Unrolled Silks by Zhu Xiaowen
Bloomsbury Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Xiaowen Zhu from 8 September to 22 September 2016. A special performance will be organised for the private view on 8 September.
Xiaowen Zhu’s London debut, titled Unrolled Silks, will be the artist’s second solo presentation.
Xiaowen Zhu (b.1986, Shanghai) is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Described as a visual poet, social critic, and aesthetic researcher, she uses video, photography, performance, installation and mixed media as platforms to communicate the complex experience of being an international person and to wrestle with the notion of a disembodied identity.
Unrolled Silks will feature a series of works created between 2013 and 2016 – including a dual-channel film installation, Oriental Silk (2015), whose single-channel version has been shown around the world but the dual-channel version has never previously been exhibited. The exhibition will also feature a series of photography, textile installation and commissioned fashion design that explore the subject of materiality, personal and collective memories, craft and value – the essential themes touched upon in Oriental Silk.
Oriental Silk by Zhu Xiaowen
Oriental Silk (2015) explores the worldview of the owner of the first Chinese silk importing company in Los Angeles. Carefully and quietly, the film observes this owner, Kenneth Wong, as he goes through his daily routine in the store and tells his story: how his parents, first-generation Chinese immigrants, realized the American dream through the store; how the once legendary store’s fortunes rose in close connection with the Hollywood entertainment industry, then fell with the proliferation of cheaper silk in the new global economy; how he himself came to be the owner of the shop and caretaker of the family legacy; and about his deep feelings for the shop, its history, and its future.
The dual-channel film installation portrays Mr. Wong’s state of being inside Oriental Silk – a shop that serves as a museum and place of worship for traditional craftsmanship and the attendant cultural values that are largely now lost or even actively undermined in contemporary China, ideas which for him are intimately interwoven with his own history and the history of his family.
The single-channel version of Oriental Silk has been awarded the Jury Award of Mexico International Film Festival. It has been widely shown at Whitechapel Gallery, Whitstable Biennale, RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design), New York University, Aurora Museum Shanghai, Lund Museum and more. It is described by Sukhdev Sandu, Director of Asian/Pacific/American Studies, New York University, as “a beautiful articulation – thematically and visually – of the relationship between scale and intimacy.” It is also commented by Dr Cangbai Wang, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Westminster, as “a film that excellently reveals the complex relationship between people and objects in migrant worlds in an exquisite, rhythmical way. ”
Xiaowen Zhu: Unrolled Silks will have a panel discussion on the topic of “personal and collective memories”, chaired by Gareth Evans, film curator of Whitechapel Gallery on 22 September, 2016.
8 – 22 September 2016
Private View: 8 September 2016, 18:00 – 20:00
Panel Discussion: 22 September 2016, 19:00 – 20:30
Bloomsbury Gallery, 34 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3QJ
Opening Time: Monday to Saturday, 14:00 – 18:00 and by appointment.
Free register for event:
www.eventbrite.com/e/unrolled-silks-a-solo-exhibition-by-xiaowen-zhu-tickets-27373061564
Zhu Xiaowen
About Xiaowen Zhu
Xiaowen Zhu is a London-based filmmaker, artist and writer. She is the first receipt of the TASML Artist Residency Award and Marylyn Ginsburg Klaus Post-MFA Fellowship. She was an artist-in-residence at ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany and V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is a mentor of the British Film Institute Film Academy, a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, and formerly a Visiting Professor of Media Art at Syracuse University and Marymount College in USA. Zhu received her MFA in Art Video from Syracuse University, USA and BA in Film, TV Production & Media Art from Tongji University, China.
Zhu’s work has been shown at Whitechapel Gallery (London, UK), Whitstable Biennale (Whitstable, UK), Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Beijing China), Chronus Art Center (Shanghai, China), Art Basel Hongkong, ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe, Germany), V2_Institute for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), ISEA2011 (Istanbul, Turkey), Dumbo Arts Center (New York, USA), Videonale (Berlin, Germany), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, USA), Los Angeles Art Association (Los Angeles, USA), Venice Arts Gallery (Los Angeles, USA), Strozzina Art Space (Florence,Italy), Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts (Norwich, UK), Toronto Urban Film Festival (Toronto, Canada), DOK Munich (Munich, Germany), Film Winter (Stuttgart, Germany), Athens Video Art Festival (Athens, Greece), K3 Film Festival (Austria), Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, USA), Shanghai eArts Festival(Shanghai, China) and more.
