Posts Tagged ‘contemporary art’

9th Gwangju Biennale: ROUNDTABLE

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

7 September– 11 November, 2012
Biennale Hall & other venues, Gwangju (Jeolla Province, South Korea)
Opening hours: Monday – Sunday, 9:00-18:00
Admission: 11,000 won
http://gb.or.kr

by Andy St. Louis

**This review originally appeared in ELOQUENCE Magazine (August 2012)

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Circle of Confusion (2010). Courtesy the artists, The Third Line (Dubai), CRG Gallery (New York), and In situ Fabienne Leclerc (Paris).

 

First held in 1995, the Gwangju Biennale has long been a champion of contemporary artists working across all mediums and practices worldwide. The exhibition has solidified its reputation over the past decade, thanks in large part to the extraordinary lineup of accomplished curators that have guided its development over the years. This year, the 9th Gwangju Biennale is set to carry on this tradition of progressive and mindful stewardship with the appointment of six Co-Artistic Directors. Although each is a groundbreaking curator in her own right, as a collective curatorial entity these six women propose an unorthodox challenge to the more conventional curatorial approaches that have prevailed in the biennale’s history.

‘History’ has always played a key role in defining conceptual frameworks for the Gwangju Biennale’s exhibitions. Looking ahead to September and the 9th Gwangju Biennale, the question that looms largest for most people has been: how will this year’s exhibition continue to reinvigorate and engage with issues in contemporary art in ways that are fresh and relevant today? Faced with such a challenge, the exhibition’s Co-Artistic Directors have thrown open the curatorial conversation, abdicating the authority to endorse any single ‘officially-approved’ position. ‘ROUNDTABLE,’ the theme of this year’s biennale, is presented as a platform for open-ended collaboration, with the principal objective of arriving at a more qualified assessment and comprehensive interpretation of notions of the individual and the collective—a dichotomy that brings itself to bear on artistic practice as well as society in general.

Aki Sasamoto, Centrifugal March (2012). Photo Daisuke Yamashiro / Courtesy the artist

By its very definition, the social institution of the ’roundtable’ eliminates the conditioned visual hierarchies implied by other seating arrangements. In the context of discussion or debate, roundtables are considered neutral sites that enable interactions in which distinctions of social standing and authority are rendered null and void; in a circle, all criteria for establishing an ‘optimal position’ cease to apply. Taking this as its guiding principle, ‘ROUNDTABLE’ simultaneously describes the working relationship of the exhibition’s six Co-Artistic Directors, the conversational interaction of the exhibition’s various interrelated sub-themes, and the non-linear structure of the exhibition at large.

Discrete topics of interest—such as isolation, migration, mass communication, and the relationship between group trauma, memory and history—will be parsed from the exhibition’s wider conversation by the 90 artists and collectives (from over 40 countries) set to participate in ‘ROUNDTABLE.’ Collectively, they provide an impressive cross-section of contemporary artistic practice worldwide; individually, they reveal the variety of contexts that lead to qualified interpretations of the entire group as a collective unit. With so many individual perspectives converging within a common discursive space, there’s no guarantee that things will always go smoothly. According to the exhibition’s Co-Artistic Directors, conflict isn’t just a possibility, it’s an expectation. “The works may at times be in conversation or at times in opposition with one another,” they announced at a panel discussion hosted by the Tate Modern in June. “We have collaborated to create a platform where a shifting relationship between works and multi-faceted themes is possible, creating points of connection and conversation.”

This year’s exhibition aims to facilitate unprecedented levels of connection and conversation by providing access to more voices than ever before. Building upon the Gwangju Biennale’s historic commitment to supporting artists, ‘ROUNDTABLE’ addresses the increasing importance of process and locality in contemporary artistic practice by subsidizing more than 40 commissions for new work, 15 residencies and 11 performances. A cycle of symposiums known as Workstations gathers select groups of non-artist voices to offer insight from a distance, presenting alternate models for advancing the exhibition’s curatorial objectives. Online, ‘ROUNDTABLE’ hopes to engage global audiences via a series of E-Journals which explore a set of themes related to the biennale’s overall concept. The pledge to maximize access on all fronts applies at the local level as well, with the exhibition set to extend beyond Biennale Hall and into various spaces of cultural exchange across the city (including a cinema, traditional market and Buddhist temple). The result, it is hoped, will be an exhibition not only encouraging collaboration but indeed personifying it.

