news & blog

Danysz gallery – Shanghai presents a group show of four contemporary Chinese artists this autumn. The title of this group show – Minimal Light, is inspired by a poetry of the legendary Canadian poet and singer Leonard Cohen “Anthem”. In this poetry, he writes: “there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Light from the crack is usually very small, but it represents a glean hope of survival. In this case, light becomes a kind of spiritual awareness.

In Minimal Light, you can discover Hao Jingfang & Wang Lingjie’s newest creations which come from the on-going project “Rainbow”. They have created several shapes of lakes facing of the danger of drying up. In this installation, light is brought in where refraction and reflection of the microspheres composes a rainbow for the viewers from different perspectives.

Minimal Light also presents several conceptual artworks by Song Xi. His video “Ode to Joy” recorded his performance. In the darkness, he patted the flies with electric flapper. Sparks are produced, and they are as beautiful and brilliant as fireworks. This light reminds us of a collection of poems Fireflies by Rabindranath Tagore. He once said: “You tiny, but you do not small.” Firefly is a small insect with weak light. However, once gathering lots of fireflies, they shine for the world to see.

Another key word of this group show is “minimal” which can be interpreted by Ma Lihua’s paintings. In his creation, the underlying language of white and sand is combined, through the interspersed handwriting, to combine a deep sense of space, forming a rhythm and feeling. Ma Lihua expresses the true spiritual world by means of an appropriate abstract image.

The International Cloud Atlas, published in 1896, was compiled thanks to the research and classification work conducted by researchers like Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Luke Howard and Ralph Abercrombie. It was the first publication to set out a nomenclature for clouds, using Latin names, which allowed all European meteorologists to work together. This was how names like  Cumulus, Stratus and Nimbus were applied to the different types of clouds, bearing witness to the establishment and recognition of meteorology in the 19th century. The theme of clouds has been present in iconography since Antiquity and has been a major source of inspiration over the centuries, particularly in painting and photography.

Symbolic, poetic, threatening, divine… clouds have played a central role in artistic representation. In the 21st century, they continue to fascinate numerous artists, whilst environmental and political issues have also come into play. The Cloud Atlas takes an approach that is both playful and sensory, arousing the curiosity of a broad audience, as it takes us on a geographical, sociological and philosophical journey.

The project encompasses the work of over twenty international artists, with photographs, daguerreotypes, neon works, lightbulb installations, videos, fabric sculptures, drawings and more.

Anne Immelé’s cloud flags ask questions about borders, in the same way as Marco Godinho’s cloud stamps raise issues of migratory politics and the movement of people over the past decade. The cloud composed of 6,000 lightbulbs created by the collective of Caitlind Brown & Wayne Garett invites visitors to play with a tree of light. Pollution and smoke appear in the work of Christophe Urbain, whereas Hoang Duong Cam denounces the systems of Asia’s megacities. Berndnaut Smilde creates ephemeral clouds. And whilst Emilie Faïf sets hearts beating, they are pierced by Marion Baruch. Shilpa Gupta imprisons them or speaks to the sky. Julie Guillem and Jean Gabriel Lopez recreate their own cloud atlas using historic processes.

Artist list : Marion Baruch, Hicham Berrada, Olaf Brzeski, Caitlind Brown & Wayne Garrett, Rhona Byrne, Hoang Duong Cam, Julien Discrit, Arpaïs du Bois, Latifa Echakhch, Emilie Faïf, Marco Godinho, Julie Guillem, Shilpa Gupta, Anne Immelé, Hao Jinfang & Wang Lijie, Feng Li, Jean-Gabriel Lopez, Johan Parent, Berndnaut Smilde, Christophe Urbain, Bruno v. Roels, Sophie Zénon.

Après leur participation à la 14ème biennale de Lyon et au 62ème salon de Montrouge, Anne-Sarah Bénichou invite Jingfang Hao et Lingjie Wang pour une exposition personnelle à la galerie. Le duo d’artistes, qui vit à Mulhouse et travaille entre Paris et Shanghai, propose principalement des installations. Formés en tant qu’ingénieurs avant d’intégrer une école d’art en France et particulièrement sensibles aux changements indétectables dans la nature, qu’il s’agisse du soleil, des étoiles ou du passage du temps, Jingfang Hao et Lingjie Wang proposent une vision poétique de ces changements tout en les exposant à la vue de tous.

Pour l’exposition, plusieurs œuvres et installations qui constituent des temps forts dans leur travail ces dernières années seront produites, ré-activées ou présentées pour la première fois, avec pour angle principal la réflexion des artistes autour de la lumière. Intitulée « La lumière n’existe pas », elle fait référence à une citation de Francis Picabia : “Ce sont les mots qui existent, ce qui n’a pas de nom n’existe pas. Le mot lumière existe, la lumière n’existe pas.” Il s’agit ici d’interroger notre perception de la lumière, de la beauté et des illusions qu’elle peut créer.

2017.12.09 > 2018.03.04
with Arcadi, as part of Némo, international Biennial of contemporary digital arts / Paris Île-de-France

as part of the year France-Colombia 2017, with the support of the Institut Français, and as part of the Paris-Tokyo Tandem

Intentional artistic accidents and poetic re-reading of a technological society seen in the digital age are at the heart of the next central exhibition of the international Biennial of digital art at the CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Les Faits du hasard. A way for Man to resume control over the machine?

