Friday, September 29, 2006

You say Biennial, I say Biennale- ll You Want To Know About International Art Biennials

Check it out!

BJG II: Art Economy Forum Schedule

October 6,2006
Current Creation Situation and Recent Collection Trends of Contemporary Art

Host: Pi Li (Curator, Art Critic)
14:00—14:20 Opening Speech by Shang Yusheng, Secretary-General, Wu Zuoren International Foundation of Fine Arts
14:25—15:15 A Speech by Fan Di’an, Director, National Art Museum of China
15:20—16:10 A Speech by Uli Sigg, Former Ambassador of Switzerland in China, Art Collector
16:15—17:05 A Speech by Pierre Huber, Founder of The gallery Art & Public
17:05—17:35 Discussion

October 7, 2006
The Strategy in Art Investment and The Management of Art Fund

Host: Yu Tianhong (Vice-Director,Tai He Media Group)
14:00—14:50 A Speech by Jone Tancock, Vice-Dirctor, Sotheby’s New York Ltd.
14:55—15:45 A Speech by Friedhelm Huette, Curator of Deutsche Bank
15:50—16:40 A Speech by Zhangfan, CEO, Sequoia Capital China
16:40—17:10 Discussion

2. Special Forum

October 8, 2006
Concept and Strategy—Management of Gallery in the Globalization Background

Host: Gu Weijie (Producer and Chief-Editor, Art Finance Magazine)
Speakers: Directors of six different galleries from around the world, which are very young or not well-known, but promising. They will introduce their galleries’ history, management style and represented artists, and discuss the recent trends in their local art market.

14:00—14:30 A Speech by Alexander Ochs, Director of Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin / Beijing
14:35—15:05 A Speech by Meg Maggio, Director of The gallery Pekin Fine Arts
15:10—15:25 A Speech by Yun Chea Gab, Director of The gallery Arario Beijing
15:30—15:45 A Speech by Ye Mingxun, Director of Main Trend Gallery
15:50—16:05 A Speech by Xiao Qiong, Director of The gallery C5 Art
16:10—16:25 A Speech by Fang Fang, Director of Star Gallery
16:30—17:00 Discussion

October 9,2006
Topic: Art and The Public-The Goals and Responsibilities of Contemporary Art Medium
Speech Time: 15 minutes for each Chinese speaker and 30 minutes (including translation) for each foreign speaker
Host: Zhao Li (Vice-President, School of Liberal Arts Central Academy of Fine Arts)
Speakers: 6 experts from famous public media, art media and web media around the world. They will introduce national and international art newspapers, art magazines, art book publishers and art websites, and discuss the recent trends in contemporary art news report.
14:00—14:30 A Speech by Inna Kanounikova, Manager, LTB Media Liaison Office
14:35—14:50 A Speech by Shu Kewen, Sub-editor, San Lian Life Weekly
14:55—15:10 A Speech by Jiang Wei, Director, www.artron.net
15:15—15:30 A Speech by Zhu Qi, Chief-Editor, Art Map Magazine
15:35—15:50 A Speech by Gu Weijie, Producer and Chief-Editor, Art Finance Magazine
15:55—16:10 A Speech by Wang Gang, Director, www.artnews.cn

BJG Art Scene

As you are headed to BJG for your October break, please make sure to check/report on the following:
  • Dashanzi Art District (798 Art District): A large compound of artists’ studios, and galleries installed in an outmoded 1950s factory complex, built by a team of East German architects in a style inspired by the Bauhaus.
  • Cao Chang Di art district (East End Art district), a home to several important galleries of contemporary art, including Platform China, Courtyard, China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing Commune and L.A. Gallery Beijing.
  • Arario Beijing Gallery: A new branch of Arario Gallery of South Korea. The Gallery occupies five buildings with three gallery spaces dedicated solely to contemporary art, presenting some of the most cutting edge exhibitions of both Asian and international art.
  • Red Gate Gallery’s location in the Dongbianmen Watchtower. Founded in 1991 by Australian Brian Wallace, the gallery presents up to eight shows a year by contemporary Chinese artists.
  • Universal Studios

For sight-seeing: Architectural look at National Theater, designed by Paul Andreu, the China Central Television (CCTV) building, designer by Rem Koolhaas, the new Olympic Stadium, designed by Herzog and de Meuron.

Hope this will be helpful! Bring back tons of pictures and reports!

Defne

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Palladium at NYU vs Zendai Museum in Pudong




Client: Ian Schrager
Program: Disco Stage & Rigging
Architect: Arata Isozaki & Associates
Architectural Lighting: Fisher Marantz Stone & Partners
Completion: 1985

In 1985, famed real estate partners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, owners of the legendary Studio 54, purchased the theater, setting their sights on establishing a second chic New York club. They hired to redesign the cinema. Isozaki gutted much of the inside to create the state-of-the-art club, which featured a 3,200 square foot dance floor. Its ceiling featured artwork by New York artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Andy Warhol.

When the Palladium finally opened its doors in 1985, it was an instant smash, attracting 20,000 people per week, including many NYU students. Much like Studio 54, movie stars and musicians frequented the club, receiving VIP treatment while there.

Jingdezhen International Ceramic Fair October 17-22


If you are interested in coming, or if you would like more info on the fair, please do let me know. (All including accommodation, food, local transportation fees is covered- but the airfare.)

Program:
  • The Fair opens on the 18-22 of October.
  • The Jingdezhen Local Government will be hosting people for free for 3 days of the fair from the night of the 17th to the day of the 20th. This includes accomodation, all meals and transport around Jingdezhen.
  • On the 17th night there will be a small welcome dinner.
  • The day of the 18th will be the official opening of the fair and all connected exhibtions including The Taste of Masters Exhibition.
  • There will be tours of the fair and ceramic art studio in the day of the 18th.
  • The eve of the 18th is the opening banquet.
  • The 19th day, the masters workshop will be open to the public all day.
  • The 20th there will be a reception lunch at Sanbao, and activities there for one day.
The Fair will remain open until the 22nd.

Notch06

Pecha Kucha this Thursday.

FAR is organizing this event on the 28th of September before the October break kicks in.
Pecha Kucha Night presents around 15 participants from all walks of creative life, who show 20 slides for twenty seconds each.
Link

from isozaki & the architects of the new zendai museum...