Sara Nuytemans, Observatory of the Self version 2.1 (2011). Courtesy the artist

The exhibition planned for this year’s 9th Gwangju Biennale is nothing if not ambitious. Heavy on concept and high in potential, ‘ROUNDTABLE’ refuses to shy away from the expectations part and parcel of Asia’s premier contemporary art exhibition. The six curators tasked with filling the tall order of history have taken the challenges and opportunities of working as a collective unit and incorporated them seamlessly into the very core of what the exhibition is all about. They have assembled a group of participating artists and collectives that is as strong as it is diverse, yet the question remains: will their work be able to cohere under the weight of the biennale’s high-stakes conceptual scheme? In the end, the litmus test will be to see whether the exhibition’s public is able—not to mention willing—to shoulder its share of collaborative responsibility that ‘ROUNDTABLE’ is depending upon. Results notwithstanding, this is precisely the sort of game-changing gamble required to effectively challenge the status quo, and a necessary one for the Gwangju Biennale to prove itself as an agent for progress in the 21st century.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

A Gentil Carioca [Botner e Pedro + Fabiano Gonper] (Brazil) – Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico) – Adam Broomberg + Oliver Chanarin (UK/ South Africa) – Agung Kurniawan (Indonesia) – Ahn Kyuchul (South Korea) – Ai Weiwei (China) – Aki Sasamoto (Japan/ USA) – Ala Younis (Palestine/ Jordan) – Allan Kaprow (USA) – Allan Sekula + Noel Burch (USA) – Ana Husman (Croatia) – Andy Hope 1930 (Germany) – Anri Sala (Albania/ Germany) – Benjamin Armstrong (Australia) – Bibimbbap [Sang­‐hwa Park, Han‐byul Jang, Mae-­lee Lee, Han-­‐yeol Kim, Un Kang] (South Korea) – Boris Groys (Germany) – CAMP (India) – Choi Mi‐Yeon (South Korea) – Chosil Kil (South Korea) – Chris Marker (France) – Chto delat? / What is to be done? (Russia) – Craig Walsh + Hiromi Tango (Australia/ Japan) – Dane Mitchell (New Zealand) – Darinka Pop‐Mitic (Serbia) – Delaine Le Bas (UK) – Dick Verdult (Netherlands) – Do Ho Suh (South Korea) – Fayçal Baghriche (Algeria) – Fouad Elkoury (France/ Lebanon) – Gulnara Kasmalieva + Muratbek Djumaliev + ArtEast School for Contemporary Art, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) – Han Dong (China) – Haroon Mirza (UK) – Hyun Tack Cho (South Korea) – James Cahill (USA) – Jangarh Singh Shyam (India) – Jenny Holzer (USA) – Jeong-­lok Lee (South Korea) – Jihae Hwang (South Korea) – Joana Hadjithomas + Khalil Joreige (Lebanon) – Josef Dabernig (Austria) – Julia Dault (Canada/ USA) – Julieta Aranda + Anton Vidokle (Mexico/Russia) – Jun Yang (China/ Austria) – Jung Yoonsuk (South Korea) – Juyeon Kim (South Korea) – Kelly Schacht (Belgium) – Kim Beom (South Korea) – Kimsooja (South Korea) – Laurent Grasso (France) – Li Fuchun (China) – Li Ran (China) – Lu Yue (China) – Magnus Bärtås (Sweden) – Maha Maamoun (Egypt)  –  Maki Toshima (Japan) – Malak Helmy (Egypt) – Mark Bradford (USA) – Michael Joo (USA) – Mônica Nador (Brazil) – Moon Kyungwon + Jeon Joonho (South Korea) – Motoyuki Shitamichi (Japan) – Nasrin Tabatabai + Babak Afrassiabi (Netherlands/ Iran) – Nástio Mosquito (Angola) – Noh Suntag (South Korea) – Pedro Reyes (Mexico) – Poklong Anading (Philippines) – Porntaweesak Rimsakul (Thailand) – Rasheed Araeen (UK) – Rim Dong Sik (South Korea) – Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thailand) – Royce NG (Hong Kong/ Australia) in collaboration with Zebadish Arrington, Suhuu Goh + Soichiro Mitsuya (USA/ South Korea/ Japan) – Sara Nuytemans (Belgium) – Scott Eady (New Zealand) – Sejla Kameric (Bosnia-­‐Herzegovina) – Sheba Chhachhi (India) – Shuruq Harb (Palestine) – Simon Fujiwara (UK) – Slavs and Tatars (Eurasia) – Sophia Al-­Maria (Qatar) – Tintin Wulia (Indonesia) – Tobias Rehberger (Germany) – Tu Wei­‐Cheng (Taiwan) – U Sunok (South Korea) – Varda Caivano (Argentina) – Vertical Submarine (Singapore) – Wael Shawky (Egypt) – West Eastern Divan Orchestra (Israel/ Palestine/ Arab World) – Wolfgang Laib (Germany) – Wu Tsang (USA) – Xijing Men [Chen Shaoxiong, Gimhongsok, Tsuyoshi Ozawa] (China/South Korea/ Japan) – xurban_collective [Guven Incirlioglu + Hakan Topal] (Turkey) – Yerbossyn Meldibekov (Kazakhstan)

