14 and 15 May 2010, 10:00 – Midnight
16 May 2010, 10:00 – 18:00
To celebrate Tate Modern’s 10th anniversary, the gallery will host No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents. For this free art festival, Tate Modern has invited Arthub Asia to be part of these celebration of creativity and independent contemporary art initiatives.
Crazy English is a performance by the Shanghai-based Chinese artist Zhou Xiaohu. The artist is concerned with Chinese social behaviors that mis-translate and misinterpret western marketing concepts and tools. In this performance, conceived especially for the Tate festival No Soul for Sale, Zhou Xiaohu has invited one of the teachers of Crazy English, a company specialized in teaching English language to large Chinese audiences, in football stadiums and other similar locations. Crazy English is a performance itself and a technique that makes standard American English an invented interpretation of English itself. Zhou’s aim, through the simple action of bringing Crazy English to London, is to show how something familiar, the English language, can instantly be transformed into something alien and forei gn (English for foreigners), thus raising questions of legitimacy and the distorted effects of cultural imperialism.
The performance will last for 30 min. and will take place in Arthub’s dedicated No-space, 16.00pm on 15th May 2010. The video recording of the video will be on display on 16th May 2010.
Zhou Xiaohu’s performance is made possible with the support of Far East Far West Ltd., Hong Kong.
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Other interventions by Arthub Asia:
“Arthub Asia Keywords” talk by Dr. Francesca Tarocco, Head of Research and Special Projects at Arthub Asia and lecturer at the University of Manchester.
Time of presentation: 13.00 to 13.30 on 16th May 2010 at the Auditorium.
Information:
www.arthubasia.org
press@arthubasia.org
Notes to editors
The first edition of No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents was spearheaded by Cecilia Alemani, Maurizio Cattelan, and Massimiliano Gioni, and took place in June 2009 at X initiative in the former Dia Center for the Arts in New York. The idea for the festival was devised to celebrate and foster a spirit of independence and diversity in the art world.
As part of No Soul for Sale, Tate Modern is opening late on the 14 and 15 May 2010, tying-in with the nationwide project Museums at Night. Museums at Night is the annual after-hours celebration of UK culture, history and heritage that sees museums and galleries all over the UK staying open late and putting on special events to get people to do something different with their evening – and enjoy the history and heritage on their doorstep.
Arthub Asia is a multi-disciplinary organization devoted to contemporary art creation in China and rest of Asia, founded in 2007. In collaboration with museums and other public / private spaces and institutions, it initiates and delivers ambitious art projects through a sustained dialogue with visual, performance, and new media artists. Arthub Asia is committed to furthering experimentation, knowledge-production and diversity among dedicated artists, art professionals, scholars, and arts organizations in the region.
