In addition, the various components of the themed exhibition, city pavilions and special projects will be curated and executed by another group of international and domestic curators. More information to come soon.

Related Projects

• Arthub Asia’s Defne Ayas new Director of Witte de With (0)
• Republic 1: Do you still remember the Soviet Union? (0)
• An interview with Qiu Zhijie by Li Zhenhua and commented by Davide Quadrio (1)

For smARTpower, Duke Riley will restage in Shanghai the legendary swimming race that determined the sequential order in which the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac appear; all of the zodiac animals will be represented by live animals (minus the Dragon), which will be ferried separately across the Huangpu River in boats decorated according to each animal and paddled by different groups within the community. According to Riley, “No calendars will be reset at the finish line nor will any closer understanding of that mythical day be realized. The only realization will be a brief moment of divine absurdity between two shores.” The project is also intended to highlight the porous nature of waterfront communities, and the tolerance and cultural exchange that transient maritime cultures generally foster.

Related Projects

• Arthub at Arco, Madrid (0)
• Access All Areas, IMMA publication out now! Dublin, Irland (0)
• Dragons, Tigers and Lions: Contemporary Art in South East Asia and China (0)

Defne Ayas will succeed Nicolaus Schafhausen, who has been director since early 2006. At the end of this year, he will leave his post, having led the institute very successfully for six years, the maximum number of years a director can stay at Witte de With according to the institution’s policy.

Istanbul native Defne Ayas heads to Rotterdam from New York, where she has served as a curator of Performa – the visual art performance biennial of New York City – since 2004, and from Shanghai, where she has acted as a co-founding director of Arthub Asia – a contemporary art initiative devoted to art creation and exchange across Asia– since 2007. Ayas was also a faculty member of contemporary art and new media at the New York University in Shanghai for the past five years.

Prior to joining Arthub Asia and Performa, she coordinated the New York-based New Museum of Contemporary Art’s public and new media programming. Ayas has recently served as a curatorial advisor to the 8th Shanghai Biennale, and as a publication advisor to the 8th Gwangju

Biennale (South Korea) in 2010. Defne Ayas completed De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam and received her Masters degree from ITP – Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Defne Ayas will stay involved with Performa, Arthub Asia, as well as with Blind Dates Project, an artistic platform dedicated to tackling what remains of the legacy and rupture of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1923), of which she is a founding co-curator.

Jack Bakker, chairman of the board of Witte de With states: “Under the directorship of Nicolaus Schafhausen, Witte de With has created numerous nationally and internationally acclaimed exhibitions and events, both in Rotterdam and abroad. We are very grateful to him for this. We look forward to the coming three years with Defne Ayas. We expect her to continue to build high profile collaborative platforms among artists and organizations across the globe. We are convinced that her curatorial leadership and her collaborative and expansive approach will further enhance Witte de With’s ambitions on local, national and international levels.”

Related Projects

• ‘Double Infinity’, A collaborative encounter between Van Abbemuseum and Arthub Asia -Shanghai (0)
• Arthub Summit: The Making of the New Silk Roads (Bangkok) (2)
• Arthub’s Defne Ayas on Art and Design at Asia Art Archive, for ART HK 09 (0)

The artist Li Mu during his residency at the Museum in 2011 wanted to share the direct experience of modern and contemporary art with his family and friends in his remote village in Hunan province as a way to connect the villagers with an important part of his life and art.

Carpenters, workers, his family will be part of this year long encounter: they will re-create part of the vanabbemuseum collection in China, displaying it in this village.

Arthub Asia is proud of this initiative and is working with Li Mu to make it happen.

A library project

In order to make the project living after this exhibition, Li Mu will set up a library in the village to explore a possible interactive relationship between the “art” and the villagers.
The library will be made by an abandoned bus, placed in Li Mu’s home on the space just outside the gate of his house. All books will be art books and this is how Li Mu describes what he would like this library to look like:

“A library as a life, that continues to grow and change. It may be small, as small as only hundreds books but maybe it will grow bigger

“A library” free for all, open on every Saturday and Sunday. Retired elementary school teacher Wei Yiming will be employed as librarian, responsible for the library opening and maintenance.

“A library” will held on a regular basis workshops with kids and adults alike.

“A library” as a place for artistic and cultural talks for the villagers.

“A library” regular for films and documentaries.

To make books donations and for more information please click here.

Related Projects

• PCF Network Meeting in Bangladesh, Drik Incident and curatorial work-shop (0)
• Shanghype!, portrait of the city from dawn to dusk (1)
• Just What Is It That Makes Shanghai So Different, So Appealing? (0)

Enclave, an ambitious new-build street of 10 gallery units in London launches in March 2012, hosting national and international project spaces and galleries.

We are pleased to announce an opportunity for a new or established Asian project space, collective or gallery to join a diverse host of international spaces at the site, renting at below market rates. This can include free additional use of an impressive 8 x 8m gallery as an exhibition, performance, residency and events space 5 weeks yearly.

The units (4 x 8m) available are highly finished, double height, heated, ground floor with glazed frontage and with full disabled access. Enclave offers a unique opportunity for a start ups and experimental projects to establish a base in one of London’s most creative and up and coming hubs.

Confirmed tenants so far include Centre of Attention; AnArchitecture; Swedish and Nordic Project Space Snowball Project Space, Occupy My Time, and Berlin’s Styx Project Space showing yearly.

Enclave will launch with a month-long exhibition curated by temporarycontemporary, invited Project Spaces and includes projects selected by David Thorp, LUX, and artists Adam Christensen, Anthony Gross and Toby Huddlestone. Further details to be announced.

Application procedure: Deadline for Round 3 of submissions: 10th Jan 2012. For further information on Enclave, and how to submit your proposal email: info@tempcontemp.co.uk

For further information on the area visit:

http://www.southlondonartmap.com/

New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/chclk9

Google Maps: http://tinyurl.com/bnu6xrv

Related Projects

• No related posts.

The exhibition focuses on artists creating works that reflect the way individuals react to situations arising from conflicts in ideologies and the collapse of communication in the context of nationalism, ethnicity and power.  We plan to exhibit the work of Yto Barrada, Phil Collins, Raphael Dallapota, Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh, Rainer Ganahl, Li Mu, MKR Palash, Navin Rawanchaikul, Julika Rudelius, Lina Saneh, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tintin Wulia, Zhang Peili, Philippe Laleu and Artur Zmijewski.  The work is a mix of video, photography and installation.

The exhibition Survival Techniques: Narratives of Resistance looks at artists who are creating works that reflect the way individuals react to situations arising from conflicts in ideologies and the collapse of communication when thinking about nationalism, ethnicity, and power, whether dealing with issues of displacement and exile or the struggle to exist within a state of flux within one’s own self-identified place of being.

The genesis of this project is a personal reflection by curator Davide Quadrio during the political unrest in Thailand from 2008-2010 and the severe distress it caused to him and his family while living there and to the nation and its people. With the revolutions in the Arab world, we have continued to see civil resistance involving various measures such as demonstrations and rallies to express dissatisfaction with existing authoritarian regimes. However, the situations in Thailand and the Arab world and the reactions of its people are not unique. History bears witness to ways that individuals, groups of people, races, and nations survive in a time of social unrest and political uncertainty.

Taking the poetry and the power of imagery as the starting point, Survival Techniques looks closely at the layers of artistic creation, revealing an artist’s quest to reveal his or her truth, whether fictional or manipulated. The individual works are chosen for their capacity to comment on the specific themes addressed in the exhibition while connecting, echoing and in dialogue with the other works on view increasing their potential effect.  Moving through the exhibition, geographies collapse into a generic and unnamed world revealing how art can expand local specificity into universal concepts that are the mirror of our era in the flux of human history.

This exhibition is co-organized by Natasha Egan, Director and Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) and Davide Quadrio, co-founder of Arthub Asia, a cultural and artistic constellation of independent thinkers devoted to contemporary art creation in China and across Asia. A selection of works for this exhibition is from the FarEastFarWest collection on extended loan to the MoCP.  FarEastFarWest commissions and collects challenging artworks that conceptually describe contemporary Asia and its role in the world.