Rasheed Araeen, The Reading Room ZKM (1987-2011). Installation view from the exhibition "The Global Contemporary. Art Worlds after 1989" (2011) at ZKM, Karlsruhe. Photo Steffen Harms / Courtesy the artist and ZKM Karlsruhe

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Preview | No Comments »

Song Yige at Gallery Hyundai

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

7th January- 6th February
Gangnam
Opening hours: Tuesday- Sunday 10am-6pm, closed Monday and national holidays
Admission: free
www.galleryhyundai.com

Song Yige at Gallery Hyundai, Gangnam

Chinese painter Song Yige is a hot topic around these Asian parts of late, and it’s no wonder. Her paintings typically deal with themes of childhood and the transition to adulthood with associated feelings of loneliness through simple and direct depictions of daily objects in desolate spaces. Most paintings are figure-less, but recall human presence in the absence of it. She paints in a realistic manner, and is a master of combining all of these elements with an astute sense of colour, to create honest and enrapturing works which seem to whisper softly to the viewer and beg them to pile their own personal meanings and memories onto the spaces that Yige has primed for them. These wonderful, large, low hung paintings in Gallery Hyundai are awaiting your meanings and memories.

Song Yige, 'Helplessness 1,' (2009). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Song Yige, 'Helplessness 1,' (2009). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Song Yige alludes to childhood by means of over sized objects which recall how big everything seems when you are young. A mourning for the loss of childhood is dealt with most overtly in ‘Helplessness 1,’ (2009), where a lone man wearing deer horns dejectedly gazes upon a crashed remote control helicopter. He is proportionately smaller than the helicopter and the maze of open doors to the left of the composition, and it’s uncertain whether he is outside or in. The ground is uneven and carries on as such through the open doors, emphasising the lonely, uncertain feelings which this painting provokes.

Song Yige, 'Untitled,' (2009). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Song Yige, 'Untitled,' (2009). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Whilst ‘Helplessness 1,’ deals with nostalgia for childhood, ‘Untitled,’ (2009) deals with the thrilling, yet terrifying transition into adulthood. The painting depicts a blue moonlit scene of a single track between wheat fields, leading to the vortex of the painting. The journey alluded to in the seemingly endless monotonous landscape, invites feelings of exhilaration in the sheer vastness and openness of the composition, but also of fear of embracing this freedom. The simple lines of the tracks leading to the centre of the painting and the horizon offered by the wheat are ever so slightly asymmetrical, playing with the viewer’s equilibrium and adding a further disconcerting edge to the work.

The open spaces of ‘Helplessness 1,’ and ‘Untitled,’ resonate with loneliness and desolation, feelings drawn upon in all works but extracted by varying means. In ‘You and Me,’ (2010), it’s a pair of worn pink chairs, evoking thoughts of the figures now absent. In ‘Bathroom,’ (2009), it’s working shower heads, pouring water onto nothing but the dirty tiles, which beg for human presence and seem to whisper the delicate splashing of water upon the floor. In ‘Abyss,’ (2008), it’s a terrible, black, gaping hole down which a ladder ladder much too short for the purpose, half heartedly and untrustingly reaches.

