I have been fond of fine arts since I was little. I started to learn painting at the age of five and my dream had been to be able to study in academy of fine arts. So within seven years, I took part in the examination three times and was finally admitted to Xi’an Academy of Fines Arts with the highest professional course score throughout the five provinces of North West China.
Compared with the well-known Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism – the art movement Fluxus, as obscure as it was, probably owns its fame chiefly to Joseph Beuys.
The artist Zhang Peili brought his work ‘30 x 30’ to the 1988 Conference of Contemporary Art in Huangshan. He intended for the audience to be locked up in a room watching his new work for three hours nonstop. Shot with a home video camera, it is a 180-minute video that shows a pair of gloved hands repeating the process of breaking a mirror, then gluing it back together, and then breaking it again.
In many cases artists whose practice is predominantly performance based, are recognised by the autobiographical tone of their work. Using identity as a primary credential, this article will address the consequence and expectations in terms of how certain performance artists are often framed, marketed and dramatically characterised within the wider discourse; a path that
An artist is by definition the one who creates. And, by extension, the one who becomes – however much these two combined resemble the definition of a new god. A shapeshifter shifting shapes. She is not to be satisfied with the role and position given to her, but is to fight for always new territories, to claim not only from others but also from among the artists themselves. This is perhaps also why the idea of a “super artist”(as the counterpart of the super curator) still remains unheard-of – she always already possesses the potential of being super.
Every self-respecting young artist at some point or other takes the wheel and organises a project or group show that involves others. Curation is now a multi-functional word expressing the role of the person who looks after a collection of artworks, the person who decides which objects sit next to each other in an exhibition, the person who works closely with the artist to develop a new project, to the person who displays their colleagues’ or friends’ work in an empty warehouse.
Marko Daniel is Convenor of Public Programmes at Tate Modern and Tate Britain. In 2014, he was curator of the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale: We have never participated. He was co-curator of Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape (Tate Modern, 2011; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; and National Gallery of Art, Washington).
It is rather complex, the present situation of the curator in China. The whole of China, with all its politics, economy, and culture is still in a time of substantial transition. Naturally, the structure of the curatorial is effected. The curators of the older generation have accomplished their historical missions, finished really important tasks.
I love the Venice biennale, the location, the huge numbers of participating artists, cultures, locations. I don’t mind being footsore and weary after a long day wandering from exhibition space to exhibition space. I don’t mind not liking a large number of the artworks I see and I don’t mind seeing individual shows curated by buffoons. What I do mind, terribly and painfully, to the point of wanting to stick pins in my eyes and shed someone’s blood, is visually illiterate smart arse curation infiltrating a whole biennale, shouting down individual voices and drowning out curatorial diversity.
Luc Tuymans is one of the most prominent contemporary painters, highly regarded for his paintings that draw on visual techniques from photography and film. His works are featured in museum collections worldwide, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Gallery, London.
Cui Cancan is an active Chinese independent curator. He was the winner of the CCAA (Chinese Contemporary Art Award) Critics’ Award, Critics’ Award in Chinese contemporary art by YISHU (Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art), the annual award by L’OFFICIEL Art and so on.
In this section artist curators who work internationally will describe their own situations. It should be noted that those interviewed are not working in the commercial sector with private galleries and museums and the projects described are ‘not for profit’ collaborations.
At the time of preparing this issue, the Hayward Gallery, London presents an exhibition HISTORY IS NOW: 7 Artists Take On Britain which is curated by 7 artists including John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hiorns, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth, and Jane & Louise Wilson. Working with Dr Cliff Lauson, Hayward Gallery Curator, each artist was invited to curate a section of the exhibition, looking at particular periods of cultural history from 1945 to the present day.
As being outside any art institutions, I am very interested in how art institutions attract new audiences by transforming the curatorial approach, because any organization or individual applying for funding supports would come across these questions, “how to attract audience? How to develop a new targeted market?”
When referring to the definition of ‘curator’, different people working in different fields give different answers. Mostly, people describe a curator as an organizer, a director, a manager, and there are a lot of people that would think curators are personnel responsible for exhibition planning and art dealing. In the context of contemporary arts, the definitions are limited, or defined with preconceived bias. However at least, it seems ‘curator’ is a role filled with multiple identities and responsibilities.
