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

EMERGING ARTISTS TAIWANESE ART MUSEUM SHOWS COLLECTIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KN

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

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• 3 young Chinese artists awarded prizes at inaugural Caochangdi PhotoSpring – May 2010 – more on emerging Asian artists winning awards
• Korean National Museum of Contemporary Art Young Korean Artists retrospective spans 30 years – May 2010 – evidence of the influence of awards and collections focussing on young artists
• Four Asian artists nominated for NYC PULSE Awards – March 2010 – offers some biographical details for these artists
• The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Art Awards – January 2010 – details on the winners of the 2009 awards

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Is Hong Kong a cultural desert? How can you become a better collector? Answers revealed at Asia Art Forum

ART PROFESSIONALS HONG KONG ART INDONESIAN ART ART COLLECTING

Guest writer Bonnie E. Engel, a Hong Kong freelance journalist, presents Art Radar Asia readers with her perspective on the talks of two speakers at the this year’s Asia Art Forum, held in Hong Kong in May. Hong Kong art critic and curator Valerie Doran discusses the question, “Is Hong Kong a cultural desert?” and Indonesian private art collector Dr. Oei Hong Djien divulges his collecting secrets.

Engel attended the third edition of Asia Art Forum’s three day gathering of talks and artist studio visits, designed for emerging and established collectors and presented by influential curators, collectors and experts. This year’s forum focussed on Chinese art. Read more about why organiser Pippa Dennis set up the Forum here.

Valerie Doran: Hong Kong curator and art critic

Curator and art critic Valerie Doran spoke on Sunday morning at Hong Kong’s Ben Brown Fine Arts. She covered the history of fine art in Hong Kong, trying to answer the question, “Is Hong Kong a Cultural Desert?”

 

Art curator and critic Valerie Doran.

 

This perception is fed by the lack of facilities in the city in which to show Hong Kong contemporary art and relatively few full-time artists who are more or less invisible unless collectors hunt them out. These artists are nourished on the peripheries of the territory, out in the new territories like Kowloon and the industrial sections of Hong Kong Island, rather than in Central or Causeway Bay.

The audience was grateful to see works by the older generation of artists in Hong Kong, who seemed driven to create art without a market or venue, artists such as Luis Chan and Lui Shou-kwan, who were born at the beginning of the 20th century, and Wucius Wong, Gaylord Chang, Ha Bik Chuen and Chu Hing Wah, all born before World War II. Most of their works are small, possibly reflecting the lack of space in Hong Kong.

Doran explained that Hong Kong’s art industry developed outside the concept of the art market. A lot of the art made in Hong Kong is installation (temporary) or conceptual, mainly due to a lack of space and resources, and the need for a supportive community rather than one so focused on making money.

Post-war artists also failed to rise to any great heights, but after the 1989 incident artists rose to the occasion and responded by creating conceptual and performance art pieces, perhaps a pivotal moment in the development of Hong Kong art.

As Doran relayed, part of the problem is the lack of governmental policy regarding artists, or rather that the official policy seems to be to ignore the arts. Recently, with the newly created West Kowloon Cultural District, built on reclaimed land, artists and curators are beginning to worry that the government will begin to establish arts policy, much to the detriment of arts development in the territory. To date, the government has sponsored performing art shows and events more substantially than the visual arts, perhaps a legacy of the culture-starved colonials from the UK before 1997.

She highlighted one successful governmental project, the art space Para/Site, which receives some funding from the rather new Arts Development Council, an organisation not noted for promoting local arts or artists without a lot of red tape and many meetings. The city’s major museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, is closed to outside curators (unless you are Louis Vuitton or other big money sponsors), so it was unique that Doran was allowed to create the Antonio Mak show there. Although many people agree that Hong Kong needs a contemporary art museum, Doran sees more hope in the integration and cooperation of the Pearl River Delta cities, an action that could sweep Hong Kong up into the larger regional arts scene.

