Ocula Conversation Sandrine Colard on the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the largest Francophone nation in Africa with vast resources and nearly 80 million inhabitants, is a place where commodities play a vital role in the national economy and the country's significance on the world stage. This is the context from which the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale (24 October–24 November...
Ocula Report From 20 to 21 July 2019, Artspace Sydney held a two-day symposium that brought artists in conversation with leading curators, writers, activists, academics, diplomats, and journalists from across Asia. The symposium was the final chapter of the 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS exhibition, publication, website, and Instagram project. Instigated and...
Ocula News We Are Our Infrastructure, Argues Newly Announced Shanghai Biennale Chief Curator 13 December 2019 The Power Station of Art will make a fitting location for Andrés Jaque, whose past projects expose the politics concealed by buried pipes and managed cables. Spanish architect, writer, and curator Andrés Jaque has been named the chief curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale, which will take place at the Power Station of Art (PSA) from 13 November...
Ocula Insight Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy. Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Chen Nong (1966, Fuzhou of Fujian Province, CH) lives and works in Beijing. Working almost entirely alone, each of Chen Nong's meticulous photographs takes him approximately a year to research, assemble, populate and shoot. His images, rich in historical context, pay homage to real-life events from Chinese history.
Read MoreChen Nong is in a sense more filmmaker than photographer. Each of his series is an epic undertaking. Once he has the seed of an idea, and has sketched it out in detail, the artist then goes on a pilgrimage to far-flung parts of China to find the appropriate location to shoot. There, he builds a set and assembles his cast–often comprising willing volunteers and friends–in order to realise his precise vision.
Using a 110-year old antique camera, the photographer shoots in black and white, in order to print on silver gelatin paper. The post-production process is equally elaborate. After he settles on a small selection of images, he hand-paints each one in a close range of colours to produce a vintage, burnished effect. The result is super-realist, highly stylised, at times even verging on the expressionist.
Chen Nong worked for a TV production before he started to do sculptures in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. In 1996 he established a photo studio in Fuzhou, and in 2000 a photo studio in Hutong café in Beijing. His works are included in the collections of San Francisco MoMA; International Center of Photography, New York; National Museum of Art, Australia; Museum of Cultures, Basel; Museum of Art, Harvard University; and St. Barbara Museum, California.
Text courtesy Reflex Amsterdam.
