
We hope to bring you more on Art Taipei 2010 in the coming weeks, including an overview of what was said at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum sessions and public art lectures we attended.
KN
Related Topics: art fairs, collectors, business of art, gallerists/dealers
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Posted in Business of art, Collectors, Events, Fairs, From Art Radar, Gallerists/dealers, Globalization of art, Interviews, Overviews, Professionals, Promoting art, Taiwan, Venues | Tagged: 2010 Art Taipei Forum, Arario Gallery, art auctions, art collectors, art fairs in Asia, Art Taipei 2010, Art Taipei 2010 Weekend Art Lectures, Asia International Galleries: The Next Movement, Asian art auctions, Asian art fairs, Australian new media art, Blue Blossom Standing above the sea, blue chip artworks, Chen Liu, Chinese collectors, climate change, Contrasts Gallery, curator, Downstream, E.D.Lee Gallery Co., economic crisis, Elise Chen, Encoded, Fish Art Center, from Art Radar, gallery director, Gana Art, Hanna Kim, Hong Kong collectors, Huang Poren, installation, James Hsu, Japanese collectors, Joanna Li, Josephine Starrs, Ju Ming, Jung Yong Lee, Junghwa Ryu, Kate Nicholson, Korean collectors, Leon Cmielewski, Ltd, MADE in TAIWAN - Young Artist Discovery, Mizuma Art Gallery, Mizuma Sueo, Murray-Darling, Osang Gwon, Pearl Lam, Ping Art Space, poetry, private sales, Read- Lleine Eschichte Der Photographie, Recent and emerging trends in Australian media art, Sakshi Gallery, satellite imaging, sculpture, secondary market, Shen Bo-Cheng, Taiwanese collectors, The Width of the Strait, Viki Kuo, What the heck!, words in art, Yan Chao | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 10, 2010
Steven Pettifor, author of 'Flavours - Thai Contemporary Art'.
THAI ART BOOK WRITER INTERVIEW
Thailand has long had a small but very vibrant contemporary art scene. Compared with its recently-flourishing neighbours, however, contemporary Thai art hasn’t been getting much attention. Little has been written about it. Back in 2003, Bangkok based Briton Steven Pettifor decided to address this problem with his book Flavours – Thai Contemporary Art.
Flavours was listed on a reading list for newcomers interested in Southeast Asian art, as reported in an earlier Art Radar post. With 23 profiles of artists of different mediums (painting, sculpture, textile, costume, installation, ceramics and photography), the author hoped to provide exposure of Thai artists outside their home country, and to give readers “a ‘taste’ of Thailand’s burgeoning contemporary visual arts.”
It’s now been seven years since the book was first published and much of Thailand’s contemporary art scene has changed. Art Radar Asia caught up with Steven Pettifor to find out more about his book, and to see what he thinks of the country’s current art movement.
Most importantly, this interview has revealed that there is now more non-Thai Asian art able to be viewed in Thailand. Local art galleries are teaming up with other Asian galleries to bring non-Thai Asian art into Thailand and foreign artists are now viewing Thailand as a place to set up professionally. He also identifies a number of important emerging Thai artists and names some of the top collectors of Thai contemporary art.
What prompted you to write Flavours?
I’d been writing about Thai art for about seven or eight years. I was starting to build up quite a body of artists that I’ve written about and covered. There was only one other book on Thai art written in English up until that point, and that was Modern Art in Thailand by Dr. Apinan Poshyananda. His book went up to 1992 and then after that it was nothing, and 1992 was the year I arrived in Thailand, so I felt like filling in the gap from that period onwards. That was my intention.
I was floating the idea for about a year or two before I actually found someone who wanted to collaborate and publish it, and Thavibu Gallery said yeah okay, we’ll be interested in doing it, we might be able to find someone to back it financially, which they did. They found Liam Ayudhkij, who is the owner of Liam’s Gallery in Pattaya. He’s been collecting art here for thirty, forty years. So Liam kindly backed it. That’s how the book came about.
'Flavours - Thai Contemporary Art', published by Thavibu Gallery.
What were the main issues and challenges for you when writing and researching Flavours?
I wanted the book to broaden the message about Thai art. I didn’t want to keep the book an academic book, purely for an already art-affiliated readership. I wanted to move beyond that and try and get more general public interest in Thai art. So one point was to keep it accessible in terms of language and to try and cover as broad a scope as possible within a coffee-table sort of format. That was one challenge.
