(Dis)appear
Chen Ke Aditya Novali Aung Ko
(Dis)appear
Chen Ke - Aditya Novali - Aung Ko
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La presenza o la sparizione dell’uomo e dell’umano nell’arte contemporanea assume spesso valore di critica sociopolitica, di riflessione sull’identità, di ironia o alienazione nei confronti della realtà contemporanea. Oggi, l’umano in arte, anche se eccessivamente e costantemente esibito, viene sostanzialmente annientato, sminuito, poco considerato. Si osserva, talvolta, una progressiva smaterializzazione del corpo, una sua perdita di fisionomia riconoscibile, fino al suo esprimersi e affermarsi nel vuoto dell’assenza. “(Dis)appear”, unisce tre artisti molto distanti per provenienza e produzione, ma che, in diversa maniera, esprimono la sparizione e l’apparizione dell’umano nelle più diverse forme. Chen Ke, (Tongjiang, 1978), giovane artista cinese, ha una produzione raffinata. La creazione artistica, per Chen Ke, è un approccio retrospettivo alla vita, una riflessione che le permette di rendere il presente più sicuro. In mostra cinque nuovi dipinti, intimi e silenziosi, luoghi ideali in cui si coglie in maniera completa l’interiorità dell’esperienza. Delicate e malinconiche, le opere raccolgono un’introspezione del sé dell’artista. I dipinti di Chen Ke rappresentano un mondo di favole, di sogni, di reminiscenze infantili ed elaborazioni psicologiche. In esse l’alienazione dalla realtà, per un ritorno all’infanzia, e una convivenza più serena col presente, viene espressa attraverso una tecnica mista che riunisce diversi materiali sulla tela. In questa nuova serie di opere vediamo sparire gradualmente i caratteri somatici dei personaggi che divengono figure irriconoscibili pur restando apparenze familiari. In questi dipinti la natura prende il sopravvento sull’uomo ma si umanizza, si vivifica, gli oggetti possiedono un’anima proprio come le persone, non viene rappresentata una storia in divenire, ma solo essenza nella stasi degli oggetti, ove sparisce il confine fra vissuto reale ed elaborazione psicologica. Diversamente, nelle installazioni di Aditya Novali (Solo, 1978), l’uomo sparisce totalmente a favore dell’oggetto e del suo contenitore. Le due installazioni facenti parte della serie “The Wall”, sono l’evoluzione del progetto “(Un)real Estate” e riproducono in miniatura delle palazzine popolari con piccoli appartamenti che ruotano su se stessi e il cui fruitore è sparito, ma la sua presenza traspare dagli oggetti, dalla sua mancanza. La sua assenza diviene uno status di presenza. Per la sparizione dell’uomo e dell’umano, l’artista cerca di darci una soluzione, una via di fuga, nell’opera “Inhabitants”: “…immaginari personaggi che avrebbero potuto abitare i Walls. Tuttavia, ho messo i teschi su un piedistallo per sottolineare il fatto che sono artefatti/oggetti, metafore di persone e non immagini degli attuali abitanti…” (Aditya Novali) Oltre a questi strani abitanti, ecco l’apparire della natura, sovrana, che si appropria incurante e incolta di ogni stanza (“The Wall series - The Living Years”) o dell’opera d’arte stessa (“The Wall series - Landscape”), per testimoniare e rivendicare l’apparire di un nuovo paesaggio contemporaneo.
