Artist: Jerry Hsu

Biography

1981 - Born in San Jose, California



Pro skateboarder and photographer.

Event: 2 exhibits at Eli Klein Fine Art

Eli Klein Fine Art showcases two contemporary Chinese artists. The exhibitions are on view in the gallery from March 22, 2008 until June 17, 2008.

Zhang Hui
Beijing Wawa
2007
Oil on Canvas

Zhang Hui's solo exhibition "Beijing Wawa" includes 15 paintings and three sculptures.

“Beijing Wawa” signifies clichéd young girls searching for identity within a society driven by the commodification of culture. The subject of childhoods lost under Mao is a common one in China, but Zhang Hui is looking at her own generation and at a new loss of innocence stolen by new ideals and vacant dreams. “Beijing Wawa” has particular characteristics that exaggerate her personality such as a heart-shaped upper lip, a peach-shaped baby face, a tiny nose that is slightly upturned, and hair like an angel’s wings. She also often has scar on her forehead, like Zhang Hui herself. “Beijing Wawa” reflects a complex, emotional landscape within the portraits of young girls, there is a presence of power balanced with vulnerability, beauty with scars, and youth with maturity.

Read more from the press release.

Liu Bolin
China Report 2007 #5
2007
Oil on Canvas

Also on view is "China Report 2007" which features ten new paintings by Liu Bolin.

Liu Bolin chose ten significant photographs from the two official news agencies with the largest circulation in China, “The People’s Daily” and “The Beijing News.”... Liu Bolin took the photographs and transformed them into large photorealistic oil paintings.... He uses his voice to transform the imagery by re- creating these images of real events that have already been edited, framed and approved by the official media.

Read more from the press release.

Eli Klein Fine Art is located at 462 West Broadway.

I Want to Believe

This weekend I went to Cai Guo Qiang's retrospective at the Guggenheim. Photography was not allowed, but I was able to sneak a snapshot of the rotunda installation.

The Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 5th Avenue at 89th Street.

$18 general admission
$15 students and seniors
free for members and children under 12

Some Interesting News: Forbes

Article in Forbes today, "Pump and Dump," investigates the ways in which artists, buyers and dealers are working the contemporary Chinese art market.

"It is no secret that the Chinese contemporary art market is blistering hot, but outsiders have little idea of the murky ways the market's players have been cashing in for the last few years. With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, China's high-earning artists, speculators, middlemen and critics have come up with some creative ways to manufacture demand. Artists are mass-producing paintings, auction houses are working with artists and dealers to juice up prices, and artists are paying for praise and exhibitions to build up their brands. If it were penny stocks being peddled, all this would go under the label of market manipulation. In the art world it's business as usual. Is there any law to stop a painter from bidding on his own artwork in order to create feverish demand? There isn't."

Read the entire article, it's interesting!

Event: Asia Week 2008

There is a lot to do and see in New York during this year's Asia Week.

At the top of my list is Asian Contemporary Art Week.
Saturday March 15, 2008 - Monday March 24, 2008

Museums exhibitions, gallery shows, receptions, symposiums, film screenings, talks with artists, talks with professionals, you can catch it all during Asian Contemporary Art Week.

13th Annual International Asian Art Fair
Saturday March 15, 2008 - Wednesday March 19, 2008

Galleries from all over the world convene at 583 Park Avenue. This is your chance to view (and maybe buy) Asian artworks ranging from relics to contemporary paintings.

17th Annual New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show
Friday March 21, 2008 - Monday March 24, 2008

Located at the Gramercy Park Armory at Lexington Avenue and 26th Street, this Asian antiquities fair features over 70 international Asian art galleries. Admission is $20 and includes and illustrated color catalogue!

Asian Works of Art Auctions
Monday March 17, 2008 - Friday March 21, 2008

Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams & Butterfields, and Doyle New York are all having Asian Art sales this week. Auction previews are open to the public .

Event: International Asian Art Fair

Coinciding with New York's Asian Contemporary Art Week 2008 is the 13th Annual International Asian Art Fair starting on Saturday March 15th, 2008.