Another was to try and cover as many different mediums as possible, so it was finding sculptures, paintings, installations, photography… I tried to cover as many mediums as possible, and that wasn’t easy, given that some of the less popular mediums… it was hard to find good quality artists working in that field.
Tell us more about your selection of artists in Flavours.
Medium was one big consideration. Also, their career point. I tried to get as many young artists or emerging artists or mid-career artists, so that the book would have relevance ten years on. It’s six years old now and most of the artists are still in their mid-careers. I didn’t want to pick artists that were in their twilight years or have passed away. People ask me why didn’t I include Montien Boonma, who’s considered the father of installation art here. I included him in the overview essay, but because he has passed away, I didn’t want to profile him, because there wasn’t so much currency. His career is not still being carried on, basically.
How did your interest in art, and in Thai art, evolve?
As early I could remember, I could draw and paint. Not self-taught as such, but it was there from an early age. I don’t come from an artistic family at all, so it was never really nurtured as such. But when I reached high school, I then got pushed toward art, just because they saw my natural talent or whatever. So the interest in art has always been there, but I’d say from high school onwards it was developed by teachers.
…It’s not so much as a passion for Thai art. The main art that was in view in Thailand was Thai art, and you just got into it. I got to meet a lot of the artists quite quickly and I found it quite interesting to be thrown in on that level. Back in 1997, there weren’t so many foreigners involved in the art scene and everyone was quite accommodating, inviting you to their studios and things like that. So it was interesting. You got to feel involved.
What makes Thai art different from other Asian art?
Buddhism is quite predominant here. Sometimes that can be good, sometimes that can kind of almost saturate the art that is produced here. If you look at Burmese art or what’s coming out of places like Laos, you’ll see a lot of Buddhist imagery as well. Places like Indonesia and Vietnam… the art being produced in those places is not so religious-focussed. Religion would be one aspect that defines a lot of the art that is made here. Not necessarily the art that is hitting international levels. They tend to deal with work that is more universal, or themes that would fit more into the international art interest. But across the board, a lot of them deal with Buddhist subject matter.
Santi Thongsuk, 'I'm Glad I'm Dead Year', 2000, oil on canvas.
Another thing would be the craftsmanship. I do see it elsewhere in Asia, so it’s not necessarily different but there are different kinds of crafts that are brought into Thai art. Chusak Srikwan uses shadow puppetry, but he does things like modern politicians and symbols of corruption. Montri Toemsombat has used silk weaving and silk crafting in the past. There’s this attention to craft. A lot of technical training goes on here, so they get very good grounding in the technical aspects of art training, so that comes through very strongly as well.
Chusak Srikwan, 'Birth-Age-Ailment-Death', 2009-10, leather carving.
Tell us about the artist training system in Thailand.
It’s pretty much similar to anywhere else. It’s art school, mainly. It’s an emerging thing. Art school is expanding constantly and courses are expanding constantly here, but it’s still largely focused in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, with a couple of provincial centers in the north-east and in the south. A lot of young wannabe artists, when they graduate here, will go through assisting a senior artist in a studio for a couple of years. Again, that’s comparable to anywhere else as well. But I find it quite good that artists get a lot of hands on training through working with the artists when they graduate.
Is the Thai art scene receiving greater external interest, as compared with before?
It was anticipated here around the early 2000s on that there would be a lot more interest on the back of the increased focus towards Asia, with China and India doing very well. Vietnamese art in the mid to late 90s kind of opened up a lot. And it was always expected that there would be more people coming in for Thai art, and for a while there was. There’s a lot more Thai artists now included in biennales and triennales and international thematic shows, but I would say that is comparable to just part of this larger focus on finding art in Asia. I would also say in the last couple of years it has slowed down a lot. Since the coup in 2006, and the financial recession in late 2008, the commercial aspect of art has slowed down quite a bit. But I don’t think it’s just here, I’d say it’s everywhere.
Do Thai artists see international acceptance as one of the criteria for success? How does that compare with domestic recognition?
There are artists here that are quite content to work on the domestic level, but they have to work within a fairly narrow framework in order to succeed there. And then there are those who desire and need the international exposure in order to continue making art of that kind of calibre.
You mentioned in Flavours about a gap between the public and the local art scene, citing insufficient education and exposure as a major problem. Has the situation improved?
Things like education are not going to improve overnight. There are more universities and higher education establishments offering art related courses. But for your average state sponsored school, like high school, there’s still going to be a very limited art practice beyond basic drawing techniques and painting.
