Arthub Favorite: Week 143

The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta

Duration: 2018 December 1 – 2019 April 13
Venue: Times Art Center Berlin, Potsdamer Straße 87, 10785 Berlin

Curated by HOU Hanru, co-curated by XI Bei

EPISODE III, The Politics of the Self
2019 March 1 – April 13

Participating artists:
ALLORA & CALZADILLA, CAO Fei, CHEN Shaoxiong, CHOI Sai-Ho, FANG Lu, May FUNG, HO Sin Tung, KWAN Sheung-Chi, LI Xiaofei, Natalie LO Lai Lai, Anson MAK Hoi Shan, MAP OFFICE, QIN Jin, SHI Qing, Koki TANAKA, Jalal TOUFIC & Graziella Rizkallah TOUFIC, WONG Wai Yin, XU Tan, ZHU Jianlin

In its inaugural three-part exhibition, Times Art Center Berlin will present a vital component of the Chinese art world which remains lesser known to international audiences and is under-represented on the global art scene, namely the contemporary art production from the Pearl River Delta (PRD). A highly specific region of China with its distinct cultural characteristics and traditions, the PRD has been closely related to international influences and interwoven with popular culture from the beginning. Frequent exchanges between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the impacts of Hong Kong’s popular culture, film, television and pop music concerning visual culture, coupled with a sensitivity for and references to international new media art, led to rapid experimentation in video art across the entire PRD.

Video art in the region of the PRD emerged as early as the mid-1980’s. Videotage in Hong Kong and Southern Artists Salon in Guangzhou were pioneers and galvanizing creative forces in the field. This movement was carried forward, in the 90s, by the rise of certain collectives and individuals, including the “Big Tail Elephants Working Group”, the “Borges Bookstore”, “U-theque”, and artists JIANG Zhi and CAO Fei. By adopting the medium of moving images, artists from the PRD are looking for freedom and forms of resistance against dominant ideology and powers, turning ordinary gestures into artistic strategies to construct diverse “personal utopias”. Their video practices represent the most ground-breaking and powerful visions of contemporary art and culture in the PRD. As a result, the PRD has become a creative hub for international exchange and art activities, as well as a deviating model which inspires artists from other region.

In recent years, contemporary art created in China, by artists both from China and abroad, has become a major part of the global art scene. Now, the time has come to reflect this progression in Berlin. As an associated organisation of the renowned Guangdong Times Museum, in Guangzhou in southern China, Times Art Center Berlin (TACB) was established with that mission in mind. It is the first time an independent Asia-based art museum has founded a parallel institution abroad. As a non-profit art institution, TACB aims at facilitating cultural conversations between Asia and Europe through collaborations with artists, curators, intellectuals and institutions based in Berlin. TACB operates as an independent and autonomous organisation and will produce a series of exhibitions, research projects, commissions, screenings, discursive events, artist residencies and publications. As an experimental space and research-oriented platform, it hopes to add a voice from the Global Souths to Berlin’s vibrant artistic scenes. Its inaugural exhibition is part of the Operation PRD curatorial framework following the exhibition Big Tale Elephants.

UPCOMING EVENT
2019 April 13, Finissage

18:00-19:30, Storytelling and Active Withdrawal as Forms of Resistance
Panel discussion with Nikita Yingqian Cai and Melanie Roumiguiére
(Discussion in English)

Nikita Yingqian Cai (Chief Curator at the Guangdong Times Museum) and Melanie Roumiguière (Head of Visual Arts at DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program) will situate their practices by connecting the curatorial frameworks of their institutions with artistic practices supported, mediated and consolidated within and beyond their regional contexts. They will discuss storytelling and active withdrawal as an artistic strategy – taking a closer look at different forms of resistance that can be decisive for the visions of an institution and their practice.

20:00-21:00, Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises (Part 2)
Performance by Isaac Chong Wai

In this performance, Isaac Chong Wai will take the history of protests – through its repetitive expressions and actions – as the point of departure. Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises is a continuation of Chong’s investigation into imagined futures and how, through certain movements and postures, past ideology can be interpreted and improved upon by future generations.

About Times Art Center

Times Art Center Berlin was founded in July 2018 by the Guangdong Times Museum, a non-profit private art museum of great importance situated within the Pearl River Delta in China. Registered as a non-profit art institution, Times Art Center Berlin is currently located in the Potsdamer Strasse Art District in the heart of Berlin. Times Art Center is scheduled to open to the public at the end of 2018.