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2011 1
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SPECIAL THANKS TO Chen Linlin Raquel Mendoza Jane Tam Wang Bo
p26 p34 p6
COVER
Tian An Men, 2006
20x25 inch inkjet archive limited print by Xie Jiankun
PUBLISH
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foreword
We have three young artists in this issue -- Jane Tam, Raquel Mendoza and Wang Bo. In this diverse age, what makes us think about the social meaning of post-industrial society and the developing country? Through images presented in this issue, including part of my series “Skin: Nowhere in Somewhere, Syracuse”, the artists attempted to pose questions on our identities, experience and ideology. The zine was created to serve as a platform to introduce young artists, whose specialized areas are not limited to photography, and to create a community therefrom for ongoing dialogues. In the meantime, I will unofficially release my own work here on a quarterly basis. With a hope of opening up conversations at the international level, the zine is in multiple languages, sometimes . Xie Jiankun 2011.1. Chicago USA
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2007年的初秋，我从欧洲回来，把一拖再拖的毕业论文给答辩过了，宣布正式失业。 答辩过后，作为导师之一的Carrie找我聊天，问我毕业后这段时间有没有空协助她做一 个项目，大概一个月左右，给我报销胶卷费用。另外每小时给我8美元工钱同时也作为 她工作室的助理。说实在我没搞懂她要拍的到底是什么，用来干嘛。我只要按照个人 对这个城市，这个时期的理解去拍摄就好了，因为我喜欢观察城市，然后冷静地纪录下 来。 片子拍完，冲洗，扫描，电子文档烤了份Carrie我就算交差了。之后没有见到她对这 次的合作有任何举动。三年后，我决定挑选一些出来见见人，组成一组”Nowhere
in
Somewhere: Syracuse”。 Syracuse作为纽约州的第四大城市，曾经在美国的工业发展史上占据非常重要的 地位。查阅历史，那是一百年前，处于工业时期的整个美国是一个金黄时期。二战 前后，Syracuse这个靠近五大湖之一的伊利湖的城市是一个工业非常发达的地方。 美国两大汽车集团——GM(通用)汽车，Crysler克莱斯勒汽车的主要生产线设在这 里；Carrier(开利冷气)集团的总部设在这里，GE(通用)电器的电视生产线设在这里......
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×× 全球最大的摄影耗材生产商柯达公司总部和生产园区也驻在离这里八十英里外的罗切斯 特市。
我仍清晰地记得，2004年研究生第一堂课上，一个美国同学对我说，”Syracuse dying...”我微笑着问，”是啊?”
is
心里面很震惊。事实正是如此——上世纪70年代开
始，这些大工业慢慢撤离了Syracuse。原因大家都明了，资本家要寻求更低廉的劳动
力生产基地。随着80年代后，亚洲的经济开放，很多大工业集团把生产线搬家到了亚 洲，同时也带去了很多社会问题，这些大家都该知道吧。结果呢，美国本土便成为了后 工业时代。
我们常常说美国没有什么文化，没有什么历史，从一些中小城镇就可以看得出来。这些 城市都是伴随绕当初美国工业发展的需要而诞生的。规模生产让美国各地遵循着某些规 章制度办事，管理起来也方便。例如街道的命名，美国的每个城镇，无论大小一定有一
条叫Main Street。然后什么Washington Street, Franklin Street, … 比比皆是，真没 想像力。
正当地球另一边的中国疯狂地，如火如荼地发展城市化进程的同时，美国这个后工业时
代却是儒雅般默不作声。 后工业社会的现状，印证了Daniel Bell所说的，产品生产业 经济转变为服务性经济，信息业，教育，科研成为社会发展的轴心内容。所以，今天的
Syracuse成为了美国教育，医疗，艺术的重要基地。我没有要卖广告招生的意思，所 以我拍摄下来的这个城市，跟所有其它美国城市看起来都一样，犹如复制粘贴出来的地 表，人们似乎已经麻木地接受着身边这个不知道还在不在呼吸的城市。
工业时代飞速发展时期的美国，同时也是移民高涨的年代。Jane Tam阐述其祖母移民 到美国的一代人，在一个看似天堂的国家却难称其为家。我想这也是每个年代来到美国 的华人比较纠结的地方。原因是我们是从一个还没达到后工业时代的社会来到了这个发 达的后工业社会，就像时空穿梭一样跑到未来去了。兴奋是蛮兴奋的，可是毕竟自己还 是没有到达那个后工业社会的人呀，照样活在自己的世界里好了。我发现世界很小。
说到Syracuse，这次刊出《天堂里的外国人》的摄影师Jane Tam，是2008年Syra-
cuse University毕业的BFA。我们也许见过，却从未认识。Raquel同样来自于移民家 庭，从小就对美国后工业时期的“超级大”文化所吸引。从个人的空间到社会的空间， 她的一系列的创作都围绕着理性的差异反其道而行。王博，用黑色幽默不动声色地解构 自家重庆，用寓言式的《异质景观》描绘着当今发展中中国城市空间的颠覆性重组。
中国什么时候会变成后工业？也许哪天在非洲设厂，那里也有人跳楼什么的时候，我想 就算是了吧。所以这期我用一种所谓的桥梁把一些视觉的，思考的，纠结的东西凑到一 起，犹如时空穿梭，对比着看，总能让人想些东西的罢。
谢建鲲
2011.1. 芝加哥
HETEROSCAPES Wang Bo
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@Wang Bo
interviewed by Xie Jiankun
What makes you excited about photography?
Well, it’s really hard to distinguish photography nowadays. I might broaden the definition a little bit to the realm of lens-based art. I think what I’m excited about Photography (or the lens-based art) are As a representation (which is much more realistic than any other art forms before): how it abstracts itself from the subjects and how in many cases it even substitutes the subjects.
