artdaily, 8/12/2005
Between Past and Future - New Photography and Video
[image] Yin Xiuzhen. Yin Xiuzhen 1998, Mixed media installation including ten pairs of shoes and then chromogenic prints (detail). Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and the CourtYard Gallery, Beijing.

LONDON, ENGLAND.-The V&A will show the first major survey of chinese photography and video from the past decade, featuring work by a new generation of chinese photographers and video artists.

With contemporary chinese art attracting interest around the world, 'Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China' is a varied and compelling selection. Featuring 60 works by 40 artists, the exhibition reflects the energy of younger chinese artists. The works, by both rising stars and established names, are often monumental in scale and experimental in nature. Together they capture the vivid responses of chinese photographers and video artists to the rapid cultural, social and economic changes taking place in China.

The exhibition includes work by Wang Quingsong, Hong Hao, Qui Zhijie, Sheng Qi, Liu Zheng, Song Dong and Zhang Dali. There is also work by Rong Rong who recorded the performances and lives of the artistic community of Beijing's East Village in the early 1990s. Female artists include Xing Danwen and the young Beijing artist Cui Xiuwen.

As well as introducing an extraordinary body of work to a UK audience, the exhibition will provide remarkable insight into the dynamics of chinese culture at the start of the 21st century.

***********************

Victoria and Albert Museum
Between Past and Future - New Photography and Video from China
15 September 2005 – 15 January 2006

Exhibition overview
This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of photography and video from China since the mid 1990s and the first major showing of contemporary Chinese art at a UK venue. Showcasing works by 39 artists - many of whom have not exhibited in the UK before - it will introduce the activities of experimental Chinese artists and provide intriguing insights into life in today's China.

For the past two decades, China has undergone remarkable economic, social and cultural transformations. These changes have shaped the development of experimental art. Using media ranging from painting and sculpture to video and photography, China's experimental artists have explored the dynamics of emerging modernity in a country where the forces of tradition still retain enormous power. Photography and video have become increasingly important means of individual expression and are now central to contemporary Chinese art. In many ways, the versatility and instantaneous nature of these media have become synonymous with the rapidity of change in China.

Photography was largely reduced to a propaganda tool during the first thirty years of the People's Republic, but from the 1980s artists began explore the medium's expressive potential. In the mid-1990s, Chinese photography and video entered a new phase of non-stop invention, abundant production, multifaceted experimentation and cross-fertilization with other art forms. The exhibition centres on this most recent and exciting phase of photo- and video-based art in China and is structured around four thematic sections:

* History and Memory
* Performing the Self
* Re-Imagining the Body
* People and Place

Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China was organised by the International Center of Photography, New York, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, in collaboration with the Asia Society, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The exhibition received major funding from The Smart Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, as well as generous support from other donors.

History and Memory
The opening section explores the contemporary legacy of China's past, featuring works which update themes from traditional Chinese art, reinterpret famous historical sites and evoke the lives of ordinary people through personal photographs and memorabilia.
Complete artist list:
GAO Zhen and GAO Qiang, HAI Bo, HONG Lei, LIU Zheng, MA Liuming, QIU Zhijie SHENG Qi, SONG Dong, WANG Gongxin, WANG Qingsong, WENG Fen, XING Danwen, YANG Zhenzhong, MIAO Xiaochun

Performing the Self
Contains photographs and videos that reflect the urgent quest for new forms of individual identity in a rapidly changing society. Many Chinese experimental artists have used their own images as a subject of their art, conveyed through self-portraits and self-transformations into fictional characters or symbolic images.
Complete artist list:
AN Hong, CAO Fei, HONG Lei, SONG Dong, SUN Yuan, WANG Jin, WANG Qingsong, YANG Fudong, YIN Xiuzhen, ZHANG Huan, ZHU Ming

Re-imagining the Body
Looks at ways in which Chinese artists have used the body as a vehicle for self-expression and social critique. Works in this section employ the human body as image-bearing material, or use the body to explore new ways to communicate with the world.
Complete artist list:
CANG Xin, HUANG Yan, LIU Wei, QIU Zhijie, RONG Rong, WANG Wei, XU Zhen

People and Place
The final section in the exhibition explores ways in which experimental artists in China have responded to the dramatic changes taking place in the environment and in particular the rapid transformation of the urban fabric. Works record and comment on the impact of rapid urbanisation on the physical environment and human relations.
Complete artist list:
BAI Yiluo, CHEN Lingyang, CUI Xiuwen, HONG Hao, LIU Zheng, LUO Yongjin, SONG Dong, WANG Jianwei, XIONG Wenyun, YANG Fudong, YANG Yong, ZHANG Dalik, JIANG Zhi

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1369_between_past_future/index.php

+++++++++

China Live: Conversations on Performance and Documentation
Book Now 020 7942 2211 or email
28 October 2005
14.00-17.00
Discussion event to introduce the live art performances taking place during the China Friday Late and explore the relationship between performance art, photography and video.

Speakers include Chinese artists Shu Yang, He Cheng Yao and Wang Chuyu, who will perform during the Friday Late, Sarah Champion of Chinese Arts Centre, Lois Keidan of Live Art UK and UK-based artists Dinu Li and Hayley Newman.

Organised in collaboration with Chinese Arts Centre and Live Art UK Tickets: Full £8.50, Concessions £6.50/£5. A free place can be offered to a carer accompanying a registered disabled person
China Friday Late

++++++++++

Free Event
28 October 2005
18.30 - 22.00
A night of contemporary Chinese art, featuring live performance, photography , film and music.

Organised in collaboration with Chinese Arts Centre and Live Art UK. Lecture supported by Red Mansion Foundation.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1369_between_past_future/programme.php

*******************

Tour Dates:
- International Center of Photography, New York and Asia Society, New York, June 11 – September 5, 2004;
- Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, February 10 – May 15, 2005;
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom, September 2005 – January 2006;
- Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany, March – May 2006;
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, Summer 2006.

 

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is
available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm