Thursday
March 28, 2024
Expected reading
3 minutes
Good night chestnuts
There is no doubt that this week's focus on the contemporary art scene is in Hong Kong. From art institutions that are people everywhere to public opinion that they are praised everywhere, "Art Chestnut" chose to carry out a different kind of discussion on the last day. Stay tuned!
· The minimalist master Serra died
· See and be looked at contemporary art
· Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week will kick off
· The Stone Art Museum made its debut after the upgrade
· Opening of the double solo exhibition at Galleria Continua
· The new power of two post-90s artists
· The former director of the British Museum became the defendant
· 1 ·
The minimalist master Serra died
On March 26, minimalist master Richard Serra died of pneumonia at the age of 85 at his home on Long Island, USA. What makes him one of the most famous (and controversial) sculptors of the last half-century is that Serra pulls the sculpture out of the traditional pedestal and into a wider space. He uses negative elements such as shrouding, persecution, and panic to force people to be shocked and think.
Born in San Francisco, California in 1939, Sierra is known for his large-scale sculptures made from sheet metal. In the early '60s, Serra and his generation of minimalist artists turned to unconventional industrial materials and began to emphasize the physical properties of their work. The core of his works lies not in the work itself, but in the spatial relationship, feeling the interactive relationship between the work, the audience and the space.
"To see is to think, and to think is to see," Sierra said. If you can change the way people watch, you can change the way they think, so it doesn't have to be accepted and loved by everyone. In fact, even if you fail in the end, you've had an opportunity to change people's mindsets. This is important. ”
· 2 ·
See and be looked at contemporary art
From March 28th to June 12th, "Seeing and Being Seen: Contemporary Art Exhibition" was held at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. After the first contemporary art exhibition "The Realm of Being" was exhibited at Tsinghua Art Fair in October 2021, it was well received by artists, critics, audiences and the media, which became a good start for continuing to curate and hold research exhibitions on contemporary art.
With the theme of "seeing" and "being seen", it explores the relationship between the artist and the work, the work and its object, and how phenomena such as memory, emotion, desire, and cognition are expressed through visual forms. More than 70 works by 13 artists show the cultural landscape of the relationship between man and man, man and nature, and man and society in contemporary art from different perspectives. From ink painting to oil painting, from sculpture to installation and video, the exhibition uses a variety of media to discuss the core issues of viewing in art.
Seeing and being seen is a complex subject. How to trace the memories of the past, how to transform the tradition, how to present the viewing under the times, the artist is responding to these questions with his works. After the opening ceremony on March 28, a unique symposium was held at the same time, bringing together scholars and artists, which became the most important part of this research exhibition.
· 3 ·
Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week will kick off
As the largest, widest coverage and most cutting-edge pan-cultural and creative industry event in China, on March 30, the 2024 Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week with the theme of "Resonance and Breaking Waves" will kick off in Sanya, Hainan. The 2024 Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week will invite more than 1,000 experts in cultural tourism, cultural creativity, art, design, curation and other industries to launch one main forum and more than 30 parallel forums. At the same time, the outdoor supporting activities of the Cultural and Creative Week have been specially upgraded this year to the Hainan Camping Life Festival and Outdoor Leisure Equipment Exhibition, giving full play to Sanya's industrial advantages in "camping + exhibition".
Among the rich content covered by Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week, there is no lack of rich art, design and cultural insights. The topics of the forum include "Curation in a Broad Sense and Urban Public Art Power", "The Mission of AIM Architects - Design in a Broad Sense", "Cultural Technology Promotes Urban Renewal - Content Organizer Alliance in the Post-SORA Era", "Urban Soft Decoration Industry Ecological Forum", "Symbiosis of National Tide: Opportunities for Digital Cultural Innovation", etc.
· 4 ·
The Stone Art Museum made its debut after the upgrade
On March 22nd, on Yinghe West Road in Zhengzhou City, the Stone Art Museum unveiled the new veil after the upgrade, and at the same time, the "Hello, Stone Art Museum" and the Central Academy of Fine Arts Outstanding Graduates Invitational Exhibition opened. The Stone Art Museum is committed to bringing contemporary art into Zhengzhou, allowing Zhengzhou citizens to enjoy contemporary art works that are in line with global standards up close, and creating a new experience for the public's cultural and artistic life.