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As a social medium: how particular social/political situations, as well as individual/collective ideologies, are reflected.
How do see yourself as a photographer or visual artist?
I see myself as with great curiosities to observe and try to understand. For my works, aesthetics and expressiveness are secondary things. I am more intrigued by how to structure each thing, and how each steps of the processes help to maintain our understanding. Besides, I like to look at vernacular stuffs, which I believe tells more than many art works.
You recently went back to China to visit. Are there any interesting stories you can share? Even just fragments? There are always so many changes. Every time you return, even though you could expect things are changing, you still got shocked sometimes. That’s how I feel when I saw a downscaled crappy duplication of Expo China Pavilion building standing surrounded by farmlands in suburb Chongqing.
Can you talk about your “Heteroscapes”, where and how did you get the inspiration or idea from? Heteroscapes is a portrait of China’s contemporary urban spaces and landscapes during a period of intensified transition. Throughout the past 20 years of an economic boom, this transition has shifted the social power structure and subverted once common values, dramatically altering the function and concreteness of landscapes and urban structures. Simultaneous demolition and construction erase the memories of the land. The title “Heteroscape” is inspired by Foucault’s idea of heterotopia, the alternate region between real space and imagined utopia, which exposes existing conditions and reveals new illusions. This project initially started when I began taking photographs of urban landscapes in my hometown, Chongqing. As one of China’s most important cities and a district with historically the largest rural population, Chongqing endured the most traumatic transition and dramatic conflicts between traditional rural culture and modern urban civilization. The conflicts often generate very peculiar circumstances. With every return to Chongqing, when I look at the landscapes that are familiar but somehow alienating at the same time, I always find something puncturing, revealing to
me the residue of changes hidden in the scenes. It dissipates my pseudoromantic nostalgia, and shows me a much more complicated reality than I often would like to imagine. This group of work is not only a documentary towards the changing concreteness, but also a metaphor for the chaotic social mentality during this particular time era.
What will you most want to do/What are you going to work on next for your new project?
It’s my last year in the graduate program, so most time I’m dealing with my thesis project. I worked on two projects tandem in China during the summer. Both are video projects. The problem is that the two are still at very early stage, and I can’t really envision the projects at this moment. They are separated projects but have some connections, both about mass mentality and perceptions under media and propaganda in our contemporary time. I will inform you if I feel the projects are coming into shape!