But in terms of accessibility, they are trying to change things. They’ve opened the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) here in the last two years, which is a major art center in the heart of downtown. It was always the intention to put it in a very commercial area so that it would be on the consumers’ door step. So they’re hoping to draw in the public to look at art and find out what art is. And there’s another plan to build a national art center in Bangkok. But that’s all very Bangkok-focused.
…one way the void is being filled in the provinces is that some of the artists that have either come from different provinces or have gone there to settle or to set up a studio have built artist-gallery-public places – places to promote their own work, but also places to give something back to the community. Up in Chiang Rai, Thawan Duchanee is a good example of an artist that has made his work open to the public.
Montien Boonma, 'Drawing of the Mind Training and the Bowls of the Mind', 1992, held in the collection of Chongrux Chantaworasut.
How has the local art scene changed since you published Flavours?
There are a lot of commercial galleries that have opened up in the last five to ten years, but a lot of them have a less than five-year shelf-life. A lot of galleries are still set up here by people who have an interest in art, but I wouldn’t say that they are specifically trained in how to operate a gallery on a professional level. A lot of them have opened galleries because it’s their passion, but managing it on a professional level doesn’t always work out the way they expect. It’s still tough to make a profit here as a commercial gallery. There’s been a few more non-profit spaces opening as well, but they’re even harder to manage and sustain with no profits coming in and it’s hard to find sponsorship to back spaces like that.
One thing that I think is important to push is that there’s been more diversity of art that’s been on view in the last five years or so. When I first started looking at art thirteen years ago here, it was very Thai. Most of the galleries were showing Thai. Any foreign or overseas art would predominantly be at university spaces and would be by visiting lecturers or hookups with overseas institutions. But now, in commercial spaces, more regional art is certainly being seen. Thavibu Gallery bring in Vietnamese and Burmese art. Gallery SoulFlower, which just closed last year, brought in Indian art on a regular basis. Tang have a gallery in Bangkok, and they bring in a lot of good quality, high-profile Chinese art. And there’s a couple of galleries that bring in Japanese artists, and you’ll see Indonesian art here every now and then. So there’s been more exposure to regional and international art.
Another development is there’s been more foreign artists coming and spending time here, trying to work out of here. Some just setting up their own studios and still working with their galleries overseas… others coming here to make a goal out of it, trying to get involved with the Thai art scene. If I look at foreign artists based here thirteen years ago, it was more of people using art as hobby rather than a serious pursuit. But now I would say that there’s a lot more foreign artists here that are serious about art making and trying to make a career out of their art here as well.
What is the biggest problem facing the Thai art market at the moment?
There are probably only around fifty viewing spaces in Bangkok that attempt a regular or an occasional exhibition schedule, but not of huge amount of that translate into sales. I would say only a dozen or so galleries here manage themselves towards a sustainable and professional gallery that also tries to promote its artists beyond Thailand.
Can you name some interesting galleries and non-profit spaces for our readers to explore?
It’s a bit of a self promoting thing, but I initiated the Bangkok Art Map, which is a useful tool for people arriving in the city wanting to see art, or people living in the city wanting to see what’s happening on a monthly basis. It’s a map of the city’s galleries with the regular exhibition calendar plus highlights of what’s on, and a spotlight focus every month.
…obviously I have to say Thavibu Gallery, because they published my book, and I’m working with them this year on a curatorial project for the course of a year called “3D@Thavibu“. That is my conscious effort with the gallery to promote small-scale sculpture in Thailand towards more collecting base and to push emerging sculptors here that don’t get seen in so many galleries here.
There’s H Gallery, another professionally-run gallery. It’s run by an American, H. Ernest Lee, and it’s in a beautiful colonial-style building. One of the best galleries running in terms of putting their artists into biennales and working with some of the major Asian and Thai artists is 100 Tonson Gallery. Ardel Gallery is run by a Thai artist called Thavorn Ko-udomvit, who curated the Thai Pavilion for Venice last year. DOB Hualamphong brings in artists that are not necessarily commercially minded. Numthong Gallery has been a gallery that’s done very well over the years. [Mr. Numthong Sae-tang] runs a fairly small space out of a co-op building, but he attracts some of the big name Thai artists to work with him, because he tries to help them out and he’s a very good supporter of the artists when they come on board. Obviously the BACC is a place worthy of visiting.
Which artists have been doing interesting things recently in your opinion?
There are quite a few artists. The big names are already on the radar. People like Navin Rawanchaikul, Chatchai Puipia, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Sakarin Krue-on… these are all very good established artists.
Maitree Siriboon, ''Isarn Boy Dream" series, 2008, photography.
On the younger front, I like Maitree Siriboon. He is an artist I think is worth watching. He’s been using photography to photograph himself to examine his identity as an openly gay guy from Isarn. He deals with the rural to urban migration, exploring on a sensory level what it means for him as an artist and as an openly-gay person to move from the provinces to Bangkok. Yuree Kensaku, a Thai-Japanese artist; I like her brand of painting. She’s also doing some sculptural work. I like Yuree’s work a lot. There’s Tawan Wattuya. He does watercolours, very loose watercolour paintings, all about conformity and uniformity in Thai society. He’s done a lot of paintings of groups of Thais in uniforms. There’s a strong sexual element to a lot of his works as well. Also Sudsiri Pui-Ock in Chiang Mai.
Yuree Kensaku, 'The Killer from electricity authority', 2009.
Are there any major collectors of Thai art?
There’s Narong Intanate. He has been collecting more conventional Thai art – modern Thai artists but not necessarily contemporary. But he’s recently started to branch out into contemporary. Disaphol Chansiri has a really interesting collection of Thai and international contemporary art. His collection is open by appointment, he’s housing it in an apartment space that he’s opened up as an art-viewing space on Sukhumvit Road. His collection is very contemporary, probably the most contemporary I’ve seen in terms of the artists he’s collecting. Jean Michel Beurdeley is a French collector who has lived here for decades. He has a collection that he opens up in quite a nice traditional Thai house where he lives. Again, viewable by appointment only. One more worth mentioning is Petch Osathanugrah. He’s collected contemporary domestic art. I don’t think his collection is housed in any permanent space at the moment. For awhile he was going to open a private museum, but I don’t think that has materialised.
Are there any books or websites you would recommend for learning more about Thai contemporary art?
I would say our website, the Bangkok Art Map, would be a site to mention. The Rama IX Foundation is very well supported. Until recently, they’ve focused more on senior conventional artists. I think there’s more diversity to their website, but there’s a lot of contemporary artists not on there. But it’s a good website. Several of the gallery websites have good listing info.
As I said before, there are only two books out there, Modern Art in Thailand and Flavours. They’re the only two English-language books that have been written on Thai art in the last fifteen years.
About Steven Pettifor
Born in 1968 in London, Steven Pettifor graduated with degrees in fine arts from both the Wimbledon School of Art and Liverpool Polytechnic. The writer-artist-curator has been living in Thailand since 1992, immersing himself in the local contemporary art scene. He is currently the Thailand Editor for Asian Art News and World Sculpture News.
VL/KN
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Posted in Asia expands, Buddhist art, Classic/Contemporary, Critic, Handicraft art, Interviews, Migration, Painting, Photography, Political, Religious art, Sculpture, Social, Steven Pettifor, Thai, Urban, Writers | Tagged: 100 Tonson Gallery, Apinan Poshyananda, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Ardel Gallery, art market, art recession, art writer, Asian art, Bangkok, Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre, Bangkok Art Map, Buddhist art, Chatchai Puipia, contemporary art, Disaphol Chansiri, DOB Hualamphong, Flavours - Thai Contemporary Art, Gallery Soulflower, H Gallery, handicraft art, installation art, interview, Jean Michel Beurdeley, Maitree Siriboon, Montien Boonma, Narong Intanate, Navin Rawanchaikul, Numthong Gallery, Painting, Petch Osathanugrah, photography, Rama IX Art Museum Foundation, Sakarin Krue-on, sculpture, Steven Petiffor, Sudsiri Pui-Ock, Tang Contemporary Art, Tawan Wattuya, Thai art, Thai artists, Thai contemporary art, Thailand, Thavibu Gallery, Thawan Duchanee, Viola Luk, Yuree Kensaku | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 5, 2010
INTERVIEW ASIAN ART MUSEUM CONTEMPORARY ART PAKISTANI ARTISTS
Revolutions come far and few in between in the museum world. This season promises to be different. The Musée Guimet, France’s leading ancient Asian art museum, has opened its doors to contemporary Asian art for the first time since its inception in 1898. Leading the transition from the museum’s rich history of antique collections to a contemporary view of art is a show called “Perpetual Paradox”, featuring works by Pakistani artist Rashid Rana.
The director of Musée Guimet Jacques Gies, who is also one of the curators of the show, says of this move,
The museum is much more than a safety-deposit box for antiques. In view of the value of the Asian dynamic in our modern-day world – where Asian cultures are for the first time in Western history making a place for themselves that grows larger every day – the time has come, we believe, to reflect on and reconsider our notion of the museum.
Rashid Rana, 'Red Carpet', 2007.