"The International Asian Art Fair presents museums and private collectors with a rare and very special opportunity to view and buy from among the finest Asian art currently on the market. There is a wide range of these art works on view, from antiquity up to contemporary."

For more information, visit their website.

The International Asian Art Fair is located at 583 Park Avenue at 63rd Street.

Admission is $20

If, however, you have a lot of money and cannot wait until tomorrow, Asia Society is holding a preview tonight.

Artist: So Yeun Lee

Biography
1971 - Born in South Korea
Lives and works in Dusseldorf, Germany

the style files state that "according to So Yeun Lee, she gets to know herself better by creating self-portraits."

Mit Saewookkang Chips
2007
Oil on Canvas

See more of her work at Galerie Conrads.

Event: Whitney Biennial 2008

The Whitney Biennial 2008 opens on March 6, 2008 and will show until June 1, 2008. But for the first three weeks the Biennial extends to the Seventh Regiment Armory, also known as the Park Avenue Armory for its location.

$15 for adults
$10 for students and seniors
Free for children under 12, NYC public high school students, members

Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street.
Seventh Regiment Armory is located at 643 Park Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets.

like video art?

visit art.mofile.com

Shanghaiist describes this site as a video art youtube."The coolest part is one can become a resident artist of the site, meaning you have your own page so people can view your videos without searching or looking through other people's videos. To do so, you just have to upload five videos and fill out an application form. Artmofile also has offline events as well as their online exhibitions."

Really, ARTmofile is a great site. Be ready to spend some time perusing awesome art videos and short films by both Asian and foreign artists. The site is in both English and Chinese.


Check out this most viewed and most discussed video "Sickroom #14," a splicing of live performance footage.

Event: Architecture in China

Catch two exhibitions on contemporary Chinese architecture at the Center for Architecture.

Co-Evolution: Danish/Chinese Collaboration on Sustainable Urban Development in China
"The exhibition confronts the environmental challenges related to rapid and extensive urbanization in China and illustrates the value of international and interdisciplinary collaboration. CO-EVOLUTION displays four visionary projects – the results of collaborations between Danish architects and professors and students from leading Chinese universities."
On view from February 15, 2008 to April 12, 2008

Building China: Five Projects, Five Stories
The exhibition "features five unique architectural case studies that were conceived, designed, and recently completed by Chinese architects."

The projects are:
• Dafen Art Museum, Dafen Village, Shenzhen
Architect: Urbanus architectural and design, completed 2007

• Desheng Noble Town, Beijing
Architect: Cui Kai Studio, China Architecture Design & Research Group, completed 2007

• New Campus for the New Academy of Arts, Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Architect: Amateur Architecture Studio, completed 2007

• Timepiece Museum, Jian Chuan Museum Town, An Ren, Sichuan
Architect: Jiakun Architects, completed 2007

• Brick House, Gao Chun County, Nanjing
Architect: Atelier Zhanglei, completed 2007

"These case studies of contemporary architecture introduce critical voices from the People’s Republic of China, challenging the West’s stereotypical interpretation of China as a homogeneous society."
On view from February 26, 2008 to May 31, 2008

Center for Architecture is located at 536 LaGuardia Place.

Event: Courses from China Institute

Learn more about the beginnings of contemporary Chinese art at the China Institute from their course U-Turn: Contemporary Chinese Art, 1978-1992.

There will be three courses, each focusing on a five-year period in the development of contemporary Chinese art.