Doran concluded by noting that Hong Kong’s artists are beginning to participate in the Venice Biennale and other internationals shows, and collectors are gathering in the territory twice a year for major auctions of Chinese and Southeast Asian art. Artists such as Kacey Wong, Lee Kit, Stanley Wong (anothermountainman), Tozer Pak, Sarah Tse, Luke Ching Chin-wai, Anthony Leung Po Shan, Chow Chun Fai, Lam Tung Pang and Warren Leung are starting to shine at local and international galleries.

Valerie Doran is a critic and curator who, after spending seven years in Taiwan, is now based in Hong Kong. She specialises in contemporary Asian art with a special interest in cross-cultural currents and comparative art theory. She is a contributing editor of Orientations Magazine. Her Hong Kong curatorial projects include Simon Birch’s multi-media extravaganza, “Hope and Glory” and the controversial exhibition “Looking for Antonio Mak” which showed at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2008 and 2009.

Art Radar Asia has published a number of articles on Valerie Doran, including this exclusive interview.

Dr. Oei Hong Djien: Indonesian art specialist and collector

 

Indonesian art specialist and collector Dr. Oei Hong Djien.

 

Dr. Oei Hong Djien, the final speaker on Sunday, was born and is based in Indonesia. He has been collecting art for nearly thirty years, focusing on modern and contemporary Indonesian art. The collection comprises about 1500 works, a fraction of which is on public display in his private museum, known as the OHD museum, where he is the curator. A book about his collection by Dr. Helena Spanjaard was published in 2004: Exploring Modern Indonesian Art: The collection of Dr Oei Hong Djien.

More open than most collectors, perhaps because he already has a large collection and has built a building to house it, Dr. Oei’s presentation was refreshing and candid. His “essence of collecting” vocabulary should become the bible of collectors: money, knowledge, passion, patience, courage, relation, quality, timing, luck and experience. He expanded upon these words, giving sage advice, and combined this with a showing of some of the best examples of modern Indonesian art.

His insistence on courage was very telling, as he advised new collectors with limited funds to go after young artists, buy unpopular works that go against the mainstream, look up forgotten old masters and get masterpieces that include unsuitable subject matter. This advice is predicated on hard work, self-education and endless observing, reobserving and observing again, to learn what quality art is and how to buy it. Most importantly, he said not to be afraid to make mistakes because that is how a serious collector becomes better.

Bonnie E. Engel has been a freelance journalist in Hong Kong for about 25 years. She is an Asian art specialist, covering all forms of visual arts. She travels around the region to visit artists, galleries, auctions and art fairs, and meets international artists when they come to Hong Kong. She has written for Hong Kong Prestige, Hong Kong Tatler, Gafenku, Muse Magazine, Asian Art Newspaper and other publications.

Editorial disclaimer – The opinions and views expressed by guest writers  do not necessarily reflect those of Art Radar Asia, staff, sponsors and partners.

Related Topics: art collectors, events – conferences, art curators, Hong Kong artists, Indonesian artists, venues – Hong Kong

Related Posts:

• World’s top collectors and art professionals attend ART HK: a testament to fair’s growing importance – June 2010
• Curator Valerie Doran on ‘Hope and Glory’ and challenges for Hong Kong art world – interview – May 2010
• Hong Kong’s new museum district appoints ex-Barbican CEO, Graham Sheffield – media round-up – April 2010
• Pop culture references abound in Indonesian art: curator Eva McGovern discusses Indieguerillas’ Happy Victims and the Southeast Asian art climate – June 2010
• What is Indonesian style? Jumaldi Alfi on the art, style and Jogja – interview – November 2009

 

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more articles by guest arts writers

Cause and Effect: London solo for Macau-Russian artist Konstantin Bessmertny

Bessmertny's Causarum Cognitio Philosophicus

Courtesy Rossi & Rossi

RUSSIAN ARTIST TALK EXHIBITION

A technical impresario who underwent rigorous formal training, Konstantin Bessmertny has risen to become one of Macau’s foremost artistic ambassadors.

Raised in Far Eastern Russia on the Chinese border, Bessmertny learned the traditions of European painting while studying under Russian dissidents exiled eastward by the Soviets. Later moving to Macau, a city of Chinese and Portuguese history, perpetually shadowed by the bustling Hong Kong, Bessmertny is a creature of boundaries between times, cultures and places. He represented the Chinese enclave at the Venice Biennale in 2007.

Konstantin Bessmertny, La Battaglia di Anghiari dell'Opera Perduta di Leonardo (Copy after Leonardo No. 2) 2009

Bessmertny’s works address the many absurdities of contemporary living and our understanding of history. The paintings are lush, thick with coded allusions to high and low culture. They gleefully portray challenges of basic, almost universally accepted understanding of zeitgeist and history.

Rossi & Rossi, in association with Amelia Johnson Contemporary, is holding an exhibition of much anticipated new paintings and sculpture by Bessmertny — Causarum Cognitio or Knowledge of Causes.

The exhibition is to be held from May 7 to June 3 at Rossi and Rossi www.rossirossi.com. An artist’s talk was held on May 8  with Pamela Kember, a director of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.  Kember is a curator and historian of art. She has lectured at the Hong Kong Arts School and the Academy of Visual Arts in Hong Kong. She has contributed to Asian Art News, World Sculpture News and Art Asia Pacific.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue 52 pages in length.

Konstantin Bessmertny

Courtesy Museu de Arte de Macau

Pamela Kember

Courtesy Chelsea College of Art & Design

Related posts:

• The Problem of Asia; Para/Site art exhibition explores Asian identity in Sydney – May 2010
• Two contemporary art museums planned for Moscow – Sep 2009
• Wu Guanzhong – a retrospective at Singapore art museum – New York Times review – May 2009

AD/KCE

Two Japanese artists shortlisted for Nam June Paik Award 2010

ASIAN ART PRIZE JAPANESE ARTISTS

International selectors for the Nam June Paik Award 2010 met on the last weekend of February in the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf and there decided which artists would be shortlisted for this year’s award.

This year, the jury included Solange Farkas (Sao Paulo), who is the director and curator of VideoBrasil International Festival, Udo Kittelmann (Berlin), Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona/New York), Miklós Peternák (Budapest) and Yukiko Shikata (Tokyo).

Daito Manabe, Time Lapse-Plant, photo courtesy http://www.daito.ds

The shortlisted artists

Daito Manabe, who describes himself as an artist programmer, designer, DJ, VJ and composer, is based in Tokyo, Japan. He creates innovative work with light and sound.

Ei Wada a.k.a. Crab Feet is also from Tokyo. He describes himself as “giving birth to” sound, music and media art works.

Hajnal Németh lives and works in Berlin. This Hungarian born artist works in a variety of media such as film, photography, installation and sound.

Eike is a German born artist who lives and works in Hungary. Eike has exhibited videos, sound and video installations, neon objects and light boxes.

Eike Utopia Past of the Future, looped video on 20 monitors, photo: Zoltán Kerekes

Brazilian sound art collective Chelpa Ferro, was founded in 1995 by visual artists Barrão and Luiz Zerbini, and film-editor Sergio Mekler. The collective xplores sound in the context of sculpture and installations. Their work has been shown at international festivals such as the Venice Biennale.

Chelpa Ferro, Toto Treme Terra, CCBB (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil) Rio de Janeiro 2006, Photo Julio Callado

Ali Kazma is a Turkish born video artist who received his training in the US. He has returned to his homeland and participated in the Istanbul Biennial in 2007 and 2009.

Rosa Barba works and lives in Cologne and Amsterdam. She is Italian born and educated in Germany and the Netherlands. Her body of work consists of films, installations and publications. She is best known for her 16mm films. Her work could be seen at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Rosa Barba, Making Worlds, 53rd Venice Biennale, Palazzo delle Esposizione, Giardini, 2009 5x16mm films, modified projectors, 20min, 2009

Ignas Krunglevicius is a Lithuania born artist who has studied composition. He works in Oslo where he explores the combination of sound and image in his performances and installations.

The winners of the Newcomer Prize of the Nam June Paik Award 2008, Adriane Wachholz, Münster, and Thorsten Hallscheidt, Cologne and Karlsruhe, will also present new works in the exhibition.

History of the Nam June Paik Award

The Nam June Paik Award, International Media Art Award of the Art Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia, was launched in 2002. It is awarded to artists working with new media, including video, sound and light, and aims to encourage them to push the envelope in their chosen field. It was named after influential Korean-born American artist Nam June Paik.

An international jury nominates six to eight artists for an exhibition. This year’s exhibition begins in September and will be held at the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf.

Visit the Kunststiftung NRW website for more information on the award and the foundation.

NA/KN

Related Posts:

• Four Asian artists nominated for NYC PULSE Awards – March 2010
• The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Arts Awards – January 2010
• Murakami’s Geisai Miami cancelled, Geisai Taiwan debuts this December – October 2009
• 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 art award nominees and winners

Thai Chinese artist Nipan Oranniwesna shows installation art made of baby powder in Hong Kong – review

THAI CONTEMPORARY ART IN HONG KONG

Is national identity still relevant within our globalized world, which is more interdependent than ever before? Where do we get our identity, and what does baby powder have to do with it? Art Radar talks with the renowned Thai contemporary artist Nipan Oranniwesna at the Osage Gallery in Kowloon, Hong Kong before the opening of his latest exhibition Being….. at homE.

Storytelling through sight, smell, and unexpected mediums

Nipan Oranniwesna had a big job ahead of him when he arrived in Hong Kong for his exhibition at the Osage Gallery, perhaps the most respected experimental art gallery in Hong Kong. In only 4 days, he would create 2 massive installation exhibits that sprawl across the floor of Osage’s Kwun Tong gallery space in Kowloon, which are sculpted out of only baby powder. Not just any baby powder either, mind you. Nipan’s baby powder installations require the signature scent of a product by Johnson & Johnson that is only available in Thailand, and countless packages needed to be flown into Hong Kong for the artist’s materials. The exhibition is essentially a story, and is complete with 3 narrative installation works that consider identity and the idea of home on a global scale, a national scale, and ends considering the idea of home and connectedness to one’s personal space.

Powder cities demonstrate fragility

The result of Nipan’s labor is astounding. The exhibition, titled Being….. At HomE questions the validity of nation-based identity within modern society. The first piece of the show, City of Ghost, is a massive cityscape made of baby powder that depicts 13 major metropolitan cities of the world as interconnected. A similar work of his was also on display at the 2007 Venice Biennale for 6 months, and other sprawling works of sculpted baby powder cities have sold to private collectors, fetching up to $20,000 USD. Nipan explains the meaning of this work:

“Every country is nationalistic, but is it real, or does it just manipulate our thinking? This piece challenges personal and national identity. We think we are Thai, but the interconnectedness of this work demonstrates a question… I used baby powder because global society is both beautiful and fragile. The smell of the specific brand was important, as I wanted this to be a full sensory experience, with a stronger, more serious scent.”

Chinese National Anthem in powder suggests vulnerability

The next piece, titled ...with our flesh and blood, examines the idea of home and identity at the national level, depicting the Chinese national anthem written in baby powder. Accompanying framed works also show the Chinese anthem created from small pierced holes on paper, creating a braille-like version of the lyrics. Through these works, Nipan was subtly suggesting the vulnerability of basing personal identity on one’s nationality or ethnicity.

Come home, take off your shoes.

The last piece of the show, Narrative Floor, brings the audience to the most intimate interpretation of place and identity, the home. The piece invites viewers to get involved, take off their shoes and walk on the work, which resembles a hard wood floor inlaid with photographic ‘rain drops’. Upon closer inspection, these raindrops are revealed to be small scenes from Hong Kong, China, and Thailand. Nipan admits this piece reflects his heritage; he is ethnically Chinese, but native to Thailand. The work begs the question, when a person is connected to different places, where is home? Nipan suggests everywhere that touches someone becomes a part of him, and all of those places are his home. The piece invites viewers to take off their shoes, sit down, and even lie down, demonstrating home is a feeling that can be felt anywhere one happens to be.