Raquel Mendoza
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TAKE OUT 2008 BOX
24” x 13” x 8” Take-out box transformed into a personal restaurant Cardboard
@Raquel Mendoza
AChenSPACE OF HER OWN Linlin
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My first encounter with Raquel Mendoza was in the woodshop at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where we both worked as teaching assistants at the First Year Program’s Core Studio class. I was drawn to her bright smile and warm, outgoing personality immediately. She was a graduate student, one year my junior, majoring in sculpture. From then on, more laughter and works were produced by Mendoza in the shop, and our friendship simultaneously grew. Mendoza’s works reveal her experience and experiments with physical and natural space and her curiosity and cognition of psychological and spiritual space. Brought up in a Mexican immigrant family in Southern California, Mendoza is from the same town as artist John Baldessari: National City, California. As she recalled in her statement, a private, personal space was a luxury rather than a matter of necessity in her household, where she is the youngest of eight children. Meanwhile, Mendoza said that she is fascinated by American culture’s obsession with largeness: “massive SUV cars, multi-story houses, and supersized meals.” The fascination with cultural massiveness and her own childhood experience encouraged her to explore the size of physical spaces and the impact it takes on people’s inner world. In her early works, with a witty and humorous approach, Mendoza transferred multiple spaces into a condensed space that looks reasonable than ridiculous. In Home (2006), she built a single narrow room that functions as kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, and bedroom. This may be inspired by her own household’s multi-functional living room, which was a public space for the family during the day and transferred to a bedroom for her brothers at night. In Mini Bar (2007), she built a tiny yet fullyfunctional bar in her father’s tool shed. Three to four people
could squeeze in it and entertain themselves with a karaoke machine, television, and all kinds of drinks. These works are bright and cheerful, as well as honest and straightforward. Mendoza pays great attention to detail and these installations are well crafted with authentic small articles. They showed us the artist’s perception of using spaces in an efficient way. The same concepts and approaches can also be found in Bomb Shelter (2006), an old refrigerator that has been built into a shelter to protect the imaginary nuclear bombs from North Korea; Fishing Boat (2007), a 17-foot boat that provides an entire fishing experience; as well as in Skate Park (2006) and Bedroom (2007). Mendoza’s interest in and inquiry into personal and physical spaces later expanded to public and psychological spaces that often are associated with social and political events. This idea can be traced back to some of her earlier works, such as Sandinista (2006) and Bomb Shelter (2007). It was tested in her Entrance Exam (2008), which responded to a school shooting in Northern Illinois University. Yet it was not fully developed until her MFA graduation work, Leak (2009), which was “(i)nspired by the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis in which Chechen rebels held over-900 theater spectators during the second half of the celebration production Nord-Ost .” Mendoza used white Plexiglas to build a structural model of the Dubrovka Theater, the venue of the tragedy. Then with the help of a water pump, plastic tubes and PVC pipes, she created a pumping system that would let oil leak from the entrance of the theater. It differs from Mendoza’s previous works, which are enriched by details and provide audience an experience. Leak features geometric structure and minimalism aesthetics. In an abstract and austere style, with contrast
color, it signifies the dramatic and traumatic event. It offers the audience a spectator’s perspective, instead of inviting the latter to experience in the spaces created by the artist in her earlier works. Looking closer into Mendoza’s works, we can find there is a hidden layer containing her special interest of using small mechanical devices. This sometimes encounters and parallels her inquiry of spaces, such as in Leak (2009). It is intensified in her recent works: Dump(ed) (2010) and Waitlisted (2010). These works show the shift and expansion of her interest to kinetic sculpture, environmental issues, and other related subject matters.
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I am also mesmerized by the witty use and interpretation of ordinary objects in Mendoza’s works: in Park Bench (2007), she hid gums, potato chip bags, pens, notebooks and other small items in the arms of a park bench; in Boot Alarm (2009), she attached an LED light and wires on a pair of boots left outside an apartment; in unaired (2010), she painted a tape cassette with acrylic and altered the shape of the reel. These small daily objects are telling; they are themselves and metaphors. Mendoza’s sharpness and sensitivity let her capture these transient moments and beauty in our everyday life. Mendoza is a prolific and diligent artist, which is proved by her tireless artistic pursuit after graduating from the School of the Art Institute. The works made after her MFA program bring us an earnest, serious artist’s portfolio, which is created in a space of the her own, yet can be experienced by a broader audience.