Artists (preliminary list)

Yto Barrada (France, lives in Morocco, b. 1971)

In the last twenty years the Strait of Gibraltar has become one of the main gateways for illegal immigration in North Africa.  Barrada’s photographs capture the temptations of leaving, and the unfulfilled hopes of escaping into Europe.

Phil Collins (United Kingdom, b. 1970)

The meaning of style (2011) is a short film based on the skinhead culture in Kuala Lumpur, the capital and largest city in Malaysia.  It tells the story of a young man watching a film of a subculture considered rebellious but their behaviors have nothing to do with the ideology marked by the culture. The group of skinheads is portrayed as a social exercise codified with rituals emptied of the political rightwing meanings but still referred to them in their masculine essence.

Raphaël Dallaporta (France, b. 1980)

Domestic Slavery (2010) is a work of hidden resistance. Banal photographs of the facades of wealthy apartment buildings symbolizing urban luxury are accompanied by long captions that reveal the devastating truths of contemporary slaves that worked with the families that live in these places.

Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh (Germany/Lebanon)

While working in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh encountered an extraordinary woman who brought a collection of personal photographs with her into the camp that define a history of the pre-war period. Eid-Sabbagh has begun to analyze the woman’s “collection” and develop a project that re-traces, with sensitivity, the woman’s situation and her ability to bare witness to a cruel reality with neither pathos nor over-sensationalism.

Rainer Ganahl (Austria, lives in United States, b. 1961)

Rainer Ganahl’s I Hate Karl Marx (2010) video depicts a German woman expressing her discontent and opposition in Chinese to a statue of Karl Marx on Karl Marx Allee in the year 2045 when the international language is now Chinese.

Li Mu (China, b. 1974)

Blue Books (2008-2009) is a project that explores the intimate reality of teenagers serving sentences at the Shanghai Juvenile Reformatory. The artist offered his own art books (displayed on a shelf in the Reformatory) as a temporary gift to the teenagers.  The teenagers are eager to communicate with, learn, and earn trust from the outside world and these books are the bridge to it.  Art books can transcend the constraints of different languages, educational background, and age. Reading these books have the capability of gaining a deeper understanding of freedom, goodness and creativity and this was part of the weekly discussions between the artist and the teenagers.  The work is a series of portraits and documentation collected during the year long collaboration. The color blue both represents the sky and ocean and represents freedom, purity and peace which the artist aspires to have his reader reach but it is also the color of the teenagers’ uniforms. In this formal yet symbolic work the project can be read (especially in contemporary China) as a moment of reflection on the absurdity of human destiny.

MKR Palash (Bangladesh)

Liberation War Bangladesh, 1971 (2010) is a photographic series inspired by the homonymous 1971 Liberation War.  After 41 years the memories of the people who sacrificed their life for their country and for those who were tortured and went through physical violence are omnipresent but forgotten by the young generation. When Palash was a child he heard stories of the war from his relatives, in particular from his father who was a Freedom Fighter.  As an adult Palash felt a sense of guilt for missing this heroic time and created a series of fictional photographs that encapsulate the memories and stories he heard. Facts are filtered by his staged reconstruction and digital manipulation.

Navin Rawanchaikul (Thailand/Japan b. 1971)

In Hong Rub Khaek (Khaek Welcome) conceptual artist Rawanchaikul steps into the living rooms of seven Indian migrants living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He explores with touching kindness the world of Indian/Thai families, their lives and stories and open our imagination to an unexpected view of Thailand. “They are all from my parents’ generation, each with memories of how the partition disrupted the lives of their families and their journey to Thailand,” he says. “Art has given me a chance to understand their stories and make sense of my family’s history. Through this, I get a better insight into my past.”

Sigalit Landau (Israel, b. 1969) Azkelon, 2011

“I filmed people playing the “knife” game. Azkelon is a hybrid of Aza (Gaza) and Ashkelon. These two towns share a beach but are separated by a border. The Gaza strip is one of the most crowded districts in the world, populated mostly by refugees; Ashkelon was conceived by Jewish immigrants from Arab countries. From my point of view, young people on both sides play this “game”. Where there is play - there is life. It is an agreement to simple rules: they may win, they may lose; the interaction is possible interaction.”

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand, b. 1970)

In the course of conducting research for the feature film Uncle Boonmee (Cannes winner 2009), filmmaker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul visited and worked in the north-east of Thailand close to the Laotian border. The village of Nabua was heavily occupied by the Thai army for two decades from the 1960s to the early 1980s in order to curb those who were accused of being communists, and was a place of fierce oppression, fighting and violence. Many men disappeared leaving the village dominated by women and children. This reality echoed an ancient legend about a widow ghost who abducts any man who enters her empire making Nabua’s nickname Widow Town. As the Cold War ended, reconciliations were made and the Communist Party of Thailand withered away. The government played down the violence and quickly the public began to forget about the disappeared, leaving the young generation oblivious to this past.  In his photographic series Ghost Teen, Weerasethakul spent two months in Nabua documenting the teenagers’ activities and creating fictional scenarios in order to implant a collective memory.

Tintin Wulia (Indonesia, b. 1972)

The Most International Artist (2011) is an ongoing project by the artist playing with matters of identity and survival. In a playful way the artist crafts and collects passports from around the world and creates evolving time-based installations, short films or filmed performances and actions. The freshness and poetry of Wulia’s work is counterbalanced by the reflection of ethnical limitations, borders and the drama of human injustice.

Zhang Peili (China, b. 1957)

The dual-screened video Happiness (2006) juxtaposes a man speaking about political and social greatness in chopped rhetorical sentences on one screen while people applaud enthusiastically on the other screen commenting on the universal efficiency and drama of political populism.

Artur Zmijewski (Poland, b. 1966)

In his films and photographs Arthur Zmijewski investigates social norms by observing unusual or invented situations. He often adapts the strategies of political action in his work and documents the reactions.  Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie (2009), documents a workshops organized by Zmijewski in which seven artists from different parts of Poland collaborate with steel workers in Swiecie, Poland to make a public sculpture. Modeled on a similar collaboration between artists and workers in Elblag, Poland, in the late 1960s, which was inspired by utopian goals of a classless society, Zmijewski highlights the social and political realities that separate people today.

Philippe Laleu (France, 1964)

In the show we present the work called Mère nature et ses enfants, Mother Nature and her children (2011)

A multi media piece, photography and video. This work re-group archival documents, photos took by the artist and an interview- video work. Thailand is well known as to be a particularly tolerant country, especially because its Buddhist cultural and religious back-ground. From the beginning of my stay in Thailand twelve years ago, i have been fascinated by a phenomenon of the third sex. I so decided to re-organize all the information I collected throughout the years, adding images e a long interview with a friend a katoi ( term used in Thailand to describe and call transsexual  people). This recherché is then display on a long narrative of images, texts and sketches.

Julika Rudelius (Germany/Netherlands) (this piece TBC)

Rudelius’ video installations provide insights into attitudes and practices within a selected group. She deals with prejudices and stereotypes that determine our daily behavior and are the foundation of our social coexistence. One of Us (2010) is about the love between idealized couples. This work shifts the background concept of the entire exhibition into the realm of the private.  The video is charged with passion, incomprehension, arguments and fragility.  It is the nature place where the subject explores the basic technique of survival, often denied or hidden to the outside world but not less dramatic and existentially fundamental.

Uriel Orlow, (Canada)

The starting point of Yellow Limbo ( HD video with stereo sound, 14′, 2011) is an extra-ordinary episode which has all but disappeared from official histories; namely, the failed passage of fourteen international cargo ships through the Suez Canal on 5 June 1967. Caught in the outbreak of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the ships were only able to leave the canal in 1975 when it re-opened. While stranded for eight years, the cold-war political allegiances of the multi-national crews were dissolved and gave way to a form of communal survival and the establishment of a social system. This involved the organisation of their own olympic games in 1968, amongst other activities.

