50 #233 September 2010 w w w . a r t m o n t h l y . o r g . a u A r t M o n t h l y A u s t r a l i a

Ar t notes

Asia

REG NEWITT – REGNEW88@GMAIL.COM

JAYNE DYER – JAYNE.DYER@GMAIL.COM

NEILTON CLARKE – NEIL@UNSWALUMNI.COM

ANDY EWING – NEVERTHELESS999@YAHOO.COM

postEDEN @ Today Utopian visions, whether proletarian or spiritual, seem to have suffered of late. If a crisis of belief is a condition that unites our world today, then the artists in postEDEN strike a familiar chord. The deeper dimension of this project at Today Art Museum is not so much the fashion in which loss or doubt is framed, but more the manner that each of these artists negotiates their response to an uncertain world. Knowledge and vigorous searching become the logical replacement of faith. 3 Australian artists – Lindy Lee, Tony Scott, Jayne Dyer – and a British artist, Wayne Warren, provoke the local scene with black humour and witty irony in this exhibition branded as an event of Imagine Australia, the Year of Australian Culture in China. www.imagineaustralia.net. RN

Photo festImagining the Everyday – Pingyao International Photography Festival (China’s largest, longest-running photography festival) runs from 19 to 25 Sept. This year it features 20 Australian photo-artists presented by the Australian Centre for Photography. This exhibition takes the world of everyday experience as the jumping-off point for flights of fantasy, acts of creativity and

celebrations of physicality. Sponsored by the Australia International Cultural Council for Imagine Australia. www.imagineaustralia.net RN

Songzhuan Art FestivalThe 6th Culture and Arts Festival of Songzhuang will run from 10 Sept. to 10 Oct. with the theme Crossover. This year’s festival aims to cross lines – lines between globe and region, culture and industry, creativity and daily life, government and society, and various other categories of culture and creativity. 13 Australian artists constitute the Australian exhibition, (Australian) diversity, at this festival, as part of a larger international exhibition held at the Sunshine International Art Museum. The 13 artists are: Guan Wei, Jayne Dyer, Wang Zhiyuan, Lindy Lee, Laurens Tan, Guo Jian, Anne Graham, Ah Xian, Tan Yifeng, James Newitt, Merilyn Fairskye, Grant Stevens and Allan Chawner, represented by video, painting, printmaking, photography, and 3D installation. Another Imagine Australia event. www.china.org.cn/arts/2010-07/26/content. RN

Arnhem Land-China-TibetAn OzCo ‘Significant International Opportunities’ fund will enable a cultural exchange under the Australian Culture in China 2010 project. Contemporary artists from China and Australia will explore Arnhem Land and the Kimberley region for 3 weeks, and then a 3-week road trip from Beijing to Lhasa, Tibet. A 1-month residency in Beijing will culminate in an exhibition in Nov. The artists are Sam Leach, Tony Lloyd, Ben Armstrong, Cang Xin, Shi Jinsong and Wu Daxin with Steve Eland, Director 24HR Art, as the facilitator. Non-Indigenous Australian artists

learning about their own Blak backyard, doubled with Chinese artists engaging with Tibet, and then each other as individuals and travelling buddies makes for one unique project designed to draw out shadows, slippages, idiosyncratic regional exchanges and random flows between the past and the present. Sounds riveting! Exhibition opens at Space Station, Beijing, 10 Aug. to 27 Nov. AE

Asialink extensionsAsialink is extending its deadline for 2011 residency applications to 10 September 2010. Check the website for details: www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/artsresidencies Until recently program coordinator for visual arts at Asialink in Melbourne, Claire Watson has since taken up the position of curator at Banyule City Council, Victoria. During her Asialink time she was instrumental in ensuring things rolled smoothly on numerous projects – Abundant Australia: Highlights from the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition, the Every 23 Days: 20 Years Touring Asia publication, and Asialink’s residency program, for example. Stay tuned for Asia-related manifestations possibly happening at Banyule soon. NC

Liu Qinhe continues the traditionLiu Qinghe expresses his contemporary vision through classical ink wash, a medium which seeks to reproduce the essence and soul of its subject. His current exhibition at Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery celebrates the female form and psyche through a plethora of poses and attitudes. The curvaceous silhouettes of his nudes appear to be the contemporary cousins of the Tang dynasty buxom court ladies; as seen

#233 September 2010 51w w w . a r t m o n t h l y . o r g . a u A r t M o n t h l y A u s t r a l i a

