Ocula Conversation Sunjung Kim’s Real DMZ Project Interrogates the North and South Korea Divide Ongoing since 2012, the Real DMZ Project interrogates the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea through annual, research-based exhibitions that bring together the works of Korean and international artists. Sunjung Kim, the independent curator behind the project, conceived the idea of exploring the DMZ while curating Japanese artist...
Ocula Report Sydney Lowdown: Exhibitions to See 6 Sep 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The fifth edition of Sydney Contemporary will take place once again at Carriageworks between 12 and 15 September 2019, with Spring 1883 bringing together a cohort of 27 galleries from across Australia and the region to inhabit rooms at the Establishment Hotel from 11 to 14 September 2019, uniquely presenting contemporary works propped up on...
Ocula Insight | Video Mark Bradford’s Call for Unity at Shanghai’s Long Museum 16 August 2019 Mark Bradford walks through Mark Bradford: Los Angeles Mark Bradford: Los Angeles at the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai (27 July–13 October 2019) is the artist's largest solo exhibition to date in China. In this video for Ocula, Bradford and Diana Nawi, curator of the show, walk through selected works that convey the artist's concerns with...
Qiu Zhijie (b.1969, Fujian Province) graduated from the printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou in 1992. Since the 1990s he has become one of the most active conceptual artists in China, as well as being one of the most diverse: his many identities include artist, curator, writer, professor, and scholar.
Considered an intellectual force in the contemporary Chinese art world, his artistic activities are heavily informed by historical, social and academic issues that are often contentious or possessing significant cultural import. An artistic scholar whose practice challenges traditional philosophies in direct relation to the social condition of contemporary China, Qiu Zhijie’s multifarious practice embraces a diverse range of media, from printmaking, video, photography, performance, sculpture and painting.
From the investigation of the written word in Chinese traditional culture through calligraphy and the method of learning through copying of the great masters, to the investigation of historical monuments/places (such as Tibet and Nanjing Bridge), Qiu Zhijie consistently questions the cultural foundations upon which contemporary China is understood and perceived, from both a national and international perspective. Concepts of time, cultural memory, the meaning and role of historical consciousness, the questioning of what constitutes the ‘contemporary’, all of these and more are important subjects to which Qiu uniquely investigates, often in collaboration with his students.
Ocula Report Ocula Report: The Tenth Shanghai Biennale 12 Dec 2014 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula Biennials are inherently messy. Gathering hundreds of pieces by international artists working in different mediums creates an exponential number of echoes and dissonances. Their messiness differs, though, in kind and degree, as exemplified in recent Shanghai Biennales.
Related Press Art Basel 2018 Round-Up Reports Buoyant Sales At Core Event Artlyst : 18 June 2018 Art Basel Switzerland which is always an important barometer in the art market has reported that some of the world's premier galleries experienced remarkable sales across all levels of the market.The fair in Basel closed on Sunday, June 17 2018, amid reports of significant sales to private collections and institutions by galleries across all...
Related Press Journeys without Arrivals: Chinese contemporary artist Qiu Zhijie at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève Art Radar : 20 December 2017 Running until 18 January 2018, Qiu Zhijie: Journeys Without Arrivals focuses on the work of the artist Qiu Zhijie, who made waves for his satirical, often tongue-in-cheek calligraphic maps of the world. The Beijing-based artist is known for producing enormous, overwhelming ink maps, which often provide an underlying commentary that weave physical...
Related Press Where the Wild Things Are: China’s Art Dreamers at the Guggenheim The New York Times : 11 October 2017 The signature work at Art and China After 1989, a highly anticipated show that takes over the Guggenheim on Oct. 6, is a simple table with a see-through dome shaped like the back of a tortoise. On the tabletop hundreds of insects and reptiles — gekkos, locusts, crickets, centipedes and cockroaches – mill about under the glow of an overhead...
Related Press From Innovation to Provocation, China’s Artists on a Global Path The New York Times : 6 October 2017 Strange to say, although China has 1.4 billion people, it has only one artist, Ai Weiwei. Or so you'd think if you followed the Western news media. Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum wants to correct that impression. With work by some 70 Chinese-born artists and collectives filling most of the museum,...