Stirrings, 1978-1982
A look at the artist groups which populate the earliest phase of contemporary art in post-Cultural Revolution China, including the No Name Painting Society, the April Photographic Society, the trend toward "Scar Art" and the Stars Group.
This course will be on February 26, 2008 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Ferment, 1983-1987
The mid-80s were a major moment for the development of artistic thought in China, as artists entered into serious dialogues with Chinese tradition and foreign ideas. This session focuses on art movements around the country that exemplify these trends: Wang Guangyi’s "Northern Art Group," Huang Yong Ping’s "Xiamen Dada," the Pool Society of Hangzhou, and the New Image painters of the Southwest.
This course will be on February 28, 2008 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Clash, 1988-1992
The 1989 China/Avant-Garde exhibition (from whose logo U-TURN takes its name) was a watershed moment for art and culture in China as the tensions which built up throughout the 1980s came to a head. The years that followed set the stage for the rebirth of the avant-garde in a newly consumerist society and marked the entry of art from China into the international art world. This session explores the major exhibitions that marked this transformation.
This course will be held on March 2, 2008 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

To register for one or all three of the courses please call (212) 744-8181 or email ralaimo@chinainstitute.org

China Institute is located at 125 East 65th Street.

Event: Cai Guo Qiang in person

Hear Cai Guo-Qiang speak on opening day. There will also be a book signing, ($75 Hardcover, $45 Softcover).


Peter B. Lewis Theater
5th Avenue at 89th Street

February 22, 2008
7:00 pm
$10 general
$7 members, students, seniors

Event: Cai-Guo-Qiang at Guggenheim preview

Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, opens at the Guggenheim on Friday February 22, 2008.

This best selling contemporary Chinese artist's mid-career retrospective looks like its going big. Cai Guo-Qiang's theatrical artworks adapts well to the Guggenheim's unique architecture. I saw bits of the show as it was being installed and cannot wait for the actual opening. As I walked into the mueusem's central atrium, Cai Guo-Qiang's Inopportune: Stage One—an installation depicting a car bomb sequence—literally exploded in front of me. The nine Ford Tauruses suspended in the rotunda led my eye straight up, where I saw Inopportune: Stage Two and Head On circling the museum's galleries. How could I not get excited? Cars stuck with dazzling light tubes, a pack of dire wolves crashing against a glass wall, and tigers covered with arrows somersaulting through the air.

If my description of the show sounds a bit campy to you, let me tell you that it's certainly in-tents.

Watch the museum install Inopportune: Stage One.

Don't go now, wait for the show to open to get your money's worth.

The Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 5th Avenue at 89th Street.

$18 general admission
$15 students and seniors
free for members and children under 12

Artist: Natalie Lo Lai Lai

Biography

1983 - Born in Hong Kong
2006 - BA from The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Lives and works in Hong Kong

She love puzzles, as seen in her 2005 tangram art.

Keep Racing
2005

Keep Dancing
2005

"The proverb originally meant to comfort Hong Kong people before the handover of Hong Kong to the Mainland. However, the proverb created an illusion that Hong Kong people may just tend to have stable and enjoyable life." - Natalie Lo Lai Lai explaining the title of her work, Keep Racing, Keep Dancing.

In 2006, Natalie Lo Lai Lai devoted an entire series to her favorite drink, Coke Light Lemon.

Coke Light Lemon I

2006
Oil on Canvas

Coke Light Lemon IV
2006
Oil on Canvas

Chinese New Year

There's still a chance to catch the Chinese New Year celebrations in Manhattan Chinatown. Parades will be marching through Mott, Canal and Bayard Streets today from 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm.

Happy Year of the Rat!

If your house isn't clean, don't bother on New Year's. The superstition is, if you dust or sweep then your good fortune will be swept away with the dirt. Haha! A day off! Go out and celebrate!

I know I am.

Photos of festivities to come!

Event: Chinese Lunar New Year

Tomorrow is the start of the New Year on the Lunar calendar!

Check out these fun events around New York:

Firecracker Ceremony and Cultural Festival
Thursday February 7, 2008
from 11:00 am - 3:oo pm at Chatham Square

Don't miss the festivities! According to betterchinatown.com, the day will kick off with "600,000 rounds of colorful firecrackers...a traditional Lunar New Year practice believed to scare away evil spirits," followed by Lion and Dragon dances weaving through the streets.

Celebrate Lunar New Year!
Thursday February 7, 2008
from 5:00 pm - 7:oo pm at the Empire State Building

In association with the Asia Society, the Empire State Building will be lighting up red and yellow this New Year's to celebrate the Year of the Rat.