Chen Ke, Moonlight, 100-70 cm, mix material on canvas, 2014
Le sculture “Ko Shwe” presenti in mostra, sono autoritratti di Aung Ko stesso in diversi periodi della propria vita, un corpo nudo e glabro ricoperto da una patina d’oro, in atteggiamento rilassato o aggressivo. Il corpo nudo sottolinea la precarietà e la vulnerabilità della condizione umana, mentre l’oro richiama da
Chen Ke, Vela, 30-25 cm, mix material on canvas, 2014
Chen Ke, White Night, 100-100cm, mix material on canvas, 2014
Chen Ke, Tea Pot, 40-50cm, mix material on canvas, 2014
Aditya Novali, The Wall series - Landscape,120-131 cm, mixed media installation, 2013
DETAILS: Aditya Novali, The Wall series - Landscape,120-131 cm, mixed media installation, 2013
una parte l’identità della Birmania, spesso chiamata “terra d’oro” per le dorature degli edifici religiosi, dall’altra quei birmani che vivono e lavorano all’estero e si chiamano tra loro Mister Gold, uomini con sogni dorati, che si ritrovano in condizione di ansia, angoscia, amarezza. Un oro, però, che simboleggia inoltre il sacro, richiamando una trascendenza divina, un’esigenza di superamento della condizione umana attraverso un’esperienza metafisica. La figura umana scompare nell’opera “The Sights Viewed from Boats”, per lasciar emergere come un semplice oggetto possa diventare parte integrante di un individuo, di una comunità, entrando nell’immaginario collettivo al punto da farne modelli in scala ridotta utilizzati come giocattoli dai bambini. Queste barche in tela richiamano esse stesse la natura e il paesaggio di cui si sono appropriate attraverso decorazioni dipinte. L’utilizzo della tela richiama il moto silenzioso e fluttuante delle barche sul fiume, la contemplazione della natura e ciò che il fiume è sempre stato. Sottolineando, però, nella forma, la presenza funzionale delle barche sul fiume, il loro essere mezzo di trasporto, di lavoro, di cambiamento e di unione per una comunità. L’accostare barche giocattolo a queste fluttuanti barche in tela dipinta, è un richiamo all’infanzia, al sogno: “A queste barche giocattolo è successa ogni cosa: hanno gareggiato, sono state in battaglia, sono barche da crociera o da pesca, e tutto ciò che un bambino ha facoltà di immaginare. Perciò, esse rappresentano tutto ciò che riguardi la speranza, l’azione, la vita e le storie. Io stesso ho posseduto una barca, ma sto salpando con i miei sogni nel presente”. (Aung Ko)
Aditya Novali, Inhabitant,100-100 cm, mixed media installation, 2013
(Dis)appear
Chen Ke - Aditya Novali - Aung Ko
The presence or disappearance of man and humanity in contemporary art often have a value of sociopolitical critique, reflection on identity, irony or alienation from reality. Today, the human body in art, although excessively and constantly exhibited, is substantially destroyed, diminished, little considered. It is possible to observe a progressive dematerialization of the body, a loss of recognizable appearance, until the expression and assertion of the body in the void of absence. “(Dis) appear”, featuring three artists very distant in origins and production, but which, in different ways, express the disappearance and the appearance of the human in many different forms.