Art Radar Asia spoke with Jacques Gies and Caroline Arhuero, curators of “Perpetual Paradox” at the Musée Guimet about, among other things, what the move means for the Musée Guimet and the museum world in general.
Since 1945, Musée Guimet has been home to a prestigious, one of a kind collection of ancient Asian art. With “Perpetual Paradox”, the museum exhibits contemporary art for the first time. What prompts this foray into contemporary Asian art? Does the museum have plans to build a contemporary Asian art collection?
This policy of the ‘Contemporary Factory of Art’ will to be the spearhead of a new acquisition policy, in resonance with the collection. This is in order to extend the historical competency of the museum until the contemporary time and also towards the future.
How did the curators zero down on Rashid Rana?
We heard of the artist’s name from the president of Sotheby’s France, Mr. Guillaume Cerutti, and then we conducted the research and here we are today.
Tell us about the experience of working with Rashid Rana on “Perpetual Paradox”?
With the artist, a very positive working relationship … hearing each other out. So, we were able to well place his works, with his agreement, within the permanent collections of the museum.
How does this experience compare with other shows you have organised?
Last year, at the first ever exhibition of the “contemporary art factory”, with the living artists Hung-Chih Peng and Chu Teh-Chun, we experienced the same great interest for this difficult exercise. Moreover, these artists [are] very aware of the quality of the ancient works [currently in the museum], even showed some concern about this challenge. Only the greatest [contemporary artists] have this modesty.
What challenges have you faced? What have you enjoyed the most? What has surprised you the most as the curator of “Perpetual Paradox”?
They were numerous, as this exhibition by principle requests a tricky solution to avoid “over interpretation”. [We needed to] create dialog between the works, those of Rashid Rana and the historical collection, without over interpretation [and] find the secret link that can give each his dimensions. The greatest satisfaction is that this setting was rewarding because it was just. My surprise was to see the first works by R. Rana – especially the “sculptures” – integrated particularly well [into the museum’s collection]…
The exhibition, “Perpetual Paradox”, places Rana’s “paradoxical” pieces amongst ancient Asian art pieces. This opens up several dialogs between the past and the present. How have the curators and the artist envisioned this?
The cross-historical dialog is precisely what we want to give [and] to see … integrate the work of a contemporary artist, that with this stimulus somehow our audience may feel the contemporary dimension of the works from the past … the museum can be this link crossing all times. Aren’t we [the viewer] the contemporary of all creations of art, as we receive them in the present, from the paintings [at] Lascaux to contemporary pictures?
Can you name some of the works in “Perpetual Paradox”? How did the curators narrow down on the works?
The selection of the works was made in consultation with the artist. It can be looked at it [in] fives ways: (1) “The Idea of abstract”; (2) “Transcending Tradition”; (3) “Real Time, Other Spaces”, (4) “Between Flesh and Blood”; and (5) “Self in other”.
Rana’s work is truly contemporary in the way he uses technology. His content is driven in some ways by the presence of technology in our lives. But at the same time, his free use of traditional motifs sets him apart from a lot of artists. How would you place this contradiction within Rana’s work? What is it that you think makes him an important artist today?
Here is precisely the paradox! But there is no contradiction between the use of a process, a very modern technology, and the ancient subjects. This is precisely because he assumes both…
This is the second showing of Rana’s work in France, after the first at a group show in 2006. How have the viewers responded to Rana’s work?
It seems this is the first exhibition of this scale in France, certainly for a monographic exhibition. The first ever reactions, including [those] from the staff of the museum, are extremely positive. They see a new step in the policy of the Musée Guimet.
Museum shows are stepping stones in an artist’s career. This is Rana’s eighth museum show in nine years. “Perpetual Paradox” is also his first solo in France. What do you foresee for this prolific artist?
We are convinced of the large stature of the artist R.Rana. It is clear that his name will shine; that he will be an artist contributing to a refocus of the international artistic scene in Asia.
What would you say about the growing interest in Asian contemporary art? Do you see a substantial change in the last, say ten to fifteen years?
Definitely. This is a question we could not imagine five years ago.
Are there more contemporary shows in the pipeline at the Musée Guimet?
Of course. We underline it, a coherent policy with the title “Contemporary Factory of Art in Asia”.
Interview ends.
About Rashid Rana and “Perpetual Paradox”
Trained as a painter, Rana is well known for using a variety of media like photography, video and installations, but dislikes being called a photographer, video-artist or sculptor.
Rashid Rana, 'Sites_1-C Print+ DIASEC', 60.96cm x 91.44cm, 2009.