Special Film Screening

Three films will summarize and symbolically describe the individual and social survival that humanity faces as individuals, couples, and as a community. A solitude-portrait of artist and activist Ai Weiwei is described in the documentary Before Ai Weiwei (1994) by Daria Menozzzi. A narrative on the distortion of social behaviors in closed communities struggling to reach an understanding of what remains of inexplicable suffering is the focus of Enemies of the People (2010) by Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin.

Before Ai  (1995) a documentary by Daria Menozzi, Premier

The intimate interview held in Beijing in 1995 by director Daria Menozzi presents an unexpected Ai Weiwei. Just back from the States, the artist explains his idea of contemporary art, his work in relationship to Beijing and China which were both to be re-discovered by the artist. Before his greatness was revealed to the world, this unique portrait of an artist struggling to position himself in an estranged world yet to become the overwhelming power of today strikes for its frankness, simplicity and fragility revealed.

Enemies of the People (2010) by Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin

The Khmer Rouge ran what is regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most brutal regimes. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. In Enemies of the People the men and women who perpetrated the massacres – from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party’s ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two – break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before heard or seen.

Unprecedented access from top to bottom of the Khmer Rouge has been achieved through a decade of work by one of Cambodia’s best investigative journalists, Thet Sambath. Sambath is on a personal quest: he lost his own family in the Killing Fields. The film is his journey to discover not how but why they died. In doing so, he hears and understands for the first time the real story of his country’s tragedy. After years of visits and trust-building, Sambath finally persuades Brother Number Two to admit (again, for the first time) in detail how he and Pol Pot (the two supreme powers in the Khmer Rouge state) decided to kill party members whom they considered ‘Enemies of the People’.

Related Projects

• Third Realm, Jompet’s special project for Gervasuti Foundation, Venice (0)
• Screen Play by Christian Marclay in Shanghai - a PERFORMA production (6)
• Collecting Practices in photography, Pathshala, Dhaka, Bangladesh (0)

Performa Premiere Zhou Xiaohu: Crazy English Camp
Saturday, November 19, 1 PM
Saturday, November 19, 4.30 PM
at Judson Memorial Church, at Washington Square Park South.

For Performa 11, the Shanghai-based Chinese artist Zhou Xiaohu will invite the inventor of Crazy English, a company specialized in teaching English language to thousands of Chinese students in stadiums or large open spaces. The teaching requires repetitions of sounds, words, and sentences in American English together with gestures and movements. Crazy English is both a performance and an effective technique that translates standard American English into a gestural, theatrical movement. Concerned with Chinese social behaviors that mis-translate and misinterpret western marketing concepts and tools, Zhou’s aim, through the simple action of bringing Crazy English to New York, is to show how something familiar can instantly be transformed into something alien and foreign, thus raising questions of legitimacy and the distorted effects of cultural imperialism.

CREDITS:

Performa Premiere Crazy English by Zhou Xiaohu Feat. Li Yang, inventor of Crazy English

Curated by Defne Ayas, Davide Quadrio

Co-presented by Arthub Asia

With generous support from Depart Foundation.

About ZHOU XIAOHU

Critical of the role and influence of visual media in everyday life, Zhou Xiaohu (born 1960 in Changzhou, China)’s practice reflects on how history is documented in a digital age where particular details may be privileged, fabricated, altered and omitted. Working across performance, photography, installation, sculpture, video and animation, Zhou’s work has most recently been shown at the 8th Gwangju Biennial (2010); Tate Modern, London (2010); National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2010); Long March Space, Beijing (2010); BOZAR, Brussels (2009), Walsh Gallery, Chicago (2008), BizArt Art Space, Shanghai (2009, 2007).

Related Projects

• Steam Society Presents - Istanbul Biennale satellite (0)
• The necessary instability of hybrid cultures (0)
• Defne Ayas, Director of Arthub Asia (0)

A Dj will perform the music of the 5 compilation for this unique night of fun and dance.

Favorite songs selected by:

Marina Abramovic, A Constructed World, Shahidul Alam, Maria Thereza Alves, Carola Annoni, Cory Arcangel, Francesco Arena, Alessio Ascari, John Baldessari, Daniele Balit, Miroslaw Balka, Luca Massimo Barbero, Colette Barbier, Liliana Basarab,  Pierre Beloüin, Daniel Birnbaum, Dominique Blais, Katinka Bock, Elena Bordignon, Sylvie Boulanger, Candice Breitz, Kerstin Brätsch, Cecilia Canziani, Etienne Chambaud, Mehdi Chouakri, Nataline Colonnello, Lauren Cornell, Bice Curiger, Nemanja Cvijanovic, Daria de Beauvais, Ann Demeester, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Cathryn Drake, Gilles Drouault, Jimmie Durham, Haris Epaminonda, Jacob Fabricius, Didier Faustino, Ettore Favini, Chris Fitzpatrick, Sylvie Fleury, Luca Francesconi, Aurélien Froment, Julien Fronsacq, Chiara Fumai, Dora Garcia, Francesco Garutti, Ida Gianelli, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Tue Greenfort, Theodoulos Gregoriou, Antonio Grulli, Henrik Haakansson, Jeppe Hein, Fabrice Hybert, Anton Kern, Terence Koh, Johann König, Stéphane Kropf, Claire Le Restif, Beatrice Leanza, Luca Lo Pinto, Géraldine Longueville, Bartomeu Marí, Samuele Menin, Darius Mikšys, Viktor Misiano, Aaron Moulton, Ciprian Muresan, Deimantas Narkevičius, Melanie Ohnemus, Orlan, Tony Oursler, Virginia Overton, Lara Pan, Francesco Pantaleone, Florence Parot, Francesco Pedraglio, Adriano Pedrosa, Dan Perjovschi, Angelo Plessas, Luigi Presicce, Riccardo Previdi, Davide Quadrio, Judith Quentel, Dan Rees, Francesca Referza, Caterina Riva, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Dieter Roelstraete, Aïda Ruilova, Nana Seo Eun-A, Sissi, Annika Ström, Yann Sérandour, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Sandra Terdjman, Massimiliano Tonelli, Luca Trevisani, Nicola Trezzi, Joris Van de Moortel, Neville Wakefield, Franz West, Jocelyn Wolff, Akram Zaatari, Raphaël Zarka, Li Zhenhua

The Top100 vol.5 CD is produced by:

Dena Foundation - Paris

Arthub Asia - Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok

Cneai - Paris

N.O. Gallery, Milano

graphic design: Martin Pyper, Amsterdam

Related Projects

• Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Paul Huf Award 2011 (0)
• 1.0 Shanghai Meeting, 2008 (0)
• The perfection of the imperfection or the principles of adaptation (0)

8 December 2011 – 8 January 2012

Presented by: Videotage

In collaboration with: Asia Art Archive, Hanart TZ Gallery, KEE Club, Osage Art Foundation, School of Creative Media of City University of Hong Kong and Spring Workshop (In alphabetical order)

Supported by: Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Curators: Isaac Leung 梁學彬‭, ‬ Li Zhenhua‭ ‬李振華

Advisors: Valerie C Doran 任卓華, Oscar Ho 何慶基, Linda Lai 黎肖嫻, Qiu Zhijie 邱志傑‭, ‬Shen Qibin 沈其斌, Zhang Peili 張培力

Artistic Director: Ellen Pau 鮑藹倫

Exhibition Artists:

aaajiao 徐文愷, Cao Fei 曹斐, Henry Chu 朱力行, Feng Mengbo 馮夢波, Linda Lai 黎肖嫻, Teddy Lo 羅揚文, Ou Ning 歐寧, Ellen Pau 鮑藹倫, Qiu Zhijie 邱志傑, Eric Siu 蕭子文, Jeffrey Shaw 邵志飛‭, ‬Johnnie To 杜琪峯‭,‬‭ ‬Wang Luming 王鹿嗚, Wang Jianwei 汪建偉, Wang Zhenfei 王振飛, Yang Fudong 楊福東, Danny Yung 榮念曾, Zhang Peili 張培力

Video Artists:

Cao Kai 曹愷, Cao Fei 曹斐, Chen Man 陳曼, Cheng Ran 程然, Du Jie 杜傑, Feng Mengbo 馮夢波, Fu Yu 富鈺, Jia Haiqing 賈海清, Jiang Zhi 蔣志, Ou Ning  歐寧, Qiu Zhijie 邱志傑, Shi Qinq 石青, Wang Jianwei 汪建偉, Wang Ning 王寧, Wang Yuyang 王郁洋, Wu Quan 武權, Wu Ershan 烏爾善, Yang Fudong 楊福東, Ye Linghan 葉凌瀚, Zhang Dan 張丹, Zhao Liang  趙亮, Zheng Yunhan 鄭雲瀚, Zhou Xiaohu 周嘯虎

Introduction:

Videotage, a leading non-profit organization proudly presents One World Exposition in Decemeber this year to facilitate, promote and present media art in Hong Kong also the Greater China region.  One World Exposition precedingly features 18 contemporary media artists from both Hong Kong and Mainland China, exhibits their classic pieces in joint dialogue, and explores the position, history, currency and future of media art under the rapid development of contemporary Chinese art.  Between the 8th December 2011 to the 8th January 2012, a series of exhibitions and programmes will be hosted at the most exciting art and cultural venues in Hong Kong for general public and art-lover to participate.

One World Exposition is the first substantial project that aims at exploring the development of Chinese media art from the regional, national and global perspectives. Through a series of exhibitions, screenings, performances, artist’s talks and symposia, this project targets to enrich public’s understanding in contemporary Chinese media artists’ and their works from different context and cultural backgrounds, and hopefully bridge artistic and cultural exchange between regions and across time.

Videotage brings together internationally recognised media artists from diverse background and discipline, who work on video art, film, lighting, theatre, computer game and interactive media.  Participating gems include, but not limited to, Feng Mengbo, Ou Ning, Ellen Pau, Qiu Zhijie, Jeffrey Shaw, Johnnie To, Wang Jianwei, Yang Fudong, Danny Yung and Zhang Peili.  Co-curated by Isaac Leung and Li Zhenhua who are experts in media art, 18 participating artists will be presented in joint dialogue to explore the multi-faceted nature of Chinese media art in both the regional and global contexts.  8 groups of exhibits will be showcased to delineate and juxtapose lineage of histories, complexity and cross-complication, so as to project insights for the future framework for the development of Chinese media art.  One World Exposition also debuts collaborative live performances of ‘Qiu Zhijie x Ellen Pau’ and ‘Wang Jianwei x Danny Yung’, that will inaugurate the opening night.  Feng Mengbo will perform Bruce Lee VJ Project, jointly presented by Videotage, Hanart TZ Gallery and KEE Club, which will be a first in Hong Kong.  All programme is opened to general public to sensitise new audience and inform new understanding in reaction to the changing landscape of Chinese media art.

All programme of One World Exposition is opened to general public and is of free admission, except Bruce Lee VJ Project by Feng Mengbo is for RSVP.  Pencil down the week from the 8th to the 12th December 2011 for the excitement and amusement of Chinese media art.  For further information and updates, please visit One World Exposition’s official website: www.oneworldexpo.org.

For general enquiry: info@videotage.org.hk

For press enquiry: press@videotage.org.hk

(For information about opening hours, please visit One World Exposition’s official website: www.oneworldexpo.org/en/schedule.html)

2. Screening

Date: 10 Dec 2011 – 8 Jan 2012

Venue: Osage Kwun Tong

Address: 5/F, Kian Dai Industrial Building, 73-75 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

3. Symposium

Date: 10, 11 December 2011

Time: 1pm – 5pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, L3, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre

Introduction

Situated at the Pearl River Delta as a self-governing territory of China, Hong Kong is always “inside” and “outside” the culture of Mainland China. By curating One World Exposition, we hope to leverage the strategic location of Hong Kong and re-engage contemporary Chinese art from the regional, national and global perspectives. Apart from viewing and representing Chinese art from the geopolitical position of SAR, we also hope to re-think our identities through different concepts of the cultural China. While media artists in Hong Kong has gone through different stages of media and aesthetic genres, it will be a great opportunity to self-reference Hong Kong media art in comparison to various artistic and cultural movements of the Greater China.

Focusing on the issues of identity, economy, society and the bureaucracy of the emerging Chinese art scene, we strive to explore contemporary Chinese art in a non-simplistic way. Each day of conferences will involve scholars, artists, and public intellectuals to discuss the complex phenomenon of the artistic, cultural and the technology of contemporary Chinese life. Through invitations and public calls for papers, we hope to synthesize various progress, limitations and strategies for the transformation of our world of Chinese art.

Panel 1 Making of The Greater Chinese Art 大「中國」藝術的塑造

Speakers: Melissa Chiu 招穎思, Valerie C Doran 任卓華, Oscar Ho 何慶基

Panel 2 Unmasking the Business of Art 揭示藝術經濟體制

Speakers: Dong Bingfeng 董冰峰, Guo Xiaoyan 郭曉彥, Shen Qibin 沈其斌

Panel 3 Technosocial Subversivity 科技社交的顛覆性

Speakers: Isaac Mao 毛向輝, Ou Ning 歐寧, Davide Quadrio 樂大豆

Panel 4 Experimenting the Future of “New Media” 「新媒體」的未來實驗

Speakers: Hector Rodriguez 羅海德, Wang Jun-Jieh 王俊傑, Zhang Ga 張尕

About Videotage:

Videotage is a leading non-profit organisation in facilitating, promoting and presenting new media art in Hong Kong. Since 1986, Videotage has developed itself from an umbrella for media artists, to a network of media art and culture for cross-disciplinary cultural productions, and platform to facilitate international exchange.

With the continuous support from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and other funders, Videotage organises exhibitions, workshops, performances, exchange programs etc. to bring new media art closer to our everyday life. VMAC (Video Media Art Collection) was officiated in 2008 with a mission to collect, preserve and build an extensive archive of local video art. Representing more than 20 years of development in media art, the archive is of high significant educational value to the discourse of media archeology and art history in Hong Kong.

We conceive new media art as a cultural movement that brings art and technology productions to nodes of intersections. To promote a free and open DIY culture, Videotage begins to host Dorkbot HK in 2010. The network will be a hotbed of creativity and innovation, where artists actively engage with technology and address contemporary social, political and cultural concerns. With the success of Wikitopia in 2010, we will continue exploring how citizen and social media reshape humankind in the era of network culture. We will also continue providing service and support to media artist and general public for the development of media art and strengthen the position of Videotage as a cultural hub of knowledge transfer for art, culture and technology.

Address: Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan Kowloon, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2573 1869

Fax: (852) 2503 5978

Website: http://videotage.org.hk

About Curators:

Isaac Leung 梁學彬

Leung is a practicing artist, curator and researcher who received an Honorary Fellowship of Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the New Media Art Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. His passion in exploring issues concerning contemporary art began during his time in college. During 1998-2008, his artworks were exhibited in over 30 venues across the globe. His works were featured on National Public Radio (USA), and in Agence France-Presse (France), Chicago Tribune (USA), NY Arts Magazine (USA), Chicago Readers (USA) and The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).

In 2005, Leung was appointed as the Director of the media art organization Videotage. During the past years, he has initiated and participated in projects that included exhibitions, workshops, lectures, publications, online projects and symposia such as, 40 Years of Video Art in Germany and Hong Kong, (Hong Kong and Germany), Boderline Film Festival (Beijing), Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition (Venice, Hong Kong), Perpetual Art Machine (New York), “97+10: HK Hand Baggage” (Shanghai), ISEA Festival (San Jose), Microwave International Media Art Festival (Hong Kong). In 2005, Leung was appointed as the working group consultant of the award winning international exhibition “Body Movies” that was presented by the Home Affairs Bureau. The creative practice in artistic and curatorial project has prompted him to conduct substantial research on art and culture. Apart from the video documentary that was awarded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, his interdisciplinary project is being actualized as a Mphil academic thesis at the Lingnan University. Leung is currently a PhD researcher at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, researching on the contemporary Chinese art market.