From RCA website


"One client, for the Shanghai Zendai Himalayas Art Centre in Shanghai, obtained a good site from the government provided he included cultural facilities in the development. ‘I was interested to see if it is possible to support the museum with commercial functions like hotels, shopping and offices… normally they would be separate buildings, but I did not want to separate them, as a kind of hybrid where from the outside the functions are made visible through different shapes.’

The principle of using commercial development to fund cultural institutions, he says, has some similarities with the Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. But there, he explains, ‘all the functions come together in one big volume which looks the same from the outside. It is one very small museum in a very big development, maybe two per cent of the whole project… in mine [the amount of space devoted to culture] will be 20 per cent. If this goes on it will be another type of model for an art museum today, but everyone knows it is very difficult.’ "

Monday, September 25, 2006

NYU in Shanghai Lecture Series Fall 2006

NYU in Shanghai Lecture Series Fall 2006

(Unless otherwise noted, all events are held Wednesday 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. at the NYU in Shanghai Center located on the campus of East China Normal University)

October 11 Christine Choy, Professor of Film, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU “Aesthetics and Social Commentary in Early Shanghai Films”

October 12 Richard Schechner, University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU “The Responsibilities of the Artist to/in Society” (time and location TBA)

October 23 Bernard Yeung, Abraham Krasnoff Professorship in Global Business, NYU Stern School of Business “Economic Reforms, Business Development, and Long-term Trends in China”

November 1 Jerome Cohen, Professor of Law, NYU Law School “Aspects of Law and Legal Reform in Contemporary China”

November 8 Wei-jun Jean Yeung, Research Professor, Department of Sociology, NYU “Population and Economic Transition in China”

November 13 Joanna Waley-Cohen, Professor of History, NYU “Food Culture in Early Modern China”

November 29 Lixing Frank Tang, Professor of Education, Department of Teaching and Learning, NYU Steinhardt School of Education “Education and Reform in Contemporary China”

December 13 Xudong Zhang, Professor of Comparative Litearture and East Asian Studies “Can Socialism be Postmodern?”

December 20 Mingzheng Shi, Director of NYU in Shanghai “Challenges for Sustaining China’s Development”

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Hyper Design: Awareness of the Mind

The Shanghai Biennale is my first experience visiting an art exhibition, which is ingeniously named Hyper Design in Shanghai. As a modern city that has shown to the world the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and social infrastructure, Shanghai is a city that incorporates Western modernity, witnessed in the rapidly expanding consumer culture and the towering skyscrapers of glass and steel. Transcending modernity and the culture of global market force, Chinese heritage roots deeply in every individual, from filial piety to the adherence of tradition and culture. Shanghai itself is a strong justification of hyper design, as Curator Zhang Qing would say, “sheji refers to something planned or intended in the Chinese context.” The “sheji” of Shanghai is a clear indication that China has meticulously planned and directed development in Shanghai to create the image of inspiration and awe. The 2006 Shanghai Biennale is a perfect compliment of Shanghai in the aesthetic perspective and field. Through the talent and creativity of the curatorial team, the composition and “sheji” of the Shanghai Biennale Hyper Design 2006 incorporates the artistic ingenuity of many artists from across China and the world. The combination of aesthetic visionaries amplifies their individuality in a modern world that also reflects the globalization and unity of the world. Shanghai Biennale is truly a hyper design—an ascension and empowerment of human intellect.

The first pieces to attract my attention are the works titled “A Brand New Game” by Chan Yau Kin of Hong Kong. At first glance, from less than an arm’s length away, the material Chan uses to create his works were the collected brands of consumed articles of the two rivaling corporations: Coca Cola and Pepsi. Looking at each individual label, I get the feeling that individual demands and mass production formulate the society that we exist in. As there is both Coca Cola and Pepsi, it is shown through the individual logos that people all have their own individual preferences and will not all submit to the same demand and supply. It is this individualism and choice that fuels contemporary global market and society. Seeing all these labels from up close gives the viewer the perspective that our world is now gradually uniting together through the progress and creation of corporations that manufacture and develop items that strive to improve human living standards and satisfaction.

At first, though amazed by the creativity, devotion, and effort Chan committed to his artwork, my mind did not comprehend the deeper theme and intentions of the artist. Compared to the Biennale theme and backdrop of many aesthetically and intellectually inspiring works that illustrate our world by perplexing the mind and elevating it beyond basic comprehension—the essence of Hyper Design—I could not grasp the motif of the artworks. However, as I stepped back and observed Chan’s pieces from a distance, amazement and admiration flushed through my entire body. Facing me, instead of a congregation and combination of thousands of individual labels, are two giant logos that are all too familiar to my eyes. On the one side, there’s “Coke: Dare for more,” and on the other side, “Pepsi: It’s the real thing.” Comparing the two pieces, I could sense the contrast and compliment these two pieces create and the heavy impact and implication they construct. Through the difference in perception and optical illusion, Chan creates two vastly contrasting visual images in each piece: one of the individualistic microcosm and one of the unified and generalized macrocosm. In his artwork, Chan focuses on the business world as it presents very many representations and reflections of generalized social actions and patterns. By comparing the two large logos, we see that they are collages of their rival’s logos. This shows not only that each brand name attempts to establish itself in the world with a unique identity, they nevertheless shares many similarities and objectives.

Curator Zhang Qing’s words resonated in my mind, as he said that sheji “manifests human desires, as well as intellect and spirituality….It is noteworthy that design has brought about self-realization and self-restraint.” Reflecting upon Zhang Qing’s words, I believe that through aesthetics, Chan accurately portrays contemporary commercialism as having met the interests of individuals through manifestation in the production of a variety of consumer products—soft drinks—and by comparing the example of two brands that advocate their individualism and distinctive characteristics but ultimately share the same objectives and qualities.

Chan’s “A Brand New Game” exemplify the Biennale’s Hyper Design theme by presenting to his audience artwork that manifests human intellect with the intention to convey self-realization and self-restraint in a expanding world of uniformity in which individuality and competition with the intent of improvement has been lost and bringing awareness to the viewers.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Photography and Its Evolution as Fine Art Panel Discussion



Save Sunday, September 24, 4pm to go to this panel, which will be examining recent trends in the role of photography in China’s contemporary art scene! DA

Photography and Its Evolution as Fine Art
Panel Discussion

Meg Maggio, Pekin Fine Arts
John Batten, John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong
Gu Zheng, photographer and professor, Fudan University
Greg Girard, photographer, Shanghai

Over the last ten years, China has seen a veritable explosion of new photo-based contemporary artwork, which is now accepted – and well regarded as “art” – in major museums, art fairs, and gallery exhibitions. No longer relegated to a secondary position, the boundaries between photography as social documentary and photography as contemporary artwork are forever blurred; and, whether an artist currently works in photography and moves to painting,
or vice versa, seems less and less important.

RMB 50, includes a drink

Picture Credit: Sitting on the Wall - ShenZhen 1 by Weng Fen, 2002

We were at the Zendai Museum today!


We visited ‘The Twelve: Chinese Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition 2006’ today. Thanks to Jody, Yoki Xiao and Jennifer! 12 recipients of the CCA Awards are featured in this exhibition, the largest of the Biennale’s concurrent showcases. Works from Cao Fei (Whose Utopia?- performance/interview project done with Osrem lightbulb factory workers in Foshan) is striking! Works by Heng Guogu, Chen Shaoxiong, Gong Jian, Hong Hao, Kan Xuan, Li Dafang, Liu Wei, Qing Ga, Qiu Anxiong, Zhou Xiaohu, and Huang Yongping among others.

Collaborative Presentations on the State of Museums in China

o Activate the blog with postings and comments. Include your documentation through use of text and pictures. Follow the instructions here.

o Collaborative Presentation

Group # 1
Greg + Charlie + Alicia
cc1683@nyu.edu, gwp201@nyu.edu, aliciawz@hotmail.com

Group #2
Sonia + Joshua + Alex
jds332@nyu.edu, sap293@nyu.edu, alexfengchina@hotmail.com

Next week's group presentation should allow you to engage in a critical dialogue with these three major museum visits you have recently completed. The goal is also to learn the value of collaborative projects by undertaking a group presentation in response to issues raised by the site visits.

In your presentation, please respond to the issues and challenges of contemporary art presentation and museology in China- posed by the site museum visits. Feel free to draw also cues from the other museum visits you have done during your orientation or previous visits in Shanghai. Consider the many questions about the state of the museums in Shanghai and China.

For example, with the new museums (both private and public) making their way into almost every phase of the culture and rooting themselves in the day to day lives of Chinese audiences, what do you perceive as failures and successes? How is contemporary art/new media merging with physical space? What are the conditions for art display? How do you measure professionalism? What is the context and history of museology in China? What do you think are the impacts of museums on the rapidly changing society? What do sponsorship, museum conditions, conservation really mean in China?

Create a creative concept for your presentation. Include your own documentation and skills. Some tools can include photos, drawings, paintings, books, animations, music, spoken word, acting, projection, Internet, youtube etc.

Each presentation should be 25-30 minutes.

Have fun!


Survival of the Fittest in Business

We visited the MoCA during its exhibition MoCA Envisage—Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity. The first impression left on me was made by the structural design of the MoCA. Built from glass and steel, the MoCA represents transparency that contains the ingenuity, creativity, and social and personal experience of artists in regards to aesthetics, emotions, and experience. In an architectural respect, the MoCA perfectly illustrates the Envisage theme through the convergence of glass and steel to encase and craft perception flawlessly and lure the audience to perceive the art within.

As I explored the MoCA, the variety and originality exhibited by the many artworks attracted me in all directions and allowed my imagination and perspective to converge with the artist’s. The art works exhibited in the MoCA reflect the progressive impression modernity instills in everyday life, in society, culture and individuals. These artworks are inspired and illustrate the union of aesthetics with the daily lives of individuals and their interactive positions in society. As the artworks represent the perspectives and experience of artists in China or of Chinese origin, their ingenuity reflects the development and transformation of China and Chinese elements in life.

The piece that completely and immediately caught my attention is Andre Cervera’s painting “Story of Chinese Business.” As I first saw the picture, a black and white drawing of ancient Chinese men gathering around a table and complimented by a dynastic Chinese background, I thought that the presence of this painting in the MoCA Envisage exhibition must definitely contain hidden meaning that yearns to be debunked. Feeling adventurous, I looked for the title and author of this painting and found the answer (as mentioned above), though initially to my astonishment. The focal point of the artwork lies in center of the picture with the three distinctive illustrations—the man with the face of a tiger standing on the left, the table with nothing on it, and the man with a normal face standing on the right. The peculiar representation of the two main characters at the center of the painting is pivotal to the accentuation of the piece’s understanding and underlying cultural representation. In modern society, economy is based on reciprocal relationships of mutual agreement and benefit. However, Cervera depicts one of the characters as a man with the face of a tiger whereas the other individual is portrayed as a normal human. This portrayal of the two characters creates a sense of imbalance and challenges the foundation of Western economic interaction. Through the tiger-headed character, the artist illustrates to the audience primal dominance in the context of humanity: an instinctive and beastly aggression, the tiger-head ravenously advances on his prey.

Although the two main characters are the focus of the painting, without the crucial presence of the table at the center, the painting would not as deeply and distinctively emphasize the cultural significance of Chinese business relations. In the painting, the table lies in the exact center of the entire painting, its shape distinctively square. The imagery of this table symbolizes the equality and balance of an economic relationship, which contrasts more sharply with the predator and his victim. It shows to the audience that even though the two parties to the business deal compliment each other in an atmosphere of equality, in Chinese business culture, survival of the fittest dictates and characterizes Chinese business relations. The table also accentuates the lack of a transparent and definitive legal system in Chinese relationships. In Western society, the presence of legal institutions and illustrations and the conduct of relationships in a formal surrounding are the milestone for successful interaction and development; however, as seen in the painting, the table is bare and empty. This lack of legal presence highlights the continuing chaos in Chinese society and its lack of an institutionalized and transparent legal system, especially in its business interactions.

The setting and outfits of these pivotal characters symbolic of Chinese business lies also plays a peculiar role in accentuating Chinese entrepreneurial relationships. As this is an artwork describing the cunning and primal actions of Chinese business relationships, the setting does not have to be archaic and neither does the clothing of the characters. However, by illustrating a background and outfits that parallel ancient Chinese attire and architecture, the artist portrays the extended chronology of the competitive and brutal Chinese business relationship as a tradition deeply embedded in Chinese culture that retains through modernity and progress—through the age of a developing Chinese legal institution and emergence of a global market system.