In “Perpetual Paradox”, Rana’s work in digital imaging allows him to associate opposing elements in the same piece by inlaying micro-photographic details and creating pixellated images. By associating the seen with the unseen, the artist highlights the hostility between cultures, holding responsible those who create today’s images and therefore play a role in the construction of tomorrow’s traditions. Rana says of his work,
In this age of uncertainty we have lost the privilege of having one world view. Now every image, idea and truth encompasses its opposite within itself.
Rana made his mark on the Asian art circuit with his first-ever international show in 2004 at New Delhi’s Nature Morte art gallery run by Peter Nagy. Thematically, Rana’s work express a solid affiliation with the miniature arts tradition but his fascination seems to be with the idea of “gestalt” – that the whole is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
For instance, in a 2005 show called “Beyond Borders: Art of Pakistan” at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Rana’s Creating Identity showed the human body as the sum of a thousand fragmented pieces which were put together in a way such that one could see visible cracks between each fragment. Viewed from afar, the digital print showed people with their gaze affixed at the sky during a National Day Parade. On closer view, it became apparent that the bodies were made up of miniature images of scenes from Bollywood films, an obsession shared by people across the India-Pakistan border.
Similarly in a 2010 show called “Hanging Fire” at Asia Society, New York, showcasing Rana’s “Red Carpet” series, the carpet works as a euphemism for buyable cultural memories and heirlooms.
Rana’s images work to undo the intricate beauty and cultural historicism of the carpet and create a new layer of meaning by appropriating gory, actual photo-images comprising thousands of tiny images, “pixels”, depicting the slaughter of goats as prescribed by Halal law. Rana’s works impact through a series of additions, subtractions, cultural associations and interpretations, all the while challenging one’s “one world view”.
AM/KN
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Posted in Acquisitions, Art spaces, Asia expands, Caroline Arhuero, Carpet art, Collectors, Computer animation software, Curators, Events, France, From Art Radar, Installation, Interviews, Islamic art, Jacques Gies, Museum collectors, Museum shows, Museums, New Media, Pakistani, Photography, Professionals, Rashid Rana, Sculpture, Venues, Video | Tagged: Ananya Mukherjee, antique art, antiques, art acquisition, art acquisitions, art curators, art interviews, art relics, Asia Society New York, Asian art, Asian art museums, Asian art scene, Asian Contemporary Art, Beyond Borders: Art of Pakistan, Bollywood, Caroline Arhuero, Chu Teh-chun, classic/contemporary trend, Contemporary Factory of Art, Creating identity, digital photomontages, digital printmaking, France, Gestalt, Guillaume Cerutti, Halal Law, Hanging Fire, Hung-Chih Peng, installations, Jacques Gies, Lascaux, Miniature arts, monographic exhibition, Musee Guimet, museum acquisitions, museum collectors, museum curators, museum exhibitions, Museum policy, Museum shows, Museum solo, Museums, National Gallery of Modern Art Mumbai, Nature Morte, New Delhi, Pakistani art, pakistani artists, Paris, Perpetual Paradox, Peter Nagy, photography, Pixels, Rashi Rana, Red Carpet, sculpture, Solo show, Sotheby's France, Video | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 4, 2010
INTERNET TV 3D ART VIDEO
Art Radar Asia brings you yet another insightful video from Internet channel ChooChooTV’s show [art]attack. This four minute production allows Hong Kong-based social artist Luk Tsing Yuen to explain his art output and offers viewers a chance to share space in his studio.
Luk Tsing Yuen
A fairly young artist, Luk Tsing Yuen received his BA in 2005 and is currently a student of Art and Design in Education at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Tsing Yuen takes the viewer on a tour of some of his recent works explaining each with a background of his inspirations and concerns. Working with 3D objects, Tsing Yuen uses a certain plastic type known as polyurethane. Fashioning plastic into detailed objects in response to social issues like the preservation of the environment and the commercialised culture crisis, Tsing Yuen’s works combine a passionate feeling for social needs and aesthetic imagination.
In a work called Art becoming merchandise, Tsing Yuen shows us what looks like a display box within which rows of decorative objects are stuck to the wall. Referring to the theme of assembly line production of culture and art, he places each “art” object as a product like any other – mass produced. He goes on to say,
I want to express the fact that businessmen are destroying our history and artwork.
Another artwork features multiple slabs of transparent plastic within which one sees fossilized butterflies that have retained their colorfulness. Tsing Yuen says that the inspiration for this work was derived from a recent construction site at the Fung Yuen butterfly reserve where in the name of a better environment, the dust and grime from the construction was killing a great number of protected butterflies.