Ar t notesin 8th century tomb murals and funerary figures, the Tang women wore see-through shawls and sexy, low-cut blouses, a testament to the unprecedented social freedom and political power enjoyed by women in 7th to 10th century China. Images of sinewy and svelte characters recall the erotic paintings from the Qing dynasty where pensive ladies lie in luxurious interiors decorated with objects infused with symbols of fertility. By contrast, Qinghe’s women lie against a minimalist backdrop, while reflecting the newfound confidence and independence of Chinese women today. Runs 9 to 22 Sept. www.redgategallery.com. RN

ARENA: A Post Boom Beijing This exhibition surveys video from Beijing as a society in transition. Almost all of the works (representing Gao Shiqiang, Guan Shengsheng, Nan Hao, Wu Junyong, Pi San, Wang Qingsong, Miao Xiaochun and Xu Tong among others) will be shown for the first time in Australia. Since moving to Beijing in 2006, the curator (and artist) Dr Laurens Tan has witnessed the reformations and upheavals in Beijing’s urban fabric. To be opened by Andrew Sayers, Director, National Museum of Australia, 15 Oct., runs to 28 Nov. at Hazelhurst Arts Centre & Regional Gallery, Gymea. (Text courtesy of Laurens Tan). RN

Taipei tie-upThe Taipei Biennial 2010 runs from 7 Sept. to 14 Nov., and is curated by Taipei-based Hong John Lin and Berlin-based Tirdad Zolghadr. www.tfam.museum/index.aspx NC

Comic affairsCurated by Mizuki Takahashi, Manga Realities highlights 9 popular Japanese manga titles to have emerged since 2000, highlighting the divergence of the genre and the trend away from gender and age-specific publications over the past decade. The broadening of its orbit and influence upon other media – film, TV, and art, not to mention the growth of academic discourse around manga – is fully explored here, showing manga as integral to the cultural fabric of contemporary Japanese life. Artists (and works) include Machiko Kyo (Sennen Gaho), Daisuke Igarashi (Children of the Sea), Taiyo Matsumoto (No. 5), and Tomoko Ninomiya (Nodame Cantabile). Until 26 Sept. at Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito (Ibaraki, Japan). A talkfest with critics Tamaki Saito and Go Ito is on 12 Sept. at ATM. The exhibition continues at Artsonje Center, Seoul from 4 Dec. to 13 Feb. 2011. www.arttowermito.or.jp/art & www.artsonje.org/eng. The Japanese in Anime and Manga site may be of interest: anime-manga.jp NC

Venice spiceThe 67th Venice International Film Festival, directed by Marco Müller and running1 to 11 Sept. sees numerous films from Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and India by Takashi Miike, Atsushi Wada, Xun Sun, Andrew Lau, Song-Soo Hong, Nuntanat Duangtisarn and many others, their works screening in the Venezia 67, Orizzonti, and out-of-competition festival zones. And the recently opened 12th International Architecture Exhibition (subtitled People meet in architecture) in Venice runs until 21 Nov. Directed by well-known Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima, it

sees architects from across Asia participating, not surprisingly many from Japan such as Atelier Bow-Wow (Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima), Sou Fujimoto, Junya Ishigami, and Tetsuo Kondo. A commemorative Golden Lion Award went to influential Japanese architect Kazuo Shinohara (1925-2006) for his lifelong architectural commitments. Details for both at www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html NC

Immanent & eminentImmanent Landscape (Naizai no Fuukei) is an exhibition project at West Space, Melbourne involving 8 artists from Japan and Australia: Ai Sasaki, Atsunobu Katagiri, Nobuaki Onishi, Hisaharu Motoda, Kiron Robinson, Hamish Carr, Jeremy Bakker, and Utako Shindo – with the landscape a ‘modality’ the artists have engaged themselves with over a 2-year period. Workshops, residencies and field trips have rounded out explorations, and a talk series entitled ‘Wherefore ART Thou’ hosted by Kathryn Hunyor (program manager, Object Gallery, Sydney) May-Aug. at the Japan Foundation, Sydney saw artists in lively, well-attended salon-type presentations. At West Space to 4 Sept, then at AD&A Gallery, Osaka in 2011 (Osaka and Melbourne being sister cities). www.westspace.org.au, www.i-landscape.net & www.adanda.jp NC

Aichi extraIn addition to the Pip & Pop (Tanya Schultz & Nicole Andrijevic) participation mentioned earlier, Sydney-based Raquel Ormella and Melbourne-based Lauren Berkowitz are 2 other Australians exhibiting in the current Aichi Triennale 2010, Japan. Berkowitz has a nature-orientated installation with seeds and dried flowers at the Aichi Arts Centre, while Ormella has video works at Nagoya City Art Museum, exploring the relationship between humans and wild birds in Japanese cities. Artistic director of the Triennale is Akira Tatehata (Director, National Museum of Art, Osaka) aichitriennale.jp/en NC

You bet in UbeSubmissions for the 24th Ube Biennale International Open Sculpture Competition, Japan, close 30 Sept., with winning sculptures and models to go on display at Tokiwa Park in Ube, Yamaguchi. Contact info@ube-museum.jp or visit www.ube-museum.jp. Entries are also open for the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival, which calls for new media and digital technology works, installation, digital photography, movies, etc., as well as work in animation and manga. Entries

This page: 1/ Unknown subject, c1880’s, silver gelatin photograph, Portvale collection. Showing in The India

Empire, until 7 November at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This extensive exhibition, from the Portvale collection,

comprises prints, photographs, posters and textiles, created under the patronage of foreigners overwhelmed by a totally

different country and culture following the first European encounters with India. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

2/ Kim Hoa Tram, Only true wisdom can overcome ignorance, 2009, ink on paper. Image courtesy of Kim

Hoa Tram and MiFA. KHT, curated by Bryan Collie and Mikala Tai, showing at MiFA (Melbourne International Fine

Art), Melbourne, until 17 September www.mifa.com.au

Opposite page/ Unknown, Aerial drawing of Dazhai and surroudings, poster from the collection at The University

of Westminster. Showing in China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art at the University Art Gallery, University of Sydney, to 7

November, 2010. www.sydney.edu.au/museums

Page 50: 1/ Michele Elliot; The vanishing (detail), 2010, glass, velvet, fibreglass, cotton, wax. Elliot will be exhibiting

in the Atrium Gallery, Australian High Commission, Singapore from 16 September to 30 October. The vanishing is the result of her residency at Khoj Kolkata in 2009, which

was funded through the Australia Council’s New Work Grant.

2/ Anne-Langdon, Blossom-Bunny, 2010, acrylic paint. Part of Blossom Spirit of Taiwan-Australian Group Exhibition. This exhibition will be at Fo Guan Shan

Art Gallery, San Min District Kaohsiung, Taiwan, from 9 September to 10 October. www.fgs.org.tw/fgsart/index.html, www.blossomspirittaiwan.blogspot.com

52 #233 September 2010 w w w . a r t m o n t h l y . o r g . a u A r t M o n t h l y A u s t r a l i a

Ar t notes

close 24 Sept., with chosen work to go on display at The National Art Center (NACT), Tokyo over Feb-March 2011.plaza.bunka.go.jp/english NC

It’s only naturalCurated by Mami Kataoka, Sensing Nature: Yoshioka Tokujin, Shinoda Taro, Kauribayashi Takashi examines the Japanese relationship to ‘nature’ via large-scale installations by these three artists. While acknowledging the fact that over two-thirds of its populace live in high-density city environments, these artists give credence to the idea that a refined, internalised sense of nature may nevertheless coexist with what on the surface appears as a contradiction. At Mori Art Museum, Tokyo until 7 Nov. www.mori.art.museum/eng NC

Ray of sunshineMan Ray: Unconcerned But Not Indifferent is a comprehensive exhibition with over400 works from the Man Ray Trust; until 13 Sept. at the National Art Centre, Tokyo. Details (see ‘English’ tab) at www.man-ray.com NC

Big Bang BunnySydney’s prestigious White Rabbit gallery, the brainchild of art collector Judith Neilson, moves

into its third exhibition, The Big Bang, after the gallery’s own big splash opening last year. Drawing on the gallery’s post-2000 collection of Chinese art, The Big Bang zooms in on the newer wave of ziwo (‘me generation’) Chinese artists, the ‘wired and Web-smart products of the one-child policy’ who substitute ideology with ‘I’. Representing the work of 40-plus artists, the exhibition will include a room devoted to contemporary Tibetan art, the cutting-edge photography of Cao Xiadong and Feng Yan, and a 500kg pile of porcelain, individually painted sunflower seeds in the work of none other than Ai Weiwei. Runs 3 Sept. to 11 Jan. 2011. www.whiterabbitcollection.org

