Lu Yang: A Torturous Vision at I/O Input/Output Gallery, Hong Kong
Lu Yang’s solo exhibition “A Torturous Vision” at the gallery I/O (Input/Output) in Hong Kong was a quite controversial show. Lu Yang presented three video works and four large scale canvases. The dominating work was Dictator, a music video set to a composition by the sound artist Wang Changcun. Dictator is based on a previous work, Happy Tree, that shows living animals being treated with a centrally controlled pulse of electricity in a small tank. For Dictator, Lu Yang extracted some footage of Happy Tree and transformed it into highly aesthetical and technical forms.
In addition to Dictator, I/O presented Happy Tree and a video showing the process of applying electricity to frogs. Lu Yang’s solo show also presented canvases showing two of the four projects with which Yang cooperated with science teams, including Zombie Music Box – Underwater Frog Leg Ballet and Ultimate Energy Conversion – Instruman.
Lu Yang was born in Shanghai in 1984. She is a graduate from the China Academy of Art in the Master of Arts New Media department. Recent shows include the solo exhibition The Power of Reinforcement, curated by Zhang Peili, Zendai Moma, Shanghai 2009; and groups exhibitions such as Jungle, Platform China, Beijing, 2010; Go, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, 2010; Bourgeoisified Proletariat , Shanghai, 2009; Quantity Bears Identity, Kultflux, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2009; Itchy, BizArt, Shanghai, 2009; Spade, T-Space, Beijing, 2008; eArts Festival, Shanghai, 2008; and New Directions from China, Plug.In, Basel, Switzerland, 2007.
I/O (Input/Output) is a recently established Hong Kong gallery focused on New Media. Through exhibitions, performances and talks I/O (Input/Output) aims to provide a critical platform for practice and debate amongst artists, curators and critics working across contemporary disciplines including digital art, design and sound.
Click here for an interview with Lu Yang by Robin Peckham at Digicult.it and an interview with I/O’s Assistant Creative Director, Rachel Connelly at Art Radar Asia.
Lu Yang: A Torturous Vision at I/O Input/Output Gallery, Hong Kong. Hong Kong, 2010.
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July 30, 2010 | Entry filed under: Hong Kong, VernissageTV, art, no comment | 0
Tags: Lu Yang
Charlotte Perriand: Designer – Photographer – Activist / Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) is considered as one of the most innovative interior architects and furniture designers of the 20th century. She developed designs for tubular steel furniture, particularly in cooperation with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. Beginning in the early 1930s, she discovered photography as a medium that provided important impulses for her work as a whole. She also employed the photographic medium for large-format collages with social and political messages.
With Charlotte Perriand: Designer – Photographer – Activist, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich presents an exhibition that provides the opportunity to rediscover Charlotte Perriand as furniture designer, photographer, and activist. The exhibition runs until October 24, 2010.
In the same thematic framework, the exhibition Resonance. Charlotte Perriand and her traces in Brazil is shown at the Forum of the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur until 22 August 2010.
Charlotte Perriand: Designer – Photographer – Activist / Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Switzerland. Opening reception, July 15, 2010.
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July 28, 2010 | Entry filed under: VernissageTV, Zürich, design, no comment | 0
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Portugal Arte 10: Public Art Projects in Downtown Lisbon
The cornerstone of Portugal Arte 10 EDP is a series of public art projects that are installed throughout downtown Lisbon. Three distinct areas, Chiado, Baixa, and Avenida Liberdade, host these works. Los Angeles-based architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of JohnstonMarkLee architectural firm were instrumental in examining these areas defining characteristics and placing the works of art in ways which either reinforce the urban condition, or challenges it by creating a new way of experiencing a neighborhood.
Among the artworks on display are Temple by Faile; untitled works by Sterling Ruby; Grid Ripper, Aluminum Box and Bronze Canon by Sterling Ruby; Point of View by Ivan Capote; Eggs by Martha Freidman; Bench by Jim Drain; and Burghers of Calais by Nathan Mabry.
In this video, Artistic Director Stefan Simchowitz talks about the the public art projects of Portugal Arte 10 and how the people in the streets reacted to the works.
See also: Portugal Arte 10 / International Survey of Contemporary Art in Lisbon, Portugal and Artist Collective FAILE’s Temple at Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon.
Photos of the exhibition after the jump.
Portugal Arte 10, Public Art Projects. July 16-18, 2010.