UNAIRED 2010
3.75” x 2.5” x 1.4” Unaired media coverage Tape cassette, acrylic and plexiglass
WAITLISTED 2010
3’ x 2’6” x 1’10” Unite and divide Motor with plate, springs, wires, dowel, hacksaw and wood.
How does your work respond to or alter a physical space? In my earlier installations, I made my work designed to fit the space, for example, the Mini Bar in my father’s tool shed. Later, I found it more interesting to use spaces that already existed, such as the negative space of a park bench armrest (Park Bench), than to create installations from scratch. It wasn’t until Take-Out Box that I learned to create a space from objects and began to explore how I can use my work to dominate spaces, like in HEAT, where the wires and cables extended throughout the warehouse. My current piece, which I am developing with another artist, Jung A. Woo, is exploring physical space and the
SUITCASE BOMB 2007
22” x 14” x 9” Response to U.S. Homeland Security ban on liquid items and airport safety Shampoo, hairspray, water, toothpaste, string, wire, plastic bags, alarm clock, etc.
border between the United States and Mexico. We are exploring in a way we can move the borderlines by using large models of the borderline. I am excited for the final result.
What affects your art practice mostly in your life? Observation. Current events. Personal experience. I always want to respond by making work about it. It can be as playful as from adding an alarm to my snow boots to something more complex about the borders between countries, which is a new piece I am currently developing with another artist. Just over the weekend, I found myself waiting for two hours in line to cross the border from Mexico to the US and I thought to myself, “there should be work about this horrible wait!” Let’s just say I’m already sketching ideas.
Is there any artist you would consider as your role model?
What is the role technology plays in your works?
If not to be an artist, what other profession you would like to choose?
Hard to pick just one, since I tend to admire almost every artist. I feel there’s always something you can learn from every artist, famous one or a freshman in college. Whether it’s the way they market themselves, install their work, speak about their work, present their work, or obstacles they went through to make the work happen. Some of my best “sparks” of how to approach my work came from working with freshmen from the First Year Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Currently, it challenges me to learn about technology and how to incorporate it to my work. It brings another element to my sculpture/installations, making the work more lively and building curiosity around the piece. It also forces me to design and construct my work differently, where materials, design and wires/motors can work together. That agreement itself is another form of art for me as well. There’s still so much to learn and invent and I’ve only scratched the surface of possibilities.
Definitely a musician or a writer, I enjoy inventing new techniques and rearranging existing theories/elements. For example, when playing guitar, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out the chords and strumming patterns for songs; it definitely takes a long time for an amateur like me, but it is worth the exploration and makes me appreciate the guitar more. In a way, my art practice is similar with each art piece presenting challenges for me to figure out: architectural space, technical/ electronic components or design and construction.
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LEAK 2009
2’5” x 7.5” x 3’9” Model of Dubrovka Theater, 2002 Moscow Hostage Crisis took place by Chechen Rebels Plexiglass, wood, PVC pipes, water pump, oil
DUMP(ED) 2010
Dimensions Varied Excessive waste and overflow of a space Arduino, motors, wires, wood, cardboard and packing peanuts
SANDINISTA 2006
5’10”x4’6”x14’ Air plane, maps, carpet, banners, plastic, and other miscellaneous items
FISHING BOAT 2007
3’4” x 6’5” x 17” The notion of bringing the fishing experience/atmosphere to the boat Boat, water hole, grass, fishing poles, hooks, buckets, life vest, and other miscellaneous items
PARK BENCH 2007
1’ x 1’5” x 1’ A personal supply kit housed within a park bench Wood, with notebook, pen, sunglasses, cards, and radio
FOREIGNERS IN PARADISE Jane Tam
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The overwhelming mix of identities my Chinese American home possess began in this series with a portrait of one of the many tin-foiled stovetops my family installs. Never realizing how odd it might look to the non-Chinese population, the enlargement of such a portrait did register alien to my American identity when I was no longer living in my childhood home. Exploring the relationships my grandparents have with their American landscape and traditional Chinese mentality, the portraits and spaces dictate a décor of their own.