Li Zhenhua 李振華

Li Zhenhua is a writer, curator, producer and artist living in Beijing /Shanghai and Zurich. He is the founder of Laboratory Art Beijing (www.bjartlab.com) and the Mustard Seed garden (www.msgproduction.com), in 2010 he has been working for the Shanghai eARTS Festival as chief planner. He has joint widely about new media art symposiums, talks, presentations in leading galleries and museum spaces around the world, such as talk in ZKM Karlsruhe (2003), Walker Art Centre Minneapolis (curated the WAVE project), Guangzhou Museum (as artist of the Guangzhou Triennial 2005), Synthetic Times: Media Art China 2008 (work as producer), Nanjing Triennial 2008 (work as curator). One of his most recent artwork is showing in the Beam me up exhibition in Basel, an online project dealing with time and perception of our daily life, with questioning on the ontology of human being. He is an advisor for Leonardo Journal (2007) and was part of the Jury of the Transmediale Award 2010.

About Artist Director:

Ellen Pau 鮑藹倫

Started as a self-taught video artist, Ellen Pau takes many roles in Hong Kong art scene - independent cinematographer, curator, and art critic. Her single channel videos and video installation works are extensively exhibited worldwide in film festivals and biennials. Ellen is the founder of Videotage, a media art collective in Hong Kong and also the founding director / curator of the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival. In recent years, she expands her research to Asian new media arts. She works as an art consultant for her newly founded company Inter-Act Arts.

Related Projects

• Third Realm, Jompet’s special project for Gervasuti Foundation, Venice (0)
• An interview with Qiu Zhijie by Li Zhenhua and commented by Davide Quadrio (1)
• Access All Areas, IMMA publication out now! Dublin, Irland (0)

Related Projects

• Shanghai Art Histories *– Cracked Open. (0)
• 100 Asian Contemporary Artists a publication by LOOP Press, Seoul, Korea (0)
• Arthub Commission- Music for Listening on the Moon by Yan Jun launched! (0)

Related Projects

• SH Contemporary 2011 and Arthub Asia (0)
• Arthub Asia part of the jury of Celeste Prize 2011, 3rd Edition – New York Open call to artists worldwide without limits of age, sex or experience. (0)
• Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Paul Huf Award 2011 (0)

Hamam-ı vakainüvis teredüt yaşayanların resimlerini çizer iken,
Biri hikayeler anlatır, bir diğeri köşede sabundan baloncuklar üfler iken

Tellaklar çıkarırken yılların pasını keseyle
Buharlar içinde hayatla göz göze gele.

Steam Society Presents

What? A banquette of all sorts at the Historical Galatasaray Hammam (b.1481). A purification hub for ideas and intimacies.

With? Ayla Algan, Julieta Aranda, Juan Gaitan, Adam Kleinman, Darius Mikšys, Francesco Pedraglio, Bedwyr Williams, Güneş Terkol, Elif Uras, and many others.

When? Wednesday, September 15th 2011 /// 11.11 -16.16

Where? Historical Galatasaray Hammam, Turnacibasi Street No:24 Galatasaray – Istanbul-Turkey

Whose idea? Defne Ayas & Aslı Çavuşoğlu

How? In collaboration with NON-Stage, URBAN, Arthub Asia, Angels of All Sorts. Special thanks go to Mercury in Retrograde.

Related Projects

• Survival Techniques: narratives of resistance, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (0)
• Shanghai Art Histories *– Cracked Open. (0)
• Double Infinity: The Last Two Decades Revisited in Shanghai (0)

In a city where there is no actuall public space (like a big city park) for people to hang around and relax, to hide in the public washroom seems to be a good choice for a moment of solitute. Particular there are too many shopping mails and buildings in cities. In this case, the situation is in an enclosed art fair in an enclosed city.

In purity, I silently reach for you.’ is a ‘public washroom’- like space/setting for people to hide inside, to be away from the crowd of the fair so as to have a private moment. They can lock themselves in the toilet cells as long as they want. They can look into the mirror or look at the objects inside. A toilet/washroom is a private space to every individual, even if not confronting their innermost selves. A public toilet (cell) ridiculously becomes a temporary private space for people, in a hectic social situation. Noise remains outside for a while

The objects, including the cardboard paintings, readymade objects and even the wall, dialogue between each other so as to create the subtle and quiet atmosphere. People step inside, whatever the cells or walk around the washroom, looking at something somehow indescripable and listening to nothing through the noise around. The objects change the atmosphere but still recall a / some situation in reality, to reveal something concealed.

It will be like a performance. Perhaps I will go there everyday, just like some other visitors. Once I hide myself in the locked toilet cells the ‘performance’ begins. But I disappear as well. Somehow I will be enjoying myself in one of the cells without anyone noticing. Visitors are actually ‘performing’ too if they close and lock themselves in the cells. There will be no document remains but a setting, just like something happened almost without a trace.

In every toilet cells, there will be a smell of deodorizer, hand-cream or perfume. Basically the smell recalls the brands logos on the cardboard paintings, and more important, to imply that it seems to be someone just ‘occupied’ the cells. There is actually no toilet in every cells. Everything in this public toilet are artificial, but close to something human, or distant intimacy.

The title is from a song Recharge and Revolt by The Raveonettes. From the album Raven in the Grave, 2011.

Related Projects

• Arthub Asia introduces SEARCH Southeast Asian Art Resource Channel by Rogueart at SH Contemporary 2011 (0)
• Self-control is mine! A dialogue with Shanghai and Columbia College Chicago by Fudan University Students (0)
• Crazy English in Performa, NYC! (cancelled) (0)

Heman Chong’s work “Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you)”, is built as an ironic memento of the typical meeting’s gesture of the cards’ exchange. One million black name cards welcome people and literally form the stage on which people will meet, discuss, and make business.

Special thanks to the support of Artron, A Service of Printing, Internet, Publishing and Popularizing in Art on the production of Heman Chong.

Related Projects

• Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Paul Huf Award 2011 (0)
• SH Contemporary 2011 and Arthub Asia (0)
• Lee Kit commissioned project for Shcontemporary (0)

Smitten by Chinese ink’s resilience and simultaneous gentleness, Jennifer Wen Ma creates a stunning new installation. Her fragile and poetic three-dimensional tableau vivant, inspired by traditional Chinese landscape, features hand-selected plants, painted black by the artist with kilograms of Chinese mo, in an attempt to create an effect as powerful -if not more- of classic ink painting compositions. As Wen Ma poetically transcends the traditional legacy of ink, her installation allows plants to blossom in time, referring both conceptually and formally to the significant time component of the use of ink in Chinese painting.

To see the details of the installation please click here.

Related Projects

• Crazy English in Performa, NYC! (cancelled) (0)
• Demanio Marittimo KM-278 (0)
• Zhang Peili: Video Works From 1980s-Present, Reading Room, Bangkok (0)

Commissioned by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary 2011

(Sept 7, 8 pm & Sept 8, 5 pm & On-going performance)

Students born in the late 80’s are asked about the meaning of ‘Soviet Union’ upon their visit of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Hall last week, the current venue of the SHContemporary. Seeking answers from their own families, including their parents and grandparents, the students went on to interweave the responses they got with elements in Plato’s The Republic, turning the site of a platform for not only a game of “hide and seek” but also debate.

The performances takes place on a stage constructed by bamboo with a form reminiscent of the styles of the 1950’s during which the building was erected. The floor of the stage could be seen as the shadow of this building, or the bow of a ship. Images of some old movies and posters of former Soviet Union will form the projection background for their installation.

The Republic is a long-last project of ‘Total Art Studio’ in China Academy of Art. The ‘TAT’ is a series of synthetical experiments with events, performances, videos, social investigation and social participation. The Republic 1: do you remember the Soviet Union? is not a sort of ideological reminiscence, but an archeological excavation at the current site of art market. For these students of art, the memory of S.U. is neither some style of sketch they have learned, nor just some image of a monument.

The Students of Total Art Studio, China Art Academy: Cheng Tao, Guo Houtong, He Bing, Huang Danyang, Huang Songhao, Li Lun, Li Yingqi, Li Shibai, Liu Xiu, Luo Jinhua, Miao Wenjun, Song Xinxin, Tian Zhenkun, Wang Fangyi, Wang Yuyan, Wang Ziyue, Wu Han, Zhang Dongchuan, Zhang Haoxiang, Zhong Ai.

