Art Roundup: news, reviews and previews
News
The UCCA, which is currently hosting the impressive Our Future exhibition, are now open 7 days a week and entry is free until the end of August. You can take a look at our earlier review of the exhibition here. The new restaurant at UCCA, Super Ganbei, is now open you can call 5128 5488 to reserve a table. Their hours are noon-2.30pm, 6-9.30pm. They expect to have an official opening event in September.
Ullens also have some great events going on, yesterday afternoon American sculptor Alexander Calder gave a talk at the gallery and this afternoon at 4pm as part of a series of talks to accompany the Our Future exhibition, Chinese artist Wang Xingwei will talk about conceptual painting and the “future of art practice.” You’ll need to reserve a ticket to attend the talk. Reservations through the Ullens site or by calling 8459 9269. A who's who of the Beijing art world will also be gathering at the gallery this Sunday to discuss the future trends in Chinese contemporary art.
Finally, we've heard rumors that the National Art Museum of China is going to open a huge new gallery especially devoted to contemporary art. Details about the location of the new gallery are still sketchy, but keep an eye on the Beijinger for updates.
Reviews
Cai Guoqiang's I Want to Believe (我想要相信 Wo Xiangyao Xiangxin)
Aug 19-Sep 2.
Daily 9am-4.30pm. National Art Museum of China (6401 2252/7076)
Honestly, like other people, I was pretty impressed by the fireworks displays (especially the rainbow) that Cai Guoqiang, the visual effect director of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, designed. However, I wanted more from the first Chinese artist to have a large-scale show in New York's Guggenheim (they even moved a Picasso piece aside for Cai's massive installations) than just the cheap thrills of watching a spectacular fireworks show that was over in a matter of minutes.
With this in mind I decided to go to the Quanzhou-born artist’s solo at NAMOC (surprisingly, the entry price wasn’t raised for the show).
The title of the show “I Want to Believe” (我想要相信 Wo Xiangyao Xiangxin), starts to make sense when you realize that a large part of the show is made up of pieces from Cai’s Project for Extraterrestrials. It seems that Cai’s interest in the Games is as intense as his obsession with aliens, as a whole hall is occupied by a hyper-long gunpowder paintings based on the opening/closing ceremonies of the Olympics.
Maybe because of the lower transport cost of paintings, or maybe because somebody at NAMOC is obsessed with two-dimensional art, but most of the works on show are gunpowder paintings, with only a few of Cai’s installations having made it to Beijing. The set-up of the installation Inopportune: Stage One is, unfortunately, a disappointment: while at the Guggenheim, the nine cars were wisely set into a vertical three dimensional scroll, NAMOC has merely squeezed the automobiles into a metal garland in a small room. The highlights of the show are actually the videos of Cai’s explosion projects. Videos of Cai's transient gunpowder works were shown on the walls and left me with the feeling of how art does more than simply carry “a message,” but also imparts an immediate sense of something ineffable.
Korean Cultural Center: Invisible Art
I went to see the show Invisible Art exhibition (runs till Sep 13) at the Korean Cultural Center at Guanghua Xili. This venue always confuses me with its gigantic poster on the wall of the building, I understand why they have women in traditional Korean costumes on it, and I totally understand why Nam June-Paik's face appears with a television on it, but hey... Xu Bing? I don't think participating in the Gwangju Biennale would make the Chongqing-born artist a Korean. Would somebody who knows about the secret connection between Korea and Xu Bing please tell me what the deal is?
With the experimental noise intercourse that flowed like lukewarm water between Yan Jun and Korean Ryu Han-kil, the art work in this exhibition didn’t really blow me away. With the line “If you enter, you can’t see anything at all” in their pamphlet, I think viewers are prepared to see nothing in the show – it's an exaggeration, visual elements still exist in the hall, it just takes you a while to find where the art works are (but I am not going to tell you where). I wasn't particularly impressed by the art works, but I am interested by the curatorial effort and the concept of the show. I would consider this as an attempt to resist the temptation of joining the visual-oriented tradition of art, although not in very hardcore way.
Previews
Sep 6-26
Robert Rauschenberg: The Lotus Series
Rauschenberg’s 1985 Beijing exhibition was hugely influential on the local art scene, just as Kaii Higashiyama’s ‘70s exhibits had a huge impact on Chinese oil landscape painting. This show features Rauschenberg’s “The Lotus Series,” the American artist’s last works before he passed away in May this year. The lotus is an important icon in China, in both a religious and an ideological sense. By placing this “very Chinese” symbol into scenes of everyday Chinese life, Rauschenberg portrays his last Oriental cultural landscape. Rauschenberg’s pop-ness is described by Chinese art critic Li Xianting as “democratized, vulgarized, popularized, always current, but at the same time also always above the trends of the time.”
Dafeng Art Gallery (6433 7317)
Sep 6-9
Art Beijing
This annual art fair brings works of art from over 100 galleries, from 20 different countries, to Beijing. The theme for this year's fair is "public art" - an interesting topic, we just hope it helps to inspire better curatorial ability in the capital. Read more about the exhibition at the official site.
National Agricultural Exhibition Center (6502 1727)
Links and Sources
Art in the Age of Orbitization: Image of Cai Guoqiang’s Rainbow
People.com.cn: 蔡国强创作火药爆绘画 六秒钟再现北京奥运
NAMOC: Cai Guoqiang’s I Want to Believe Exhibition
NAMOC: Blair at Cai Guoqiang exhibition
NAMOC: Selection of Paintings of China’s Ming and Qing Dynasty
The Beijinger: Cai Guoqiang: I Want to Believe
Tom: Invisible Art Flyer
Korean Cultural Center: Invisible Art