It’s easy to miss the meaning

The last work, Narrative Floor, is decidedly different from the other pieces, most notably because it does not use baby powder. Nipan explains:

“I wanted to use a new language. Baby powder is just one language….. I deal with the perception of the viewer, especially using distance, the space between people and artwork, the space between people and other people. This is what I access in my work. In this piece you come inside…

The exhibition is also full of clues of meaning that could be easily missed. Nipan reveals:

Every piece and work is like a sign. The way to read the exhibition is to look for the signs, issues, even though they are almost hidden, very subtle… The red in this room suggests the color of the Chinese flag. The 5 dots that are present in the exhibition title are a reference to the 5 stars on the Chinese flag. The capital letters in the exhibition title Being….. at homE are a reference to the space between the word ‘be.’ I am concerned with what lies between. Of course my work can be read in other ways, and that is okay. But I want to deal with this triangle of me, Hong Kong, and China.

Problem: Fragile art gets harmed

The delicate nature of the work is part of the art’s significance, and also leads to inevitable mishaps. Staff at the Osage Gallery mentioned they considered turning down the air conditioning to prevent air flow from disturbing the powdery surface, and Nipan cheerfully recalled the footprint he discovered in the Venice Biennale’s installation.

Solution: That’s OK.

He explains that damaging the artwork is not encouraged, but minor accidents are natural and ultimately contribute to the participatory quality of the work, relating it to viewers. Such an attitude is wise, considering the tours of school children that parade through the gallery. Furthermore, upsetting the fragile medium reinforces the essence of the work. Nipan proves although something is not meant to be broken, it may still be far too easy to destroy.

Nipan’s exhibition is among 2 others on display at the Osage Gallery in Hong Kong. Other exhibited artists include Cheo Chai-Hiang from Singapore, and Sun Yuan & Peng Yu (China). The exhibition runs from August 21-October 4, 2009.

-contributed by Erin Wooters

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Why is Thailand difficult for street artists? Graffiti artist Bundit Puangthong explains- July 09

Inspiring art in important Indonesian art shows Spring 2009– April 09

Myanmar artists explore new media, produce courageous art- April 09

Bangkok museum opens with seminal survey, a who’s who of Thai modern contemporary art- Nov 08

Related Links:

Osage Gallery

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Emerging Chinese installation artist Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen at Venice Biennale 2009

VENICE BIENNALE HONG KONG

The award-winning young conceptual artist Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen will represent Hong Kong at the 53rd Venice Biennale (June to November 2009) with an exhibition of newly-created works and past works which will focus on the two themes of Hong Kong and cultural alienation .

The exhibition called  “Making (Perfect) World: Harbour, Hong Kong, Alienated Cities and Dreams” is curated by Mr Tobias Berger, formerly curator of Hong Kong’s Para/Site and now curator at the Nam Jun Paik Art Center in Korea.

Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen works

His highly original and playful works often provoke a sense of surprise and curiosity. In recent works he enjoys numbers, words and the spaces between them. He likes to provoke serendipitous happenings and to explore the unknown and non-existent.

Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen, The Half Folded Library, Guangdong Art Museum

One of the most intriguing works by this artist which was created during his residency in New York and exhibited at the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial 2008, involved secretly folding page 22 in 15,500 books in the Ottendorfer Branch Public Library in New York.

Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen, 2008 film 2008, film installation

In an exhibition currently showing at the Nam Jun Paik Art Center in Singapore ‘The First Stop on the Super Highway” Tozer Pak explores space/time with film in his film installation ‘2008 film 2008’.

“In a film, 1 second is 24 frames. Each frame is a picture. But when you watch 1 second of film, you are not only watching 24 frames of pictures. You also watch the blank spaces (the black bars) between the frames. We see the light, but we can’t see the darkness.

I cut out all the blank spaces from a film. And then, I join all these blank spaces back together into another “film”(a black film). This “film” is then projected on the wall by a film-projector. Through this process we are able to watch the “invisible part” of a film, the time that is traditionally considered inexistent.

The proportion of blank space and picture space in a frame (of that Hong Kong film) is 7:13. The “black film” on the wall and the film in the machine are both 383cm, and were cut from 23 seconds of film. During the exhibition this film will be shown on the first fifth minute of every hour. (Pak Sheung Chuen) note 1

Information about and images of his earlier works which explore height and politics can be found on Tozer Pak’s gallery on Hong Kong Art Web.

Biography of Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen

Pak Sheung Chuen is a young conceptual and performance artist who was born in 1977 in Fujian and immigrated to Hong Kong in 1984, . Pak graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2002 with a major in fine arts and a minor in theology. He has exhibited at, among others, The 3rd Yokohama Triennial (2008), The 3rd Guangzhou Triennial (2008), ‘China Power Station: Part 2′ and Inward Gazes – Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art’ Macao Museum of Art (2005). In 2006, he was awarded the Lee Hysan Foundation Fellowship of Asian Cultural Council and joined ISCP residency program in New York.note 2

Notes:

1. Tozer Pak sat Nam Jun Paik Art Center First Stop on the Super Highway
2. Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen residency at Asia Art Archive

Related posts:

• Hong Kong artists showcased for first time at Sotheby’s Asian art sale 2009 Apr 2009
• The distinctive style of young Hong Kong Fine Line artists – what is it and who are they? Feb 2009
• Review of performance artist Tatsumi Orimoto’s Finger Dolls in Hong Kong Jan 2009
• Abu Dhabi’s Venice Biennale curator says only 6 interesting artists from Emirates – whom will she show? Jan 2009
• Emerging Taiwanese new media artist Huang Hsin Chien at Shanghai Biennale 2008 Oct 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for emerging artist news

Russian billionaire collector Mikhelson continues support for art despite downturn – Bloomberg

RUSSIAN ART COLLECTOR

Varoli reports on Bloomberg that Leonid Mikhelson is sponsoring a display of 30 works by 20th-century Russian master artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, many of which are well known to the public.

Billionaire Leonid Mikhelson’s company OAO Novatek is sponsoring Russia’s first exhibition of a state museum’s works by a private gallery, with a display of 30 masterpieces by the 20th-century master Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Russia’s second-biggest gas producer is making history 534 miles southeast of Moscow at the Victoria Gallery in the Volga city of Samara. Patronage is aiding Russian culture despite the decline in economic growth, stocks and the ruble.

Some of the paintings, known to many Russians since childhood, show a Bolshevik leader dying on the battlefield and a peasant riding a red horse which sails off into the sky.

“Novatek doesn’t abandon friends in hard times,” Vladimir Smirnov, Novatek’s vice-chairman, said in an interview. “We will continue to finance exhibitions at leading Russian museums.” The pieces are on loan from St. Petersburg’s State Russian Museum.

Novatek’s  is also financing the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in June 2009.

The company is the main sponsor and has pledged 300,000 euros ($385,700). Mastercard Worldwide is another leading sponsor of the pavilion, while the Russian government pays about 10 percent of the costs.

“Without Novatek’s support, it wouldn’t have been possible to pull this off,” said Olga Sviblova, chairwoman of the Russian Pavilion. “Most Russian companies prefer to support classical art, not contemporary art.”

About Mikhelson:

Novatek Chief Executive Officer Mikhelson is a collector of Russian fine art. While he declined to comment about his collection, art dealers say he prefers 19th-century and early 20th-century Russian art.

Born in a town on the Caspian Sea in Russia’s republic of Dagestan, Mikhelson graduated in 1977 from Samara’s Civil Engineering Institute. Before helping to create Novatek in 1994, he spent most of his career building gas pipelines.

In April 2008, Forbes estimated Mikhelson’s fortune at $5.9 billion, and ranked him as Russia’s 27th richest person.