Artistic Directors: Qiu Zhijie, Song Zhen, Zhao Jingyan

Related Projects

• Photography Update: The New Generation. Alchemists in the Last and Next Decade. (0)
• Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Paul Huf Award 2011 (0)
• Self-control is mine! A dialogue with Shanghai and Columbia College Chicago by Fudan University Students (0)

The special Hot Spot is dedicated at ShContemporary to ink painting-inspired works includes artists FX Harsono, the Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin), Jennifer Wen Ma, Bai Yiluo, Chen Qi and Qin Feng.

Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you)
Heman Chong
Offset prints on 260 gsm paper, approximately 1 million copies
2008 | 9 x 5.5 cm each
*Special commissioned project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary

Heman Chong’s work “Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you)”, is built as an ironic memento of the typical meeting’s gesture of the cards’ exchange. One million black name cards welcome people and literally form the stage on which people will meet, discuss, and make business.

Special thanks to the support of Artron, A Service of Printing, Internet, Publishing and Popularizing in Art on the production of the name cards.

Who Would Have Expected to Encounter Ni Zhan’s Gentlemen in S-Chanf?
Jennifer Wen Ma | 2011
Chinese ink, plants, soil
*Special commissioned project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary

Smitten by Chinese ink’s resilience and simultaneous gentleness, Jennifer Wen Ma creates a stunning new installation. Her fragile and poetic three-dimensional tableau vivant, inspired by traditional Chinese landscape, features hand-selected plants, painted black by the artist with kilograms of Chinese mo, in an attempt to create an effect as powerful -if not more- of classic ink painting compositions. As Wen Ma poetically transcends the traditional legacy of ink, her installation allows plants to blossom in time, referring both conceptually and formally to the significant time component of the use of ink in Chinese painting.

Rewriting The Erased
FX Harsano
Installation and performance video
Dimension Variable | 2009
Special commissioned project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary in collaboration with Rogueart. Made possible thanks to Indonesian Art for International Biennale (IAIB)

Writing in the rain
FX Harsano
performance video
video | 2011
Special commissioned project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary in collaboration with Rogueart. Made possible thanks to Indonesian Art for International Biennale (IAIB)

Respected for his groundbreaking work across different media, with a practice spanning over four decades, FX Harsono here explores issues of cultural identity through the practice of Chinese calligraphy, referring to his own experience as an Indonesian citizen of Chinese origin. FX Harsono’s performance/installation is a nostalgic attempts to re-interpret and re-posses his Chinese past highly symbolized by the action of a formal writing of Chinese Characters.

Song Zhen, Qiu Zhijie and China Academy Fine Art students
Utopia1: Do you still remember the Soviet Union?
Commissioned by Arthub Asia for Shcontemporary 2011

Playing with the natural stage that the main hall of the Exhibition Center offers, the artists and the students will inhabit the space with an installation and performance that literally flips the stage perception. The performer hanging from the main hall on the stairs performs with designed instruments by artist Song Zhen with an improvised symphony directed by the artists.

Related Projects

• Who Would Have Expected to Encounter Ni Zhan’s Gentlemen in S-Chanf? (0)
• COMMERCIAL BREAK, 54th Venice Biennale (0)

The photography focus of the fair is concluded by a panel session hosted by M on the Bund on the last day of SH Contemporary (September 10, from 4-6): Photography Update: The New Generation. Alchemists in the Last and Next Decade. With Birdhead (artist collective), Chen Wei (artist), Liu Gang (artist), Steven Harris (director, M97 Gallery Shanghai), Yang Pei Ming (collector, Propaganda Poster Art Centre Shanghai), Leo Xu (curator and gallerist), Olivo Barbieri (artist, APPP jury member) and Emma Reeves (editor and curator, APPP jury member). Moderated by Defne Ayas of Arthub Asia and Massimo Torrigiani, fair director.

The panel will look at and beyond the exciting shifts in the aesthetics and culture of photography.
In an age when billions of pictures are produced yearly, who are the key players re-imagining the art of photography? Who are the alchemists who can invent an original, personal, instantly recognizable visual style? A lot still needs to be done to assess the importance and increase the value of contemporary Chinese and Asian photography among the region’s art professionals, art lovers and collectors as photography is often (considered) ancillary to other artistic practices. And still of lesser economic (and speculative) value. Photography Update is a round-table on the changing landscape in contemporary photography in the past decade in China and around the globe. How does the new generation of Chinese artist-photographers see the world? Where do they draw their inspiration from? How do editors, curators and collectors cope with the impact of Internet on the modes of production, exhibition, distribution and reception of photography? How does all this change the way we think of curating, collecting and preserving photography?

Related Projects

• Network Mapping & Analysis Workshop (0)
• One World Exposition《平行世界》, Hong Kong (0)
• Lee Kit commissioned project for Shcontemporary (0)

(co-founders of Arthub Asia and curators of special projects of SHContemporary)

For the fair, we have concentrated on building a vivid platform that connects the artistic production and art markets across the region, harnessing the central role and allure of Shanghai. Shanghai’s obsession with the keyword “new” since its inception is an important lead for us for instance, so with the First Issue, we are bringing forth many unedited/not-yet-curated works to the forefront.

We  also thought hat Shanghai needed a vibrant art fair,  a place of the market (like Shanghai is) but that could go beyond a simple display of the commerce to touch upon the idea of Haipai, the Shanghainess of the modern times that leaded the trends and made its own style.   As a result, we for sure have aimed at to closing in the gap between Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. Except for Vitamin, we have the best galleries coming together for the first in Shanghai, and why not tap into this grande potential? With the Hot Spot selections, it is the first time that this new and exciting generation of conceptual artists (Liang Yuanwei, Lee Kit, He An, Kan Xuan, Jennifer Wen Ma, FX Harsono, Birdhead amidst others) are presented together in a collaborative platform.  We are in that sense acting like a Biennial of Greater China, in smaller scale that is. What the Shanghai Biennial has not done, can the art fair really do through its special projects section? Ambitious indeed. Will it all materialize as envisioned? Depends on many China-specific variables as you very much know.

In particular the initial issues Arthub Asia has addressed in this undertaking are: what should the identity of a platform be to reflect the changing attitudes and growing challenges faced by artists, galleries, institutions, curators, collectors and the public in Mainland Chinaand the Asia Pacific at large? (See our New Ink section specifically for a treatment for instance)  How reflective should it be concerning Shanghai’s degrees of modernization from the out set of the 20th century, where an ever-present skepticism towards anything foreign coexists with an undercurrent attraction for the new? (We have really highlighted the best what China has to offer in this edition, and our next round in 2012 we will be closing the gap between Mainland China and the rest of the world) Are financial transactions equal to intellectual and institutional transactions for the validation of artworks in this part of the world today? What if a fair, in redesigning its strategy, employs collaborative tools to convey the pipe dreams embodied by all participants to the art world?

On the educational front, Public programs have not worked at SHContemporary in the past. They were redundant, boring as hell. Self-congratulatory, promotional or art-clever. So we asked Birdhead to engage high-school students through their project directly for instance. So we decided to scrape the public panels this year instead we wanted to propose specific exhibition-like zones with punctual themes. One of those, we esteem highly “educational”, is Now Ink where we try in a tentative way to address issues of Chinese tradition in the contemporary art making. The works presented give a hint of the rich productions by contemporary Chinese and Asian artists based on traditional Chinese esthetics and techniques: we attempted to reduce the space between the “international” contemporary aesthetics of Chinese Art and what has been defined as “traditional Chinese art” and somehow difficultly connected to the international contemporary art world, especially marketwise. We will be featuring works by Bai Yiluo, Chen Qi, FX Harsono, Jennifer Wen Mam Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin), Qing Feng, FX Harsono, And Chen Qi. All inspired by the medium of ink and ink painting, the works on view show the complexity and exciting variety of new approaches, concepts, forms, and methods, as they relate to this tradition while capturing our contemporary lived experience. We went quite nationalistic on this front.

