SYMPOSIUM
China Through The Looking Glass: Shanghai – What’s Next?
1 June 2014: 17:00 – 19:00
Speakers:
DAVID ELLIOTT and LI ZHENHUA / Curators of PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai
GABRIELE KNAPSTEIN / Head of Exhibitions, Hamburger Bahnhof
SIEGFRIED ZIELINSKI / Chair of Media Theory, Archeology and Variantology of the Media at UDK
FENG BINGYI, QIU ANXIONG and XU WENKAI (AAAJIAO) / PANDAMONIUM Artists-In-Residence
17.00 – 18.00
Session 1
Discussion on Media Art in the Chinese Context
David Elliott, Gabriele Knapstein,
Li Zhenhua, and Siegfried Zielinski
18.00 – 19.00
Session 2
PANDAMONIUM Artists-In-Residence in Dialogue with the Curators
Feng Bingyi, Qiu Anxiong, & Xu Wenkai (AaaJiao)
in dialogue with Li Zhenhua, and David Elliott
A Collaboration with CAC | Chronus Art Center Shanghai
Session 1 – Discussion on Media Art in the Chinese Context
Session 2 – PANDAMONIUM Artists-In-Residence in Dialogue with the Curators
SPEAKERS:
GABRIELE KNAPSTEIN
Dr. Gabriele Knapstein (b. 1963) is an art historian, living in Berlin. Her PhD thesis on the event scores by Fluxus artist George Brecht was published in 1999. Since 1994, she is working as a curator for the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) and other institutions. In 2001 together with Hou Hanru and Fan Di’an, Knapstein curated the exhibition “living in time. 29 contemporary artists from China” at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. Since 2003, she has worked as curator at Hamburger Bahnhof, becoming Head of Exhibitions in 2012. Since 1999, Knapstein has been working on the realization of the ongoing series “Works of Music by Visual Artists”. Selected recent exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof: “Susan Philips. Part File Score” (2014), “Wall Works” (2013-2014), “Ryoji Ikeda. db” (2012), “Architektonika. Art, Architecture and the City” (2011-2012), “Bruce Nauman. Dream Passage“ (2010).
SIEGFRIED ZIELINSKI
Prof. Siegfried Zielinski is professor of media theory, archaeology & variantology of the media at the Berlin University of the Arts (UDK), Michel Foucault Professor for techno-aesthetics and media archaeology at the European Graduate School Saas Fee (CH), and director of the Vilém Flusser Archive in Berlin. He was co-inventor of the first course for media studies and media consulting in Germany (1982) and was Founding Rector of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (1994–2000). He is the author of numerous books and articles as well as editor of the series Variantology: On Deep Time Relations between the Arts, Sciences, and Technologies, of which six volumes have been published so far (2005–2013). Zielinski is a member of the North-Rhine-Westphalia Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts, the Academy of the Arts Berlin, the European Film Academy, the Magic Lantern Society of Great Britain, the Kuratorium of the ZKM | Karlsruhe.
Li Zhenhua has been active in the artistic field since 1996, his practice mainly concerning curation, art creation and project management. Since 2010 he has been the nominator for the Summer Academy at the Zentrum Paul Klee Bern (Switzerland), as well as for The Prix Pictet (Switzerland). He is a member of the international advisory board for the exhibition “Digital Revolution” to be held at the Barbican Centre in the UK in 2014. Li Zhenhua has edited several artists’ publications, including “Yan Lei: What I Like to Do” (Documenta, 2012), “Hu Jieming: One Hundred Years in One Minute” (2010), “Feng Mengbo: Journey to the West” (2010), and “Yang Fudong: Dawn Mist, Separation Faith” (2009). A collection of his art reviews has been published under the title “Text” in 2013. http://www.bjartlab.com | http://www.msgproduction.com
DAVID ELLIOTT
David Elliott is an English born curator and writer. From 1976 to 1996 he was Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England, Director of Moderna Museet [The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art] in Stockholm, Sweden (1996-2001), founding Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2001-2006), the first Director of the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art [Istanbul Modern] (2007), Artistic Director of the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2008 – 2010) and Artistic Director of the 1st Kiev International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011-12), Artistic Director of the 4th International Biennale of Work by Young Artists in Moscow (2014-2014), Rudolf Arnheim Guest Professor in Art History at the Humboldt University, Berlin (2008) and Visiting Professor in Museum Studies at the Chinese University in Hong Kong (2008/11/13). From 1998 until 2004 he was President of CIMAM (the International Committee of ICOM for Museums of Modern Art). He is Hon President of the Board of Triangle Art Network/Gasworks in London and on the Asia Advisory Board of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
QIU ANXIONG (b. 1972, Chengdu) was born in the capital of Sichuan province in the southwest of China. There, he studied under the progressive artistic practice of Ye Yongqing and Zhang Xiaogang. Qiu and his friends collectively founded a bar which became a hub for the blossoming underground music and art circles in Sichuan, and his colleagues included He Duoling, Zhou Chunya, and Shen Xiaotong. In his animated films, Qiu co-mingles the classical and the contemporary, using the traditional Chinese ink-and-wash style to transpose contemporary social and environmental issues onto traditional Chinese landscapes. A friend and neighbor of Yang Fudong, Qiu has exhibited broadly internationally, having studied contemporary international art and traditional Chinese culture at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany. In 2004 he began teaching at Shanghai Normal University and currently lives and works in Shanghai. Qiu received the Chinese Contemporary Art Award in 2006 and has exhibited widely, including a recent solo-show, titled Qiu Anxiong, The New Book of Mountains and Seas II at the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark (2013) and group exhibition ‘Ink Art’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2013). He is one of the artists undertaking the PANDAMONIUM Residency, and has producing a new work premiered in PANDAMONIUM.
XU WENKAI (Aaajiao) (b. 1984, Xi’an) is one of China’s foremost media artists, bloggers and free culture developers. Having studied physics and computers, Xu Wenkai is self-taught as an artist and new media entrepreneur. In his works he focuses on the use of data and its various forms of display. In 2003 he established the sound art website cornersound.com and in 2006 he founded the Chinese take on the blog We Make Money Not Art: We Need Money Not Art. He is devoted to Processing, an open-source visual programming software, Dorkbot, a non-profit initiative for creative minds and Eventstructure, an interdisciplinary center for art, media, technology and academic research based in Shanghai and founded by Xu. In his works, Aaajiao focuses on the use of data and its various forms of display and on the processes of transforming content from reality to data and back again. His most significant contribution to the field of new media in China is a social one, as he act a as a vector for the interpretation and communication of international and local trends in the artistic use of software. Recent exhibitions include his solo-show titled The Screen generation, at C Space (2013) and chi K11 Art Space in Shanghai and at 9m2 Museum in Beijing (2014) and group-exhibition TRANSCIENCE – INTRACTABLE OBJECTS at Taikang Space in Beijing (2014). Xu is one of the artists undertaking the PANDAMONIUM Residency.
FENG BINGYI (b. 1991, Ningbo) is a young emerging talent in the Chinese art scene. Having studied under Yang Fudong at the China Academy of Art, she follows in his footsteps with her focus on cinematic traditions, while employing a poetic language. Distancing herself from the chains of external reality, she looks for inspiration within her internal impressions, which she expresses in the forms of installations, photography, documentary and animation. After receiving both the Outstanding Graduation Work Award and the China Academy of Art Scholarship from the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 2013, Feng continued her studies at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts in London in 2014. Though she has been exhibited in China alongside well-established contemporary artists, she has never before been shown in Berlin. Feng is one of the artists undertaking the PANDAMONIUM Residency.