Lunar New Year Parade
Saturday, February 9, 2008
from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm in the streets of Flushing Chinatown

Fireworks and parade! Check it out at Flushing Library, Main Street or the Flushing Mall as the celebrations wind through Flushing Chinatown.

Chinatown Walking Tour
Saturday, Saturday, February 9, 2008
from 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm, meet at MOCA

Museum of Chinese in America, located at 70 Mulberry Street, presents a walking tour of Chinatown. "Learn about the traditions and customs observed by Chinese households and discover the significance of red envelopes, foods and decorations. Enjoy the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of Chinatown in the most festive tour of the year!"

9th Annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival
Sunday, February 10, 2008
from 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm in the streets of Manhattan Chinatown

Gather around as floats, marching bands, acrobats, and Lion and Dragon dances march through Mott, Canal and Bayard Streets.

Artist: Ma Tse Lin

Biography
1960 - Born in Guangdong, China
1983 - Graduated from Central Institute for Arts and Crafts, Beijing, China
1990 - Graduated from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs de Paris, France
Lives and works in Paris, France

Buddha en Larmes
2002
Oil on Canvas

Buddha is a key theme in Ma Tse Lin's paintings. After experiencing the Cultural Revolution, Ma Tse Lin probably intends for the image of Buddha to symbolize tranquility within a chaotic environment.

Buddha assis
2006
Oil on Canvas

"Truth, simplicity, self control and serenity lie behind the mystery of Buddha. Regardless of the changes that our society undergoes, these feelings that the Buddha represents remain true and unaffected by time and space." - Ma Tse Lin

Buddha bleu
2007
Oil on Canvas

Artist: Feng Zhengjie

Biography
1968 - Born in Sichuan, China
1992 - BFA from the Fine Arts Department at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, China
1995 - MFA from the Oil Painting Department at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, China
Lives and works in Beijing, China

A 224-page book about this artist by Eleonora Battiston.
ISBN-10: 8889431369
ISBN-13: 978-8889431368

"Feng Zhengjie, whose work appears on the cover of 2005's China: The New Contemporary Painting, represents international trends toward borrowing and riffing on bygone styles--and the return to painterly technique--as much as he does his country's blooming contemporary art scene. His sources include posters of Shanghai in the 1930s and contemporary wedding photography, and the bright, streamlined style with which he addresses their conventions has the look of polished fashion imagery, an airbrushed 1980s feeling that's gotten increasingly eerie in recent years as his subjects' irises and pupils have shrunk to little dots on largely white eyes, giving them a glassy, doll-like look." - Amazon

China 2005 No. 11
2005
Oil on Canvas

Bride
1997
Oil on canvas

This work sold for $50, 998 at Shanghai Hosane Auction on Sunday, December 23, 2007 - a record high price at auction for this artist.

Some Interesting News

From The Art Newspaper:

Samsung accused of $64m art fraud

The conglomerate’s former house attorney alleges that the chairman set up a slush fund which his wife used to buy art

Lucian Harris | 2.1.08 | Issue 187

According to the news (here and here), Samsung created a $225 million slush fund for purposes of bribery and art purchases. Alleged acquisitions include works by modern art superstars Roy Lichtenstein, Barnett Newman, Ed Ruscha, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, and Gerhard Richer. The Art Newspaper states that money from the Samsung slush fund paid for 30 artworks from five Christie's New York auctions between 2002 and 2003.

Artist: Zhang Peili

1957 - Born in Hangzhou, China
1984 - BA from the Oil Painting Department at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou, China
Lives and works in Hangzhou, China

Known as the "father of Chinese video art," Zhang Peili was part of the contemporary art scene in China since the 1980s.

According to UNESCO, Zhang Peili's "early works dealt with the nature of personal experience, irrational feelings and resistance to psychological and social pressures. In the years that followed he embarked on an international career with openly critical videos."

Eating

1997
Three-channel video and sound installation


Last Words
2003
Video Stills

Last Words is a 15-minute continuous loop of spliced footage from Chinese propaganda films of the 1950s and 1960s.