Song Yige, 'You and Me,' (2010). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Song Yige, 'You and Me,' (2010). Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

The paintings are swathed in varying melancholy green blue tints and executed with tender brushstrokes which relay objects in a realsitic manner. However, the strokes seem to tremble and threaten to break free of their confines in places, evident in strokes extending slightly further than they should and intruding into the space represented. Thick applications of paint become more than representational as physical embodiments of the heavy atmospheres provoked.

Perhaps I have made this all out to sound very grim, but it’s not. There is terrible loneliness and uncertainty, but overall, they are melancholy rather than desperate. The loaded spaces beg the viewer’s interpretation, making each painting personal according to your own experiences. They are humble, open, and obviously come from deep within Yige’s heart. They’re waiting for you too.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

La Sombra Del Habla (The Shadow of Speech), Coleccion MACBA at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Seoul Grand Park
7th July- 3rd October
Opening hours: Tuesday- Thursday 9am- 10:30pm, Friday- Sunday 10am- 8pm
Admission: 5,000 won
Guided Tours: Saturday and Sunday 2pm

The Shadow of Speech, Museau d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) showcases super duper highlights from the Spanish Museum’s collection and celebrates 60 years of diplomatic ties between Spain and the ROK. It focuses on the use of semantics in art to suggest diametric meanings.

The introductory blurb is somewhat misleading when it proclaims that the works on show will help the viewer understand Spanish culture, as the show contains numerous European, American and South American artists. So whilst you shouldn’t expect an overview of contemporary Spanish art, you should expect a very interesting array of contemporary artworks with a focus on Spanish art, from the 60′s onwards.

Marcel Broodthaers, 'Museum- Museum,' 1972

Marcel Broodthaers, 'Museum- Museum,' 1972

The work of Belgian poet, film maker and artist Marcel Broodthaers provides an excellent introduction to the exhibition, acquainting the viewer with the concept of semantics in art. He uses text in a Surrealistic manner, splicing often seemingly unrelated images and text. However, in the work ‘Museum- Museum,’ (1972), he uses words to suggest a link between art works and commodities. The piece is made up of two prints, both portraying identical gold bullion. The bullion has been labelled on one print with famous artists’ names, and on the other, with food commodities. At the bottom of each print are the words, ‘IMITATION, KOPIE, COPIE, FALSCH, ORIGINAL.’

Francesc Torres, 'P...O...E...M...A... Prototip per a una edició il·limitada,' 1968

Francesc Torres, 'P...O...E...M...A... Prototip per a una edició il·limitada,' 1968

I especially enjoyed the works of one of the pioneers of installation art, the Spaniard Francesc Torres. Four uncased white boxes are displayed, and upon each is a different arrangement of letters. For example, the letters of the box entitled, ‘P… O… E… M… A…’ (1969) have been placed on a cuboid, which slips out of the cube, meaning that the ‘poem’ only really comes into existence when pulled out and read by the viewer. I love the Minimalist, lettraset look of these pieces; they are very reminiscent of the 60′s when lots of fantastic experimentations were being made into the use of semantics in art.

Torres sounds an overtly political voice in ‘Construction of the Matrix,’ (1976). He uses a pile of rubble littered with empty bullets to provide home on opposing sides to a lamp lit Bible and Communist Manifesto, highlighting the consequences of the two opposing ideologies as they both seemingly are reduced to dust. In the background, the video work, ‘Portrait,’ (1994) by Muntadas plays. Here, we witness close up gesticular hand movements of politicians and hear them speaking; except that both have been slowed down so that the gestures become silly and the voices become nonsensical and unnervingly animalistic.

Eugènia Balcells, "Boy meets Girl", 1978

Eugènia Balcells, "Boy meets Girl", 1978

A look at the advent of TV and its role in political activity and generating of media stereotypes has been given a lot of attention. For example, Eugenia Balcell’s ‘Girl Meets Boy,’ (1978), highlights the ridiculous sexist archetypes conveyed in the media; shy, buxom blondes with thick eyelashes, cowboys, sailors…

It’s interesting to give speech and written language such an important role to play in an exhibition. A lot of these pieces have a grounding in Spanish politics and culture, whilst the rest slip neatly beside them, into six subcategories. You can check out the MACBA collection on their really cool website, but you can’t beat seeing art works in the flesh. I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition and think that you would too!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment »