Shanghai this month

Artists: Ma Lina, Li Wei, Zhang Shanshan
Curator: Ding Yi
Academic Director: Zhao Li
Exhibition Period: Nov 30- December 30, 2007
Venue: South ShanXi Road,Shanghai
Thanks!
Cetus Gallery
Address: No.165 South Shanxi Road, Shanghai, China
Tel: 86-021-54653655
Fax: 86-021-54650675
www.cetusgallery.com

---------------------------
Zhang Xian

As the director of the Downstream Garage (Xiahe Micang), which hosts
the annual Ideas Festival and the Downstream Garage Fringe Festival,
Zhang Xian is a key actor in the development of Shanghai's independent
theater scene. Zhang has received several fellowships abroad and has
sat on the judge's panel of the Zurich Festival and Cairo International
Experimental Arts Festival. He's worked as a director and a playwright
in the fields of dance, drama and film and has written and directed 19
works which have been shown in Shanghai, Beijing and abroad. His
physical theater work, Tongue's Memory of Home, won the grand prize at
the Zurich Festival.
-------------
Exhibition: Soft Power: Asian Attutude
Organized by: Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art
Chief Curator: Shen Qibin
Co-Curators: Binghui Huangfu Biljana Ciric
Dates: 17 November - 28 December 2007
Opening Reception: 17 November 2007, 4pm
Venue: Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art (No.28, Lane 199 Fangdian
Road, Shanghai, China)
Artist: Lida Abdul, Chen Chiehjen, Heri Dono, Shilpa Gupta, Ho Tzu
Nyen, Jin Feng, Jitish Kallat, Reena Kallat, Gulnara Kasmalieva &
Muratbek Djumaliev, Will Kwan, Lee Changwon, Owen Leong, leung Mee
Ping, Liu Guangyun, Yukinori Maeda & Yuki Kimura, Qiu Zhijie, Khaled
Sabsabi, Shen Shaomin, Vasan Sitthiket, Song Dong, Manit Sriwanichpoom,
Su Xinping, Kai Syng Tan, Nan See Tan, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Tseng
Yuchin, Wu Gaozhong, Mahmoud Yekta

【Special Event】Shadow Play from Thai artist Vasan Sitthiket

Event time: During the opening, November 17, 2007
Event Venue: Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art

The work itself takes a form of shadow puppets that are
representations of major political proponents in the world, which shows
an active political context. South East Asian countries are struggling
to find balance in its cultural identity. Like any theatrical
performance there is the surface interpretation and underlying message.
The audience is presented with an entertaining show, however, what they
walk away with is an interpretation of truth, which is difficult to
forget. Vasan Sitthiket combines aspects of traditional shadow puppet
culture with the contemporary cultural commentary of today. In reality
Vasan Sitthiket is using a long tradition of theater production to
comment on the human condition.

An interview with Cao Fei

Interview: Oyama Hitomi
Thanks to Tokyo Gallery + BTAP

As China undergoes a process of rapid, radical urbanization and
modernization, a young artist born and raised in the dynamic urban
center of Guangzhou is building a stellar career on the international
art scene. So what part have Cao Fei's upbringing and environment
played in developing a talent that has now propelled her all the way
to the Venice Biennale?

-- Last year was a busy one for you wasn't it? You shifted your base
to Beijing, but surely you can't have spent much time there?

Indeed: Guangzhou, Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, New York, the
Netherlands...I've been all over the place, both in China and
overseas.

-- May we start today perhaps by hearing about your background, the
kind of environment you were raised in, that sort of thing. 1978, the
year you were born, is the year China started taking steps to reform
and open up its economy. What were the first works of art you ever
encountered?

Both my parents are sculptors, so I suppose the first art I
encountered was their sculptures. My mother was an art school
instructor, and we lived in a faculty apartment on campus. While I
never received anything in the way of special art education from my
parents, I did mix a lot with art students, and I guess you could say
art has been a familiar part of life for me from a young age. Perhaps
I was born with a feeling for it.

-- What sort of things did you have around you apart from your
parents' sculptures?

When I was elementary school age, comics my parents bought for me, and
on TV, I often watched Japanese cartoons.

-- Do you remember the titles of any?

In comics it was things like Tintin, in cartoons the likes of Astro
Boy and Dragon Ball. The cartoons I wanted to watch on TV clashed with
the news, which my father wanted to watch, so we were always fighting
(laughs).

Manga, anime and MTV influences

-- What about later? Being in Guangzhou, you must have had access to a
lot of news and information from Hong Kong, or from further afield via
Hong Kong.

I started getting interested in pop culture at around age 12 or 13, I
think. I was crazy about breakdancing, pop music and MTV, learned
dancing from dancers behind my parents' backs, would dress up to look
18, put on lipstick and take my sister's ID card to get into discos.
Of course my parents knew none of this.

-- Knowing what you're like now I can well imagine (laughs). What kind
of pop music was popular in China back then?

Michael Jackson, Hong Kong pop idols, that sort of thing. Back then,
while it wasn't like these days, when we take being able to travel
freely for granted, if you were prepared to pay a certain amount you
could travel to Hong Kong for leisure. I went there a lot with my
parents and two older sisters. There I used to watch MTV, which you
couldn't see on the mainland, at the homes of Hong Kong acquaintances.

-- What did your parents think of their daughter's obsession with pop culture?

People of my parents' generation threw themselves into their work
after the country started to open up, trying to claw back some of the
time taken from them earlier by politics, so they were not especially
bothered about me. Which means I pretty much did what I liked, without
any parental interference.

-- What sort of student were you at high school? I seem to remember
that's when you first became involved in theater.

Yes, I used to enter the school's annual drama contest with some
classmates, and because I was studying dance, I'd mix dance with all
kinds of music and produce these comedy musical-type affairs with
hardly any lines. For some reason these went down really well, and
always had everyone in stitches (laughs). It was totally different in
style to the traditional plays that had been presented previously, and
we'd win every year.

-- Now why doesn't that surprise me... You then went to university,
where you produced your first work on digital video. How did you
become interested in filmic media?

Once I was at university, I started to encounter a lot more serious,
real art. At first I was mad about Hong Kong independent cinema, and
influenced by it in 1999 I shot the digital video Imbalance 257. At
the time there were still few DV works in China, and I was just
filming whatever took my fancy.

-- What artists were you influenced by around that time?

Discovering the work of Terayama Shuji, still the artist-filmmaker I
respect the most, was a big thing for me. I first saw one of his films
in 1999, being presented with great fanfare at a Hong Kong art space.
Throw Away Your Books, Go Out into the Streets!, Grass Labyrinth,
Death in the Country (aka: "Pastoral Hide and Seek"), Farewell Ark...I
just found them all utterly surreal. I was also impressed by the
posters hedesigned, his poetry and such.

In terms of other Japanese artists, in Yoko Ono I sense status and
courage as a woman, something tough and independent. Then there's
Kusama Yayoi, and her novels. When I finished Numa ni mayoite (Lost in
Swampland) I think it was, I felt as if my whole body had been set
free. Her writing is so sexual, so powerful and liberated. It
stimulated me, motivated me as an artist.

Connecting completely different things

-- When did you first meet Ou Ning?

That was also in '99. Imbalance 257 was finished and there was a
screening in a bookstore; I mentioned it to a friend of my sister's,
who said he had a friend who liked films so he'd invite him along. So
Ou Ning, who was living in Shenzhen at the time, got on a train and
came to see my work. He then went on to feature Imbalance 257 in a
movie magazine he launched, and from 2000 to 2003, he ran a film
society that we worked in together. I saw an awful lot of videos and
films there: Chinese independent cinema, and Western films.

-- Then you started actively collaborating didn't you? On films like
San Yuan Li (2003), The Dazhalan-Project and PRD Anti-Heroes (2005),
all dealing chiefly with China's cities and its people.

My interest in cities is probably largely due to working with Ou Ning.
You could say Ou Ning taught me how to connect with real society
through art. I too am very interested in people and social issues, for
example the incredible upheaval developing nations undergo on the path
to modernity. The kind of upheaval that China in particular is so
obviously experiencing right now.

