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Edward Sanderson
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UCCA Blows Up
by Edward Sanderson
Zhan Wang at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
November 26th, 2011 - February 25th, 2012
Posted
12/11/11
In what might be read as a change in direction for Zhan Wang, the new large-scale installation at UCCA broadens his works’ outlook from the establishment of monuments to the creation of the universe as creative material. In the process, the artist addresses some big questions about our place in the universe, but ultimately manages to lose his sympathetic connection with the human body.
His long-running Artificial Rock series of scholars’ rocks recreated in stainless steel now dot the world,... [more]
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Nature Calls
by Edward Sanderson
Posted
12/4/11
Not Only A Taoist Troublemaker! was a short-lived exhibition occupying a leaf-strewn room in a small arts space attached to a bar. A bar with a vegetable market behind; sharing a building that housed a screw factory during the Cultural Revolution. A screw factory built inside a Taoist temple, replacing the site’s original Buddhist temple. This overlapping of every kind of ideology provided an ideal backdrop for the six artists’ work in this show curated by forget art.
forget art is an organisation created by a... [more]
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Urban Play: a Site-Specific Public Art Exhibition curated by Tang Zehui
by Edward Sanderson
Posted
11/26/11
The many forms of site-specificity have a long history and can be the most complex of contexts for art. This idea of a productive connection with a setting, and by implication the users of that setting, is an attractive option for artists trying to boost their degree of “relevance.” However, the public realm outside of galleries is also the critical realm par excellence – works existing in it are forced into competition with all sorts of other, “natural” activities in the spaces, and away... [more]
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Blood Heat
by Edward Sanderson
Cheng Ran at GALERIE URS MEILE BEIJING
November 5th, 2011 - February 12th, 2012
Posted
11/13/11
The press release for Hot Blood, Warm Blood, Cold Blood proposes that this new work is “not primarily a conceptual work.” This text goes on to lay the groundwork for this new three-channel installation – and as I see it, for Cheng Ran’s work as a whole: “The artist hopes to reduce the technical influence to a minimum level through the deliberate use of inappropriate editing to demonstrate the formality embraced in symbolism and imagery, thus representing an unknown image-space.”
Although I could quibble over the subjectivi... [more]
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Seedy Showing
by Edward Sanderson
Xu Baozhong, Xu Bing, Zhuang Hui& Dan’er, Zhou Danmei, Xue Guangchen, Kong Guoqiao, Wang Haiyang, Yang HongWei, Wu Jian’an, Kou Jianghui, Huang Jingyuan, Yan Jun, Guo Leilei, Fang Lijun, Liu Liping, Jiang Miao, Chen Qi, Zhang Qikai, Chen Xiaowen, Shi Xinji, Huang Yang, Liu Ye, Wang Yiqiong, Yang Yumin at Today Art Museum (TAM)
August 7th, 2011 - August 19th, 2011
Posted
11/6/11
The sound of cracking coming from people’s mouths and underfoot was perhaps the first indication that there was something different about this opening. Today Art Museum’s galleries were filled with the great and good of the Chinese art world for the opening of The Second Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Prints, subtitled: Print•Concept. But throughout, while chatting and viewing the artworks on the walls, many were distractedly clutching small handfuls of sunflower seeds, crack... [more]
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Dali's New Hues
by Edward Sanderson
Zhang Dali at Pékin Fine Arts (Beijing)
October 22nd, 2011 - October 22nd, 2011
Posted
10/31/11
Blue is the dominant colour of Zhang Dali’s new series of photograms and cyanotypes, framing the shadowed forms cast upon them. These large-scale photographic impressions on cloth present figures, bicycles and pagodas, in negative; the surroundings are left in the rich cyan blue, verging on indigo. These “material objects” (as Zhang refers to them) leave their marks as absence and adjust our received impressions of them, reversing the shadow’s fleeting aspect to permanently fix and memo... [more]
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The Magic of Art and Science
by Edward Sanderson
Qiu Anxiong, Wu Ding, Liao Fei, Wang Guangle, Zheng Huan, Ji Kun, Ling, Orange, Xu Sheng, Lore Vanelsande, Jin Wang, Li Wen, Chen Xi, Fang Xian, WU YI, He Yida, Liu Yiqing, Ni Youyu at Space Station
September 3rd, 2011 - October 3rd, 2011
Posted
10/16/11
A continuing concern amongst artists and art professionals in China is the nature and role of the museum in the art ecosystem. Certainly I have concerns myself – the museum has become something of a catch-all term to cover a disparate set of spaces and activities that sometimes have little to do with a traditional understanding of the term. In my experience, the term “museum” can be a bit of a misleading one.