Southeast AsiaPortraiture in a digital ageOver the last 150 years new imaging and media technologies such as photography, video and digital media have initiated many new ways of representing the human face, affecting and changing how we see and understand ourselves. Face to Face: Portraiture in a digital age, an Asialink touring exhibition in partnership with d/Lux/MediaArts, features works by 14 Australian artists which provide a unique and engaging perspective on how digital technologies are reshaping our understanding and experience of contemporary identity. The invited artists, Michele Barker & Anna Munster, Denis Beaubois, Daniel Crooks, Anna Davis & Jason Gee, (the late) Emil Goh, Angelica Mesiti, Adam Nash & Mami Yamanaka, David Rosetzky, Rachel Scott, Stelarc, John Tonkin, all explore profound illusory and malleable identities of narcissism and popular culture. The exhibition opens at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn Art Center, 6 Sept to 16 Oct; then to Singapore’s Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Gallery (NAFA) 9 Nov. to 7 Dec. RN

In storeRussell Storer, curatorial manager of Asian and Pacific art at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane has been appointed to the curatorial team for the Open House 3rd Singapore Biennale 2011, to kick off early March. Alongside is Trevor Smith, curator of contemporary art at Peabody Essex Museum (Massachusetts) who many will recall from his time in Australia (1992-2003) working on the Biennale of Sydney, at Canberra Contemporary Art Space and the Art Gallery of WA. Artistic director is well-known Singaporean Mathew Ngui, with extensive ties to Australia on artistic and educational fronts. www.singaporebiennale.org NC

Act Natural Unnatural Selection brings together disparate artists (Dadan Setiawan, Desziana Machmud, Irman A. Rahman and Nadia Savitri) using painting, found objects, ceramics and mixed media, under the curatorship of Rizki A. Zaelani, to explore the idea of nature and the urban environment. Using Mondrian’s quote, ‘Curves are so emotional’, as a starting point, the works explore how our perceptions of nature are constructed, anthropomorphism, and an earnest aspiration to find a balance between nature and the urban. The exhibition venue itself, Kendra Gallery in Seminyak, is barraged with a relentless onslaught of scaffolding, cement and incongruous

Western-style architecture overwhelming what was once rice paddies, bamboo huts and coastline. How to personify another five-star resort preying on the notion of a utopian exotic getaway is a question I don’t expect to find answers to at the opening. Runs 28 Aug. to 26 Sept. www.kendragallery.com AE

Birth of the big boogeymanBoogeyman is an exhibition of national and personal historical significance for the artist Yee I-Lann and Malaysia. Focusing on Malaysian hybrid cultural identity, history and landscape, Yee (a graduate of the School of Art, University of South Australia) uses photomedia, batik and pewter to explore the local body politic, shifting fluid identities, the birth of Malaysia as a nation, piracy and resistance. Significantly, it will be launched on Malaysia Day (16 Sept.) to commemorate the Federation of Malaysia. Her new body of work is The Orang Besar Series – ‘orang besar’ translates as ‘big person’, a common term which refers to a person of elite socio-political-economic standing. Runs 16 Sept. to 3 Oct. at Malaysia’s Black Box @ MAP Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. AE

Art & Censorship The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival is strengthening its visual arts program this year. A panel on Art & Censorship will draw together the Henson scandal, ‘that’ Art Monthly cover, the Anti-Pornography Bill in Indonesia, and censorship in the arts in its myriad forms. Speakers include Yason Banal (Philippines), Muhamad ‘Enin’ Supriyanto (Indonesia) and Maurice O’Riordan (Australia). Curator/writer Supriyanto is an outspoken defender of Agus Suwage’s work depicting nudes overlaid with the actual text of Indonesia’s 2008 anti-pornography law, under which a person can be charged for any public activity that ‘incites sexual desire’. Bandung artist Nyoman Nuarta, arguably the most celebrated sculptor in contemporary Indonesia, has recently had his statue Tiga Mojang (Three Girls) torn down by the local administration in West Java after Muslim groups denounced it as a visual depiction of the Holy Trinity. I hear that nudes in the Jakarta Museum have tape over nipples, while ‘raunch’ youth culture prevails, as in most other countries, in pop culture and on the streets. This panel, sponsored by Valentine Willie Fine Art, could go for hours … Other invited writers with arts backgrounds include Rachel Kushner (USA, Bomb magazine, Artforum), Senadin Musabegović (Bosnia), and Jean Couteau, one of Indonesia’s eminent art critics and cultural observers. 6 to 10 Oct. www.ubudwritersfestival.com AE

Cemeti Hotwave HotWave is the recent residency program of Cemeti Art House, involving artists from 3 countries. HotWave #1 will engage Dutch, Australian and Indonesian artists: Lotte Geeven (the Netherlands), Tim Woodward (Australia, supported by Asialink), and Restu Ratnaningtyas (Indonesia). At the end of November, exhibition and project presentation of HotWave #1 will be held. HOTWAVE #1 | 1 – 30 September 2010 Cemeti Art House: www.cemetiarthouse.com/ AE