As part of the Siemens Arts Program, in which each year a different
artist is commissioned for an art project, I ran a six-month project
called What are you doing here? (2006), in which I teamed with workers
at a lightbulb factory in Foshan, Guangdong Province. Up until then
artists in the program had simply presented their work, and I'd always
believed that did little to alter the relationship between art and the
workers. If you're going to embark on something like this, I figured,
surely it makes sense to get the workers involved as well. First I got
them to answer 50 questions, for example, "Do you like the work gear
you wear now?" and "What makes life enjoyable to you?" Then I got them
started by running workshops to help us get to know each other. I
offered some ideas, but left them to do all the planning and the
practical work.

Some built installations using the light-bulbs they made, while others
who liked ballet for example or the peacock dance (a Chinese folk
dance) gave performances next to the workbenches where they usually
worked. After the project was finished, I was gratified when someone
said to me, "Life itself is art, isn't it?" The theme was "Your utopia
is our utopia", and the things they aspire to, are indeed the same
things we all want.

-- But some people look at Hip Hop and Cosplayers and see them as
simply jumping on the latest bandwagon.

For me art is not about forming an image of a thing and making that
into an artwork, or producing something no one else has ever seen, but
searching for connections in the gaps between things that are
completely different. In Hip Hop for example, when ordinary people and
pop music are connected, a sort of wondrous chemical reaction is
generated. Artists on the whole tend to be introverted people whose
work emerges from the "individual". But I'm more of an extrovert. I
want to see what happens when I connect with different pop culture all
over the world. A bridge between art and pop culture: that's what I
want to be.

-- In your Un-Cosplayers performance and photo series for the Beijing
Tokyo Art Projects (BTAP) last year you connected the general public
with cosplay.

The bodies of the public are "real" but cosplay per se is "hyperreal",
so I suppose I connected reality and hyperreality. The word "cosplay"
itself is now internationally recognized, so I imagine people will
think cosplay = anime = fad, but the desire to wear the clothing of
someone totally different to oneself and take on that persona -
whether it be a figure from mythology, or an imaginary character - is
something humans have harbored throughout history. So cosplay in
itself is not my objective.

Originally printed in ART iT 15 Spring/Summer 2007

People's November Update

Asian Art Standing Apart

Asian Art Standing Apart
Auctions

By MARION MANEKER
September 20, 2007

"Everywhere I go, dinner parties, benefits, the Hamptons, people only ask me about Chinese contemporary art," an art adviser, Kim Heirston, said. In what feels like a blink of an eye, Chinese painters have become a focal point in the art world: Just last year, Sotheby's started holding its main sale of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contemporary art in New York. Today, Sotheby's will sell 275 works estimated at between $19 million and nearly $28 million. Two weeks ago, Pierre Huber, the influential Geneva-based dealer and Lorenzo Rudolf, the former director of Art Basel, held their inaugural Contemporary art fair in Shanghai, which was widely judged to be a whopping success. And next month, Phillips will sell the Farber collection of Chinese contemporary art in a single sale of 44 works of contemporary Chinese art that were acquired from the seminal exhibitions and gallery shows mounted since 1986 that introduced these painters to the West.

What is so fascinating about Chinese contemporary art is that much of it was produced under the radar in the past 20 years — and it is now bursting into view as a newly rich society supports its own artists with high prices and museums. Over the summer, it was announced that Sichuan province offered personal museums to eight of the biggest names in Chinese contemporary art — including Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, and Wang Guangyi. The Chinese contemporary collector, Baron Ullens, announced his own art space in Beijing that would house Chinese and foreign art.

Though these developments point to the emergence of a domestic market for living Chinese painters, until now the bulk of the sales have been overseas. Last year, Sotheby's sold $70 million worth of Asian contemporary art. Also, 2006 was the first year the auction house brought Chinese contemporary painting to New York as its own sale. They broke 20 artists' records in the process. Sotheby's and the houses haven't suffered for including Chinese painters in their Contemporary art sales here in New York and London. In June, Yue Minjun's "The Pope" (1997), a clever allusion to both Francis Bacon and Velázquez, was sold for an astonishing $4.2 million.

This week's sale also features a Yue Minjun after Velázquez. "Infanta" (1997) is estimated at between $1.8 million and $2.5 million. The other Chinese superstar Zhang Xiaogang is represented by several works, but the most significant is "Chapter of a New Century — Birth of the People's Republic of China" (1992), which is estimated at between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.

"It's so exciting to see great works," Sotheby's expert Xiaoming Zhang, who put the sale together, said. Working in the Chinese contemporary field is still a journey of discovery because so many of the painters were previously working in obscurity to avoid the interference of censors. Others were simply overlooked until increasing value brought the work to market. "You don't know these paintings existed," Ms. Zhang said.

Chen Yifei is a prime example of the kind of painter and painting that one never knew existed. His numerous landscapes and city scenes painted in a misty realism are incomparable. But "The Cellist" (1983), estimated at between $800,000 and $1 million will be the star of his lots.

Other works not to be missed include Liu Dan's monumental "Dictionary" (1991), estimated at between $250,000 and $350,000, which depicts in massive photorealist splendor the open pages of a dictionary. Ai Weiwei's "Chandelier (2002)," estimated at between $400,000 and $600,000, is just that — a massive crystal and metal chandelier that seems suited in size, scale and opulence to a European opera house. A more whimsical work comes from Liu Ye: "The Little Mermaid" (2004), estimated at between $1 million and $1.5 million, is childlike in the way that Yoshitomo Nara's work represents children with wide eyes and expansive foreheads.

Don't let the bigger names distract you from the depth of the show. There is something in almost every style of contemporary painting from abstraction to graffiti-inspired work such as Wu Shanzhuan's "Today No Water–Chapter 29" (2007), estimated at between $30,000 and $50,000. There's even the Mark Tansey-like paintings of Shi Xinning, especially "Pride and Prejudice" (2004), estimated at between $40,000 and $60,000.

This sale makes a very good case that contemporary Chinese painting is better seen separately from the marquee sales in November where the biggest names jostle with their European and American counterparts. If nothing else, this sale will impress you with the variety and vibrancy of Chinese painters and surely justify the accelerating prices.

Bank Buys Contemporary Chinese Art for L.A. MOCA

Bank Buys Contemporary Chinese Art for L.A. MOCA
Published: August 29, 2007
Print
Your Views Send a letter to the Editor
Share Del.icio.usSave to Del.icio.us DiggDigg this
LOS ANGELES—In an unusual agreement, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has acquired a $2 million collection of Chinese contemporary art, purchased for the institution by East West Bank, the Los Angeles Times reports. Under the unorthodox arrangement, MOCA curators selected 11 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs by six artists, including leading figures such as Xu Bing and Cai Guo-Qiang, and the bank paid for them. Starting Thursday, the works will be on public display at the bank, but they will also be available for exhibition at the museum and will become part of its permanent collection in 2026. MOCA director Jeremy Strick called the gift "a remarkably enlightened gesture.

Shanghai: Art Deco capital - for now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/08/25/

bashanghai125.xml

Say Art Deco and everyone knows what you mean: sharp geometry, cool
curves, an effortless marriage of style and function. Where to find it,
though, is a different matter.

Dotted around London and New York are palaces of 1920s and 1930s
modernism - such as Senate House in Bloomsbury and the Chrysler
building on Lexington Avenue - their straight lines and sweeping curves
dominating their historic sites or looking almost quaint amid the
higher, newer skyscrapers now surrounding them.

But London and New York are not Art Deco cities. The 1930s, the
movement's peak decade, were not great years for the West, and while
apartment blocks from the period still punctuate the suburbs, they
suffered from the Second World War and post-industrial decay. Too
often, they look shabby and forgotten beside the sturdier homes of
previous eras and the bright convenience of the present.

Yet in a few hold-outs, where history played odd tricks, Art Deco still
dominates. Their names are surprising: Napier in New Zealand, rebuilt
in one go after an earthquake in 1931; Miami Beach; the Eritrean
capital Asmara, a masterpiece from the age of the brief Italian empire.

Shanghai, home to more skyscrapers than New York and a population of 20
million swept into an endless sprawl of suburbs, is not a city one
tends to associate with Art Deco. Yet the 1930s was Shanghai's first
great decade of economic boom, and both the Western bankers who ran the
city and the new Chinese middle classes wanted to associate only with
the new.

In a whirl of construction, grandiose office buildings, apartment
blocks and showpiece villas were erected by international firms, for
European exiles washed up on the shores of the Yangtse, young bachelors
on short-term postings or Chinese students who had followed the fashion
for professional training abroad.

Ladislaus Hudec, a Czech architect from Budapest who was sent to
Siberia by the Russians, ended up in Shanghai designing high-rises such
as the 22-storey Park Hotel (1934) overlooking the racecourse, at the
time the tallest building outside of America.

C H Gonda, another Czech, built cinemas such as the Capitol, now
government offices, and the Cathay, a startling beneficiary of
Shanghai's new trendiness. Recently refurbished, it remains a gleaming
star on the former Avenue Maréchal Joffre, now called Huaihai Lu and
once again the city's most fashionable street.

The years in between have been traumatic: war, Cultural Revolution, the
sudden reopening to the West. It is only now the city is being rebuilt
once again (and much of this architectural reliquary is being
demolished) that Shanghai is being recognised as probably the most
extensive Art Deco landscape anywhere in the world.

After five decades frozen in time, in which waves of poor new residents
have been bundled, a family to a room, into expropriated mansions, this
architectural collection is now emerging.

Two new books, and an associated exhibition on display in the city,
have focused minds. Whether they will be enough to stop the rampant
destruction is another matter. "So many beautiful buildings have been
knocked down: I can't be optimistic about the outlook for protecting
historical buildings," says Deke Erh, co-author of Shanghai Art Deco,
who grew up in Shanghai's French Concession and has become the city's
best-known architectural photographer.

Yet there are signs that even a country as merciless with its past as
China has recognised that its colonial architecture could be an asset,
not an embarrassment. The Peace Hotel on Shanghai's famous waterfront,
the Bund, is under government restoration; once upon a time it was the
Cathay, East Asia's most glamorous address, from whose window young Jim
watched the start of the Second World War in Empire of the Sun. A
handful of the grander family homes, of the sort Jim lived in, are
being "done up" as status symbols by Shanghai's new elite - in some
cases the returned grandchildren of the old elite.

It's not just the buildings. The French Concession, which along with
the International (British and American) Concession has the highest
concentration of pre-revolutionary Western architecture in the city,
used to be full of junk shops. Today it has boutiques and antiques
stores, where the same distinctive old radios and wooden chests are
sold at much higher prices.

Cultural leftovers illuminate Phantom Shanghai, a collection of ghostly
images by the Canadian photographer Greg Girard. While Erh focuses on
what is there, Girard photographs what is not. Navigating the
fluorescent-tinged demolition zones of old Shanghai, Girard narrates
the destruction of a way of life. In some images, house fronts have
been ripped off, to reveal the remains of bedrooms or kitchens. In
others, people still eke out a life amid furniture and detritus
inherited from another age. The decay of a city as its residents lapsed
into squalour is all too evident; in one mansion, a fantastical mixture
of Art Deco and Southern Chinese fancy, Girard counted 152 people
occupying a space originally built for an opium merchant and his family
- albeit a family that included four wives.

But there is also great humanity here, and Girard finds it hard to
begrudge these families their new flats. "I am very anti-nostalgic," he
says, though it would be a hard heart that found no nostalgia here.

The fluorescence is that of the gaudy new Shanghai that overlooks these
curious scenes. And of course it continues; as Girard and I spoke in a
café on the Bund, more bulldozers were moving in a few hundred yards
away.
# 'Shanghai Art Deco' by Deke Erh and Tess Johnston (Old China Hand
Press, Hong Kong). 'Phantom Shanghai' by Greg Girard (Magenta, £25). An
exhibition of photographs from 'Phantom Shanghai' runs at Studio Rouge
M50, 50 Moganshan Lu, Shanghai, from Sept 30-Oct 21.

EXHIBITION: NET, curated by Wu Hung

For Immediate Release
September 1, 2007

EXHIBITION: NET, curated by Wu Hung

DATES: Sept 20 – Nov 3, 2007

Seven years after the opening of Chambers Fine Art in New York in 2000,
Christophe W. Mao is pleased to announce the opening of Chambers Fine
Art in Beijing on September 20th. Opening at a time when the interest
in contemporary Chinese was becoming an international phenomenon,
Chambers Fine Art became one of the primary showcases for the work of a
wide range of Chinese artists in the United States. As the art world
has become increasingly globalized in the last seven years, the
significance of Beijing as a cultural and artistic center has grown
enormously, leading to the decision to open a gallery there.

The striking new gallery, designed by Ai Weiwei is located in the Cao
Changdi district, a choice location which is rapidly becoming one of
the major centers for contemporary art in Beijing. The first exhibition
to be held in the new space, Net: Reimiganing Space, Time and Culture
is organized by Wu Hung, who has served as chief curator for many of
the biennials held in China and South Korea including the Shanghai
Biennale (2000) and the Gwangju Biennial (2006) and influential
exhibitions held in the United States and Great Britain (Between Past
and Future: New Photography and Video in China, 2004).

Wu Hung's first association with Chambers Fine Art began in 2000 with
First Encounter: Lu Shengzhong. For the current exhibition which brings
together specially commissioned works by seventeen artists associated
with Chambers Fine Art, Wu Hung has investigated the concept of a "net"
which "transcends any given time of space, history and region,
specificity and abstraction. At the same time it also inhabits any
given time and space, history and region, specificity and abstraction."
The meanings of the word range from the simple fishing net to Laozi's
use of the word as a political metaphor, and continue into the present
day with the omnipresence of the internet. As Wu Hung points out: "To
modern and contemporary artists, the "net" has become a favorite
subject of their work, mainly because this image allows them to explore
the connectivity and fluidity between the phenomenal world and the
conceptual world… Because of the complexity of this concept, the show
is expected to address many issues, from history and culture to its
status as a fundamental image."

Included in the exhibition are works by Ai Weiwei, He Yunchang, Hong
Hao, Hong Lei, Lu Shengzhong, Qiu Zhujie, Rong Rong, Shi Jinsong, Song
Dong, Wang Jianwei, Wang Tiande, Wu Jian'an, Yin Xiuzhen, Yu Hong, Zhan
Wang, Zhang Peili, Zheng Guogu. Representing several generations, the
selected are notably diverse stylistically and in the nature of their
relationship to the overpowering presence of the culture of classical
China. Their attitude to the massive transformation of Chinese society
in the last two decades, unparalleled in history, also ranges from
outright rejection to enthusiastic acceptance.

In the various phases of his development, Ai Weiwei has attempted to
emulate the achievements of classical art, on occasion to rescue it and
to demolish it altogether. Wang Tiande, Qiu Zhijie and Zheng Guogu have
turned to calligraphy to examine how it might become something other
than an antiquarian pursuit. Lu Shengzhong and Wu Jian'an have delved
deeply into the traditional world of Chinese paper-cut and have turned
away from the face of contemporary China. For Zhang Peili in his
photographic works, and for the searching Realist paintings of Yu Hong,
on the other hand, it is life as it is lived today that is of primary
importance. Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen have used video, performance and
installation in their investigation of personal and social issues. Rong
Rong, Hong Hao and Hong Lei have used the contemporary medium of
photography as a means of creating haunting pictorial illusions while
Wang Jianwei and Zhang Peili have made major contributions in the field
of video. The disturbing performances of He Yunchang, one of which will
take place during the opening, in which he frequently puts himself in
situations of extreme discomfort or even danger, contrast with the
steely perfection of the sculpture of Shi Jinsong in which the element
of risk is an essential part of its appeal.

Christophe W. Mao has remarked: "It has been a rewarding experience
for me over the past seven years to work with this group of artists,
all great individualists unmoved by trends and what is currently in
vogue. Finally - and thanks to Wu Hung - I will be able to see what it
is that attracted me to them in the first place. Installed in the new
gallery their works will speak to each other and I will be able to see
not only what unites artists with similar interests but also artists at
the other end of the artistic spectrum from each other. Is there any
connection between the performances of He Yunchang and the sculptures
of Shi Jinsong and Zhan Wang. Or between the paper- cuts of Lu
Shengzhong and the paintings of Yu Hong. The "net" that Wu Hung
described will occupy real space from September 20."

A catalog on the exhibition will be available
For further information, please contact the gallery at (212) 414-1169
or cfa@chambersfineart.com

Timezone8 Bookstore: clearance sale on all items incl. books on Chinese art

Timezone 8 Art Books, No. 50, Moganshan Lu. Sale ends Friday, August
24th.

LIANG Shaoji: CLOUD

LIANG Shaoji: CLOUD
ShanghART H-space
50 MoGanshan Rd., Bldg.18, Shanghai
Reception: Tuesday, 4 Sept. 2007, 6 -8 pm
Telephone：86-21 63593923，86-21 62762818， fax：86-21 63594570
Exhibition: 5 Sept. � 10 Oct. 2007
Daily: 1- 6 pm except Mondays

Press Release

Liang Shaoji is well known for working with animals and nature in his
art. But to understand his work, we must understand something of the
Chinese traditions he is referring to when he lovingly rescues
fragments of China's architectural past from destruction, wraps
references to the sadness and the strife of human life in raw silk
thread, and atones for the unrest and the competition of the floating
world by sitting on top of the sacred mountain of his village watching
in a mirror how the clouds go by. We must know a little at least of the
all-encompassing importance nature has in Chinese thought, and the
ancient poetry that has canonized the images of silk and bamboo,
candles and clouds, as symbols fleeting of life, of suffering and
generosity. But even while referring to Chinese tradition and
associative philosophy, Liang's works target the here and now,
transforming those well-known references into thoroughly contemporary
installations and performances. Demanding unusual expertise and
extraordinary techniques, his works are slow in the making and
difficult to interpret. His installations don't easily submit to
commodification - they should be seen as the residue of actions and
thought processes, indeed as markers of a chosen path of life, rather
than as mere objects.

Liang Shaoji was born in Shanghai in 1945, graduated from Zhejiang Fine
Art School, and studied at Varbanov Institute of Tapestry in Zhejiang
Academy of Art. His early works consisted of serenely abstract hangings
and installations made from textiles, often including bamboo as well.
They made him a well-respected figure in international exhibitions of
arts and crafts. But he felt that this was not enough to satisfy his
desire to make art. In 1988 he started working with silkworms, breeding
them and using them in his works. From that moment on, a whole new
oeuvre emerged, in which he tries to combine biology, bio-ecology,
weaving and sculpture, installation and action. Generally these works
are entitled Nature Series, followed by a number and a date. He refers
to them as sculptures made of time, life and nature, as "recordings of
the fourth dimension". Many works consist of objects (often objects
trouvées) wrapped in the silk threads he has his silkworms spin around
them. The silkworm symbolizes generosity; its thread human life and
history. Liang often makes use of this symbolism to soften or ease the
violence, cruelty or sadness represented by the objects he uses.

Liang Shaoji has exhibited widely in international Biennales and
Triennales, the Venice and Shanghai Biennales among them.

"Cloud" is Liang Shaoji's first solo exhibition in China. It brings
together a selection of works that deal with the uniquely redemptive
aspects of his oeuvre. It comprises recent installation works from the
Natures Series, as well as videos and photographs. The show is curated
by Marianne Brouwer, who was the guest curator of Another Long March.
Chinese Conceptual and Installation Art in the Nineties, held in Breda,
The Netherlands, in 1997.

“Tools” by Zhang Ding

ShanghART Gallery

50 Moganshan Rd., Bldg.18-A, Shanghai

Reception: Tuesday, 4 Sept., 2007, 6-8 pm

Daily: 1-6 pm except Mondays

On Septembre 4th, 2007, ShanghART will present the video and
installation exhibition "Tools" by young artist Zhang Ding, in the
temporary space between the buildings 16 and 18 (H Space), in 50
Moganshan Road.

Zhang Ding is born in 1980 inGansu, China. His past artworks mainly
focus with subjective naturalism on marginal urban culture, such as
people, events, objects: an old homosexual transvestite, a confused
young Muslim, missing people's notices, an abandoned amusement park, a
crazy man…. Through the perspective of Zhang Ding, the reality's
details, coexisting with booming cities but easy to ignore, are
exposed: gloomy, dilapidated, chaotic, and vigorous.

"Tools" is an allegorical fairyland created by Zhang Ding to respond to
this marginal world. Cactus here become the main props/tools, metaphor
of a nidering and doggedly resistant life. We can see this plant
anywhere, but their multiple thorns don't allow us to approach them.
Zhang Ding fights against that, trying to find the possible ways of
communication with this life, using violence or dialog? Cruel beating
and frozen cutting don't destroy cactus as much as water, even though
gentle and beautiful. Water pours from ten watering pots, lining out
parabolas and hosing a cactus. Mud splatters around while the liquid
spreads all over the floor. Beside this series of cactus is displayed a
group of unnatural industrial products: 24 olive green refrigerators
filled with loud-hailers, and an old style detonator which can trigger
a deafening explosion noise, giving you a sudden feeling that you are
in the world of the "Flowers of Evil".

A Gift From Beijing To Istanbul

A Gift From Beijing To Istanbul
Brain Failure- the punk band from Beijing is now featured by artist Yan
Lei as part of the Istanbul Biennial (curated by Chinese curator HH)
Brain Failure was the first punk band ever to self-release a demo in
China.
www.myspace.com/brainfailurepunk -
www.brainfailure.com/english/band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY1HoPTeLTY

-

Brain Failure - No dirty punx

Jian Jun Zhang & Barbara show due to open Sept 4 at 140 Sq Meter

Alternative Landscape
New works by Zhang Jian-Jun and Barbara Edelstein
9.04 – 10.31. 2007
Opening: Wednesday, 2pm-6pm, 5th September, 2007
140sqm Gallery 1331 fuxing zhong lu 26 room ，near fenyang lu

Latest Update on Creative Clusters

http://www.shmag.cn/feature/planning_creativity

Planning for Creativity
Fri, 2007-08-10 12:00 — Renee Chen

Shanghai is awash with creative spaces, part of a plan to develop the
city's creative industries. Renee Chen finds out more about the
makeover.

Although Tianzifang (Taikang Lu), M50 (50 Moganshan Lu), and Bridge 8
are already landmarks on the city map, their relatively recent arrival
marks the beginning of a new era in our cultural development. Until
now, we knew them simply as cool buildings, or areas in which to have
coffee, go shopping, or visit art exhibitions. But today, developments
like these are being heralded as the new seats of Shanghai's creative
industries.

Their growth hasn't gone unnoticed. Shanghai's creative businesses
generated ¥54.91 billion more in 2005 than in 2004, and back in
December 2004, this burgeoning success led the Shanghai government to
announce a policy designed to identify and develop other creative
spaces around the city. According to He Zengqiang, Secretary General of
the Shanghai Creative Industry Center (SCIC), "A creative industry
indicates that it is based on creative thought and an intensity of
knowledge. Supporting them will lead to an increase in job
opportunities in these fields."

In addition to revenue, it is the hope of transforming the local
economy from a manufacturing to a service industry that further compels
the government to push the trend. Shanghai's serious economic
development began with the influx of foreigners during the middle of
the 19th century, and as industry built a solid foundation, a mass
stock of industrial capital was erected, shaping the city's landscape.
But after 164 years of economic ebbing and flowing, many of these once
bustling factories fell victim to what the noted Austrian economist
Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." They lie dormant now,
but are primed for a new life.

"There are over 30 million square meters of old and idle factory space
in Shanghai, but unlike the newer office buildings, they have a history
that gives a full sense of our culture," says He. The SCIC helps to
invest and renovate this glut of old factory space, while keeping the
cost down to as little as ¥1 per square meter in areas such as Hongkou
district. "We did a study this May which found the average rent for old
warehouses and factories is ¥2.75 per square meter per day, which is
much cheaper than office buildings," says He. "This price is perfect
for those with a creative streak."

Although the big name areas such as Taikang Lu get most of the
attention, there are already 75 such creative clusters in Shanghai,
involving 3,000 companies and 27,000 employees and covering industries
such as R&D, architectural design, art, consulting, and fashion.

When creative types find a home, creative ideas are bound to follow.
Bridge 8, which opened its doors in December 2004, now has a 100
percent occupancy rate with companies from the catering, retail,
interior design, and film production industries. The number of tenants
has risen from 25 to 100, and has drawn many internationally When
creative types find a home, creative ideas are bound to follow. Bridge
8, which opened its doors in December 2004, now has a 100 percent
occupancy rate with companies from the catering, retail, interior
design, and film production industries. The number of tenants has risen
from 25 to 100, and has drawn many internationally famous studios like
ALSOP from the UK and SOM from the US. "My job is just like writing a
play," says Huang Hanhong, the CEO of the Lifestyle Consulting, Ltd.,
the operators of Bridge 8. "I want a play that can bring out the best
from its actors; in other words, its tenants. Maybe that's my
inspiration."

The success of clusters such as Bridge 8 has provided the impetus for
new projects in the city. The hugely impressive former slaughterhouse
Old Millfun, located in Hongkou district, is one of the newer projects
under construction and will be one of the largest creative centers in
Shanghai. "If you want to experience buildings typical of Shanghai in
the 1920s, you have other choices than just Xintiandi," says SCIC
undersecretary Cherry Zhou, pointing to this 1933 slaughterhouse.

And unlike Xintiandi, which razed local buildings to make way for
upscale shopping and dining, Old Millfun will keep and renovate its
original building, a vast network of concrete ramps, bridges, and
staircases, in an effort to maintain this portion of the city's
history. Meanwhile, certain modern elements will be incorporated. Old
Millfun will be finished by the end of next month, and will host the
2007 Shanghai International Creative Industry Week this November.

Apart from government supported projects, there are still independent
clusters like the Wujiaochang 800 Art Space. This brand new five-floor
building located in the university area of Wujiaochang, was developed
by Shanghai Hanqu Ltd. Besides several urban planning and architecture
design studios, 800 Art Space is mainly for art galleries. "We only
recruit professional artists, which is the very thing we pride
ourselves in, as even M50 has many personal studios," says Judy Yan,
who works for the investment department of 800 Art Space. They have
already recruited 40 studios and galleries, including ShanghART Gallery
and Shine Art Space.

The creative industry in Shanghai is so young that it's hard to compare
it with western cities which have highly developed cultural,
publishing, film, and advertising industries. Intellectual property and
market cultivation are two hurdles the creative industry will have to
clear on its way to development. "The Chinese are quite good at copying
things," says He. "If a new fashion style came out in Europe yesterday,
it will have arrived in Hong Kong today, and will travel everywhere on
the Mainland tomorrow."

Many, including the government, have now indicated that this trend must
stop. As long as the profitability stemming from a company's work is
threatened, the market will never build up the resources necessary for
its own growth – which is why so few foreign creative companies have
been willing to set down roots here.

Regarding homegrown talent, SCIC has done its bit, enacting regulations
that aim to protect the ideas coming from entrepreneurs and other
creatives. But there is a recognition that more must also be done to
nurture creativity at an earlier age. "The interests of students are
ignored by our education system, since there is too much pressure to
get into university and then land a job after graduation," sighs He.
"It just ruins young people's lives."

Fortunately, this may be changing, as educational projects are being
designed to develop students' critical thinking. Shanghai Normal
University, for example, has set up a Cultural Industry Management
course that Shanghai Jiaotong University had already been using for ten
years. A creative institute is also opening for the first time at the
Shanghai Theater Academy.

The hope is that while the government develops the city's creative
spaces into platforms for an emerging creative industry, talent will
also be nurtured to step up onto that stage.
Other creative clusters to check out

Xin Shi Gang
Formally a steel factory, this building now houses the Shanghai
Sculpture Space. Later phases will add a space for multimedia companies
and the Jiangsheng flower and plant market.
570 Huaihai Xi Lu, near Hongqiao Lu, 6280 0789.
淮海西路570 近虹桥路

Yifei Creative Street
Originally conceived by the famed-painter Chen Yifei, this 723 meter
long street on Yanggao Nan Lu will be an upscale leisure center
complimented by several international design studios.
Yanggao Nan Lu, near Jinxiu Lu.
杨高南路, 近锦绣路

Sihang Warehouse
This 1920s warehouse on Suzhou Creek houses a science and technology
cluster, as well as visual arts and architectural design studios.
21 Guangfu Lu, near Wuzhen Lu, 6380 1202.
光复路21号, 近乌镇路

Tianshan Fashion Cluster
This block was designed by the China Fashion Designers Association and
the Fashion and Art Design Institute of Donghua University. It aims to
nurture fashion businesses, as well as professional design, and
training.
1718 Tianshan Lu, near Loushanguan Lu.
天山路1718号, 近娄山关路

Y&G Art Warehouse
This renovated printing press hopes to attract artists seeking personal
studio spaces. Some contemporary painters like Ye Qiang and Liu Hong
have already moved in.
No.2, Lane 295, Xianxia Lu, near Loushanguan Lu, 5206 9176.
仙霞路295弄2号, 近娄山关路

M50 vs. 800 Wujiaochang

Shanghai's hot new hub for artists
2007-03-07 Shanghai Daily
http://e.cnci.gov.cn/doce/news/news_detail.aspx?news_id=976

The booming art market needs more space. The newest art center
is Wujiaochang 800 Art Space in the emerging northeastern Wujiaochang
area. Planners aim to attract high-end international galleries, writes
Yao Minji.

Artists and creative people are ceaselessly searching for fresh
new art space. When one trendy center becomes established, they tire of
it and move on.

Meanwhile, the booming art market also seeks more well-planned
space to attract artists, studios, collectors and high-end
international galleries.

To provide more space, art centers have opened in Moganshan
Road, Yangshupu area, Damuqiao area, Taikang Road and elsewhere.

The newest one is the the Wujiaochang 800 Art Space - the only
one planned from the very beginning.

The Wujiaochang 800 Art Space, which was opened in late
January, is in the center of northeastern Shanghai's Wujiaochang
business area in Yangpu District - away from the downtown in an
emerging area. Developers hope it will become a new Xujiahui, with an
artistic atmosphere.

"Among the art centers, Moganshan Road is the only sizable and
established one, but it was not well planned and managed from the
beginning," says Hong Pingtao, president and CEO of Wujiaochang 800 Art
Space Management Co.

Many artists moved their studios to Moganshan Road and
gradually the area has become a gathering spot for artists and hub for
artistic events,'' says Hong.

Unlike Moganshan Road, Wujiaochang 800 has been planned from
the start as a gallery center.

The Yangpu District government hired architect Zhong Song from
Chenyifei Studio to convert the former warehouse.

Hence, compared with Moganshan Road, where galleries and
artists' studios are scattered in former factories, the Wujiaochang 800
Art Space is an enclosed five-story building featuring galleries and
offices.

It occupies 21,460 square meters.

The ceilings are 4.5 meters high, so that large art sculpture,
installations and paintings can be displayed.

The center is rectangular from the outside, with well-planned
areas for galleries on each floor and one three-story multi-function
room in the center.

Zhong did not remove the stone transport system alongside the
interior stairwell. It will be converted to a dramatic aquarium with
gold fish, from the roof to the ground floor.

Wujiaochang 800 is planned and managed by art collectors, not
artists.

Hong, president and CEO of the management company, has worked
in the art market for nearly 30 years.

He started Caves Art Center in Taiwan and was general director
of the Taiwan Art Galleries Association.

He moved to Shanghai in the 1990s and was general manager of
Poly Auction House.

"An international metropolis like Shanghai needs an art center,
centrally located with easy transport. Moreover, this art center needs
organized management from the very beginning to attract high-end
international galleries," says Hong.

Currently, only Dunhuang Gallery on the ground floor, owned and
run by Hong himself, has completed renovation and started having
regular exhibitions.

In the following week, a second group of galleries will move
into the art center.

"Our goal is to make Wujiaochang 800 the art center in
Shanghai," concludes Hong.

Lecture at BAU - August 31

>

Bizart this Fall

9月SEPTEMBER 2007

2007皮埃.埃尔创作奖提名展
2007 Pierre Huber Creation Prize
Nominees Exhibition
Opening: September 4th, 2007, Tuesday 18:30
Press Conference: September 4th, 2007, Tuesday 19:00
Exhibition dates: September 5th to 10th, 2007, from 11:00 to 18:00

Organizer: China Art Academy
Co-organizer: New Media Art Department, China Art Academy
Venue: BizArt Art Center
Nominated artists:
Dong Dayuan, Jiang Zhuyun, Lu Yang, Shi Chuan, Wang Xin, Ma Xiaoxiao,
Sun Huiyuan, Xiao Yuankun

About Pierre Huber New Media Art Creation Prize and Fund

On September 7th, 2006, Mr. Pierre Huber met with the students of the
New Media Art Deparment of the China Art Academy and inquired about the
education situation.
In view of stimulating New Media Art Creation, education and diffusion,
as well as encouraging and supporting creative activities of the new
media art students, Mr. Pierre Huber founded the "Pierre Huber" New
Media Art Creation Prize and Fund.