这个系列是关于我们这个华裔美国人家里满屋子 华洋杂陈的东西，我开始着手这个系列是从拍摄 一张我们家厨房炉架上的一个铁罐开始的。我从 来没有意识到这样的陈设对那些非华裔人家来说 是多么异样。当我离开家以后再面对这张放大了 的静照，我感受到了这样的陈设与我美国人身份 的格格不入。于是我不断地用我的相机去探索我 祖父母生活的这个美国土地和他们中国传统情结 之间的关系......
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My grandmother told me she had plans to go with my grandfather to pick ginkgo nuts at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn during a gloomy and rainy day and I was more than welcome to join her. The nuts have all fallen to the ground due to the rain and wind so we better pick them before somebody else does. With a cart rolling behind us, I climbed the hill with them behind me, capturing my grandfather helping her walk up the wet and grassy knoll. The glistening yellow ginkgo nuts were like gold, against the wet and black ground and overwhelmed the space my grandmother inhabited.
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我祖母跟我说她一直想和祖父一起在阴雨天去捡榛 子，如果我想一起去的话，他们会很高兴。阴雨天去 捡榛子是因为刮风下雨会把榛子打落地上，我们就可 以赶在别人去捡之前先下手了。我们拉着一个购物 车，而我在我祖父母的前面先爬上了坡，回过头我把 我的相机对准了帮着祖母爬上湿漉漉青草坡的祖父。 捡回来的那湿漉漉亮闪闪的黄色榛子占满了祖母的生 活空间。
Portrait of Grandmother
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Grandfather Helping Grandmother Up the Hill to Pick Ginkgo Nuts
Grandfather Climbing the Telephone Pole to Replace Our Clothesline After Picking Peaches from the Tree in our Backyard
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The inherited decoration from Guangdong, China to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn is encapsulated in the homes and in the people. With the mix of visual language in these liminal spaces, the iconography of the Chinese is marked by its specificity to the culture. The enclosures create a diversion to light in the household, making the home a place that seems to be “stuck” between two worlds.
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这种从中国广东一直延传到布鲁克林本松贺斯特的传 统装饰在许多人家和个人身上都随处可见。在这些空 间中的混合视觉语言里，中国的象征符号的特殊性给 文化加上了附注。这些文化的符号象征在住家的屋里 创造了一个假象，使家成为一个似乎胶着在两个世界 之间的地盘。
Jeannie
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Aunt’s Tin-foiled Kitchen
Dining Room Table
American identity. The series has been a therapeutic study of my family through the American landscape, how it can be seen as a paradise but difficult to call a home. It is the understanding of the knots that tie into the hybrid culture of being Chinese American. The generations of children, like myself, born in America are caught in a complex mix of old and new ideas. Foreigners in Paradise continues on to seek the intricate identities woven into a Chinese American home.
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东西方不同习惯的交织对我的华裔美国人身份带来了 代沟式的冲突。这个系列成了我对自己家庭在美国这 块土地上生存的理疗性研究，为什么把美国看成了一 个天堂却很难称其为家。这也是对那些维系着我们成 为华裔美国人的交织文化纽带的学习与了解。一代代 像我一样在美国出生的移民子孙们也同样常常被一种 复杂的新旧混杂情感所缠绕。《天堂里的外国人》会 继续用摄影来探索融合在一个华裔美国人家里那些矛 盾复杂的身份象征。
Sara
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Grandfather in the Living Room
Tomato Plant in the Back Yard
NOWHERE IN SOMEWHERE: SYRACUSE Xie Jiankun
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These photos come from a joint shooting project with Carrie Mae Weem in 2007, who doesn’t seem to have done anything with photos from the project so far. I decided to select a few for inclusion in this issue, and these few make up the set entitled Nowhere in Somewhere: Syracuse. As the fourth biggest city in New York State, Syracuse once played a pivotal role in the American history of industrial development. Around the time of WWII, Syracuse was a highly developed industrial city that housed main production lines of the two big American car manufacturers, GM and Crysler, as well as the TV production lines of GE and the headquarter of Carrier. Kodak, the biggest photography equipment manufacturer in the world, had established its headquarter and production site in Rochester, which is only 80 miles from Syracuse. Since the 1970s, all these industrial giants have gradually left Syracuse for obvious reasons – capitalists needed cheaper labor and manufacture sites. With Asia opening up to the West in the 80s, many industrial conglomerates have moved to Asia their production lines, along with many social issues. Thus the US has entered into a post-industrial age. While China has been frantically pushing forward its urbanization process on the other side of the globe, the US has remained more or less still. In a post-industrial society, as stated by Daniel Bell, industrial economy has transformed into service economy in which IT, education and scientific research have become the core in social development. Hence the Syracuse today has become an important base for arts, education and health care in the US. The city that I photographed looks exactly like any other American city, a copied-and-pasted earth surface, and we seem to have already taken it for granted, a city that no one knows if it is still breathing.
