Monthly Archives: March 2012

ArtSlant: Dancing Frog Legs

Posted on by
Reply

Symptoms: Becoming Peninsula I (Cheng Ran, Li Wei, Lu Yang, Ren Hang, Yan Heng, Yan Xing, Yuan Yuan, Zang Kunkun)

Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, E06, 798 Art District, Beijing

3 March – 3 April, 2012

In the first of what the organisers promise will be a long-term project with regular presentations (although “…to be held once or twice a year in different ways…” is perhaps a little vague), Iberia Center for Contemporary Art in 798 has brought together a patchy, but (perhaps for that reason) representative selection of young Chinese artists to show the state of art production in China at this time.

This show is ostensibly based on the truism that the works and the artists’ sensibilities are ‘symptoms’ of the society they have grown up in. The wall text for the show makes the case that after the ‘idealism’ of the ‘90s, business culture took over and young people had to fit into tiny gaps in the “highly specialised division of labour and elaborate social structure[s]”. By doing so they could then only develop inwardly, using their new-found access to media and technology. I’m not sure I completely understood the argument, but the upshot is that ‘diversity’ became the key to their lives and productions.

Continue reading →

Yishu Journal: Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art and A Museum That is Not

Posted on by
Reply

Little Movements: Self Practice in Contemporary Art
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen

September 10–November 10, 2011

A Museum That Is Not
Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou

September 11–October 30, 2011

Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu on the cover of Yishu Journal No.49

“Edward Sanderson explores the increasingly blurred boundaries among curatorial practice, artistic practice, and institutions through the examples of two innovative exhibitions—Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art and A Museum That Is Not.”

Giorgio Agamben addresses the concept of movement as “that which if it is, is as if it wasn’t, it lacks itself; and if it isn’t, is as if it was, it exceeds itself.” This ambivalence between lack and plenitude marks the movement as “unfinished, unaccomplished,” suggesting that it occupies a point between the pre-political and the political, and a point without movement in an active sense, and, therefore, without a future or past of failure or resolution. This balancing point, by necessity, also makes “movement” hard to locate or define; hence its sense of being ripe for questioning when applied to the world.

Since 2010, Carol Yinghua Lu, Liu Ding and Su Wei—self-described as “a three-person curatorial team include[ing] an artist, a curator and a critic”—have been developing together what they call the Little Movements project. The recent presentation of this project at OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) in Shenzhen, titled Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art, has provided an opportunity to see the current state of this project in the form of an exhibition.

By a happy quirk of fate, at the same time as this show, Liu Ding was fulfilling his role as an artist by presenting work in the group show A Museum That Is Not, curated by Nikita Yingqian Cai, at the Times Museum in nearby Guangzhou. A Museum That Is Not investigated the parameters of the museum as an institutional experience, with a particular focus on the host museum’s own position with the community around it, and conveniently showcased Liu Ding’s creative approaches to what can be seen as parallel concerns to the content and methods of Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art.

[To read the full article, please pick up a copy of the Journal or visit the Yishu website]

ArtSlant: Mountain Climbing

Posted on by
Reply

Mont Sainte-Victoire – Li Ran Solo Exhibition

Magician Space, 798 East Road, 798 Art Zone, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing

25 February – 25 March, 2012

There are plenty of art exhibitions that are obscure and difficult to fathom – this is usually a cover for a lack of thought and depth that becomes painfully apparent when they are placed under the least analysis. So I’m very happy when a show comes along which, while flirting with obscurity and confusion, manages to hold my attention with the possibilities for meaning that it urges the viewer to explore, and productively uses a certain level of obscurity to sustain the interest in delving further into the works. Li Ran’s new installation at Magician Space seems to be just such a show.

Continue reading →

ArtSlant: Pleasure in Losing One’s Way

Posted on by
Reply

Mi Lou: Recent Works by Hong Lei

Chambers Fine Art, Red No.1-D, Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100015, China

18 February – 25 March, 2012

Hong Lei’s particular form of mythicized, fetishized work would usually not attract me. In other artists I have found the saturated content and symbolism seen in Hong Lei’s myriad works too heavy-handed and oppressive, leading me to feel the work held itself—and the audience—too far apart from a reality.

This is something that I’ve recently experienced in the work of Cai Guo-Qiang, for instance – an urge to create a critical mass of meaning at the expense of a connection with the audience. In the process I experienced alienation through the latter artist’s works, by what I found to be its highly considered and artificial approach to the subject matter.

While this is certainly a risk with Hong Lei’s works on display at Chambers Fine Art, in this case I’ve found that the artists lightness of touch and subtlety of its approach to the viewer—while not resolving all of my issues with its tendency to objectify aspects of its subjects—entices the viewer in and adds a sense of wonder to the overall installation, à la the fantasist Borges.

Continue reading →