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Related Articles:
- Portugal Arte 10 / International Survey of Contemporary Art in Lisbon, Portugal
- Artist Collective FAILE's Temple at Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon
July 26, 2010 | Entry filed under: Lisbon, VernissageTV, art, interview | 0
Tags: FAILE, Jim Drain, Patrick McNeil, Patrick Miller, Sterling Ruby
Portugal Arte 10 / International Survey of Contemporary Art in Lisbon, Portugal
Portugal Arte 10 EDP is a new biennial show of contemporary art in Lisbon / Portugal and the surrounding region. The first edition of the international survey of contemporary art features a large program of specially commissioned public sculpture projects and site-specific installations, alongside 8 curated group exhibitions. In this video, VernissageTV has a look at the exhibitions in the Portugal Pavilion in Lisbon and speaks with Artistic Director Stefan Simchowitz, who talks about the concept of Portugal Arte 10 and the curated group exhibitions.
Portugal Arte 10 runs until the 15th August, 2010. The show was conceived by Artistic Director Stefan Simchowitz and President Miguel Carvalho. Over 100 international contemporary artists exhibit public art works throughout Lisbon, Grandola, Portimão, and Vila Real de Santo Antonio. An international team of curators (Johannes Van Der Beek, Fred Hoffman and Paul Young, Lauri Firstenberg, Juan Delgado Calzadilla, Elvia Rosa Castro, and Nelson Herrera Ysla, Garth Weiser, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee with Johnston Marklee Associates, Stefan Simchowitz, Martin Lilja) presents additional thematic exhibitions in institutions and historic buildings of Portugal. Among the artists are Cory Arcangel, Aids 3D, Jim Drain, Jonathan Monk, Robert Melee, Justin Lieberman, Nathan Mabry, Ara Peterson, Sterling Ruby, Shinique Smith, Johannes Vanderbeek, Miguel Palma, Urbano, Olaf Breuning, and the artist collective FAILE. The venues are Baixa, Lisbon; Bairro Alto, Lisbon; Parque das Nações (Pavilion of Portugal), Lisbon; TEMPO -Teatro Municipal Portimão, Algarve; Grândola, Alentejo; Public Library Grândola; Vila Real de Santo António, Algarve; Centro Cultural António Aleixo – Vila Real de Santo António.
Photos of the exhibition after the jump.
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Related Articles:
- Portugal Arte 10: Public Art Projects in Downtown Lisbon
- Artist Collective FAILE's Temple at Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon
July 23, 2010 | Entry filed under: Lisbon, VernissageTV, art, interview | 0
Artist Collective FAILE’s Temple at Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon
Portugal Arte 10 is a new biennial show of contemporary art in Lisbon. One of the most spectacular works on display is Temple (2010), a site-specific environment by the Brooklyn-based artist collective FAILE (Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller).
FAILE’s Temple is a full-scale church in ruins in Praça dos Restauradores Square, one of the major squares in the center of Lisbon, Portugal. For this installation, FAILE used both the typical motifs they use in their work and styles and material that are typical for Lisbon, such as the ceramic tiles. The building also features wrought iron gating and concrete relief work, from local and foreign manufacturers, and familiar FAILE images, such as the barking dog logo that appear in the reliefs, and a white, blue, and gold color palette as a reference to the Portugese landscape.
FAILE is an artistic collaboration between Patrick McNeil (b. 1975, Edmonton, CA) and Patrick Miller (b. 1976, Minneapolis, MN) formed in 1999 and based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to work painted and pasted on streets around the world, FAILE has exhibited with Lazarides, London; New Image Art, Los Angeles; Fifty24SF, Portland; Baltic Center for Contemporary Arts, Newcastle; Shanghai Sculpture Center, Shanghai; Andenken Gallery, Denver; and Les Complices, Zurich.
Temple by FAILE is one of the artworks in public space that are presented within the framework of Portugal Arte 10, the first edition of the international survey of contemporary art in Portugal. Coming soon: More information, video coverage of the event and an interview with the artistic director of Portugal Arte 10, Stefan Simchowitz.
See also: Interviews with FAILE at Gothamist and Wallkandy.
Photos of the installation after the jump.
Update (July 24, 2010): making of photos and more info at Stick2Target.
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Related Articles:
- Portugal Arte 10: Public Art Projects in Downtown Lisbon
- Portugal Arte 10 / International Survey of Contemporary Art in Lisbon, Portugal
July 21, 2010 | Entry filed under: Lisbon, VernissageTV, art, no comment | 0
Tags: FAILE, Patrick McNeil, Patrick Miller
Micol Assaël: Mindfall / Art 41 Basel / Art Public
For the Art Public program of Art 41 Basel, the international art show for Modern and contemporary art in Basel / Switzerland, the Italian artist Micol Assaël presented her installation Mindfall (2004), a container filled with motors that produce unpleasant smells and noise.
As every year, the Messeplatz in front of the main halls hosting Art Basel again served as the arena for the fair’s Art Public program. Selected by the Art Basel Committee and curated by Martin Schwander, this year’s Art Public sector featured 14 works by internationally renowned artists Ai Weiwei, Dora Garciá, Eric Hattan, Hanspeter Hofmann, Thomas Houseago, Alicja Kwade, Ernesto Neto, Bettina Pousttchi, Ugo Rondinone, Alberto Tadiello, Oscar Tuazon, Lawrence Weiner, Heimo Zobernig, and Micol Assaël.