Photography Update is another major focus of the fair and it comes into the picture quite often in our curated projects. In an age when billions of pictures are produced yearly, who are the key players re-imagining the art of photography in Mainland China? A lot still needs to be done to assess the importance and increase the value of contemporary Chinese and Asian photography among the region’s art professionals, art lovers and collectors. As photography is often (considered) ancillary to other artistic practices - especially performance-based works. And still of lesser economic (and speculative) value. Photography Update: The New Generation focuses on the changing landscape in contemporary photography in the past decade in China and around the globe. How does the new generation of Chinese artist-photographers see the world? Where do they draw their inspiration from? How do editors, curators, and collectors cope with the impact of Internet on the modes of production, exhibition, distribution and reception of photography? How does all this change the way we think of curating, collecting and preserving photography? What is the place of queer aesthetics and fashion in all of this? Chen Wei, Emma Reeves, Leo Xu, Steven Harris, Liu Gang, Christopher Phillips, Birdhead are all part of this conversation.

Shanghai’s art scene is quite fragmented, and we believe by energizing different parts and curators across the region, we can achieve an impact that is larger than the sum of its parts. This is what “collaborative efforts,” “collective intelligence” does.

Since its inception in 2007 as a platform to catalyze and produce art projects, Arthub Asia has become known for approaching all projects at hand - both critically and effectively.

By accepting the challenge to contribute to the new development of SH Contemporary, we have formed a partnership with newly appointed Fair Director Massimo Torrigiani, with the aim of creating a public event that is both culturally relevant and commercially effective. A concrete opportunity to work on building a platform that at the same time mirrors the interesting artistic and creative experiences in the region while questioning the meaning of an art fair in China, in relation to the role artistic production is increasingly taking across Asia.

Arthub’s activity has been mainly directed to turning the fair into a site for collaboration, bridging the intervals between gallery dynamics, where conceptuality and playfulness is highlighted and contoured, while still keeping an eye on the ever-ignored notion of “beauty”. We also wanted to present well tuned thematic projects and work closely with artists and galleries to do so. We involved curators, artists and cultural actors of the extended Arthub Asia network so to create a dynamic atmosphere. Some of the projects are commissioned directly by Shcontemporary together with Arthub Asia and they will be presented as premiers worldwide.

For the projects directly commissioned by Arthub Asia, we were motivated by artist’s clarity of thought and vision but their lack of gallery presence in the fair made us make a direct effort to raise funds for them to realize their projects. We made it thanks to collectors and to the efforts by Shcontemporary as well. It is a great way to proof that this partnership worked!

Otherwise, the choice of artists involved are drawn from the galleries participating to the fair. We have also extended personal invitations to few curators. This approach has allowed the projects to evolve through a constant dialogue and the search for that “collective intelligence” that Arthub Asia has employed since its inception.

When we look at some of the artist’s projects we have selected we feel a conceptual proximity and empathy for their work.

The special projects for the fair is a valid example of the kind of work that Arthub Asia has been promoting, supporting and creating. With its range of works, from radical installations to impromptu interventions, and with its special focuses such as new ink or Southeast Asia to the collaborative video selections, Arthub Asia offers a tangible experience of conceptual contaminations that might offer the actual push for reinvention and innovation.

The art fair has always been there with full of promise, but also constantly crippled by lack of support from local government and the city’s fragmented constellation. The connection between Arthub Asia and SH Contemporary - both established in 2007 - has developed along the years partnering on specific projects. The most noteworthy collaboration happened in 2008 when Arthub Asia produced Shanghai Detour, the first map of the city’s artistic echo-system - still published today - that connected the fair with Shanghai’s emerging cultural context. A series of passenger buses took the audience of the fair to visit galleries and art spaces around the city.

Related Projects

• No related posts.

8–10 SEPTEMBER 2011

Preview: 7 September

Shanghai Exhibition Center

Under the new direction of Massimo Torrigiani, the 5th edition of the fair captures and amplify the new wave of creativity which is running through the region. Mixing high and popular culture, the academic and the experimental, the established and the emerging, new and old media, highbrow and lowbrow, the global and the local.

An international curatorial team lead by Arthub Asia’s directors Defne Ayas, Davide Quadrio and Qiu Zhijie complements the galleries’ show with special projects divided into 4 main sections, dedicated to renown and emerging artists:

- Hot Spots presents monumental and site-specific works by established artists like Birdhead (Song Tao and Ji Weiyu), Carsten Nicolai, He An, Heman Chong, Jiang Zhi, Kan Xuan, Lee Kit, Liang Yuanwei, Zhuang Hui & Dan Er, Zhou Xiaohu, Song Zhen and Qiu Zhijie.

A special Hot Spot is dedicated to ink painting-inspired works by FX Harsono, the Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin), Jennifer Wen Ma, Bai Yilu, Chen Qi and Qin Feng. Special thanks to the support of Artron, a Service of Printing, Internet, Publishing and Popularizing in Art on the production of the name cards for Heman Chong’s work.

- First Issue - sponsored by Absolut Vodka - is built around the newest works by young artists who had first solo shows or important presentations in 2010-11. It features: Chen Ching-Yuan, Doublefly, Liu Gang, Liu Ren, Lv Miao, Lu Yang, Song Chen, Su Chang, Xie Molin, Xu Zhe, Ye Nan and Zheng Qiang.

- The Video Room holds screenings selected by a group of contributors, including, among others, the Leap magazine editorial team, curatorial team Roguart, Leo Xu, Shaway Yeh and Karchun Leung of Modern Weekly, and Loop Festival - Screen from Barcelona.

The programme curated by Rogueart features artists from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand including Reza Afisina, Tanatchai Bandasak, Ade Darmawan, Martin Kristianto, Wattanapoom Laisuwanchai, Forum Lenteng, Eko Nugroho, Chatchai Suban, Tintin Wulia and Wok the Rock, among others.

Leo Xu’s selection - titled Voyage - inlcudes videos by Cheng Ran, Hu Xiangqian, Li Ming, Li Qing, Lu Chuang, Xu Wenkai (Aaajiao), Zhang Ding.

Loop Festival - Screen selection features works by Aurélien Froment, Gary Hills, Uriel Orlow and Julika Rudelius.

- The Search project initiated by RogueArt (Malaysia) displays the ways in which Southeast Asian art is categorized through literature, exhibitions, archival projects, the market and the media.

Arthub Asia on SHContemporary

Beyond the walls of Shanghai Exhibition Centre an array of satellite events will give art lovers a sense of the energy crossing Shanghai and the Asian and Asia Pacific art worlds; from museum presentations to gallery shows, from talks to parties. Organized in conjunction with sponsors and partners: first and foremost Porsche China - which hosts the SH Contemporary Collectors’ Dinner - and Swatch, alongside Minsheng Art Museum, Modern Media Group, K11, Le Méridien and M on the Bund. The opening party of SH contemporary 2011 will take place at The House of Roosevelt on the Bund, co-hosted by the fair along with Modern Media Group and K11 and sponsored by Absolut Vodka.

SH Contemporary is a research and development-based enterprise striving to amplify, empower and add value to contemporary artistic production and the growth of the internal and international market. To achieve this goal, the fair has identified in photography a new segment with the potential of reaching out to a new, younger audience. This year sees therefore the launch of a new photography section, with a group of specialized international galleries, solo shows and the establishment of the Asia Pacific Photography Prize (APPP). The award is dedicated to the most recent production of Asia Pacific artists and to artists who have developed Asia Pacific-related projects. 25 different galleries among those exhibiting at the fair submitted new works by 36 artists. The 5,000 euros prize will be granted to one artist only by an international jury composed by artist Olivo Barbieri, curators Christopher Phillips and Emma Reeves and editor Shaway Yeh*.

The photography focus of the fair is concluded by a panel session hosted by M on the Bund on the last day of SH Contemporary (September 10, from 4-6): Photography Update: The New Generation. Alchemists in the Last and Next Decade. With Birdhead (artist collective), Chen Wei (artist), Liu Gang (artist), Steven Harris (director, M97 Gallery Shanghai), Yang Pei Ming (collector, Propaganda Poster Art Centre Shanghai), Leo Xu (curator and gallerist), Olivo Barbieri (artist, APPP jury member) and Emma Reeves (editor and curator, APPP jury member). Moderated by Defne Ayas of Arthub Asia and Massimo Torrigiani, fair director.