Luk Tsing Yuen has participated in several local solo and group exhibitions including “Fotanian” (2003), “A Person A [ ]” (2004), “Local East-Kowloon Art In Progress” (2006), “Industry and Silence” (2007), and “Passionate Objects” (2008) and is currently based in Hong Kong.
Watch the video on the ChooChooTV show [art]attack (length of video, 4:03 minutes).
AM/KN
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Posted in 3D Max, Activist, Art and internet, Artists as celebrities, Bio (biological) art, Consumerism, Design, Emerging artists, Environment, Fragile art, Hong Kong Artists, Installation, Large art, Luk Tsing Yuen, Sculpture, Videos | Tagged: 3D art, 3D objects, A Person A [ ] (2004), A Person A[], Ananya Mukherjee, Art and Design in Education, art and environment, Art becoming merchandise, art commercialisation, butterflies, ChooChooTV, decorative objects, environment art, Fotanian (2003), Fotonian, Fung Yuen butterfly reserve, hong kong, Hong Kong art, Hong Kong Artists, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Industry and Silence, Industry and Silence (2007), Internet TV, Local East - Kowloon Art In Progress (2006), Local East-Kowloon Art in Progress, Luk Tsing Yuen, mass production, mass-produced art, Passionate objects, Passionate Objects (2008), Plastic Art, Polyurethane, sculpture, Social activism, social art, Video, Video Interview, [art]attack | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on July 21, 2010
HONG KONG KOREAN SCULPTURE ART EXHIBITIONS
Work by internationally renowned Korean sculptor, Lee Jae-Hyo, will soon be on show in Hong Kong for the first time. In a new exhibition, “From the Third Hand of the Creator”, to be held at Hong Kong’s Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery from 31 July until 20 August this year, the gallery will present thirty pieces of representative works from Lee Jae-Hyo, including work from his “Wood” and “Nail” series.
Lee Jae-Hyo
Born in Hapchen, South Korea, in 1965, Lee Jae-Hyo graduated from Hong-ik University with a Bachelor degree in Plastic Art. Working with wood, nails, steel and stone as his primary media, Lee focuses his attention on exploring nature’s structural construction. The works are made from a process consisting of dedicated design and complex composing, sculpturing, grinding and refining. The wood pieces are assembled into curves, with which various futurist forms in hyper-modernist style are drawn. Each piece is still embroidered with growth rings. His method has been applauded for exuding a strong personal character and opening up a distinctive direction within contemporary Korean art.
New York-based art writer Jonathan Goodman describes the artist’s work in Sculpture Magazine:
Allowing the materials to speak to him, he builds self-contained worlds that mysteriously communicate with their outer surroundings. One of his most striking images is a photograph of a boat-like structure placed in the midst of a stream whose banks are covered with trees. Clearly a manmade sculpture put out into nature, the work contrasts with and succumbs to its surroundings. In the photograph, self-sufficiency is enhanced by the object’s position in a beautiful scene; the poetics of the sculpture lean on an environment that frames its polished surfaces, conferring a further dignity on a form in keeping with its forested setting.
Lee’s works are created through the assembly of a large number of units of the ingredient, and therefore become the respective images of the individual units. In their overall structures and forms, minimalist geometric lines can be found, rich in hyper-modernist imagination.
Lee’s art is built upon a typical oriental spirit – in the pursuit of unity and a harmonious co-existence between him and the universe, Lee attempts to demonstrate how humanity can continue to develop civilization with grace, on the basis of a mutual respect between the man-made and natural worlds.
Lee Jae-Hyo
Lee Jae-Hyo has exhibited widely: in Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and the United States. He has won many awards, including the Grand Prize of Osaka Triennial (1998), Young Artist of the Day, presented by the Ministry of Culture of Korea (1998) and the Prize of Excellence in the 2008 Olympic Landscape Sculpture Contest. His artwork is collected by a number of prominent Asian, European, American and Pacific museums, hotels and universities.
“From the Third Hand of the Creator” will be on show at Hong Kong’s Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery from 31 July until 20 August this year.