The grant will finance a small management group in charge of
supervising the use of the fund, and formulate a regulation system.

Part of the grant will fund the "Pierre Huber New Media Art Creation
Prize" to support over the years the creativity of outstanding
students. Three prizes will be awarded to the students.
Fund will also be used to support students' creativity: students will
directly submit their project which will be examinated and subsidized
by the management group. At last, part of the grant will finance
studies of prominent new media art students with family difficulties.
Reward process will be composed of two phases: first, teachers will
nominate skillful students, who will participate to an exhibition. The
second phase will be the final selection by a jury made of renowned
curators and artists.
Jury will be composed of five members selected each year from a list,
members will change from a year to another.

Jury members list:
Beijing: Fei Dawei, Pili, Karen Smith, Wang Gongxin, Lu Jie
Shanghai: Zhang Qing, Zhou Tiehai, Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong, Lorenz
Helbling, Chen Jieyang, Lin Shumin, Yang Fudong
Guangzhou: Huang Zhuan
Abroad: Hou Hanru (U.S.A., France, China), Hans Ulrich-Obrist (U.S.A.,
France), Barbara London (U.S.A.), Zheng Shengtian (Canada), Yves
Aupetitallot (France), Zhang Ga (U.S.A., China).

韩国艺术家朴芝恩和中国艺术家李平虎的展览
Exhibition of Jee Eun Park (Korea) and Li Pinghu (China)

Opening: September 14th, 2007, Friday (18:30)
Exhibition Dates: September 15th � September 28th, 2007 (11:00 � 18:00)

Exhibition of the artworks produced by Korean artist, Jee Eun Park,
during her residency in BizArt and the works produced by Chinese
artist, Li Pinghu, during his residency in Ssamzie Space, Seoul. The
exhibition will be held in September in BizArt for one week.

10月October 2007
仔细想想，昨天你究竟干嘛去了？ -- 施勇个展
Let's think, where have you been yesterday? --Shi Yong's solo
exhibition

开幕时间：2007年10月12日，星期五 (18：30)
展览时间：2007年10月13日-10月22日 （11：00 � 18：00）

Opening: October 12nd, 2007, Friday (18:30)
Exhibition Dates: October 13rd �October 22nd, 2007 (11:00 � 18:00)

往事 � 被遗忘的时光
6位印尼艺术家阐释的印尼历史， 1930-1960
The Past - The Forgotten Time
Six Indonesian artists interpret Indonesian history, 1930 - 1960

Opening: October 25th, 2007, Thursday (18:30)
Exhibition Dates: October 26th � November 11st, 2007 (11:00 � 18:00)

Introduction:
This exhibition represents a variety of perspectives focusing on the
struggle of "Becoming Indonesia" during the period between 1930 and
1960. Personal stories mixed with formal facts to indicate how the
colonial situation became a major part in the attempt to formulate an
Indonesian identity. Beginning with the visual forms produced by these
artists, we learn to remember and reflect on the past and, together,
oppose forgetting.

Martial-Arts Masters Meet in 'Forbidden Kingdom'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?

storyId=12774067&ft=1&f=1008

Martial-Arts Masters Meet in 'Forbidden Kingdom'

All Things Considered, August 14, 2007 · Hengdian, or "Chinawood" as
it's been dubbed, is the world's largest film studio — and it's where
some of China's most famous films have been shot. Another movie filming
in the southern Chinese city may well join those ranks soon: the
long-awaited collaboration between two giants of the martial-arts
world, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

“Bring Me The Head Of …” In conjunction with ShContemporary

More on the artist's most recent project with NYT is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/arts/design/15serk.html?

ex=1323838800&en=8388f00a8250bff2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Rejected Collection opens soon

8/14: Art talk @ FCC

Be grateful that you were not there!

8/14: Art talk @ FCC
The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club Presents: The Revolution
Continues The Revolutionary Influence in Chinese Contemporary Art
Dr Jiang Jiehong 1918 Art Space, 78 Changping Lu, by Xi Suzhou He
Lu...

SH Contemporary 07

Coming up!

U-TURN: 30 Years of Contemporary Art in China

Watch out ! Terrific compilation in the making.

Summer Music Conference 2007 today

Summer Music Conference 2007
http://www.urbanon.com/

Shanghai's Innaugural Summer Music Conference (SMC) takes place over 3 days, August 24, 25, 26 2007 at Dino Beach Waterpark Summerstage.

The SMC is a platform for local and independent bands, musicians, DJs, crews and artists to connect with each other, with music industry representatives, and of course with the audience and fans.

3 days, 2 stages, 1 big event!

The format of the SMC allows for varieties of musical styles to be heard at any given time. SMC is spread over 2 stages with independent performances from many styles and genres.

Dozens of Live Rock, Hip Hop, Electro and Drum n Bass DJs will alternate over the 2 stages throughout the 3 day event ensuring that diverse yet complimentary styles of music that is representative of the current local music scene are heard throughout the day and night.

Check this thread for more information, including full lineup of performers, hours, ticketing and other details... Also, musicians, DJs, promoters, performers, please check back for details on how you can be part of this yearly event!

A Gift Offer for Artists in China: Museums

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/arts/design/25muse.html

A Gift Offer for Artists in China: Museums
Xiao Quan

Eight contemporary Chinese artists have been offered their own personal
museums in Dujiangyan, in Sichuan Province. The city plans to begin
construction on an 18-acre plot of land soon.

By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: August 25, 2007

SHANGHAI, Aug. 24 — For years their work could not be exhibited in
China, but now the country's leading contemporary artists are being
courted by major art collectors abroad and their paintings set records
at international auction sales. A local government in Sichuan Province
— the area in western China known for its natural beauty, spicy food
and talented painters — is taking notice.
Skip to next paragraph
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Zhang Xiaogang is one of eight artists who have been offered their own
museums as contemporary art flourishes in China.
The New York Times

Sichaun Province is known for its spicy food and, now, its art.

It has offered to give eight contemporary artists, all under 60, their
own personal museums to operate. The group includes some of China's
best-known avant-garde artists: Zhang Xiaogang, Wang Guangyi, Fang
Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zhou Chunya, He Duoling, Zhang Peili and Wu
Shanzhuan. All have accepted, and Dujiangyan, a city near the
provincial capital, Chengdu, will soon begin construction on an 18-acre
plot of land. The museums are scheduled to open in October 2008.

In a country with no major museum of contemporary art — not even in
Beijing, where most of the eight artists work — this is a novel
development. But in China, everything is changing at warp speed:
artists who sold works for $100 in the 1990s have become
multimillionaires operating huge studios and driving BMWs. They are
helping to transform the style of the country's biggest cities.

"Modern art used to be neglected," said Lu Peng, an associate professor
at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, who selected the artists.
"Then modern art became popular in the market."

The new project, which will also include a public museum, is expected
to bolster tourism and to benefit a group of real estate companies that
are redeveloping the provincial area. In addition to providing the
land, Dujiangyan's government is investing around $13 million in the
museums.

The eight artists, ranging in age from 42 to 59, include a few from
Sichuan, but the others come from all over China. They rose to
prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s by producing paintings,
installations and multimedia pieces that were often radical. Some of
the work was viewed by the Chinese government as distasteful or
antiauthoritarian.

But in recent years Beijing has significantly loosened restrictions on
what can be exhibited in China as the global art market has fed a boom
in new studios, galleries, museums and art districts in many of its
cities. Today only the most controversial works — those with explicit
sexual images or harsh depictions of high-ranking Communist Party
officials — are banned.

How the artists plan to operate their own museums remains unclear.

"I was very happy when I heard that they were going to give me my own
museum," said Mr. Wu, 47, whose radical red character paintings and
nude performance art are well known here and abroad. "Right now, I have
no idea what I'm going to do with it. In the future all the artists
will sit down and discuss how these museums will be operated."

If the artists choose to display their own works, the museums will have
an enviable collection. Prices for art from many of them have
skyrocketed on the auction market. Individual pieces by Zhang Xiaogang
and Mr. Yue, for example, have sold for more than $2 million.

The Fusion on the Menu Is Art and Food

Asia > China > Beijing
The Fusion on the Menu Is Art and Food
By JULIA CHAPLIN
Published: August 19, 2007

IT was a familiar art-world ritual. Mint BMWs and Audis snaked down a
dark alley off the Second Ring Road in Beijing and pulled up to a gray
industrial bunker. Samuel Keller, the director of Art Basel Miami
Beach, had just jetted in from Switzerland. The local hotshot painters
Liu Ding and Liu Wei were huddled with the Svengali-esque curator Pi
Li, and in one corner would-be collectors were chatting with one of
China's most renowned contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei.

Insiders could be forgiven for mistaking this as yet another gallery
opening in art-crazed Beijing, with free-flowing Yen Jing beers, an
international crowd and a minimalist interior of stark white walls and
bare concrete floors. But then the kitchen doors swung open, and a
banquet of Zhejiang province dishes like steam-dried yellow croaker and
a wild-mushroom casserole in a fragrant broth poured forth.

The place was Qu Nar, a restaurant owned and designed by Mr. Ai as a
kind of dining club for his creative circle. "The restaurant actually
loses money because we don't promote it," said Mr. Ai, who opened Qu
Nar (16 Dongsanhuan Bei Road, Chaoyang; 86-10-6508-1597) in 2005 with
several bohemian friends. "But it's worth it because now we have a
place to hang out."

Mr. Ai is among a growing number of Beijing artists who are stepping
outside their studios and into the kitchen to open some of the most
talked-about restaurants in the city. These
artists-turned-restaurateurs are introducing cuisine from their
ancestral provinces — albeit with a nouvelle twist — to a city where
local Mandarin cooking has had a lock on upscale dining.

The current market for Chinese art has turned a handful of struggling
artists into overnight multimillionaires, with their works commanding
as much as $2.3 million at auction houses like Christie's. Along with
their newfound fame, some of these Beijing artists are now rolling in
the materialist trappings of a rap star, with their Range Rovers,
Ferragamo suits and, now, their own cult-of-personality restaurants.

That's not to say these places don't serve a more communal function. As
new art districts pop up along the industrial outskirts and dirt-road
villages off the Fifth Ring Road — often with no discernible center —
the restaurants have also emerged as a kind of ad hoc salon.

At the Dashanzi arts complex, housed in a defunct military factory near
the airport, artists and dealers can be found during lunch at Tian Xia
Yan (4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, 798 Factory District, Dashanzi;
86-10-6432-3577), a casual Sichuan cafe opened five years ago by the
photographer Cang Xin, known for his provocative self-portraits. Tucked
in a back alley behind a maze of galleries, boutiques and coffee shops,
the homey cafe has a red, Cultural Revolution-style décor and serves
Sichuan standards like spicy tea-mushroom pork pot and red-hot sesame
noodles.

By far the most entrepreneurial of the new artist-cum-restaurateurs is
Fang Lijun, a cynical-realist painter known for his canvases of eerie
bald men floating in space. Mr. Fang opened six upscale restaurants
around the city, each displaying important artworks that Mr. Fang and
his curator friends pick.

"It's a business, but it's also a place for the art world to meet and
gather," said Mr. Fang, who can often be seen holding court at Yuelu
Montain's Qian Hai Branch (10 Lotus Lane, 51-10 Dianmen Xidajie,
Xicheng District; 86-10-6617-2696).

Mr. Fang's flagship — South Silk Road in Soho New Town (3/F, Building
D, 88 Jianguolu Road; 86-10-8580-4286) — is the Beijing art world
equivalent to the Ivy in Los Angeles, where power curators and
collectors from Hong Kong, Seoul and the West wine and dine with the
art elite. Set on an upper floor of an office tower, the room is a
soaring loftlike space with black lacquered furniture and chic
waitresses in brightly colored folk outfits.

On one wall, behind a banquet table for 18 people, is a
floor-to-ceiling painting by the leading artist Wang Guangyi that
depicts, in pop yellow and red, retro-Communist workers with the word
"art" stamped in the corner like a corporate logo.

Viewing the painting on a winter afternoon was Meg Maggio, the director
of the Pekin Fine Arts gallery and a consultant for the Gagosian
galleries. "China is a country where relationships are best built over
a good meal," Ms. Maggio said, as she entertained a museum group over
glasses of rice wine and dishes like caterpillar fungus chicken soup in
steam pot, made with four varieties of Yunnan mushrooms.

Three years ago, an artist collective from Guizhou — a poor province in
south central China — arrived in Beijing to sell their paintings. To
pay the bills and to keep from getting homesick, they opened a 24-hour
restaurant named after themselves, Three Guizhou Men (1-2/F, Building
7, Jianwai SOHO, 39 Dongsanhuan; 86-10-5869-0598). The sleek gray
dining room served nouvelle Guizhou specialties like sour fish soup,
lavender tea with milk, and mango and ice purée.

Their art careers never took off, but their restaurant now has five
branches. And they are always packed

this is pretty good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/world/asia/01china.html?em&ex=1186113600&en=997c932a7b0a82b9&ei=5087%0A

Chinese copy-painters come to Zurich

http://www.artworldsalon.com/blog/2007/07/16/chinese-copy-painters-

come-to-zurich/

Chinese copy-painters come to Zurich
Monday July 16, 2007 | 13:10 by Marc Spiegler | permalink

The art scene is slow in Zurich this time of year, like everywhere
else. But there's always room for a little controversy. Last weekend's
concerned the newly established Splügen-Gallery (all text in German),
where the business model runs thus: You give them an image of an
artwork, and they have it painted for you in Shenzhen Dafen, China, at
whatever dimensions you like. The cost? Roughly $450-$900, frame
included.

The eclectic first show features works "by" Gustav Klimt, Roy
Lichtenstein and Tamara de Lempicka. Naturally, Pro Litteris, the Swiss
artists-rights association, objects strongly, arguing that "to
reproduce an image you need permission from the artist or their
representative." The gallery's owner, Chris Rüegg, counters that he's
checked with his lawyers and it's all perfectly legal.

One thing's sure: Given the predicted vector of the Chinese
contemporary-art scene, Splügen customers might do well to inquire
precisely who painted their duped Picasso, Prince, Weischer, or Wool,
and keep that name in their bank vault. After all, Western art history
is full of people who went from doing commercial art to being canonized
artists. Just look at the recent prices for Warhol sketches from his
illustrator days.

The problem with a collector-driven market

The problem with a collector-driven market

By Jane Kallir | Posted 12 July 2007

For the past century or so, the art world has been supported by four principal pillars: artists, collectors, dealers and the art-historical establishment (critics, academics, and curators). From a wider historical perspective, the latter two entities are relative newcomers. The development of art history as an academic discipline, and of public museums, dates back only to the 19th century. Only in the 20th century did dealers evolve from passive shopkeepers to pro-active impresarios, promoting the often difficult efforts of the pioneering modernists with missionary zeal. Public resistance to modernism, coupled with the pressures of international capitalism, gave new importance to dealers and museums, both of which played key roles by superintending the distribution of new art and ratifying its seriousness. At varying points in the course of the past 100 years, the weight of the art world has shifted from one of the four pillars to another. Artists made the modernist revolution; dealers recognised and supported it before academia did; in the post-war period, critics became so dominant that Tom Wolfe lampooned their influence in his 1975 book The Painted Word. And now, it seems, collectors have taken charge.

Over the long term, art-historical value is determined by consensus among all four art-world pillars. When any one of the four entities assume disproportionate power, there is a danger that this entity’s personal preferences will cloud everyone’s short-term judgement. Put bluntly, the danger of a collector-driven art world is that money will trump knowledge. Great collectors should ideally become nearly as knowledgeable as the curators and dealers who help them build their collections. But not all of today’s collectors have the passion or the time necessary to develop this depth of knowledge. Collecting, once the pursuit of a relatively small number of driven individuals, has become far more common among far more people.

This expansion of the art market, made possible by the broader dissemination of concentrated pockets of wealth and by the globalisation of art and related information, has drawn in players who do not have the focused commitment of the traditional collector. The exponential growth of the market, and the genuine gains realised by those who got in early, inevitably fuel the tendency, justifiable or not, to view art as an asset class comparable to stocks or real estate.