buildings, and on the other side to those Burmese living and working abroad, who call each other “Mister Gold”: men with golden dreams, who find themselves in conditions of anxiety, anguish, bitterness. The gold, however, symbolizes the sacred, invoke a divine transcendence, a needing of overcoming the human condition through a metaphysical experience. The human figure disappears in the work “The Sights Viewed from Boats”, to bring to light how a simple object can become an integral part of the daily life of an individual and a community, entering the collective imaginary as that small scale models are made and used as toys by children. These canvas boats remind themselves the nature and the landscape through painted decorations. The use of canvas draws the silent and floating movement of the boats on the river, the contemplation of nature and what river has always been. Stressing, however, in the form, the functional presence of boats on the river, its being way of transport, work, change and unity for a community . Approaching toy boats to these floating painted canvas boats, is a reference to childhood, to dream: “These toy boats have everything happen to them: they are raced, go to battle, are pleasure vessels, go fishing, and many other things that the children imagine. So, they are all about hope, action, life and projection of stories. I myself had a boat, but I am sailing with my dreams at present”. (Aung Ko)
Chen Ke, (Tongjiang, 1978), a young Chinese artist, has a refined production. For Chen Ke, artistic production is a retrospective approach to life, a reflection that allows her to make the present more secure. Exhibited five new paintings, intimate and quiet, representing ideal places that catch the inner experience. Delicate and melancholy, the works recall an introspection of the artist himself. Chen Ke paintings portray a world of fairy tales, dreams, memories of childhood and psychological elaborations. The alienation from reality, as a return to childhood and a more peaceful coexistence with the present, is expressed through a mixed technique that combines different materials on canvas. In this new series of works we see a gradual disappearance of physical features and the characters become unrecognizable figures, while remaining familiar appearances. In these paintings, nature takes over humans but it is humanized, a living creature, the objects have a soul just like people, there is no history in the making, but only essence in the doldrums of objects. Here the border between reality and psychological elaboration disappears. In contrast, in Aditya Novali (Solo, 1978) installations, the man disappears completely in favor of the object and the container. Two installations are part of the series “The Wall”, the evolution of the project “(Un)real Estate”. They represent a miniature of a working-class district’s building, composed by rotating apartments, whose user is gone but his presence shines in the remaining objects, by his lack. His absence becomes a status of presence. For the disappearance of man and the human, the artist tries to give us a solution, a way out, in the artwork “Inhabitants”: “... Imaginary characters that could inhabit the Walls. However, I put the skulls on a pedestal to emphasize the fact that they are artifacts / objects, metaphors and images of present inhabitants ... “ (Aditya Novali) In addition to these strange inhabitants, there is the appearance of nature, sovereign, that takes control, careless and unkempt, of each room (“The Wall series - Living Years”) or of the artwork itself (“The Wall series - Landscape “), to testify and claim the appearance of a new contemporary landscape. The golden sculptures “Ko Shwe” are portraits of Aung Ko himself, in different periods of his life: a naked body, hairless and coated of gold, in a relaxed or aggressive attitude. The naked body underlines the precariousness and vulnerability of the human condition, while gold refers, on one side to the identity of Burma, often called “golden land” for the gilding of the religious Aung Ko, Ko Shwe, real dimensions, fiberglass and golden paint, 2013
Aung Ko, The Sights viewed from boats, 35-51 cm each, clothes, fabric, plastic sheets and wooden toys, 2012
Aung Ko, The Sights viewed from boats, 35-51 cm each, clothes, fabric, plastic sheets and wooden toys, 2012
BIOGRAPHIES Chen Ke Born in 1978, Tongjiang, Sichuan, China SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION 2013 2012 2010 2009 2008 2007
The first Art Basel Hong Kong: Frida•A Woman Chen Ke, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong With “You”, I Will Never Feel Lonely, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Star Gallery, Beijing, China Another Me in the World, Kunsthaus Viernheim, Viernheim, Germany Chen Ke, Marella Gallery, Milano, Italy Personal War, Star Gallery, Beijing, China With “You”, I Will Never be Lonely, Star gallery, Beijing, China
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION 2015 2013 2012 2011 2010