Micol Assaël developed Mindfall for the Manifesta 5 in San Sebastian. In altered form the installation was also shown in 2008 at the gallery Johann König in Berlin. Central elements in Micol Assaël’s artistic work are scientific and physical phenomena and their interaction with the human body. In cooperation with the Moscow Physics Research Institute, Micol Assaël developed a work that transformed the exhibition space at Kunsthalle Basel into an electromagnetic field (Chizhevsky Lessons, 2007) that gave visitors a noticable electirc charge. Entering the installation Mindfall, the visitors is confronted with an arrangement of electrical motors, running on unusual, emmitting very unpleasant odors and noises. After a short while, staying in the room becomes more and more insufferable.
Micol Assaël was born in rome in 1979. She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of La Sapienza University in Rome. She took part in several biennials, such as the Venice Biennale, the Moscow Biennale, and the Berlin Biennial.
Micol Assaël: Mindfall (2007) / Johann König, Berlin; Zero…, Milano at Art 41 Basel, Art Pubic sector. June 14, 2010.
See also: A conversation with Micol Assaël at Kunstjournalen B-post.
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July 19, 2010 | Entry filed under: Art Basel, Basel, VernissageTV, art, no comment | 0
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Designer David Wiseman and Corning GlassLab at Vitra Design Museum / Interview
If you want to see how contemporary designers experiment with glass, attending the GlassLab performances of the Corning Museum of Glass is a perfect idea. During this year’s Art Basel, the museum brought its mobile glass laboratory to the Vitra Campus. VernissageTV watched designer David Wiseman and the Corning Museum glassmakers working side-by-side on new designs. In this video, David Wiseman talks about his expectations and experiences before and after the performance.
The concept of the GlassLab is that the designers bring their sketches and concepts and work with the glassmakers to realize them. The teams rapidly prototype their design ideas in live sessions, allowing audiences to observe the evolution of the designs as they are created. Since its inaugural program more than 20 top designers such as Yves Béhar, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Max Lamb, Nacho Carbonell, Atelier Oi, and Matali Crasset have worked with GlassLab.
The hot glass design performance program was inspired by glass design workshops presented by the Corning Museum at Domaine de Boisbuchet, a design retreat center and cooperative effort of the Vitra Design Museum and the Centre Georges Pompidou, C.I.R.E.C.A. in the Charente region of Southwest France. Since then, GlassLab sessions have taken place in public design venues like Design Miami and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
Designer David Wiseman, a 2003 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), lives and works in Los Angeles. He draws on the natural world for his primary inspiration, yielding poetic and realistic renderings of extraordinary natural phenomena – blossoming branches in porcelain and bronze, the tangle of a pomegranate tree’s canopy beautifully orchestrated across a ceiling, a bird hidden in a bronze fireplace screen. In his unique lighting, fabricated natural and found elements mingle in illuminated branches and his “Collage” chandeliers. David Wiseman also specializes in unique, site-specific custom commissions.
The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum recognized Wiseman’s achievements with the inclusion of his “Cherry Blossom Canopy” installation in the National Design Triennial 2006.
Designer David Wiseman and Corning Glass Lab at Vitra Design Museum / Interview with David Wiseman. June 17, 2010.
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July 16, 2010 | Entry filed under: Basel, VernissageTV, design, interview | 0
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Aideen Barry: Flight Folly (Performance) at Liste 15 – The Young Art Fair
The Performance Project is an essential part of the “Specials” of Liste – The Young Art Fair in Basel. Curated by Silke Bitzer, the Performance Project presents alternating performances daily. This year there were performances by Nezaket Ekici, Ryan McNamara, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Saskia Edens, Dawn Kasper, californium248, and Aideen Barry.
VernissageTV taped Aideen Barry’s performance titled “Flight Folly”. On the basis of earlier works dealing with the theme of flying, which the artist drew from her experience with weightlessness gained during a research fellowship in astronaut training at NASA, Aideen Barry has developed a work specifically for LISTE entitled “Flight folly”. The performance cites historical notions of fairs or world expositions and how experiments in flight were commonplace at those venues. Aideen Barry’s performance was supported by Culture Ireland.
Aideen Barry’s artistic focus deals with the notion of the “Uncanny“. In her works she examines our perceptions and creates images on the border between the truly perceivable and pure imagination: in-between spaces, heterotopia – as Foucault called them – whose otherness allows a reflection on the realities.
Aideen Barry: Flight Folly (Performance) at Liste 15 – The Young Art Fair. June 20, 2010.