Art has also become the greatest common denominator in the new global social order. Today’s rich are an international elite whose members can measure their cachet by the level of VIP services given them at Art Basel and Art Basel/Miami Beach. Anointed by the glamour that today attends the public display of great wealth, the art world has acquired the patina of trendiness that was formerly exclusive to the entertainment and fashion industries. The contemporary focus on trendiness and investment potential, each of which operates on a relatively short timeline, obscures the fact that lasting value in art accrues in the course of generations.

The corollary to a collector-driven art world is that the canon of ostensibly great artists is being largely determined by market forces. The huge prices that have been achieved lately at the top of the market are the result not only of new concentrations of wealth, but of the fact that many people are pursuing the same handful of artists and works of art. Therefore the drop-off from the peak can be steep, becalming the middle market and consigning lesser works and lesser artists to also-ran status.

This is a market with a voracious appetite for alleged masterpieces, and little patience for historical or developmental nuances. It encourages superficiality: rather than collecting a single artist or group of artists in depth, collectors now often prefer to amass scattered masterworks: here a Matisse, there a Picasso, and then perhaps a Schiele. In an overheated environment, the art-historical establishment often finds itself chasing rather than guiding the market. The press must keep up with the latest trends, and coverage of social events and record prices often takes precedence over quiet critical reflection. Museums need the support of trustees, but the most powerful collectors no longer need the imprimatur of an existing museum; they can simply open their own.

If it sometimes seems that the art-historical establishment is missing in action, this is in part because, while the market has been aggressively constructing a new canon, academia has been busy deconstructing the old one. For several decades now, scholars have generally agreed that the white, male, Eurocentric canon that traditionally dominated Western art evolved from historical biases that are no longer morally or intellectually justifiable. Although this change in orientation has literally opened up a whole new world of aesthetic possibilities, it has discouraged academics from making qualitative judgements. Scholarship in areas that are useful to the marketplace, such as provenance and authenticity, has flourished, but overall connoisseurship has declined. Similarly, market pressures push dealers to become generalists, showcasing a hodge-podge of high-ticket items instead of specialising as they formerly did. Auctioneers, operating within a timeframe that seldom extends much beyond the next sale date, focus most of their energies on the highest priced lots. Novice collectors, justifiably wary and insecure, engage consultants who often know far less than the dealers and auctioneers. At every level of the art world, deeper knowledge and principled guidance seem to be in short supply.

The writer is co-director of Galerie St Etienne in New York

The China Painters by Jankowski

If you missed it!

CHRISTIAN JANKOWSKI: SUPER CLASSICAL

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 24th from 6-9 pm.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, ten to six.

For The China Painters, Jankowski traveled to Dafen, a suburb of
Shenzhen, China that operates like a paintings sweatshop. There,
workshops have been for the last twenty years replicating western
masterpieces, primarily for North American and European hotel lobby's,
producing an estimated 60 percent of the world's cheap oil paintings.
An artisan recently told Spiegel Online he "wants to get into the
business of oil paintings the way McDonalds got into the business of
fast food." The Communist Party of China (CCP) has lauded the
painters' economic boom, erecting an art museum in the village center.
This massive modernist building, which Jankowski visited and
photographed, is currently without a director or a collection, despite
its impending grand opening. Jankowski interviewed artisans, asking
what they would choose for the institution to exhibit on the walls;
none of the participants had been to a museum before. They remade his
photographs of the raw museum interior, inserting their fantasy
artworks. The resulting imagery varies from landscapes to family
portraits, to traditional Chinese works and "sexy" paintings; some
impart political criticism, such as Three Leaders, of former Communist
leader Den Xiaoping in conversation with China's current President and
Vice President, or Liberty, a replica of Delacroix's Liberty Leading
the People (1830). Via Jankowski's invitation to participate in his
own artistic practice, he gives the Dafen painters a voice, and
moreover, a challenge to generate an original painting for the first
time. The project confronts professional boundaries, and highlights
the larger issue surrounding modalities of mass production in the
twenty-first century global marketplace.

Pride is a Sham(e)!

The reasons are fourfold:

i. Proclamations of pride are compensatory, acknowledgements not only that the larger community regards one’s behavior as shameful, but tacitly that one does as well. Attitudes toward behavior one regards as entirely normative are ambivalent (imagine the absurdity of a heterosexual pride day). Pride and shame exist along one axis, together forming dipoles of the same entity: narcissism. Outwardly projected self-love masks inwardly projected self-loathing. Vocalized pride is pride in sham clothing and receives its identity only from shame.

ii. Gay/straight distinctions now have little or nothing to do with sexual behavior per se. The term "gay" has detached from the referent from which it was formed (a euphemism for people who engage in homosexual acts) and now floats aimlessly through linguistic never-never land. It is not uncommon to hear talk of gay straight guys, straight gay guys, and gay porn stars secretly being "straight" – engaging in homosexual acts is not sufficient, in fact not even necessary, to warrant identification as "gay."

Whether or not any of the following people engage in homosexual acts, I do not know – they are gay, nevertheless:

Richard Simmons

The Smiths
Most male eurotrash

Inanimate Objects, Professions, and Places (which of course, cannot engage in homosexual acts) can indeed be gay as well:

Hermès Gardening Spades
Calvin Klein & 2(x)ist Undergarments
Colors named after the natural objects they resemble: i.e. salmon, camel, …
Interior Decoration
Landscape Architecture
Professional Football
Construction
Law Enforcement
Firefighting
Floristry
Fashion Design
Coiffeury
Versailles
Paris
Milan

To be gay is to embrace a sort of neo-dandyism or to react violently against that (neo-machismo – butch gays are the gayest after all), nothing more, nothing less.

iii. To define is to limit. A homosexual who identiefies as "gay" relegates himself to a series of convenient definitions… a certain socioeconomic status… a certain set of life chances. To do so with pride is to accept one’s rape and then smile and thank the heteronormative power structure responsible.

iv. A “gay” identity undermines a homosexual’s sex chances. The vast majority of homosexuals are only attracted to “straight-acting" homosexuals.

Shanghai Pride week

Here is the complete schedule of events for Shanghai Pride:
Thursday, July 5: LGBT Discussion @ PinkHome, 7PM
Thursday, July 5: LGBT Film Workshop @ PinkHome, after discussion
Saturday, July 7: Seven Deadly Sins party @ PinkHome, 9PM
Thursday, July 12: LGBT Independent Film Screening @ PinkHome, 8:30PM

RockIt! in Shanghai

RockIt!, Shanghai's only independent, alternative music festival, runs tomorrow through Sunday at Dino Beach Water Park. The peformance schedule is listed below; for more details on the event and participating bands please visit www.neocha.com/rockit, www.myspace.com/studio13d and www.newsmyspace.com/local/shanghai/item/6621614 .

Rock It摇滚音乐节乐队演出时间安排

6月29日 星期五

13:30 - 14:00 CHAOS MIND

14:20 - 14:50 完美幻象 Perfect Illusion

15:10 - 15:40 摩天轮 Ferris Wheel

16:00 - 16:40 刺猬 Hedgehog

17:00 - 17:40 咖啡因 Caffeine

18:00 - 18:40 山人 Mountain Men

19:00 - 19:40 糖果枪 Honey Gun

20:00 - 20:40 变色蝴蝶 Proximity Butterfly

21:00 - 21:40 水晶蝶 Crystyl Butterfly

22:00 - 22:40 新裤子

6月30日 星期六

11:00 - 11:30 塑料巧克力

11:50 - 12:20 地下秩序

12:40 - 13:10 Happy Sky

13:30 - 14:00 扩音器

14:20 - 14:50 The Fuck'ndrolls / Sarah & Band

15:10 - 15:50 Spiral Cow

16:10 - 16:40 33岛

17:00 - 17:40 旅行团

18:00 - 18:40 惘闻

19:00 - 19:40 肆伍

20:00 - 20:40 JOYSIDE

21:00 - 21:40 甜蜜的孩子

22:00 - 22:40 扭曲的机器

7月1日 星期日

11:00 -11:30 快乐弦

11:50 - 12:20 the los

12:40 - 13:10 Muscle Snog

13:30 - 14:10 滑轮

14:30 - 15:10 巫师来了

15:30 - 16.00 香蕉猴子

16:20 - 17:00 林伽

17:20 - 17:50 疯狂蘑菇团

18:10 - 18:40 21克

19:00 - 19:40 羽果

20:00 - 20:40 便利商店

21:00 - 21:40 重塑雕像的权利

22:00 - 22:40 TOOKOO