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FYI × 64
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
EXHIBITION/EVENTS
celebrations, the performing arts, and cultural, social and political activism.
Sharjah Biennial 10
I
nvited artists are given the time, space and freedom to concentrate on the development of their work. Cove Park provides a supportive context in which artists can devise new projects, experiment and engage with artists working in different fields or with different approaches to their practice. Cove Park is happy to support and facilitate the production of specific projects during residencies and, equally, to ensure that those artists who wish to develop new ideas without the constraints of the completion of a final piece of work are free to do so. The opportunity for individual research and development is enhanced through the interaction and discussion that takes place between the artists on residency. This is facilitated through a series of informal events, artists talks and presentations. Cove Park will award a minimum of one residency in each discipline of up to three months during May and August each year. Applications welcome from UK and international artists. Visit covepark.org
The New Harlem Renaissance Photographers are dedicated to promoting African American photographic art and a better understanding of photographers’ concerns. The exhibition is curated by Deborah Willis and Mary Yearwood. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Exhibition Hall Visit: nypl.org/events/exhibitions-upcoming
Interconnected: Works from the Three Shadows Collection December 11, 2010 - March 6, 2011 March 16 - May 16, 2011
10am to 6pm
T
@ Three Shadows Photography Art Centre
itled Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 10 will feature works by 119 artists and participants from 36 countries, including 65 specially commissioned projects, reinforcing its key regional position in the production and presentation of art and for developing and nurturing emerging talent. Visit sharjahart.org
INSTINC AIR Program 2011
No. 155A Caochangdi, Beijing, China Featured Artists: Bernard Faucon, Chen Lingyan, Daido Moriyama, Eikoh Hosoe, Gao Bo,Han Lei,He Chongyue,Hong Lei, Huang Lei, Imogen Cunningham, inri, Kusakabe Kimbei, Man Ray, Mo Yi, Nobuyoshi Araki, Liu Heung Shing Robert
Harlem Views / Diasporan Visions:
The New Harlem Renaissance Photographers
A
s an artist-centered organization, INSTINC was founded by artist Shih Yun Yeo, in the
spirit of networking and collaborations. INSTINC AIR PROGRAM strives to provide artists undisturbed, quality time and inspiring environment for their artistic creation during the residency.
Frank, RongRong, Shoji Ueda, Toshio Shibata, Wang Ningde, Yasumasa Morimura, Xing Danwen, Xiong Wenyun, Yuki Onodera, Zhang Hai’er, Zhang Yinquan, Zhuang Hui, Zuoxiao Zuzhou
February 1 - June 30, 2011 Photography is a common language amongst
H
arlem Views/Diasporan Visions: The New
different places and groups of people.
