September 25–December 6, 2013
Opening: September 25, 7–10pm
Et al.
620 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
The Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium (ACAC-SF) in collaboration with Et al., a project-based gallery in San Francisco, is pleased to announce Alter-Circuit: Virlani Hallberg. The new initiative launches during the second edition of ACAC-SF’s Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW-SF) taking place September 19–26 in venues across the Bay Area.
Alter-Circuit is conceived as a multiplicity, which draws paths into and out of one individual artist’s practice through durational endeavors composed of exhibitions, events, researching, writing, publishing, blogging and more. Alter-Circuit aims for long-term collaborations with artists, while other characters including curators, writers, publishers, scholars and art communities are invited to participate in the conversation. The expanded timeframe points to a kind of slowness with the possibility of reaching a more viscous temporality. Collaboration through discussion and exchange occupies a special place within the project, opening possibilities to challenge, explode, cross, displace, and disrupt existing narrative forms.
Alter-Circuit focuses specifically on diasporic practices, particularly those coming into conflict and contact with Asia, in which context and identity is neither a singular nor an accumulation of separate conditions, but always in a state of synthesis. The point is to pay attention to all angles, what is behind, underneath and embedded in the final presentation of an artist’s practice, entangling the how and what of the work of artistic praxis.
Alter-Circuit launches with artist Virlani Hallberg on Wednesday, September 25 at Et al. Hallberg primarily works with film, with interests in visibility as an inter-subjective and political structure. Questioning the conventional separation between reality and fiction, Hallberg’s practice investigates notions of individual and collective trauma, the effect of violence, history and repetition. The anchor point of Hallberg’s presentation is the single-channel video Receding Triangular Square (RTS) (2012) created in collaboration with the psychoanalyst and cultural theorist Leon Tan. RTS explores the philosophies and practices of healing in Taiwan, in contrast to the dominant Euro-American psychiatric and psychotherapeutic paradigms. Juxtaposed through the lens of Daoist rituals, traditional therapies and Western-style psychiatry, RTS looks into the history of colonization and modernization in the history of Taiwan and questions the universality and rationality of scientific truth.
Alter-Circuit: Virlani Hallberg will start with a solo exhibition at Et al., featuring Receding Triangular Square and continue with the artist’s presence in San Francisco later this year for a series of public programs. During the course, Alter-Circuit will have a life online as a blog to expand the conversations and invite discussions.
Alter-Circuit is initiated and curated by Xiaoyu Weng, Aaron Harbour and Jackie Im. It is made possible by the Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium San Francisco.
About Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium (ACAC-SF):
The Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium San Francisco is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding, to building audiences and to promoting and sustaining interest in Asian contemporary arts and design in San Francisco and the Bay Area. ACAC-SF serves as a platform to create collaborative opportunities among members of the Asian contemporary art and design communities, while also facilitating interactions and exchanges between the Bay Area and Asia. ACAC-SF initiated the Asian Contemporary Art Week San Francisco in 2012 as its core program.
About Et al.:
Et al. is a gallery directed by Facundo Argañaraz, Jackie Im, and Aaron Harbour. Et al. represents a small group of artists and serves as a site for a mix of exhibitions and events, working with its select roster as well as other local and international artists, writers, and curators. Et al. aims to be a site for exchange and experimentation.