(Dis)appear, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lu- gano, Switzerland Criss-Cross: Artworks of Young Chinese Con- temporary Artists from Long Collection, Long Museum, Shanghai, China Portrait of the Times: 30 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China Uneasy Trip in Asia III, CANS Tea&Books House, Taipei MIRROR AND SHADOW, National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Spin: the First Decade of New Century, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China After Deliverance, 798 Space, Beijing, China Face, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China Shanshui: Poetry without Sound? Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art - Works from Sigg Collection, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland Self-Image: Interpreting A Perspective of Chinese Woman Art in the 20th Century, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China The Franks-Suss Collection, The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Aditya Novali Born in 1978, Solo, Indonesia
Writing: the 1st Nanjing Biennial, Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum, Nanjing, China Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art: Painting 1979-2009, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2009 China: The Contemporary Rebirth, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy Biochemistry- Between the True and the False: 2009 Animation Biennale Exhibi- tion,Today Art Museum, Beijing, China 2008 Couples in Contemporary Art, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China Looking for Me, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China MoCA Envisage II - Butterfly Dream, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China Facing Reality-Selection of Chinese Con temporary Art, National Art Museum of China,Beijing, China Free Zone: China-An exhibition of Con- temporary Chinese Art, BSI bank, Lugano, Switzerland Post ‘70s Art Archivee, Beyond Art Space and Star Gallery, Beijing, China New Paintings from China, Museum Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 2007 China - Facing Reality, Museum Moderner Kunst stiftung Ludwig wien, Vienna, Austria Your View, My Story, Berlin, Germany Chen Ke, Wei Jia, Li Jikai, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, USA Floating- New Generation of Art in China, Doart Co., Seoul, Korea Generation Sweet and Sour: Chinese new Art, Mannheimer Kunstverein, Mannhei- mer, Germany Starting from the Southwest, Guandong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China 2006 Fancy Dreams, Marella Gallery, Milano, Italy The Originals:Neoaesthetics of Animamix, MoCA Shanghai, China 2005 The Self-Made Generation, Zendai Museum, Shanghai
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012 2011 2004
Beyond The Walls, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy Method of Polarity, Umahseni, Jakarta, Indonesia The Wall:Asian (Un)Real Estate Project, Project Stage-Art Stage, Singapore Indoscape : A Geo-History, Canna Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia Art Portable, CP Artspace, Jakarta, Indonesia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 (Dis)appear, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lu- gano, Switzerland 2014 Shout, MACRO, Roma, Italia 2013 Little Water, Dojima River Biennale, Osaka, Japan Pressing, Centro Videoinsight, Torino, Italy
2012 Of Human Scale and Beyond: experience and transcendence, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong Deep S.E.A. Contemporary Art from South East Asia, Primo Marella Gallery,Milan, Italy Re.claim, National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia 2011 Maximum CityJakarta Biennale, National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia PMR Cube Contemporary Culture Interplay, Sampoerna Strategic Square, Jakarta, In- donesia Ekspansi, National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia 2010 Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2010 Finalist Exhibition, Singapore 2006 Beyond Jakarta Biennale, Galeri Cipta TIM, Jakarta, Indonesia 2005 Exodus, Nadi Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia CP Biennale, Museum Bank Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Yogya Biennale, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Aung Ko Born in 1980 in Htoneno, Myanmar SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 Breakfast with my Enemy, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy 2011 Esplanade presents Visual Arts, An Esplanade Commission Jendela, Visual Art Space, Singapore 2006 New Is No News Short Film solo show, NM Gallery, Yangon, Myanmar 2004 Aung Ko’s Artwork solo show, Azada Gallery, Yangon Myanmar SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015
(Dis)appear, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lu- gano, Switzerland L’Archipel secret, Palais de Tokyo, Paris Tales of My Village, Fukuoka Art Museum (Gallery B), Fukuoka, Japan
2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
The Roving Eye curated by Iola Lenzi, Arter Art Space, Istanbul, Turkey 3331 Trans Arts, Tokyo, Japan Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand Riverscapes IN FLUX, Goethe Institut, Ha- noi and Saigon, Vietnam Deep S.E.A, Contemporary Art from South East Asia, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan 4th THUYÉ DAN VILLAGE ART PROJECT 2011, Thuyé dan Village, Pyay, Myanmar 3rd THUYÉ DAN VILLAGE ART PROJECT 2010, Thuyé dan Village, Pyay, Myanmar The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Fukuo- ka, Japan Body Temporary/Crops Temporaries, Per- formance, Alliance Francaise de Yangon, Myanmar Singapore Biennale 2008, Singapore
Chen Ke, Dense forest , 130-100cm, mix material on canvas, 2014 Via Canonica 7 6900 Lugano tel. +41 91 922 2003 info@primaenoctis.com www.primaenoctis.com