The exhibition showcases nearly 100 works created by more than 30 artists, including outstanding graduates, professors and tutors of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, including oil painting, Chinese painting, printmaking, sculpture, mixed media and experimental art, reflecting the outstanding artistic and academic nature.
The exhibition is divided into two sections: the first section is for 24 young artists who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2019 to 2024, with a span of five years, with the intention of adding a layer of time precipitation on the basis of youth, rebirth and freshness, and the second section is the specially invited public art project "Borrowing Stones", which intervenes in the space of the Stone Art Museum with realistic stress or freehand borrowing. At the same time, some of the artworks of the co-organizer Songyuan Time Museum Branch Hall were also exhibited on the 22nd.
· 5 ·
Opening of the double solo exhibition at Galleria Continua
From March 24th to May 12th, Galleria Continua will present two solo exhibitions of Italian artist Serse and Venezuelan artist Juan Araujo at Beijing Space, in which the two artists explore how realist painting can remain alive in the highly emotional and conceptual context of contemporary art and under the impact of various new media.
After a lapse of 8 years, Searles's works have once again come to Beijing. On the first floor of the gallery, the artist's favorite landscape theme is exhibited, presenting many paintings of different series and sizes. The artist abandons color and uses graphite painting to depict the sea, sky and other landscapes, which are the "landscapes of the soul" in the black and white world, but have colorful grandeur and magnificence. The artist lays a heavy graphite material on the paper, and the delicate light and shadow effects weave fine textures to mimic the texture of the silver bromide monochrome photographic paper of old photographs. Sears, who has been working on this method for 30 years, interprets his obsession with the technical aspect as "reinventing painting".
On the second floor of the gallery is Arauyo's solo exhibition project, which was curated by the artist in Basel, Switzerland, in 2020 in the "Infinite Imagery" section inspired by the renowned collector Ernst Beyeler. Some of the paintings in the "Hunter's Dream" series on display in this exhibition evoke and re-evaluate the important works in the exhibition "Visual Encounters".
It includes an essentialist reading of the Fondation Beyeler itself, as well as a satirical "portrayal" of the so-called "European artist at work", a poignant critique of this current of thought that still drives mainstream art to this day, and why many people still covet it, even if it is now mired in flattery, self-absorbed wordplay. (Photo: Dong Lin)
· 6 ·
The new power of two post-90s artists
From March 22nd to April 28th, inner flow gallery will launch exhibitions of two artists at the same time, and interestingly, both artists are post-90s, and through their bold and personal thinking works, we can see the new power of the rising post-90s artists.
Su Hang, who was born in 1996, was directly sent to graduate school after graduating from CAFA with a bachelor's degree, and graduated with a master's degree in 2022. This solo exhibition "Urgent Scene" is the artist's first solo exhibition in Beijing. In those large-scale and bold paintings, the magnified sense of "cave" brings a strong visual gravity. Taking the "Road in the Forest" series as an example, the artist uses a method of "growth" and "fabrication" to construct a complex forest, which is an escape from the artist's solid "shaping" skills trained by the academy, and also a way to avoid falling into the quagmire of "manufacturing" and to reach a kind of smart poetic possibility.
"Zhao Qian: You Have a Long Tail" appears in the inner flow project, using a room and a spiral staircase to present the artist's complete thinking. Born in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province in 1990 and currently living and working in Shanghai, Zhao Qian focuses on the circulation of animal images, the operation mechanism of games, simulated behaviors, and the translation function of images. The Inner flow Project is an experimental art project that emerges from time to time and is constantly renewed, aiming to connect various art forms that do not limit boundaries with the expression of young artists.
· 7 ·
The former director of the British Museum became the defendant
The theft of the British Museum's collection in 2023 caused a sensation, and on March 26, 2024, the museum took former director Peter Higgs to court, accusing him of stealing from the museum and reselling hundreds of items online. A number of legal advisers at the British Museum said Higgs had "abused his power" to steal a large collection of jewellery, gold jewellery and other items from the museum's treasury for more than a decade. For now, Higgs denies all the allegations and claims that he is in poor health. Higgs has worked at the British Museum for more than 30 years, and his son Greg (21) has always insisted that his father is innocent.
Text|Art chestnut