The Catlin Art Prize gives talented young artists who have recently graduated from UK art schools the opportunity to showcase their work professionally and win a significant monetary award towards their future development.
Savage Beauty will be presented in ten sections which will showcase the dominant themes and concepts within Alexander McQueen’s extraordinary body of work. The sections are built around garments which span the breadth of McQueen’s womenswear collections, from his MA graduate collection in 1992 to A/W 2010, McQueen’s final, unfinished collection.
This spring, the National Gallery presents the UK’s first major exhibition devoted to the man who invented Impressionism, Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922). An entrepreneurial art dealer, Durand-Ruel discovered and unwaveringly supported the Impressionist painters and is now considered a founding father of the international art market as we know it today.
Now in its second edition, the Syngenta Photography Award is an international competition which aims to stimulate dialogue and raise awareness about significant global challenges through photography. This exhibition will highlight some of the most thought-provoking and powerful responses to the ‘Scarcity- Waste’ theme – one of humankind’s greatest challenges.
Marlene Dumas is one of the most prominent painters of her generation. Tate Modern’s large-scale survey is the most significant exhibition of her work ever to be held in Europe, charting her career from the early 1970s to the present. The exhibition offers a compelling overview of her work, exploring the physical and psychological reality of human existence and the importance of the painted image. The show brings together over 100 of her most important and iconic paintings and drawings, her experimental collaged works and her most recent canvases.
Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector is the first major exhibition in the UK to present the fascinating personal collections of post-war and contemporary artists, including Arman, Peter Blake, Hanne Darboven, Edmund de Waal, Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Dr Lakra, Sol LeWitt, Martin Parr, Jim Shaw, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Warhol, Pae White and Martin Wong/Danh Vo. Their collections range from mass-produced memorabilia and popular collectibles to one-of-a-kind curiosities, rare artefacts, and natural history specimens. Curated by Lydia Yee, the exhibition presents a selection of objects from the collections of the artists alongside at least one key example of their work to provide insight into their inspirations, influences, motives, and obsessions.
From 10 February, visitors to Dulwich Picture Gallery will be set the challenge to identify a Chinese replica hanging among the 270 Old Master paintings on display. ‘Made in China: A Doug Fishbone Project’ will explore the nature and importance of the original versus the copy and the role of art as commodity, a subject of increasing importance in our age of global mass production.
In the run up to the General Election in 2015, the Hayward Gallery exhibition History Is Now will offer a new way of thinking about how we got to where we are today. Seven artists – John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hiorns, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth, and Jane and Louise Wilson – have each been invited to curate sections of the exhibition, looking at particular periods of cultural history from 1945 to the present day.
The Whitworth, part of The University of Manchester, reopened its doors on 14 February 2015 following a £15 million redevelopment project by MUMA (McInnes Usher McKnight Architects), that transform the 125 year old Whitworth into a 21st century gallery in the park.
Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 1915年至2015年抽象藝術與社會 A major new exhibition tracing a century of Abstract art from 1915 to today is on show at the Whitechapel Gallery. It brings together over 100 works by 100 modern masters and contemporary artists including Carl Andre, David Batchelor, Dan Flavin, Andrea Fraser, Piet Mondrian, Gabriel Orozco, Hélio Oiticica, …
Guided by a passion for strengthening intercultural relations, Fion Gunn works as an artist curator in the international arena. She has developed a network in the UK, Ireland and China, linking with city councils, institutions and arts organisations in the Republic of Ireland as well as in Northern Ireland.
Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire 1983. Lives and works in London. Graduated from the Ruskin School of Art (Oxford University) in 2004 and Birkbeck (University of London) in 2008, Ashcroft also studied Sculpture at The Royal College of Art (London) in 2012-13 and is co-founder of the alternative art school AltMFA.
An interesting attempt, through a number of interviews with veteran curators Hans Ulrich Obrist drafts in this book a deliberately fragmentary history of curating, full of amusing stories and anecdotes. The form of this peculiar book is outstandingly interesting, resonating with many philosophical and literary thematics of import.
The recent years in contemporary art witness a celebrity curator phenomenon, where curators with supreme rights occupy a variety of art resources and platforms, in the influence of which less and less attention is paid on the artworks and artists.
“I don’t think it’s about finding a new approach, but about finding a voice as a curator. If you’re a practising artist you bring a unique perspective as a maker, so it’s important to define what that is and how it can be developed as a curatorial skill, in other words – how do you convey what your ethos / passion / line of enquiry is in your practice through your curatorial work.”
“Curator” is a strange concept for most Chinese. In China, the word is often understood as its Chinese “equivalent” (Cezhanren) suggests—the one (ren) who plans (ce) the exhibition (zhan). However, the original meaning of “curator” as a borrowing word is never correctly conveyed in this translation. With the coming of the information era, a globalized and networking ...
第十三期 ISSUE 13固定欄目｜Exclusive Column
“Curator” is a strange concept for most Chinese. In China, the word is often understood as its Chinese “equivalent”
(Cezhanren) suggests—the one (ren) who plans (ce) the exhibition (zhan). However, the original meaning of
“curator” as a borrowing word is never correctly conveyed in this translation.
With the coming of the information era, a globalized and networking society is also bringing tremendous changes
in art, and the word “curator”, popular as it has already been, seems to gradually become fatigued. Its everchanging
connotation and denotation is a witness to the development of its concept under various contexts and in
different logical categories of art.
In this issue, we will explore an “artist as curator” phenomenon. Such a concept has sparkled discussions in the art
circles in recent years, which, however, fail to stage effective dialogues among individuals who engage themselves
differently in art. In my opinion, “artist as curator” represents a more democratic way of artistic expression as well
as a motivation to practice artistic autonomy—in an art world full of frameworks, artists’ autonomy aspiration may
well be a showcase of what is intrinsic in contemporary art. Therefore, we have invited artists, professional curators,
artist curators and art lovers into discussion, and adopted both inside and outside perspectives of the issue in
question to illustrate what roles curators and artist curators are playing in the world of art today.
“策展人”對大多數中國人來說是一個陌生的概念，但源於中文的拆分組合后再進行理解的文字方式，大多被人理解為“策
劃展覽的人”，然而“curator”這個舶來品的含義本源並沒有體現在“策展人”這個譯文當中。
隨著信息時代的到來，全球化和網絡化的社會也影響著藝術領域的巨大變革，“策展人”這個本來已經非常時髦的詞彙現在看
來也逐漸顯現出疲態，其內涵和外延的不斷變化也反映出了“策展人”概念在不同語境和不同藝術邏輯範疇內的發展軌跡。
在這一期的雜誌當中，我們會和大家一起來探討“藝術家作為策展人”這樣一種現象，“藝術家策展人”概念在近年來已經在
藝術界引起了不少的討論，但對於處在藝術領域不同層面的個體來說，很難形成一個有效的對話。在我看來，“藝術家策展
人”所代表的是一種更民主的藝術傳達方式和實行藝術“自治”的一種驅動力，在即以框架聳立的藝術世界當中，藝術家們
要求“自治”的願望未嘗不是當代藝術本源概念的一種體現。在這期雜誌中，我們邀請了藝術家、職業策展人、藝術家策展人
以及很多藝術愛好者們一起參與到討論當中，從縱向和橫向的範疇來展現“策展”和“藝術家策展人”之於當下藝術世界的
意義所在。
Many artist curators situate themselves firmly in the role of artist activist, a radical element in society with a responsibility to bear witness, to agitate and to be inclusive.
Definding Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek ArtBritish Museum What is Luxury? Victoria and Albert Museum Richard Diebenorn Royal Academy of Arts Henry Moore: Back to A LandYorkshire Scupture Park Richard Diebenkorn Ocean Park #27, 1970 Oil on canvas, 254 x 203.2 cm Brooklyn Museum. Gift of The Roebling Society and Mr. and Mrs. Charles ...
Zhu Tian, graduated from the Royal College of Art MA Sculpture, won the 2015 Catlin Art Prize.
‘The more I am told not to do certain things, the more I have to try them out to see what on earth will happen…’
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