CHINA POWER STATION: PART 1 / UNCERTAIN STATES OF AMERICA
CHINA POWER STATION
Battersea Power Station
8 October – 5 November,
Thursday-Sunday,
www.timeout.com/powerstation
And UNCERTAIN STATES OF AMERICA Continues
Serpentine Gallery
9 September 15 October,
open daily, admission free
SERPENTINE GALLERY PRESENTS CHINA POWER STATION: PART 1
AT BATTERSEA POWER STATION, LONDON
CO-PRODUCED BY THE RED MANSION FOUNDATION
www.serpentinegallery.org/2006/08/china_power_station_part_i_8_o_1.html
For five weeks this autumn, the Serpentine Gallery will take up residence in Battersea Power Station with a presentation of Chinese culture. This is the first chapter in an on-going series of exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art, architecture and sound, presented by the Serpentine Gallery and co-produced by The Red Mansion Foundation in collaboration with Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo.
China Power Station: Part I is a unique opportunity to visit the iconic Battersea Power Station before it is redeveloped. It will also be the first chance to see the work of an extraordinary and vibrant new generation of Chinese artists and architects installed at this remarkable site.
Battersea Power Station echoes post-industrial art venues in China and the works on show have been chosen to activate the enormous scale of its spaces. The exhibition will be filled with sound and moving images, arguably the most prolific and strongest type of work being created in China today. There are three floors to visit and the art will engage with each of these distinct areas. The unmissable and outstanding view from the third floor will offer a rare perspective of London. Two celebrated Chinese architects will define the space, demonstrating the potential of the building.
This is the Serpentine Gallery’s first large scale, off-site exhibition project. It will embrace and celebrate the power of the building as well as the buoyant developments in Chinese contemporary culture.
The exhibition is part of the Serpentine Gallery’s ongoing collaboration with the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo. China Power Station: Part I in London marks the first phase of the project. Part II will be developed for Oslo in 2007 and Part III for Beijing in 2008. The project will propose a new model for showcasing developments in Chinese art and architecture and will be updated annually from 2006 to 2008.
This exhibition heralds the continuation of the Serpentine’s ambitious expanded programme, devised by Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Serpentine Gallery and Co-Director, Exhibitions & Programmes and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects. China Power Station Part I, II and III are curated by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Gunnar B. Kvaran, Director, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.
China Power Station: Part 1 includes works by artists Ai Wei Wei, Cao Fei, Chen Liaoyu, Chen Shaoxiong, Gu Dexin, Huang Yong Ping, Jia Zhang Ke, Kan Xuan, Liang Yue, Liang Wei, Liu Ding, Lu Chunsheng, Qiu Anxiong, Song Tao, Wang Jian Wei, Xu Tan, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Pei Li; architects Ma Qingyun and Yung Ho Chang; and curators Ou Ning and Pi Li.
Uncertain States of America American Art in the 3rd Millennium
Currently showing at Serpentine Gallery www.serpentinegallery.org/2006/08/uncertain_states_of_america_9.html
Can we take another look at the USA? Uncertain States of America examines a new generation of 45 young artists buzzing with ideas and taking the art world by storm.
Curated by Daniel Birnbaum, Gunnar B Kvaran and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition is the culmination of 18 months of research. The team crisscrossed the US – visiting studios, galleries, alternative spaces and museums to bring a unique perspective on art being made in the USA today. ‘We gathered the most diverse, even contradictory, impressions of a multi-faceted culture and innumerable artists’ dossiers that we brought back to Europe for closer scrutiny‘, state Birnbaum, Kvaran and Obrist.
Uncertain States is a poignant examination of what it is to be an artist in contemporary America. This exhibition will include an installation by Mika Rottenberg who received the inaugural Cartier Award in April 2006. Her video Dough, 2005, is a strange and haunting exploration of obese bodies. Miranda July’s films, videos and performances are provoked by incidents, fragments of speech and gestures that she catches when she is out in the world.
Artists Josh Smith, Nate Lowman, Wade Guyton, Kelley Walker and Aaron Young explore notions of sampling, appropriation and collaboration in a collective description of cultural displacement. A monochromatic installation by Kori Newkirk brings together ‘two white things that can kill me’.
Uncertain States of America features all manner of media, including work by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Anthony Burdin, Paul Chan, Trisha Donnelly, Hannah Greely, Matthew Day Jackson, Seth Price and Jordan Wolfson, all of whom featured in the Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night; Daria Martin, who was included in the Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art; and Aïda Ruilova, recently shortlisted for the 2006 Hugo Boss Prize. Other participating artists include Edgar Arceneaux, Devendra Banhart, Frank Benson, Jennifer Bornstein, Mike Bouchet, Matthew Brannon, Sean Dack, Shannon Ebner, Forcefield, Piero Golia, Taft Green, Karl Haendel, Christian Holstad, Shane Huffman, Jiae Hwang, Matt Johnson, Klara Liden, Matt McCormick, Rodney McMillian, Ohad Meromi, Adam Putnam, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Matthew Ronay, Reena Spaulings, Paul Sietsema, Mika Tajima, TM Sisters and Mario Ybarra Jr.
The exhibition will take over the ground floor of the Serpentine and include films and sound works in the critically acclaimed Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2006, designed by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup.