While this is a known failing with the art-institutional landscape in China which deserves... [more]
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Stories Sans Smoke
by Edward Sanderson
Chen Xinpeng at C5 Art
September 10th, 2011 - October 9th, 2011
Posted
10/9/11
Artist Chen Xinpeng describes his work as the creation of “small innovations.” The works in Chen’s solo show at C5 Gallery include his early photo and video works through to his latest experiments with blow up structures and game play, giving some clues as to what these innovations might be. But all the while the show displays the artist’s self-deprecating humour and his reticence towards overstating the meaning and significance of these “innovations.”
Chen’s presence is a strong feature of hi... [more]
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A Not so Small Excercise
by Edward Sanderson
at He Xiangning Art Museum
September 10th, 2011 - November 10th, 2011
Posted
10/2/11
In my review last April of You Are Not a Gadget at Pékin Fine Arts, I talked about the curator Carol Yinghua Lu’s self-involvement in the curatorial process. This is a feature of her activities that keys into the ongoing question of the role of the curator in relation to the artwork, artist and institution. Her partner, artist Liu Ding, is known for his critical approach to practices of presentation and value formation through the production and exhibition of art. So it seems wholly appropriat... [more]
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Museum for the Times
by Edward Sanderson
Museum of American Art in Berlin, ChART Contemporary, Liu Ding, Homeshop, Wu Jie, Wilfredo Prieto, Museum of Unknown, Hu Xiangqian, Zhang Xiangxi at Times Museum
September 1st, 2011 - October 30th, 2011
Posted
9/25/11
The premise put forward by curator Nikita Cai for A Museum That is Not favours a broad engagement with the idea of the museum, the related social and material effects of such an institution, as well as the point at which it becomes other than a museum (or—to view it from the other direction—the point at which the other becomes a museum). What we are presented with is a show that, while somewhat disparate, includes tangential approaches that refresh the overall theme while avoiding proscription of... [more]
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Fantastic Five
by Edward Sanderson
Li Gang, HU QINGYAN, Cheng Ran, Christian Schoeler, Yan Xing at GALERIE URS MEILE BEIJING
September 4th, 2011 - October 23rd, 2011
Posted
9/25/11
Presenting five solo shows at once in their Beijing spaces seems an odd approach by Galerie Urs Meile. They state that it provides a way to present a selection of new works by some of their less established artists, and I expect it avoids the difficulty of finding an overarching theme for a group show. But in this case it seems each artist gets short shrift, without the opportunity to present a sufficient body of work to allow for more than a very basic understanding of their practice. Christia... [more]
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Dialogue with History
by Edward Sanderson
at National Art Museum of China
August 20th, 2011 - September 16th, 2011
Posted
9/15/11
It’s not often I get excited about the significance of an exhibition, and while Image History Existence is not perfect, I believe it is an important show in the issues it brings into play and in the constructive fashion with which it deals with them.
This survey show celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the art collection of Taikang Life, one of China’s top insurance firms, founded by Chen Dongsheng (previously founder of China Guardian Auctions). Chen has put together a rather remarkable c... [more]
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Lions and Tigers and Mirrors Oh My!
by Edward Sanderson
Wang Wei at Boers-Li Gallery
August 11th, 2011 - September 11th, 2011
Posted
8/29/11
For what is obviously such a large and weighty intervention, the mirrored surfaces of Wang Wei’s Propaganda Pavilion create an almost insubstantial structure as it cuts diagonally across Boers-Li’s upstairs gallery, disrupting the visitors’ procession and views through the spaces. The Pavilion is a reconstruction of a common form of display structure, with suggestions of Socialist architecture in its original forms. In this case, the artist has taken an example from Beijing Zoo. As pres... [more]
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Sehgal's Antics come to China
by Edward Sanderson
Tino Sehgal at Minsheng Art Museum
July 16th, 2011 - August 14th, 2011
Posted
8/21/11
In amongst the videos and installations by Zhang Peili at the Minsheng Art Museum (which I reviewed here last week), I also had a surprise encounter with the work of Tino Sehgal, whose works of performed discussions as institutional critique added an unusual perspective to the display of new-media work.
Under the collective title “Taking the Stage Over,” curator Biljana Ciric has organised a year-long series of events for Shanghai. From July to September she has arranged for Sehgal t... [more]
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(Possibly) China's First Video Art
by Edward Sanderson
Zhang Peili at Minsheng Art Museum
July 16th, 2011 - August 14th, 2011
Posted
8/14/11
A short excursion to Shanghai from my usual territory of Beijing allowed for a quick visit to the Minsheng Art Museum, while dodging the storms presaging the arrival of typhoon Muifa. The Minsheng is a non-profit institution occupying a large warehouse-type set of spaces at the back of an off-street cultural area. It was established in 2008 by the China Minsheng Banking Corporation, and is currently hosting a large retrospective of the work of veteran new-media artist, Zhang Peili.
What this exhibition does, inevit... [more]
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Two Artists and a Mentor
by Edward Sanderson
Ma Qiusha, Wang Shang at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
July 16th, 2011 - August 8th, 2011
Posted
8/8/11
It feels like curation has become somewhat undisciplined. “Good” curation, in my experience, is distinguished by a thoughtful and productive presentation and response to the works selected. I realise this plays down the more academic aspects related to working with collections in, say, a museum context. But in the environment in China where there is little institutional support for serious curation (at least of contemporary art), you take what you can get.
However, that rather negative preamble is b... [more]
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Narrative Naysaying
by Edward Sanderson
Lei Benben, Shen Yi Elsie at Siemens Home Appliance Art Space
July 23rd, 2011 - August 7th, 2011
Posted
8/1/11
In 2010, on a side street behind the main drag of 798, the German appliance company Siemens opened a small art space as part of their mission to “finance young artists’ projects and provide community service around China.” As part of this worthy cause, this month the gallery is hosting Overstep, a show of two young Chinese artists, Shen Yi Elsie and Lei Benben, curated by Pi Li (Director of Boers-Li Gallery).
Over the past few years both Shen Yi Elsie and Lei Benben have moved from photogra... [more]
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Muddled Illuminations
by Edward Sanderson
He An at Arrow Factory
July 3rd, 2011 - August 20th, 2011
Posted
7/18/11
He An’s new installation at the store-front space Arrow Factory is the first in a series of shows in Beijing for the Chinese artist; Tang Contemporary and Magician Space are also hosting shows opening this week in the 798 Art District. The installation at Arrow Factory continues the artist’s concern with lighting systems and features a working streetlight poking through the glass of the gallery’s frontage. Below the light a small switch invites you to turn the light on and off. Behind... [more]
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Virtue in De-Virtualizing
by Edward Sanderson
Joseph DeLappe at Where Where Art Space
July 9th, 2011 - July 29th, 2011
Posted
7/18/11
Combat is a staple ingredient for all types of gaming and the urge to realism in virtual recreations of real-life battlefields has become an extensive sub-genre of the online gaming experience. These virtual fields of glory play on exercises of strategy and coordination to the extent that they are equally useful as training and recruitment tools for the military, teaching skills and attitudes that have real-world implications and applications.
Over the last month, American artist Joseph DeLappe has be... [more]
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Not Quite a Roast
by Edward Sanderson
Maria Castro, Catherine Shakespeare Lane，Neil Webb，Experimenter En Couleur, Leslie Deere, Felicity Ford, Sheng Jie, Yan Jun, Christian Krupa, Alex McLean, Ruan Qianjun at Platform China
May 1st, 2011 - May 1st, 2011
Posted
7/4/11
The title “Half Rabbit” here refers to the fact that we are now half way through the Year of the Rabbit, in the Chinese calendar. The animal years represented in the Chinese zodiac run in twelve-year sequences, so for anyone born in a “Rabbit” year, the current annual cycle is a particularly auspicious time. Following the custom of reading one’s prospects based when you are born, the theme for “Half Rabbit” attempted to address issues of identity and fortune.
This was planned to be the... [more]
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Something on the Way: Alessandro Rolandi and Megumi Shimizu
by Edward Sanderson
Posted
6/27/11
The Journey West Travel Office, 43 Zhonglouwan Hutong, Beijing, China
19 June, 2011
Last weekend in the hutongs around the historic Drum and Bell Tower area in Beijing, Alessandro Rolandi from Italy and Megumi Shimizu from Japan staged the performance "Something on the Way." This was included as part of Stephanie Rothenberg and Dan S. Wang’s "Journey West Travel Office" (a “performative installation that casts a critical eye on global tourism”). "Something on the Way" drew upon a mixture o... [more]
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Noise and Context
by Edward Sanderson
Posted
6/20/11
Like any art form, creative activity that involves sound has a relationship with the world as a production and with an audience as reception. Both relationships have different expectations and requirements for whatever might be termed “success.”