More about Zhu Xiaowen:
Oriental Silk by Zhu Xiaowen
2016年9月8日—9月22日
展覽開幕: 2016年9月8日, 18:00 – 20:00 研討會: 2016年9月22日, 19:00 – 20:30
倫敦布魯姆斯伯里畫廊( Bloomsbury Gallery)將於2016年9月8日至22日展出藝術家朱曉聞的個人展覽。
朱曉聞在倫敦的這次個展名為“鄉綢”, 將是藝術家個人的第二次個展。
朱曉聞 (1986年生於上海)是一位媒體藝術家、紀錄片影人和作家。她擅長用詩意化的視覺語言傳達質疑性的社會思考和對媒體美學的探究。她的創作媒介混合了紀錄影片、實驗影像、行為藝術和錄像裝置——通過對視覺傳達不同方式的研究,創造一種開放的、生動的、全球化而又具有私秘性的對話方式。
“鄉綢(Unrolled Silk)” 將會呈現一系列創作於2013年至2016年的作品——其中包括一部雙頻影像裝置《鄉綢(Oriental Silk, 2015)》, 這部作品的單頻版本曾在世界各地進行過多次展出,而其雙頻版本此次將是全球首展。本 次展覽還將展出一系列攝影作品、纖維藝術裝置以及時裝設計作品。這些作品從不同角度探索了 物質實體、個人與集體記憶、手工藝與價值等《鄉綢》影片中著重調研的議題。
《鄉綢》紀錄了美國洛杉磯第一家進口中國真絲麵料的商舖店主富有傳奇色彩的家族奮鬥史。在洛城繁華的貝弗利大道上，坐落著一家廣為人知的面料商店—“遠東絲綢”。店主王先生是 與這個快時代顯得格格不入的老派人物,他的店裡有許多寶貝,展現著中國傳統手工藝的精緻。每件寶貝背後,都包含著他的父輩在美國半個多世紀的奮鬥史—從二戰華人老兵和底層勞工起家 ,最終成為好萊塢首屈一指的高級真絲供應商。然而時過境遷，“遠東絲綢”在全球競爭的商業浪潮中不知何去何從。王先生只能通過對現狀的艱難維持,來表達對父母的追思和對傳統文化的尊崇。影片以行雲流水的結構，細膩觀察、描述了王先生和商店的共存關係，亦通過他和不同顧客的交流，反映出個人生活價值對時代變遷提出的疑問。
這部作品的雙頻版本著重表現王先生在店裡的生活狀態——這家店對他而言既是一座緬懷傳統手工藝的博物館，又是一處追思文化價值流失的場所，而他的個人與家庭歷史也與這些思念緊密交織。
《鄉綢》的單頻版本榮獲了墨西哥國際電影節評委會大獎。它還曾在倫敦白教堂美術館、 惠特斯特布爾雙年展、羅德島設計學院美術館、紐約大學、上海震旦博物館、瑞典隆德美術館 等多家機 構進行過展映。紐約大學亞非美洲研究中心主任Sukhdev Sandu教授將這部作品形容為“一部就主題和視覺上而言,對規模與親密感的唯美敘述。” 倫敦西敏寺大學的王蒼柏教授則將影片評價為“通過講述一家華人絲綢店的小故事,以細膩的手法和張弛有度的節奏, 揭示了’移民世界’里人與物的複雜關係。它所展現給觀眾的不僅僅是東方絲綢的繽紛色彩和華美圖案，而是這些物件後面與流動性、身體和認同有關的象徵意義。”
“鄉綢“朱曉聞個展將會於2016年9月22日舉行以“個人和集體記憶”為主題的研討會。該研討會將有白教堂美術館電影策展人Gareth Evans主持。
註冊活動：www.eventbrite.com/e/unrolled-silks-a-solo-exhibition-by-xiaowen-zhu-tickets-27373061564
藝術家介紹
朱曉聞出生成長於中國上海，現居英國倫敦。她是首屆清華大學與荷蘭V2動態媒體藝術中心聯辦TASML藝術駐留獎的獲得者，也榮獲Marylyn-Ginsburg藝術碩士駐留獎。她曾是德國卡色魯爾 媒體藝術中心和荷蘭鹿特丹V2不穩定媒體藝術機構的駐留藝術家。她是英國電影學院培訓計劃的導師,洛杉磯藝術協會會員，也曾在美國錫拉丘茲大學和馬里蒙特學院擔任影像藝術訪問教授。朱曉聞畢業於美國錫拉丘茲大學，獲跨媒體藝術碩士學位。
朱曉聞的作品在世界各地進行過多次展出,包括德國卡色魯爾媒體藝術中心、荷蘭V2不穩定媒體藝術機構、伊斯坦布爾國際電子藝術研討會、紐約Dumbo藝術中心、中國中央美術學院美術館、上海新時線藝術中心、香港巴塞爾藝術展、柏林影像藝術節、芝加哥當代攝影美術館、洛杉磯藝術協會、洛杉磯威尼斯畫廊、意大利佛羅倫薩斯特羅慈宮美術館、英國桑斯博裡視覺藝術中心、加拿大多倫多城市電影節、德國慕尼黑國際紀錄片電影節、德國斯圖加特電影節、希臘雅典錄像藝術節、奧地利K3電影節、美國錫拉丘茲艾佛森美術館、中國上海電子藝術節等。
藝術家網站: www.zhuxiaowen.com
影片網站: www.orientalsilkfilm.com