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July 14, 2010 | Entry filed under: Basel, LISTE - The Young Art Fair, VernissageTV, art, interview | 0
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Navid Tschopp: Topological Agenda – Public Art / Performance
This video documents the final stage and the formal handover of Zurich-based artist Navid Tschopp’s work “Topologische Agenda – Der Weg zum Master”.
One of the artists we met when we covered the Master of Fine Arts Degree Show 2010 in Zürich was Navid Tschopp. The project he presented as his Master thesis was created by him over a period of two years. On the way to his studio he was regularly throwing office white office magnets onto the steel facade of the garbage power plant of the city of Zürich. Over the time this action created a constantly changing and slowly growing texture. Navid Tschopp did this without the permission of the authorities. Not even the director of the power plant had realized that a part of his building was transformed into an art work.
On the 7th June, 2010, Navid Tschopp threw the last magnet onto the steel facade of the power plant. He also donated his work “Topologische Agenda – Der Weg zum Master” by handing over the deed of gift to the city of Zurich, represented by Christoph Zemp, manager of the power plant, and Bettina Burkhardt, director of the department Art in Public Space Zurich.
Navid Tschopp (also known as Navid Sadrossadat) was born in Mashhad, Iran in 1978. He studied at the School of Design in Basel, and the Academies of Fine Arts in Bern and Zürich. Since 1989 he lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2006 he focuses on temporary interventions in the public space. Until the 24th of August 2010 he is taking part in a group show at the Sigi-Feigel-Terrasse in Zürich (a project by Kunstraum R57).
Navid Tschopp: Topological Agenda. Final stage and formal handover of the work. ERZ Kehrichtheizkraftwerk Josefstrasse, Zürich. Public Art / Performance, June 7, 2010.
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July 10, 2010 | Entry filed under: VernissageTV, Zürich, art, no comment | 0
Tags: Navid Tschopp
Billy Childish: Bomb Grammar at la Maison de la Poésie, Basel / Billy Childish in Conversation with Neal Brown
During Art 41 Basel in June 2010, the British artist Billy Childish created a lot of buzz with the presentation of his paintings at the gallery Neugerriemschneider (Berlin). It seems that with this exhibition at an art fair, the cult figure Billy Childish finally reached the attention of the mainstream art lover. From the art magazines’ coverage of the fair (Art Newspaper, Trent Fine Art Advisory, NYT T Magazine Blog, Tagesspiegel, Monopol, Die Welt etc.), we know that he “still managed to find time to take tea with Bianca Jagger who purchased one of his paintings”, and that “collectors such as Francesca von Habsburg fell prey to his works”. The press compared his “van Gogh-on-acid paintings” to works by Nolde and Munch, that he sold one “to go-painting” “after the other”, and that he “seems incompatible with his time”. And they didn’t forget to mention that he had a relationship with artist Tracey Emin and was a co-founder of the Stuckism art movement.
Just a few steps away from the fair, Billy Childish had another presentation in a space that felt like a parallel universe. Titled “Bomb Grammar”, the presentation at Florian Kutzli’s and Betty Leirner’s “La Maison de la Poésie” is focused on Billy Childish’s poetic and polemic text-based works. Curated by the artist Betty Leirner, a selection of sign-written placards, distressed posters, books and other publications by Childish’s publisher and London gallery L-13 have been on display. “These wordworks exude a raw, direct, sometimes brutal, sometimes gentle power that offers both a challenging audacity and an unusual, captivating beauty, ranging from the visionary ‘Unknowable but Certain’ placard to the confrontational and humorous ‘Love the Art Hate / Hate Box’ from last year’s ‘National Art Hate Week‘ as well as material concerning the ‘World Art Hate Day 2010′.” (Excerpt from the press release).
VernissageTV recorded a conversation between Billy Childish and Neal Brown at La Maison de la Poésie. Neal Brown is an artist and writer. He has written for most UK and many international art magazines. He curated the exhibition ‘To The Glory of God; New Religious Art’ at the 2002 Liverpool Biennial, and is author of the book Tracey Emin published by Tate Publishing. Neal Brown has written a critical study of Childish’s working practice (Billy Childish: A Short Study)
The above video is an excerpt. Hit the jump for the full-length version (28:31 min.). See also VernissageTV’s coverage of Billy Childish’s solo exhibition at White Columns in New York in April 2010.
Billy Childish was born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent. In a twenty year period the painter, poet, and song-writer has published over 40 collections of his poetry, recorded over 100 full-lengh independent LP’s and produced over 2000 paintings.
Works curated by Betty Leirner, produced by L-13. Show hosted by les amis de la maison de la poésie, Basel. June 12, 2010.
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July 9, 2010 | Entry filed under: Basel, VernissageTV, art, interview, premium | 0
Tags: Billy Childish, Neal Brown