Source: Bloomberg

Related posts:

• Russian collector Zhukova shows 12 leading video artists on giant outdoor screen – Moscow Times, Reuters – Dec 2008
• Daria Zhukova’s Garage Center is temporary, New York Times wrong – Moscow Times – Nov 2008
• Russian new media artists at MOMA Moscow where interest in new media grows Sep 2008

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Abu Dhabi’s Venice Biennale curator Catherine David says only 6 interesting artists from Emirates, whom will she show?

 

Hani Rashed

ART ABU DHABI

The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) announced late last month that the city-state will participate in next year’s 53rd Venice Biennale of Visual Art, entitled “Making Worlds,” a first for the oil-rich Gulf state.

Rather than renting a national pavilion, as most recent arrivals to the event do, Abu Dhabi will contribute the “ADACH Platform for Venice,” to be curated by Paris-born curator Catherine David. David has worked Venice before, presenting her “Contemporary Arab Representations” at the Biennale’s 50th edition, “Dreams and Conflicts,” in 2003. She is perhaps best known for having been artistic director in 1997 of documenta X, a highly conceptual multifaceted art event that takes place every five years in the German city of Kassel.

 

Catherine David

In an ambitious attempt to become a cultural hub, Abu Dhabi has recently initiated partnerships with many high-profile institutions such as the Frankfurt Book Fair and the New York Film Academy, and will soon be host to outposts of the famous Guggenheim and Louvre museums.

“Why are we looking at the Gulf?” asked David. “In front of you, you have India, Iran, Pakistan. It’s not in an island.”

Although she could not provide much in the way of details, as much of the content of the platform is still under discussion, she did imply that her selections would not hail exclusively from Abu Dhabi.

“To be frank, there are only five or six very interesting artists from the Emirates,” she said.

Perhaps some of her choices will be drawn from her recently curated show “In the Middle of the Middle,” on until March 2009 at the Sfeir-Semler Gallery. This features 12 artists living and working across the Middle East, particularly in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and Occupied Palestine.

Artists include

Jawad Al Malhi

 

Yasser Alwan

Yasser Alwan has lived in Switzerland and Lebanon and studied photography in America. Evocative and intimate, his portraits of people working or passing by the streets of Cairo are inscribed in the long tradition of documentary photography. His photographs have been exhibited in Cairo, New York, Frankfurt, San Francisco, London and Canterbury.
Ayman Baalbaki
Anna Boghiguian
Rami Farah
Joude Gorani
Wafa Hourani
Simon Kabboush
Waël Noureddine
Hani Rashed

 

Walid Sadek

Walid Sadik is an artist and writer from Lebanon. He is currently assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Design at the American University of Beirut.

Akram Zaatari

Original story Daily Star further artist information and images Galerie Sfei-Semler

More on Biennials, Middle Eastern artists, influential curators and trends, photography

• Dubai art market and its future December 2008
• First UK survey of female Iranian photographers video artists November 2008
• Tate Musuem acquires video of Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari October 2008

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Artist to watch Cao Fei

ARTIST TO WATCH

As we scan the news every day, some new artists and new trends emerge out of the cloud of informaton bigger bolder and brighter than the rest. This is the first in an occasional series in which we beam in and take an in depth look at one artist or art trend.

CAO FEI

Cao Fei  is a female artist who was born in 1978 in Guangzhou China and is now based in Beijing.

What people are saying

Red Mansion Foundation, London: “Cao Fei is no doubt one of the most remarkable and powerful artists of this generation.”

Serpentine Gallery London: “Cao Fei is one of the pre-eminent Chinese artists of her generation”

About the art

Photographs, videos and installations.

Influences include superheros, avatars, electronic entertainment, pop music, TV drama, computer games and new subcultures such as Japanese Manga, American Rap, and Hong Kong films.

Why her work is interesting

Cao Fei fearlessly experiments with new media, in particular virtual media such as Second Life. She is fascinated by the contrast between urban reality and fantasy-perfect etopia and how it is possible to move between the two at the flick of a switch. Her art presents the issues and zeitgeist of her generation.