Harlem Renaissance Photographers is
the inaugural exhibition by the 25 members
Since its invention, it has greatly influenced the
of New Harlem Renaissance Photographers.
life of every individual. From the moment it was
Because the program focuses on process
Views of Harlem,
born, photography has left a deep mark on his-
and experimentation, artists are encouraged
including the recent
torical representation, becoming a narrator and
to come prepared to work without a precon-
West African im-
carrier of modern, global civilization. In today’s
ceived agenda. Artists are selected based on
migrant community
globalized vision of the cultural landscape, the
the quality of their current works, a strong
and glimpses of the
art of photography is playing a greater role in
commitment to the arts and their curricula
African Diaspora—in
the evolution of every culture.
vitae.
and out of Harlem—as
Visit: instinc.com
seen through daily life, festivals, and
The art of photography connects these art-
ists from different
700 guests, providing patrons with an opportu-
The exhibition brings together bodies of work
countries and eras.
nity to support ACT, increase awareness of HIV/
that touch on voyeurism, loneliness, the ma-
These works con-
AIDS, and add to their art collections. The event
nipulative power of the camera, and the urge to
nect the individual
provides a great opportunity for both major and
connect with others, through, within, and apart
impressions of the
emerging artists to showcase their work.
from technology and the media. Visit: ps1.org
artists, highlighting important moments in the
Visit: snap-toronto.com
past and present of photography. The exhibition contains works from the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre’s permanent collection and the
Laurel Nakadate
personal collections of the artists. This unique
Nadav Kander
blend of collections represents the most im-
January 23, 2011 - August 8, 2011
portant values of photography art, namely the
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
image’s aesthetic appeal and the true. Through
22-25 Jackson Avenue Long Island City, NY USA
these works, viewers can also gain a more objective and complete understanding of Chinese contemporary arts’ development and course of growth.
PUBLICATIONS
L
aurel Nakadate is known for her works in video, photography, and feature-length
Yangtze - The Long River
N
adav Kander (*1961 in Israel) creates images in an age of radical change: in a se-
ries awarded the famed Prix Pictet in 2009, he photographed a China in the process of revolution. Traveling along the Yangtze River, he took serene pictures of people haplessly facing
Showing Chinese contemporary photography
overwhelming change. In these pictures, the
with the work of older European,American, and
river—China’s main artery—becomes a meta-
Japanese photographic masters provides a way
phor of constant transformation. The tiny fig-
to connect Chinese contemporary photography
ure of a mother with a baby in her arms leans
and international photographic culture. The ex-
film. This is Nakadate’s first large-scale mu-
against a huge bridge piling, and one cannot
×tradition’s uniqueness, exploring the value of
seum exhibition and will feature works made in
help but wonder what the country will look like
the last ten years in all three media, including
when this child is an adult. There are still traces
the image in this era of rapidly changing his-
her early video works, in which she was invited
of the old China, for whose spirituality the river
tory and envisioning the use and significance of
into the homes of anonymous men to dance,
was important, but the idyllic old buildings and
photography in the society of the future.
pose, or even play dead in their kitchens, bed-
houseboats have been replaced by colossal
Visit: threeshadows.cn/en
rooms, and living rooms.
new apartment complexes that emulate West-
hibition makes apparent each different image
66
ern architecture. As Kander himself says: “China
SNAP!
Also included will be Good Morning, Sunshine
is a nation that appears to be severing its roots
(2009), a more recent work in which Nakadate
by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer
enters the bedrooms of young women, waking
force of its moving ‘forward’ at such an astound-
March 27, 2011 6:00pm – 11:00pm
them, and instructs each to strip to their under-
ing and unnatural pace. A people scarring their
National Ballet School
wear for the camera. Nakadate’s two features,
country, and a country scarring its people.
400 Jarvis Street , Toronto, Canada
Stay the Same Never Change (2009) and The
Visit hatjecantz.de
Wolf Knife (2010) mine similar terrain--the power and fragility of the adolescent female body. The exhibition will also be the premiere of Nakadate’s latest photographic series 365 Days: A
S
Catalogue of Tears, currently in progress. These
NAP! is the AIDS Committee of Toronto’s
photographs document a year-long perform-
annual photographic fundraiser which fea-
ance that began on January 1, 2010 in which
tures an exciting and important live auction of
the artist documented, and continues to docu-
art, a silent auction, and photo competition.
ment herself before, during, and after weeping each day.
In previous years, the event has drawn over
Ă—
68
2010-2011 Winter
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