The panel will look at and beyond the exciting shifts in the aesthetics and culture of photography.
In an age when billions of pictures are produced yearly, who are the key players re-imagining the art of photography? Who are the alchemists who can invent an original, personal, instantly recognizable visual style? A lot still needs to be done to assess the importance and increase the value of contemporary Chinese and Asian photography among the region’s art professionals, art lovers and collectors as photography is often (considered) ancillary to other artistic practices. And still of lesser economic (and speculative) value. Photography Update is a round-table on the changing landscape in contemporary photography in the past decade in China and around the globe. How does the new generation of Chinese artist-photographers see the world? Where do they draw their inspiration from? How do editors, curators and collectors cope with the impact of Internet on the modes of production, exhibition, distribution and reception of photography? How does all this change the way we think of curating, collecting and preserving photography?

In teaming up with sponsors and partners, SH Contemporary priviledges companies, brands and initiatives committed to education, charity and contemporary art programs.

Porsche China’s booth at the fair will exhibit its ’Empowering the Future’ initiative. After a massive earthquake struck Sichuan Province’s Wenchuan County in 2008, Porsche China created ‘Empowering the Future’. First delivering an initial donation of 500,000 Euros to UNICEF as relief aid for post-earthquake reconstruction work, Porsche quickly followed up by launching its ‘Empowering the Future’ initiative, which comprises two long-term projects. Porsche China is contributing over RMB 10 million and has donated four Cayenne SUVs to the Mobile Educational Training and Resource Unit (METRU) programme.The Mobile Educational Training and Resource Unit (METRU) programme is executed in collaboration with UNICEF and aims to aid victims of the Wenchuan and Gaunsu earthquakes. The METRU programme was designed to fulfil Porsche China’s goal to continually help disadvantaged children throughout the country gain access to education and brighter futures. In December 2010, Porsche China gave four Cayenne SUVs to UNICEF to serve as METRU. Conducted in collaboration with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education, the METRU programme has has already benefitted 391 schools across four counties in Sichuan and Gansu provinces. To date, the programme has trained more than 7,000 teachers and improved the quality of education for more than 100,000 students.

The ‘Empowering the Future’ Art Contest, is conducted in collaboration with the Sichuan Fine Art Institute (SFAI) and provides educational support and opportunities for emerging young artists in China. The inaugural ‘Empowering the Future’ Art Contest ran from September to November 2010. This year, ten award-winning artworks from the Art Contest will be on display at SH Contemporary, where pieces inspired by the ‘Empowering the Future’ initiative will showcase the talent of China’s up-and-coming artists.

The first Swatch watches surprised everyone with their provocative spirit and creative design and proved enormously successful. Deeply affected by contemporary art, the Swiss watch and jewelry makers have worked with more than 70 renowned artists to produce a great number of works about fashion and art. During SH Contemporary 2011, the concept of “art on the wrist” will be revealed at Swatch booth displaying the exciting cooperations with Keith Haring, Alfred Hofkunst, Markus Linnenbrink, Alessandro Mendini, Ivan Navarro and Mimmo Rotella. Launched by Nicolas G. Hayek in 1983 and operating today under the presidency of Arlette-Elsa Emch, Swatch is one of the world’s most fashionable brands.

SH Contemporary 2011 premiers also - with the support of Le Royal Méridien Shanghai - the first joint venture of the Private Art Museum Alliance, hosting 28 directors from Chinese private contemporary art museums. The alliance collaborated on a joint lounge to introduce the activities of its members to the public of the fair. The establishment of the alliance is a milestone in the history of art museums in China. On one hand it has produced an agreement regarding a set of self-regulatory rules. On the other hand it has created a shared long-term strategic plan. Moreover, the Private Art Museum Alliance, as an industrial union, will promote further investments on outstanding artworks and develop joint services and projects in the future. The 28 participating museums are: Today Art Museum, Yanhuang Art Museum, Times Art Museum, Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, UCCA, Yuan Art Museum, Hejingyuan Art Museum, Sunshine International Art Museum, De Art Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, Himalayas Art Museum, Rockbund Art Museum, MOCA Shanghai, Guangdong Art Museum – Times Branch, The Oct Art&Design Gallery, True Color Museum, Suzhou Art Academy Museum, Nantong Central Art Museum, A4 Contemporary Arts Center, Zhongguo Art Museum- Qingdao Branch, Ordos Art Museum, Hubei Museum of Art, Shijiazhuang Contemporary Art Museum, Yi Che Art, Ningbo Museum of Art, Tan Guobin Art Museum and Lu Yushun Art Museum.

Le Méridien was acquired by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. since 2005. This Paris-born hotel brand currently represented by 104 properties in 50 countries, has gone through a brand re-launch, which included appointing a full-time Cultural Curator - French arts-provocateur Jérôme Sans - and transforming numerous guest touch points, thus bringing unique and interactive experiences to its guests.

* The jury of the first edition of the Asian Pacific Photography Prize (APPP)

Olivo Barbieri was born in Italy in 1954. Since 1971 he developed an interest in photography concentrating his research initially on artificial illumination in European and Oriental cities. From 1989 he has regularly travelled to the Far East, especially to China. In 1993, 1995 and 1997 he participated to the Venice Biennale. In 1996 he held his first retrospective at the Folkwang Museum in Essen (Germany). In the mid-nineties, he adopted a new photographic technique, allowing him to maintain into focus only certain areas of the image: the landscapes photographed, often from aboard a helicopter, come across as a series of scale models providing surprising and estranging visions. In 2003 Barbieri starts the ongoing project site specific_ which involves several cities: Rome, Turin, Montreal, Amman, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Seville, New York, San Francisco, Brasilia, Bangkok, Detroit, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City… His works are included in public and private collections and museums in Europe and the U.S.

Christopher Phillips has been the curator at the International Center of Photography in New York City since 2000. In 2004, he and Wu Hung of the University of Chicago organized the first major U.S. exhibition of Chinese contemporary photography, “Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China.” In recent years he has curated such exhibitions as “H20: Art on the Horizon of Nature” (2010) and “Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide” (2011). He has also served as a member of the curatorial team that organized the 2003, 2006, and 2009 editions of the ICP Triennial of Contemporary Photography and Video. As adjunct faculty member at New York University and Barnard College, he teaches classes in the history and criticism of photography.

Emma Reeves is a freelance creative consultant working in a broad field from curation to photographic commissioning for brands. Former photographic director at London-based Dazed&Confused, Another Magazine and Another Man she currently lives in New York. She is a contributing editor to Fantom magazine and a regular contributor to T Magazine online as ‘The Culturialist’. She is also on the board of the Swiss Institute in New York and from September 2011 will be a lecturer on the newly created MFA course in fashion photography at the SVA (School of Visual Arts, NYC).

Shaway Yeh is the editorial Director (Lifestyle) of Modern Media Group, China’s most prominent independent publishing group. Modern Weekly, the group’s flagship publication since 1995, is China’s most influential lifestyle magazine with circulation close to 750,000. Under Yeh’s editorial direction, it reaches China’s elite readers with the latest internationals news, trends, phenomena and discussion in the fields of style and culture. Yeh moved to Shanghai in 2003, after several years of independent publishing in New York, to prepare for the launch of Vogue China. She later helmed communication in China for Prada before joining Modern media Group in 2005.

Dates and HOURS

8-10 September 2011

Preview: 7 September

Shanghai Exhibition Centre No.1000 Yan An Road (Middle)

200040 Shanghai China

Preview: Wednesday September 7th 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Vernissage: Wednesday September 7th 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Open to the Public: Thursday September 8th 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Friday September 9th 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday September 10th 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information, please visit: www.shcontemporary.info

Related Projects

• China and India in Context and Comparison (1)
• China! China! China!!! Goes to UK this Spring (2)
• Frontiers of Reality, Network Partners Meeting with PCF, Lebanon and Syria (0)