As China progresses and gradually synchronizes with the Western world—enjoying Western consumerism, accepting Western pop culture, and appreciating Western aesthetic perception—there remain traditions rooted deeply in the Chinese culture and individual psyche that will not fade from the increasingly modernized nation and culture. But through rigorous efforts and a demanding community, Chinese have the possibility and hope of evolving beyond primal instincts and selfish desires and progress towards a true civilization.

When I used to think of China, I had an idea of it as vast foreign place, and I didn’t imagine much variety among the country’s constituents. Moreover, I thought little of China beyond the big cities of my imagination: Beijing and Shanghai. If asked to define the essence of China, I would be at a loss, but I’d believe it possible. The Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art’s current exhibition "Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity" is trying to get at this essence of China through the work of its contemporary artists. What they’ve found is that the reality of China is not easily soluble; it’s complex and multifaceted and this exhibition aims to demonstrate the aesthetics of the conglomerate of dissimilar parts that is contemporary China.

During my visit to the MoCa, I was particularly struck by two works from Qiu Jie. The first piece "Washer Women" is a large pencil drawing on the first floor. The drawing depicts a scene in contemporary China where the old, new, and surreal all congregate. Women wash clothes on stone steps at the base of the river while listening to a radio over which a pair of Nikes is draped. Beyond the women in the foreground we see at the same time modern Chinese town, with cars and trucks traversing the streets and an ancient one, with its citizens washing clothes and visiting the market as they have done for centuries. Flying above the scene is winged man and several mythical Chinese birds adding a surreal element to the piece, perhaps an indication of the artist’s bewilderment at the mixture of old and new.

Qiu Jie’s other drawing on display, "Voyage To the West", also utilizes the surreal. Drawn with pencil, the work symbolizes a departure from, and perhaps even a growing contempt towards, traditional Chinese values, and a steady march towards Western ideals. A Chinese woman, clad in Nike tennis shoes, and her child ride atop a steer traveling through mountains and forest. On the other end of the picture Qiu Jie presents a monkey, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, dancing wildly with a staff in hand. I think Qiu Jie’s monkey is representative of a growing feeling of absurdity towards traditional Chinese beliefs as its society progresses, as it voyages west. The further China goes on its voyage away from its traditional values, the more absurd and out of place those old values look.

Shanghai MoCA

The Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art is currently running the exhibition, “Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity”, in which the museum is featuring contemporary artists from all across the country, displaying their works which have taken from traditional Chinese culture, and blended those cultural ideals with the new media available in the twenty-first century to create unique, yet heterogeneous artwork that mixes those two ideals.
In Du Zhenjun’s installation, “Wind”, Du Zhenjun uses a fully interactive media platform in which he invites the museum patron to experience the exhibit. By stepping on the padded floor in front of men reading newspapers, sensors connected with fans at the rear begin to blow, and this movement of air in the real time in transferred to the media installation, where one can visualize the papers in the hands of the business men actually moving. In his piece, Du Zhenjun is looking for a critical view into how one receives information in their daily lives, and the notion that simply reading a newspaper lacks a critical amount of stimulation. For in the presentation, Du Zhenjun offers up men reading newspapers, and invites the viewer to interrupt that process and create more stimuli, as a reflection of absorption of media, and the incessant need for more stimulation. This of course calls to mind the current blitzkrieg of media in Shanghai – televisions broadcasting advertisements that appear on buses and subways, to which the movement of trains produces its own movement of air.
Walking away from Du Zhenjun’s exhibit, one soon comes across Liu Jianhua’s exhibit, “Can You Tell Me”, which asks one-hundred questions about the future of Shanghai as it moves into the global age and reclaims its cosmopolitan identity. As with Zhenjun, Jianhua uses a projector; however, it flashes with questions, translated into a multitude of different languages – English, French, Japanese and Chinese, to name a few. Jianhua asks the viewer to enter into his “sanctum”, a roomed area with metal books mounted on the wall, each asking one of his questions. Like Zhenjun, Jianhua is inviting the viewer to experience his art, which contains multiple elements. The film itself is black and white, and silent, projecting back to the early years of the twentieth-century. It further reinforces this period of cosmopolitan Shanghai with the choice of languages – English, Japanese, and French – all languages spoken by colonial powers that had a foothold in early Shanghai.
Jianhua follows this experience by asking a series of questions regarding the future of Shanghai – some absurdly comical, such as, “Will Shanghai produce the best looking artificial women for Arabs?” Others ask deeper social questions such as, “Will Shanghai become home to the largest slum as a result of income inequality?” and “Will Shanghai become home to the most transsexuals and homosexuals in the world?” All of these questions, whether absurd or calling to mind a serious issue, play part into the cyclical nature of Shanghai – once of the world’s most cosmopolitan city, and quickly moving to reclaim that position.
Rounding out the floor is the exhibit on Zhao Bandi, entitled “Performance Stills”. The exhibit itself contains a fascinating element – the floor is carpeted, while children’s tables and chairs are scattered throughout the room, with crayons and paper to draw, what else, but pandas. The glass encapsulating this exhibit is covered with pictures of Zhao Bandi searching for people who look like pandas, or have put on make-up to look like them. As one looks around the room, all the of the pictures contain people who are enjoying themselves, and Zhao is asking people the very question – where is modernity taking us? As Zhao portrays himself as a unique peaceful image of China’s culture, a panda, one becomes confronted with the complications of our modern day society. As people move faster into a global age, Zhao’s exhibit asks us to take a step back – back from the rapid development of the world and China, and back to our communal childhood – to sit on the children’s furniture, and to use crayons. Zhao’s exhibit asks a modern world to look to the past and really examine its own nature, and to take a step back from the whirlwind of the modern-day experience.
As one approaches the current exhibition at the Shanghai MoCA, it is clearly possible to see modern art forms challenging the present social environment through its own media. In this sense, the artists achieve a sense of “heterogeneity” with a confluence of present media and past cultural experiences.

A performance in Xian?