I am interested in “the premise that people can choose characters that are very different from their real selves. They can use their character to create a “second life,” to change their friends, family, and lifestyle — like switching a TV channel “says Cao Fei in an interview with Artkrush.

“I started to confuse my two lives, and so I compared them. The younger generation, like 15-18 year olds, I don’t think they ask as many of these questions; that kind of lifestyle is their real life — they belong to a technological world — but for my generation, we will always compare virtual and real”

Her work

 

Cosplayers: King Kong at home

 

She first attracted international attention in 2004 with COSplayers, a video and photo series about Guangzhou teens dressing up as Japanese manga characters.

At the 52nd Venice Biennale 2007, she premiered China Tracy Pavilion, a project exploring the virtual worlds of Second Life that merged role-playing, ethnographic documentary, and animation.

After discovering Second Life, Fei embarked on a six-month journey through the wonders of the digital realm, as China Tracy, and many came across her through a YouTube stream in which she introduced herself in machinima footage with Chinese subtitles.

According to Fei, all sorts of typical activities occurred during that period: ‘Fly, chat, build, teleport, buy, sex, add friends, snapshot…’

 

I.Mirror Documentary Video 2007

 

These experiences were documented and generated the three-part, thirty-minute epic, ‘i.Mirror’ that Fei exhibited at Venice’s Arsenale back garden as well as on YouTube.

A recent project RMB City, an online art community in the virtual world of Second Life is on show at the Serpentine Gallery and on-line.

Institutions and collectors are invited to buy buildings in RMB City and programme events and activities in them. The project is an experiment exploring the creative relationship between real and virtual space.

Career highlights

Cao Fei has exhibited around the world in premier institutions such as Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Beijing, Mori Museum Tokyo, San Francisco Art Instute, Serpentine Gallery and Red Mansion Foundation.

She has been shown at the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Biennale of Sydney and her work has been included in important survey exhibitions such as “Between Past and Future – New Photography andVideo from China” Asia Society New York.

Collectors of her work include Guy Ullens, Carnegie Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, Uli Sigg, Guan Yi amongst others.The famous Chinese collector Guan Yi names Cao Fei along with a handful of other artists as an important artist of her generation.

 

Cao Fei Siemens project

 

In the Siemens sponsored art project “What are you doing here?”, the artist Cao Fei worked with employees from subsidiary OSRAM China Lighting to turn their individual ideas, hopes and expectations into art.

Auction history

As at September 1 2008, Cao Fei is still much under-appreciated at auction. She has only had 3 photographs at auction, one at China Guardian May 2007 which sold for US$21,890 including premium (over double the estimate) and two at Sotheby’s New York 2007 which were bought in.

Where to buy

Dealers:

• The Courtyard Gallery Beijing
• Pekin Fine Arts Beijing
• Grace Li Zurich

See (in new window)

• Cao Fei’s website
• Cao Fei’s up to date bio on artfacts.net
• Latest price history on artnet artprice findartinfo
• more posts on Cao Fei including participation in Mori Art Museum video weekend 2008, Ullens Center show 2008, RMB City at the Serpentine to 2009
• Cao Fei excerpt from Robert Adanto documentary video ‘The Rising Tide’ on Saatchi website

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Thailand’s Montri photographic installation Nanothailand at Tonson ends August 2008

THAI PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY SHOW 19 June – 10 August 2008 Thailand’s celebrated artist Montri will transform 100 Tonson’s Bangkok gallery with a photographic installation titled Nanothailand. Continuing his interest in cultural hybridity, the subject of these biting images are refugees and exiles. Representing the Thai Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, Montri is no stranger to drawing attention and this powerful exhibition packs a punch. Showing until 10 August, visit www.100tonsongallery.com

Source: http://www.artmonthly.org.au/

For more on:

• Contemporary Thai art https://artradarasia.wordpress.com/category/artist-nationality/thai/
• Contemporary Asian Photography https://artradarasia.wordpress.com/category/medium/photography-medium/