The international Biennial of digital arts of Île-de-France, heir of the Némo festival, will return to its nerve centre of the CENTQUATRE for its second edition (December 2017 – March 2018) on the occasion of its big thematic and transversal exhibition: Les Faits du hasard.

Like for the two previous exhibitions, the artistic direction is co-signed by Gilles Alvarez, director of the Biennial and the event coordination of Arcadi, and José-Manuel Gonçalvès, director of the CENTQUATRE. A token of continuity for a programme that will once again inscribe itself in the large artistic mechanism of chance, the accidental and serendipity that was opened two years ago by the exhibition Prosopopées : quand les objets prennent vie. “Before, chance in art was error”, declared Gilles Alvarez. “But ever since Marcel Duchamp and quantum mechanics, there is an intentional chance, a tool that is asking to be organised by an artistic gesture.”

In this new exploration of the relationship between Man and machine, where the technological process collides with an often capricious artistic equation, several installations will testify of the convoluted creative steps, going through a multiplicity of supports, such as Quentin Euverte’s Buzz Aldrin Syndrom, in which analog material, digital data, chemical processes and live cinema screenings participate in an unpredictable result, with the appearance of an exquisite corpse game. For José-Manuel Gonçalvès, the idea is to “build a contemporary art exhibition that draws from all forms of aesthetics, in digital technology, in the theatre of objects, and that plays with the variety of chance to show that the result of an artwork isn’t always replicable”. You can therefore expect surprises when you will project yourself into the body of another, using a headset (the body sway experience of The Machine to Be Another of the BeAnotherLab collective) or when you will observe the pixelated choreographies of augmented snails by Cyril Leclerc and Elizabeth Saint-Jalmes (Le Pixel lent).

The exhibition Les Faits du hasard will not however be settled as much in technological absurdity as Prosopopées. It will look for a more poetic and contemplative reading of our technological society through a digital filter. “Chance is the contrary of what we believe digital art is, as we think it brings us to total control, to perfection”, José-Manuel Gonçalvès sums up. “But maybe the greatest perfection is actually the things that are not completely perfect?”. Human, did you say human?

　　诞生于2012年的三亚艺术季，在过去六年的历练中，在展览规模和艺术水准上已具备相当的专业性，并在艺术界引起广泛讨论。

　　即将于2017年12月8日开幕的第六届三亚艺术季“共同风景”，汇集华宇青年奖入围艺术家群展、华宇青年奖五周年回顾展、华宇艺术论坛等活动，在延续以往公益性的同时，更加强调公共性与在地性，助力艺术走进人们的日常生活。

　　华宇青年奖于今年迎来了它的五周岁，本届艺术家提名名单也着眼于全球华人范围，汇集了来自北京、广州、台湾、香港、纽约、伦敦、柏林及洛杉矶等地的110位艺术家。华宇青年奖组委会邀请了活跃于当代艺术现场的54位艺术家、策展人及艺术写作者为提名嘉宾，鲍栋（独立策展人）、刘畑（独立策展人）、鲁明军（四川大学副教授、策展人、评论家）、彭禹（艺术家）及孙冬冬（独立策展人）为初评委员会成员。经过近三个月的资料收集与筹备，本届华宇青年奖初评委员会已于2017年9月23日完成初选评审工作，经过四轮评选与讨论，20位入围艺术家名单为：（排名按姓氏首字母序）

　　陈哲、邓国骞、冯晨、郝经芳&王令杰、黄炳、简策、蒋竹韵、李宝玖、李明、廖斐、刘月、史镇豪、唐潮、王博、王拓、徐家维、杨露子、郑源、致颖、朱昶全。

　　以上20位艺术家的创作形式包括且不限于绘画、装置、影像以及行为表演等，他们将携作品参与由孙冬冬任策展人的华宇青年奖入围艺术家群展。届时由评委会主席侯瀚如（古根海姆美术馆博物馆顾问策展人、评论家）、林天苗（艺术家）、凯伦·史密斯（OCAT西安馆执行馆长、评论家）、皮力（香港M+博物馆高级策展人）及张培力（艺术家）组成的终评委员会于现场召开闭门终评会议，最终甄选出两位获奖艺术家，在12月9日华宇青年奖颁奖现场授予“评委会大奖”和“评委会特别奖”。除现金奖励外，华宇青年奖将给与获奖艺术家在专业领域持续的支持，包括艺术家作品和项目的实施及展览，以及相关的策划、宣传和文献出版等。

　　关于华宇青年奖

　　华宇青年奖发起于2013年，是由华宇集团主办的公益性艺术奖项，专为在复杂的当代文化语境下不断实验和探索的青年艺术家而设，旨在持续性地呈现中国当代艺术的前沿面貌，展示新生代艺术家多维度的创作样态。华宇青年奖于2015年资助获奖艺术家胡为一实现了他在尤伦斯当代艺术中心的第一场美术馆个展“两点之间，没有直线”，同时也支持了艺术家吴超及其团队的“植物人视听唤醒项目”。