German art student out-foxed police on Saturday by disguising himself as a terracotta warrior and "taking up position" among the world-famous terracotta army in Xi'an. Here is the article.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Presentation Line-Up

  • For the MoCa Review, see details here. Here is the list of artists for the presentations. Below is the line-up for this week. Good luck!
  1. Josh: Wang Keping and Shao Fei
  2. Sonia: Chen Yifei and Ma Desheng.
  3. Greg: Huang Rui and Yan Li
  4. Charlie: Ai Weiwei and Li Shuang

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

1234 Music Festival



A picture from 1234 Music Festival by Shanghaistreets- from Shanghai's Sanja Harbor.
Participating bands included: 顶楼马戏团 (Top Floor Circus), 14行诗 (Sonnet), 摩天轮 , 甜蜜的孩子 The Honeys, 21G, 羽果 Flying Fruit, 大傻帽, 扩音器 Amplifier,
Happysky, 蜜三刀, JOYSIDE, 生命之饼, Angry Jerks, Life for drinking(喝一辈子), unregenerate blood(不复之血), banana monky, 快乐弦 (Happy String), Heaven’s Door, and Mint.

Anyone went to check out the shows? Tell us about it.

English-teaching to a Chinese artist's family

I am writing to ask you if any of you is interested in teaching English one or two hours a week to two children of a very well-known Chinese artist. The pay is 15-20 dollar per hour, as per my suggestion. First one to reply, gets the referral!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Artist List for Presentations next week

Here is the artist list for presentations next week:

  • Chen Yifei
  • Qu Leilei
  • Huang Rui *
  • Wang Keping *
  • Ma Desheng *
  • Li Shuang
  • Ai Weiwei*
  • Yan Li
  • Shao Fei
  • Qu Leilei
  • Bo Yun
  • Yang Yiping

+ Regarding the 600-word review of MoCa Envisage: I would like you to take a stab particularly at the following works:
  • Yang Fudong's video
  • Zhao Bandi's performance/installation (what is he after with the Panda symbolism?)
  • Miao Xiachun's Last Judgement video and prints (Why is the artist taking the center stage in a digitally rendered form?)
  • Qiu Jie drawings on paper
  • Liu Jianhua's "Can You Tell me?" (especially the social questions the work is raising)
  • Du Zhenjun's interactive installation "Wind" (The relationship between media saturation and absurdity) and
  • Zhou Liju's mini miniature carvings (why should we re-evaluate these works within the contemporary art context?)


Thursday, September 14, 2006

Shanghai Biennial

Hyper-Design is the theme of this year's Shanghai Biennial. Design is so often judged by the functionality of a finished product. Artistic value, while perhaps not in opposition to functionality, at least seems to be somewhat inconsequential to the supposed value of design: function. But the act of designing, our curators say, is human controlled creation. Necessarily creation imitates creator, and as such, there are socio-cultural phenomena, philosophy, all the mundane and spectacular of humanity apparent in created structures. Thus art is embedded in the whole of design, and art is inextricable from function. I believe the curators are trying to express that design as a work of art cannot be judged merely by the worth of a tangible finished product, but by the way a design reflects the creative values of the artist who created it and society from which it emerged. “Hyper-Design” is a movement toward this nuanced, socially cognizant appreciation of design, and the Biennial showcases manifestations of this idea from China and around the world.

China’s transformation into a modern, urbanized culture, and its sudden, blistering economic surge is clearly reflected in art from its citizens and foreign observers. Recurring throughout Chinese artworks at the Biennial were pieces that dealt with the rapidity of China’s urbanization, disconnect between traditional Chinese values and new Western ones, and flood of industrialism and consumerism that is sweeping through China. Judgments on China’s transformation ranged from fear and resolute disappointment, like Qiu Anxiong’s apocalyptic animation

The New Sutra of Mountain and Ocean, to reverent fascination, like Allesandra Tessi’s Rose of Shanghai, a radiant visual installation in homage to Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower.

One of the more profound installations in my estimation is Lee Kyong-Ho’s Moonlight Sonata 2006. Occupying an entire darkened exhibition hall, the first perception the visitor has is audible, as he or she is met by a symphony of whirring click-clacks upon approaching the darkened exhibition hall. The installation features rows and rows of electric toy bulldozers, excavators, and cranes, lit by tiny floodlights and the huge projection moon on the opposite wall, all buzzing indifferently and battering the ground. Projectors are placed at different areas around the miniature vehicles, and project an eerie shadow of the lonesome scooping of excavator arms on the surrounding walls.

Despite the loud assembly, the feeling in the room is serene, as night construction sites usually are, and exertions of the tiny machinery emit a soothing rhythm. Moonlight Sonata 2006 is an example of art in our every day life: the symphony of machinery and human creation that’s performed each day, or in this case, night. Beyond that, Kyon-Ho’s installation reflects the seemingly overnight growth of China and Asia: a relentless nocturnal game of catch-up, played while the rest world was sleeping.

The designs of this year’s Biennial all reflected the state of change in China, and the apprehension, wonder, and intrigue of the artists shine in their work. The 2006 Shanghai Biennial is about a culture in flux, and I think a question for 2008 will be: How much has change become the norm in China?

Trip to the Biennial


The theme of this year’s biennial in Shanghai is “Hyper Design”. In this respect, the biennial attempts to explore the nature of design as a core element of creative culture, and what this means for modern day China. This year’s biennial is being hosted not only at the Shanghai Art Museum, as well as other venues. However, there is plenty to be seen at the Shanghai Art Museum alone.
Particularly of interest is the focus of contemporary issues blending in with traditional Chinese themes, both by international artists given space in the biennial and Chinese natives focusing on factors morphing in their own society.
Wang Qian gives a unique view into Chinese life with his works, “Mask” and “Divorced Family”. In Mask, Qian operates a sliding face of a woman over two different masked men – one happy, the other discontented. An interesting premise, the woman operates as the face of modern China displayed upon the rest of the world – cheery and vibrant of the recent economic success. But this woman “masks” the two behind her – discontent and exuberant. In the exuberant mask, one sees the successful Chinese who have prospered. But the discontented mask allows us access into the psyche of the forgotten Chinese who have not benefited from the new prosperous economy.
Qian’s other work, “Divorced Family” operates as a faceless child who slides across the faces of two parents – at neither time does one have full access to all three portraits. This presents us with a striking new entry into Chinese society – that of the divorced family, and its ramifications on the new young generation in China. Both parents are allowed to retain facial features, while they become stripped from the child lost in the mire of conflict. This painting also usurps the Chinese tradition of male on the left and woman on the right, placing into being the superiority of men. Instead, this painting places the woman on the left, and the man on the right, perhaps an indication of the reemergence of femininity in modern day China. Lastly, this painting reinforces the idea of its modernity – with only one child present, one father, and one mother, it reflects the Chinese family as a result of the one-child policy.