"One bit of a young fellow taking a gun to his head, grinning all the time, is particularly chilling. Zhang seems to imply that the death wish that characterized the world’s oldest civilization for so long, at the cost of 750,000,000 lives, still lies close beneath the skin, and that he, a man of 50, will not forget or let you forget." - Charlie Finch for artnet Magazine.

Event: Zhang Peili at The Tilton Gallery

There is an exibition of photographs and videos by artist Zhang Peili at the Tilton Gallery, on view until February 16, 2008.

Happiness
2006
Video Stills

This is the second show of Zhang Peili's work at the Tilton Gallery. Read about the first exhibition in this New York Times review.

The Jack Tilton Gallery is located at 8 East 76th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

New Coffeetable Book

Artists in China: Inside the Contemporary Studio by Philip Tanari
ISBN: 9780500238400

"Showing spaces linked to more than fifty artists working in China today, and with more than 500 powerful photographs, this sumptuous, large-format book brilliantly captures the eclectic and exciting atmosphere that prevails in the Chinese art world today." - Amazon

Read a review from the Financial Times.

Event: Shi Guorui at Chinese Contemporary

San Francisco
2007
Silver Gelatin Print

Uncanny Perceptions, an exhibition of camera obscura photographs by artist Shi Guorui at Chinese Contemporary, showcases newer works depicting the cities Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai and San Francisco.

Chinese Contemporary is located at 535 West 24th Street.

The exhibition runs until February 28, 2008.

Event: Still Life

Opening today! Check out Still Life by filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke at the IFC Center.


Jia Zhangke's new film Still Life takes place in the village of Fengjie, a town destroyed during the creation of the Three Gorges Dam. The film highlights those displaced by the construction, telling the story of a miner who returns to the town to search for his ex-wife, and a nurse who comes back to find her husband. For more information, read this review.


“I entered this condemned city [Fengjie] with my camera and I witnessed demolitions and explosions. In the roaring noise and fluttering dust, I gradually felt that life really could blossom in brilliant colours even in a place with such desperation.” – Jia Zhang-ke

The IFC Center is located at 323 6th Avenue.

Artist: Misaki Kawai

Biography

1978 - Born in Osaka, Japan
1999 - Graduated from the Kyoto College of Art in Kyoto, Japan
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

Sitting and Looking
2007
Mixed media

Misaki Kawai on Vbs.tv

Vbs.tv has a new feature on Misaki Kawai, a Brooklyn-based psychedelic artist.

"I like very simple artwork – it's very strong, very honest and very clear." - Misaki Kawai

Graffiti in Taipei, Taiwan

Asesr

Gacy

Host

Servo

Video

Grab a coffee at New Museum

The Young Hae-Chang Heavy Industries Flash installation, BLACK ON WHITE, GRAY ASCENDING, is located on the ground floor of the New Museum's new location on the Bowery.

"Invoking the genre of film noir, and the hard-boiled literary styles of Raymond Chandler and Phillip K. Dick, YHCHI’s imaginative, witty and often politically pointed narratives offer layered and compelling stories in which identities are assumed and discarded, and ideologies of all persuasions are held up and questioned.

For BLACK ON WHITE, GRAY ASCENDING, their project for the New Museum, the artists have expanded their usual single-channel format to create an unprecedented seven-channel installation that tells a chilling story of abduction and assassination from seven separate points of view, set to an eerily laid-back bossa nova score. The installation is at once as nostalgic as a 1960s suspense film and as current as the daily headlines." - New Museum

Instead of paying $12, $8, or $6, buy a pastry from the museum's coffee shop, take a seat, and enjoy the work through the glass barrier.

The installation will be up until March 23, 2008.

New Museum is located at 235 Bowery by Prince Street.

Hello 2008!

Hi everybody! Hope everyone had a good holiday and a happy new year.

More information about Altered States, the Zhang Huan exhibition at the Asia Society.

Zhang Huan
Ash Head No. 3
2006
Ash, iron, wood

There is an interesting video that addresses the artist's studio as mentioned in this New York Times article.