JAS/KN/KCE
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Posted by artradar on July 21, 2010
SEOUL AUCTION HOUSE RESULTS
A recent article by The New York Times explains the market trends of recent Hong Kong newcomer, Seoul Auction’s two highly successful auctions held in 2009: Korean collectors continue to acquire Western contemporary artists, Chinese artists buy modern Chinese paintings and Korean art sales are a hit and miss affair. Read on for more…
Seoul Auction was established in 1998, and was for many years was the city’s only auction house. In 2008, it opened an office in Hong Kong, and since then has been gaining international credibility as a top-rate Asian auction house. Seoul Auction uses the auction platform as a way to introduce Western art to the Asian market, as well as introducing relatively new work from South Korea and other Asian countries to the international market.
Damien Hirst, 'The Importance of Elsewhere – The Kingdom of Heaven,' 2006, butterflies and household paint on canvas, 292x243.9 cm.
Trends in Western art
Seoul Auction’s record-breaking 2.2 million dollar sale of Damien Hirst’s The Importance of Elsewhere – The Kingdom of Heaven, arguably its most notable achievement, and similarly pricey sales of other Western artists have revealed a flourishing market for Western Art in Asia. Works from Damien Hirst’s “Butterfly” series have proven very sell-able, although Seoul Auction has avoided his brush paintings – a pair of silk screen prints failed to sell at their April sale.
Donald Judd’s linear block sculpture Untitled (Progression 87-26) and Robert Indiana’s Eight from his number series are among those that fetched the highest prices. Roy Lichtenstein has also been introduced and has had a healthy reception.
According to the chief executive of Seoul Auction, Jun Lee, “Korean collectors are very sophisticated.” He adds that they had been collecting Western contemporary art “for the past twenty years, even when the market was not that active, even in New York. They are very open-minded. It’s a survival strategy under these circumstances, in periods of recession. We’re trying to persuade our contacts with whom we’ve built relationships over the past ten years to sell.”
Popular Asian contemporary artists
The “Infinity Nets” mixed media sculptures by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama have been highly successful. Works by Anish Kapoor, introduced to Korea by Seoul Auction, have also been highlighted as having healthy sales.
A photographer takes a picture of Yayoi Kusama's 'Venus No.1, Statue of Venus, Obliterated by Infinity Nets' (1998) at the Hong Kong International Art Fair. Taken from freep.com.
Korean art hit and miss
Although Korean works account for forty percent of Seoul Auction’s offerings in Hong Kong, sales of Korean art have been hit and miss. Kim Whanki’s abstract geometry paintings have sold well, but video artist Nam Juin Paik’s work has failed to sell. The article accredits this to the relatively short history of South Korean art in the international market compared to that of Japanese and Chinese artists, although in recent years sales to Western collectors have increased.
Chinese collectors prefer traditional art
Chinese art has been undeniably popular among Chinese buyers. Sanyu’s Flowers in a White Vase, Wang Yi Dong’s Girl and Peaches and Zeng Fanzhi’s Mask Series no 21 3-1 sold for good prices, some even exceeding their estimates.
Also popular among Chinese buyers are traditional paintings, such as works by Impressionists Chagall, Renoir, and Picasso, but they are less interested in less familiar American pop artists. According to an article by the Hong Kong Trader, there is also a trend for crossover art.
With the growing trend for crossover art (Chinese buying Japanese art, Japanese buying Korean art, etc), Ms Shim expects more Asian auction houses will look to set up a base in Hong Kong. By moving early, she says, Seoul Auction will gain a strong foothold. ‘We are preparing now for the good times ahead.’
As expressed in The New York Times article, the buying power of China is told only too well through the popularity of traditional works when contemporary works are struggling to sell.
Read the full article here.
MM/KN/KCE
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Posted in Auctions, Business of art, Collectors, Hong Kong, Market watch, Promoting art | Tagged: American pop art, Anish Kapoor, art auctions, art auctions in Asia, art market, Asian art market, Asian collectors, auction houses, Butterfly series, Chagall, China, Chinese art, Chinese collectors, Collectors, consignors, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, Donald Judd, Eight (numbers series), Flowers in a White Vase, Girl and Peaches, hong kong, Impressionsts, Indian art, infinity nets series, Japan, Japanese art, Jun Lee, Kim Whanki, Korean auction houses, Korean collectors, Maya McOmie, Misung Shim, mixed media, Nam Jun Paik, Numbers series, Painting, Picasso, Pink Rose, Recession, Renoir, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Sanyu, sculpture, Seoul, Seoul Auction, South Korea, South Korean art, South Korean consignors, The Importance of Elsewhere – The Kingdom of Heaven, The New York Times, Tranquility, Untitled 06-1, Venus No.1 Statue of Venus (infinity nets), Wang Yi Dong, Western art, Western collectors, Yayoi Kusama, Zeng Fanzhi | Leave a Comment »
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