The often ephemeral form of sound-work dictates that it must assert itself in a stronger way to ensure its reception as in some way distinct from the “distractions” it works within. The concert hall, for instance, not only provides a hermetic, purp... [more]
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What's Left Out
by Edward Sanderson
Forget Art, Sun Daliang, Li Ming, Liu Ren, Li Wei, Shi Wenfei, Yang Xingguang, Tian Yu at Linda Gallery Beijing
June 4th, 2011 - July 3rd, 2011
Posted
6/13/11
“Alibi,” the title in English of this group show at Linda Gallery in Beijing’s 798 Art District, seems so much more evocative than the Chinese title (不在场), which the essay by curator Wang Yifei translates as “Being Absent.” Although the adherence to the title seems a little weak at times, this show presents artists working with an absence of some sort. That being a very broad subject, the results take many forms and directions and overall the show brings together an interesting selectio... [more]
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Train of Disruption
by Edward Sanderson
Xie Molin at Space Station
April 23rd, 2011 - June 20th, 2011
Posted
5/30/11
In my recent review of Breaking Away, I got a bit carried away addressing some of the institutional structures in place. This show, and some other shows that are forthcoming, also seemed to hint at a resurgence of abstraction in Beijing this year. My over-enthusiasm for the critique meant that I only superficially addressed the artists in the show. One of the artists that I omitted to mention was Xie Molin, whose works in the Boers-Li show had kicked off some thoughts about abstraction itself.... [more]
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Data as Art
by Edward Sanderson
Zhan Rui at Boers-Li Gallery
May 19th, 2011 - June 19th, 2011
Posted
5/30/11
A few weeks ago I reviewed Breaking Away, Boers-Li Gallery’s abstraction group show here on ArtSlant. I then travelled a few blocks west within 798 Art District to Space Station to cover XYZ, the solo show by one the participants, Xie Molin (below). This time I’m returning to Boers-Li, where another participant, Zhan Rui, has his own solo show in their smaller galleries upstairs. Suffice it to say, in Beijing at least, abstraction appears to be popular right now.
Zhan Rui’s work represent... [more]
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Vegetables Matter
by Edward Sanderson
Posted
5/16/11
To the north-west of Beijing just beyond the sixth ring road, approaching the mountains and the Great Wall, you find the Little Donkey Farm (LDF), a farm and community organisation promoting Community Supported Agriculture within China. LDF work with sustainable farming methods to grow and distribute healthy produce within the Beijing area. Artist Emi Uemura has been working with this organisation for the past year and April saw the fifth of their Country Fairs, initiated and co-organised by Uemura, an occ... [more]
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Tang Reaches for the Stars
by Edward Sanderson
Wang Du, Yang Jiechang, Yan Pei-Ming, Huang Yong Ping, Shen Yuan, Chen Zhan at Tang Contemporary Art Beijing
March 26th, 2011 - May 14th, 2011
Posted
5/2/11
It may seem contrary, but I can’t ignore how new or renovated art spaces affect the way works are shown and received as well as how they represent a gallery’s plans and priorities. Any conclusions must remain highly speculative, but in the choices made and priorities focused upon as manifest in physical spaces, we can perhaps gain some insight into the nature of a gallery.
Tang Contemporary originally opened their Beijing space in 2006 and have occupied their site with a series of large-scale... [more]
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Abstraction in Context
by Edward Sanderson
Zhang Enli, Jiang Fang, Guan Fengdong, Zhao Gang, Xu Hongmin, Gong Jian, Yan Lei, Yang Liming, Xie Molin, Liang Quan, Huang Rui, Zhan Rui, Zhong Shan, Liu Wei, Zhang Wei, Ding Yi, Hou Yong, Chen Yufan, Jiang Zhi at Boers-Li Gallery
April 9th, 2011 - May 8th, 2011
Posted
5/2/11
The politics of abstraction tread a very fine line. The style can be considered as a rejection of the illusions of representation in favor of a more direct engagement with perception, material and form; or, it can be perceived to be a rescinding of responsibility from making clearly defined statements. Breaking Away, Boers-Li Gallery’s second major group show since decamping to 798, presents a variety of approaches to abstraction by Chinese artists and thereby demonstrates the persisting attrac... [more]
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Monuments to what?
by Edward Sanderson
at Beijing Commune
February 27th, 2011 - March 20th, 2011
Posted
4/18/11
It may appear that I have something of an unhealthy obsession with Leng Lin (Director of Pace Beijing and Founder of Beijing Commune) and his activities, having now written two pieces about shows in which he has directly or indirectly been involved. Maybe this means he is doing something right, to have attracted my attention so often. That said, the reason those particular shows have caught my eye has been for negative reasons, due to a lack I’ve observed in the quality of the work or the pres... [more]
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Pedestrian Potentialities?
by Edward Sanderson
Jia Aili, Xiao Bo, Wu Guangyu, Liao Guohe, Xiao Jiang, Bi Jianye, Ma Ke, Huang Liang, Qin Qi, Li Qing, Xu Ruotao, Jin Shan, Lin Yen Wei, LIU Weijian, Sun Wen, Qi Wenzhang, Sun Xun, Zhou Yilun, Song Yuanyuan at Platform China
March 12th, 2011 - May 31st, 2011
Posted
4/4/11
Over the last few years Platform China has established a strong programme of shows that display refreshing latitude with respect to exhibition formats and presentation of artworks.
Two highlights from last year included the extravagant group show “Jungle” and “The Third Party”. The former expansive exhibition continually refreshed itself over its two-month run, inviting the starting artists to adapt their installations and also bringing in new artists later in the exhibition. In what s... [more]
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