Another Chinese artist on display here is Wang Yin, to who almost an entire wall is dedicated on the second floor. Yin is given space for his series of thirty-six portraits, which are hand painted in black and white. These portraits are an eclectic mix of old and young; however, they focus on mostly Caucasians faces, with Asian faces interspersed. In addition, most seem to appear with a look of Americana, derived from the 1950s America. In the space of the biennial then, these pictures seem to represent the new Chinese’s Dream – that of the American Dream, as the inclusion of Asian faces is seemingly representative of Asian Americans achieving such a goal.
Yin’s other art on display include, “Studio”, “Worktable”, and “Home”, which are again in black and white, however they focus entirely on inert objects. This series is painted in a similar fashion to Yin’s portrait works, with a blurred appearance on the first glance, then a seeming clarity that is drawn out on further notice. These works, along with Yin’s other works use form and content to say something about modern Chinese society.

The Biennial also includes in its roster models and sculptures, and Yang Xu’s “Reconstruction and Improvement of Urban Village on the Periphery”, presents us with a model of a village, done in clear material, with lamps overhead. Noticeable are the lamps, done in a traditional Chinese style, overlaying a village that has houses built in the modern style. Also of interest in Xu’s display are the houses themselves, as not only are they constructed in a modern fashion, but also the use of Xu’s material is that of clear plastic, itself a representation of modernity. Here Xu gives us a glance into the transformation occurring outside of the city limits, the extent of which China appears to be modernizing everything.
In visiting the biennial, one is also confronted with many Western painters, and of particular interest are the works of Julian Opie, in the series, “This is Shinoza”. In this series, a woman in a bikini is posing around a pole, obviously giving off sexual energy. The interest here is the inclusion in the biennial – these works offer us a testament to the change going on in China, even those changes that are seemingly occurring in the behind the scenes, sexual arena. Like Wang Yin’s work, Mr. Opie is expanding on the notion of the reviving power of femininity in modern day China, through his use of scantily clad women. Mr. Opie also dares to include an electronic outline of nude woman, which is actively moving and posing, and her actions present a very vibrant, unashamed, empowered femininity.


This year’s biennial in Shanghai is quite accurately titled “Hyper Design”. For in all of these works, the artists are conveying the cultural changes occurring in China through both the content of the pictures, as well as the media used to present them. Therefore, when visiting the biennial, it is imperative to not look simply at the image being present, but to also make a connection with the design. By doing this, one can peer into the deeper psyche of the rapid, “hyper,” changes occurring through this “Hyper Design”.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Made for the marketplace- a Biennale Review

Made for the marketplace

By Rabinowitz and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz

Published: September 12 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 12 2006 03:00

Travel to Shanghai for its biennale, and you may find more shows than you had bargained for. As well as Hyper Design, the city's sixth biennale, housed in the Shanghai Art Museum, there are a host of other group exhibitions - some calling themselves "biennales" too - to investigate: Crossovers: Beyond Art and Design at the Contrasts Gallery; Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity at the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Second Shanghai Duolun Exhibition of Young Artists at the Duolon Museum of Modern Art; and another show organised by young artists that calls itself "the alternative biennale".

The number of satellite biennale platforms is as hard to ignore as the dearth of debate about their content. Instead of discussions about what these artists and curators have produced, many of the conversations taking place around these shows are focused on questions of monetary value.

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The market for Chinese art continues to soar. But commercial value alone is no proof of a work's intellectual worth; indeed, if its intellectual worth remains suspect, its long-term market value will be shaky. Remarkably, I have noticed only a few jabs at globalisation or consumer culture; there seems instead to be a wholly unironic celebration of capitalism's possibilities.

Another noticeable feature is the absence of politically charged art. Unlike the 1990s, there are few references to Mao Zedong or Tiananmen Square. What a New York Times article of March 2006 called "a quiet but forceful cultural revolution" now looks like an all-out rejection of any polical concerns among those exhibiting this season in Shanghai. For it is not merely, as the NYT noted, that "such artists operate without government interference." Rather, it is that - as the video artist Xu Zhen has put it - "now the Chinese government is more conceptual and forward-thinking than the artists".

Interestingly, some have returned to analyses of ancient Chinese traditions to make sense of new trends. For these observers, it is the history of centuries rather than of decades that provides an illustrative foil for these exhibitions. The catalogue essay for the Crossovers show by Li Xu, the former director of the Shanghai Museum, explains this comparative approach, and it is an explanation that applies equally well to MoCA's Entry Gate and to several of the works in Hyper Design. In earlier centuries, when referring to the concept of "art", the Chinese thought of ji shu, meaning craftsmanship, and xue shu, meaning knowledge. For items as diverse as teapots, gardens, calligraphy and poetry, there was no segregation of art and design. The wen ren or artist scholar was valuable because his creativity and skill implied spiritual and intellectual worth. Yet today a Chinese artist's social worth may too often be based on his market value.

Perhaps neither a lack of political content nor an emphasis on market value should be decisive factors in evaluating a contemporary art show's worth. But if Hyper Design is anything to go by, it is clear that the conceptual has been almost entirely taken over by the commercial in China.

But what of the exhibition's subtitle, The Practice of Everyday Life? Certainly, the Dutch artist and designer Atelier von Lieshout's free-standing desk/bed unit and the Chinese artist Liu Jianhua's "Dream Installation" - a shipping container overflowing with cheap plastic utensils - both involve considerations of work and the economy. So too does the impressive installation by Lee Kyung-Ho from South Korea, a landscape surrounded by video projections of more than 20 remote-control toy trucks at work in the space. These playtime work vehicles were imported to and sold on the street in Seoul, and, as'the artist explains, he "has brought them back home to work".

