798 District Blog

People look at a series of paintings entitled ‘paint a little color, paint a little red, paint a little blue, sorrow’ by Chinese artist Ye Yongqing, hanging on a wall behind an installation by Qiu Zhijie entitled ‘The horse distant after the revolution,’ during a group exhibit entitled ‘The Constructed Dimension’ at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, 20 August 2010. The exhibit showcases the works of twenty Chinese artists, and will run until 02 September 2010.

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People visit a painting exhibition named “Artistic Beauty of Taipei County” at the Zhejiang Art Gallery in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, Aug. 18, 2010. The 12-day painting exhibition opening on Wednesday displayed 82 works by eight artists of Taipei County in southeast China’s Taiwan.

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Benrimon Contemporary presents its first annual Younger than Moses group show, a collection of artistic explorations featuring 22 contemporary artists younger than 120 years old, the age at which Moses died. Curated by TS+ Projects, Younger than Moses: Idle Worship consists of contemporary painting, sculpture, performance, film, photography, and collage. The combination of artistic facets creates a dynamic gallery space, where the viewer is encouraged to interact with each work.

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Sotheby’s Hong Kong Autumn Sales 2010 will be held at Hall 3, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 2 to 8 October 2010. The sale series will offer over 3,200 lots of Modern and Contemporary Asian Art, traditional Chinese paintings, fine Chinese ceramics and works of art as well as jewellery, watches and wine with a total estimate in excess of HK$1.6 billion / US$205 million.

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Chengdu is an important city in Chinese Contemporary Art, Which nurtured a lot of famous artists and critics, but the art collection is not so active comparing to Beijing and Shanghai. How to accelerate the development of the Chengdu art market and to increase the number of local collectors, is the question to be deal with.

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Contemporary ink painting Utopia No. 57 Many ink painters find it hard to depict contemporary life with their traditional tools of rice paper, black soot–based ink and bamboo-handled brushes. To overcome the obstacle, artists young and old are devoting themselves to innovating the ancient art form, both in subject matter and technique.

There is a gradually growing interest in contemporary ink painting both within China and abroad, with the introduction of modern styles as a unique way to celebrate the old art form while acknowledging an ever-changing society and artistic style, according to independent art critic Liu Siyan.

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BASEL.- The 41st edition of art basel closed on Sunday, June 20, 2010. This year, the annual reunion of the international artworld attracted more than 62,500 artists, collectors, curators, and art lovers from around the globe, a new record for attendance at the show. The participating galleries, art lovers, and media were unanimous in pronouncing this a superb year for the show in terms of quality. Collectors rewarded the excellent material and booth presentations with strong sales throughout the week.

A great many artists attended the event, among them Doug Aitken, Kader Attia, Carol Bove, Christo, Yona Friedman, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Susan Hiller, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Richard Phillips, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ugo Rondinone, and Lawrence Weiner. And over 60 museum groups, representing almost all the worlds major museums visited Art 41 Basel, significantly more than last year, as did major private collectors from North and South America, all of Europe and the emerging markets of the artworld.

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LONDON.- Iniva presents new work by two contemporary Chinese artists at Rivington Place, with the European premiere of a film by Lu Chunsheng who showed in the Serpentine Gallery’s exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at Battersea Power Station. This is also the first solo exhibition in Europe, “Make Believe…”, by emerging artist Jia Aili. Both artists reflect on industrial progress, social corrosion and the individual’s struggle in the machine age.

Lu Chunsheng’s film, “The first man who bought a juicer bought it not for drinking juice”, mixes documentary and fantasy to theatrical effect. The characters in the film are both human and mechanical, and represent the consequences of the globalised era in their repetition of senseless acts. Orson Welles’ fictional account of an alien invasion in “The War of the Worlds” which was mistaken for a real news item, is the impetus for the film. It illustrates the influence of technology, mass media and the power of fear.

The two protagonists in the film are a reaper machine, used for harvesting grain, which is given Frankenstein-like characteristics, and a mechanic who cares for and repairs it. The film casts a relationship between man and machine in which humanity is denigrated to serve an alien species born from its own hands.

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LONDON.- Tate and Unilever announced that the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will undertake the eleventh commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (12 October 2010 – 25 April 2011). He will be the first artist living and working in the Asia-Pacific region to be commissioned for the series.

Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent and influential figures in Chinese art today. In his many roles as conceptual artist, curator, critic, designer and architect, his work encompasses a wide range of challenging and often provocative activity. Ai has played a key role in the development of contemporary Chinese art over the last two decades, from his role in the radical avant-garde ‘Stars Group’ in 1979, to his collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron in designing the national ‘Bird’s Nest’ stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

After living in the United States from 1981 to 1993, Ai returned to his native Beijing and created the seminal work Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn 1995. This photo-triptych depicted the artist dropping an ancient ceramic vase, which smashed on the floor at his feet. This work not only began the artist’s continuing reuse of antique readymade objects, it also demonstrated his questioning attitude towards cultural values and social history. For Fairytale 2007 Ai invited 1001 Chinese citizens to ‘colonise’ Kassel in Germany for the Documenta 12 exhibition and distributed 1001 Qing and Ming Dynasty chairs in venues across the city. For Template 2007 he used more ancient readymades, in the form of 1001 wooden doors and windows from destroyed Chinese buildings. These were installed as a huge sculpture that collapsed in a storm soon after completion, creating a twisted, crumpled structure that the artist chose to preserve.

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Art Miami, the longest running contemporary art fair in Miami and the anchor art fair for the city of Miami, reported outstanding results during Art Week Miami 2009, exceeding the expectations of many. More than 35,000 people visited the fair during the course of the week – an increase of 10% from last year.

Once again, buyers responded to the Fair’s international mix of work and galleries. Sales were very strong !

Collectors from the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, and Asia—Steve Wynn, Marvin Ross Friedman, Marty Margulies, Jorge Perez, Pat and Larry Stewart, Mary and Frank Howard, Joyce Kan, Pearl Lam, Noel and Terry Neelands, John Ferin, Jeff Roth, Matthew Adell, and Naomi Campbel.