Another striking work-about-work is Zhou Wu's "Tribute to Handicrafts", an installation of white glazed ceramic tools that look like mummified antiques leaning against the wall. However, any implied concern with productivity is lessened by the juxtapositioning of Maurizio Mochetti's sleek hybrid model aircraft/human/penguin sculptures. The uncanny combinations in this Italian artist's squat, immobile gnomes are certainly preferable to another series of hybrid constructions by Daniel Lee, who uses Photoshop to combine human portraits with animal features, resulting in disturbing digital paintings. The most impressive digitised works based on photographs of people are by Julian Opie, who reduces the human figure to its most essential form and yet - despite the barest detail - renders the most dynamic movements. Opie's LED boxes are scattered throughout the exhibition.

Work by several artists such as Ceal Floyer, Kristian Ryokan and Nara Yashitomo are similarly dispersed. Floyer has two distinct wall works on different levels of the museum - one covering the wall's entire surface in diagonal strips of yellow and black adhesive tape, the other a discreet ready-made entitled "Spirit Level". Ryokan's flatly rendered oil paintings of everyday objects - a book spine, two-wheeled vehicles, modernist chairs - stylistically border on both photorealism and cartoonism. Often placed in rooms dominated by other artists, these pieces seems to question the supposedly therapeutic function of desire. They certainly challenge Yashitomo's doll-like children and animal made-for-museum-store products, pieces that nurture a compulsion to consume art objects not ideas.

Despite my attempts to consider these biennale exhibitions in terms of international contemporary art trends, the reality of sales almost always prevailed. Some of this is related to the spectacular performance of China's economy in recent years. As I was informed by a Hong Kong-born Stanford University MBA student, "a rise in the GDP of a specific culture does indeed mean an increase in the sale of that culture's art". While this assessment may become (or may already be) a reality for China and its art, my sense is that a culture of for-the-market art is not a good fit with art history's standards of measurement.

'Hyper Design' is at the Shanghai Art Museum until November 5. Tel +86 21 6327 2829

Monday, September 11, 2006

Propaganda Poster Art Centre


Mao Red Book Students

We went to the Propaganda Poster Art Museum in the second half of the first class. The museum was in the basement of a building part of an apartment complex in the former French Concession. On display are propaganda posters from the Mao era (1949-1979), among them happy, utopian posters showing Farmers in the field with an abundance of food in their baskets, designs against leaders and Gang of Four fallen out of grace, and displays of enthusiastic volunteers spreading the Red Book.

The owner of the museum, Mr. Yang Pei Ming, was generous with his time and responded to our questions. Mr. Yang started collecting the posters as a hobby and it has evolved into a collection of more than 3000 pieces. His collection, he told us, will be displayed at Asia Society along with works of art and writings.

Propaganda Poster Art Center
Huashan Lu Room BOC 868 /cross street Wukang Lu
Tel: +86 (139) 0184-1246 or +86 (21) 6211-1845
Open Daily: 9am-4:30pm

Friday, September 08, 2006

WHERE'S MAO? CHINESE REVISE HISTORY BOOKS

Written by JOSEPH KAHN
Friday, 01 September 2006
When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country’s most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist template that had dominated standard history texts since the 1950’s. The changes passed high-level scrutiny, the authors say, and are part of a broader effort to promote a more stable, less violent view of Chinese history that serves today’s economic and political goals.

Supporters say the overhaul enlivens mandatory history courses for junior and senior high school students and better prepares them for life in the real world. The old textbooks, not unlike the ruling Communist Party, changed relatively little in the last quarter-century of market-oriented economic reforms. They were glaringly out of sync with realities students face outside the classroom. But critics say the textbooks trade one political agenda for another.

They do not so much rewrite history as diminish it. The one-party state, having largely abandoned its official ideology, prefers people to think more about the future than the past.

The new text focuses on ideas and buzzwords that dominate the state-run media and official discourse: economic growth, innovation, foreign trade, political stability, respect for diverse cultures and social harmony.

J. P. Morgan, Bill Gates, the New York Stock Exchange, the space shuttle and Japan’s bullet train are all highlighted. There is a lesson on how neckties became fashionable.

The French and Bolshevik Revolutions, once seen as turning points in world history, now get far less attention. Mao, the Long March, colonial oppression of China and the Rape of Nanjing are taught only in a compressed history curriculum in junior high.

“Our traditional version of history was focused on ideology and national identity,” said Zhu Xueqin, a historian at Shanghai University. “The new history is less ideological, and that suits the political goals of today.”

The changes are at least initially limited to Shanghai. That elite urban region has leeway to alter its curriculum and textbooks, and in the past it has introduced advances that the central government has instructed the rest of the country to follow.

But the textbooks have provoked a lively debate among historians ahead of their full-scale introduction in Shanghai in the fall term. Several Shanghai schools began using the texts experimentally in the last school year.

Many scholars said they did not regret leaving behind the Marxist perspective in history courses. It is still taught in required classes on politics. But some criticized what they saw as an effort to minimize history altogether. Chinese and world history in junior high have been compressed into two years from three, while the single year in senior high devoted to history now focuses on cultures, ideas and civilizations.

“The junior high textbook castrates history, while the senior high school textbook eliminates it entirely,” one Shanghai history teacher wrote in an online discussion. The teacher asked to remain anonymous because he was criticizing the education authorities.

Zhou Chunsheng, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and one of the lead authors of the new textbook series, said his purpose was to rescue history from its traditional emphasis on leaders and wars and to make people and societies the central theme.

“History does not belong to emperors or generals,” Mr. Zhou said in an interview. “It belongs to the people. It may take some time for others to accept this, naturally, but a similar process has long been under way in Europe and the United States.”

Mr. Zhou said the new textbooks followed the ideas of the French historian Fernand Braudel. Mr. Braudel advocated including culture, religion, social customs, economics and ideology into a new “total history.” That approach has been popular in many Western countries for more than half a century.

Mr. Braudel elevated history above the ideology of any nation. China has steadily moved away from its ruling ideology of Communism, but the Shanghai textbooks are the first to try examining it as a phenomenon rather than preaching it as the truth.

Socialism is still referred to as having a “glorious future.” But the concept is reduced to one of 52 chapters in the senior high school text. Revolutionary socialism gets less emphasis than the Industrial Revolution and the information revolution.

Students now study Mao — still officially revered as the founding father of modern China but no longer regularly promoted as an influence on policy — only in junior high. In the senior high school text, he is mentioned fleetingly as part of a lesson on the custom of lowering flags to half-staff at state funerals, like Mao’s in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping, who began China’s market-oriented reforms, appears in the junior and senior high school versions, with emphasis on his economic vision.

Gerald A. Postiglione, an associate professor of education at the University of Hong Kong, said mainland Chinese education authorities had searched for ways to make the school curriculum more relevant.

“The emphasis is on producing innovative thinking and preparing students for a global discourse,” he said. “It is natural that they would ask whether a history textbook that talks so much about Chinese suffering during the colonial era is really creating the kind of sophisticated talent they want for today’s Shanghai.”

That does not mean history and politics have been disentangled. Early this year a prominent Chinese historian, Yuan Weishi, wrote an essay that criticized Chinese textbooks for whitewashing the savagery of the Boxer Rebellion, the violent movement against foreigners in China at the beginning of the 20th century. He called for a more balanced analysis of what provoked foreign interventions at the time.

In response, the popular newspaper supplement Freezing Point, which carried his essay, was temporarily shut down and its editors were fired. When it reopened, Freezing Point ran an essay that rebuked Mr. Yuan, a warning that many historical topics remained too delicate to discuss in the popular media.

The Shanghai textbook revisions do not address many domestic and foreign concerns about the biased way Chinese schools teach recent history. Like the old textbooks, for example, the new ones play down historic errors or atrocities like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the army crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

The junior high school textbook still uses boilerplate idioms to condemn Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930’s and includes little about Tokyo’s peaceful, democratic postwar development. It will do little to assuage Japanese concerns that Chinese imbibe hatred of Japan from a young age.

Yet over all, the reduction in time spent studying history and the inclusion of new topics, like culture and technology, mean that the content of the core Chinese history course has contracted sharply.

The new textbook leaves out some milestones of ancient history. Shanghai students will no longer learn that Qin Shihuang, who unified the country and became China’s first emperor, ordered a campaign to burn books and kill scholars, to wipe out intellectual resistance to his rule. The text bypasses well-known rebellions and coups that shook or toppled the Zhou, Sui, Tang and Ming dynasties.

It does not mention the resistance by Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, to Kublai Khan’s invasion and the founding of the Mongol-controlled Yuan dynasty. Wen Tianxiang, a Han Chinese prime minister who became the country’s most transcendent symbol of loyalty and patriotism when he refused to serve the Mongol invaders, is also left out.

Some of those historic facts and personalities have been replaced with references to old customs and fashions, prompting some critics to say that history teaching has lost focus.

“Would you rather students remember the design of ancient robes, or that the Qin dynasty unified China in 221 B.C.?” one high school teacher quipped in an online forum for history experts.

Others speculated that the Shanghai textbooks reflected the political viewpoints of China’s top leaders, including Jiang Zemin, the former president and Communist Party chief, and his successor, Hu Jintao.

Mr. Jiang’s “Three Represents” slogan aimed to broaden the Communist Party’s mandate and dilute its traditional emphasis on class struggle. Mr. Hu coined the phrase “harmonious society,” which analysts say aims to persuade people to build a stable, prosperous, unified China under one-party rule.

The new textbooks de-emphasize dynastic change, peasant struggle, ethnic rivalry and war, some critics say, because the leadership does not want people thinking that such things matter a great deal. Officials prefer to create the impression that Chinese through the ages cared more about innovation, technology and trade relationships with the outside world.

Mr. Zhou, the Shanghai scholar who helped write the textbooks, says the new history does present a more harmonious image of China’s past. But he says the alterations “do not come from someone’s political slogan,” but rather reflect a sea change in thinking about what students need to know.

“The government has a big role in approving textbooks,” he said. “But the goal of our work is not politics. It is to make the study of history more mainstream and prepare our students for a new era.”

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

How to Use the Blog/ Research Tools

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How to Use the Blog:

How to: http://help.blogger.com/
  1. Set Up your Accounts upon Instructor's Invitation/ Create Your Profiles (Interests etc.)
  2. The interace is very similar to Microsoft Word. Write your daily/weekly updates onto the Blog (including your observations around your surroundings, news you have read etc.) Check back for Instructor's announments such as this one.
  3. Upload your Weekly Assignments (reviews, responses) to the Blog
  4. Read each other's entries. Use the Comments link to Make Comments to each other's entry!
  5. Title/Label the blog entry appropriate to its aim and content.
  6. Upload images when posting your observations and weekly assignments. There's a button for uploading photos in the Blogger interface. Just click the photo button to upload a photo from your computer. If the photo you'd like to put on your blog is already on the web, put the link or use Flickr for personal images.
  7. Check spelling/ Make sure to give Credits to Images (Artist, Gallery, website) and Links
  8. You can also post by Email
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Research Tools at NYU Library:
the Fine & Decorative Arts Research Guide at this URL:

http://library.nyu.edu/research/rg56.html

This will provide you with ideas about which resources would be most useful to you.

In addition to the resources listed there, I would also recommend resources like:

Bibliography of Asian Studies
Art & Humanities Citation Index
WorldCat (OCLC)
ARTstor
JSTOR
&
AMICO

Finally, of the journals, NYU has only electronic coverage of Parachute. Electronic journals can be found at:

http://library.nyu.edu/collections/find_ejournals.html

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Requirements / Grading

Class work:
  • in-class group response (these presentations are to be synopses of research rooted in the experience based on site visits / guest lecturers or the readings) and short reviews,
  • documentation of experience
  • individual mid-term presentation on an historical exhibition related to course material/ documentation-in-progress;
  • a final research paper in which students analyze the field in a focus area of their own choosing, integrating at least some of the presentations and visits that will be made during the course of the class.

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Grading:
  • Participation In Class/ Blog: (In-class presentations, weekly reviews, on-line responses): %45
  • Individual mid-term presentation: %15
  • Online/Offline Experience Documentation: %15 (journalistic/ archival skills combined with curiosity and enthusiasm )
  • Final Paper: %25
Miss more than 3 classes= NCR.
Auditing students are expected to partake in weekly presentations, site visits, and on-line contributions.