diacritic | art and culture

Nguyen Nhu Huy and I are currently exhibiting work in the 2006 Asia Art Now: Globalization and Locality exhibition in Korea. A description of S*H*A*M can be found in the earlier entry about the exhibition, Xin Chao, My Darling!. The exhibition features the work from young Asian artists from Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, China, Japan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Iran, and Vietnam. In 2007 Asia Art Now will travel to Beijing.

SEOUL
Exhibition Period in Korea : December 2- 17, 2006
Exhibition Venue : Alternative Space Loop, Ssamzie Space, Gallery Sup

BEIJING
Exhibition Period in China : January 20- March 11, 2007
Exhibition Venue : Arario Beijing
Opening Reception : Saturday, January 20, 2007. 1:00 pm

The Korea Times writes:

Politics seems to weigh heavily on the minds of some of the participating artists, as they tackle today’s most pressing issues through paintings, photographs, videos and sculptures.Some artists use their works to offer scathing criticism on current political figures. Lee Myoung-bok’s "Wanted’" is an Old West-style poster with the face of President George W. Bush. The poster proclaims that Bush is wanted "for crimes against the planet."

The title of Japanese artist Satoh Toshio’s work says it all: "Koizumi Junichiro is Nippon state governor in U.S.A." His work is a critique on the close ties between the U.S. and Japan, using the images of Bush and Koizumi, the former Japanese prime minister.

War and violence is another recurring theme, as seen in Lee Si-woo’s "The mine feeds on the line division, On the war that does not end," Lee Sang-ho’s "Against patriot missile disposition"and Vietnam’s Rich Streitmatter Tran’s video "S*H*A*M project."

Information
+ 2006 Asia Art Now
+ The Korea Times. Asian Artists Tackle Current Issues

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I am working with New York-based artist Angie Eng on her project, Urban Attractors, Private Distractors with Eyebeam. My introduction to Angie and her work was in 2003 with the Transhumance project, with Charles Lim of Singapore making the introduction. For this project, I will be facilitating the Ho Chi Minh City side of things.

If the pychogeographics of a city can reveal the values and behavior of its inhabitants then it could offer insight on how these cultures interact in virtual space.

Urban Attractors and Private Distractors is about the idea of experiencing privacy in public from an Eastern perspective. In the Asian communist city urban architecture has less distinction from outside/inside and private/public. Participants compare results from derives (Situationists) in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and New York City.

How is a city constructed in a culture where the inhabitants have little experience of a private physical space? Do they adapt more readily to cyberspace that is both private/public simultaneously? Organized derives in both places, (HCMC, and NYC) will commence January-March 2007. Participants will post image/text/sound/video as urban indicators of private and/or public. The data will be combined with images of the fountain- a typical public urban attractor on billboard maps that retrace the routes of the derives.

An accompanying video installation will be exhibited in conjunction with the vblog. The structure which will hold these public/private indicators will mimic the information placards often found in city squares and main meeting points to indicate where you are. For the installation 5-6 of these signs approximately 4’ X 5’ will suspend from above with projections of the maps and video. Visitors who enter the space will be required to put on a set of matching pajamas over their clothes. Therefore the visitors become active participants and a component of the installation by representing the private distractors present in the Eastern City.

Information
+ Urban Attractors, Private Distractors
+ Angie Eng
+ Eyebeam

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Erin Gleeson, Phnom Penh desk editor for Art Asia Pacific, writes of the increasing cross border relationships between the Vietnamese and Cambodian contemporary arts communities.

These collaborations provide stimuli for Cambodia’s nascent contemporary art movement. With economic cooperation between the two countries increasing- a recent bi-lateral trade agreement will create 20 border crossings in 2007- further artistic exchange is inevitable and anticipated.

COM.PASSION is happy to announce the scheduled opening of Cambodia’s first Art & Communication Center META HOUSE on the 12th of January 2007 – in cooperation with the International Academy (INA) at the Free University of Berlin. From January to April 2007 META HOUSE ("meta" in khmer: "compassion") hosts the first phase of the multi/media/art exhibition and event series INTERCITY: URBAN ARTS FOR ASIA - under patronage of the German Ambassador to Cambodia, H. E. Pius Fischer.

Within the second phase (2008) several SE Asian cities and artists are linked throughout an exchange program and workshops. The third phase (2009) will result in a catalogue, an interactive DVD and an exhibition in Berlin/Germany.

On three floors and a roof top terrace overlooking Phnom Penh META HOUSE will welcome participants, friends and guests from all around the globe.

INTERCITY Artists (more to be confirmed…)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Chhim Sothy, Chhoeun Rithy, Chan Pisey, Nico Mesterharm, Stephane Janin, Vandy Rattana
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Bertrand Peret, Julie Tseselsky, Bui Cong Khahn, Ly Hoang Ly, B-Crew, Motoko Uda, Rich Streitmatter-Tran, Sandrine Llouquet
Chiang Mai, Thailand: Sutthirat Supaparinya
Singapore: Kerstin Duell
Sydney, Australia: Melita Koulmandas
Paris, France: Nicolas Lainez
Berlin, Germany: Chris Zippel, Dieter Stadler, Hildegard Knef, Igor Paasch, Jana Teuchert, Lila Space Creations, Lothar Winkler, Lutz Mattstaett, Ollie Peters & Sven Zuege, Walter Dietmann, Wolfgang Brueckner
Aurich, Germany: Herbert Mueller
Belgrade, Serbia: Nikolai Todorovic
Chicago, USA: Maurice Oliver and Diana Krause-Oliver

The three-years-project INTERCITY is dedicated to city cultures from Phnom Penh to Berlin – from “New Asia“ to "Old Europe“, from the glitzy boulevards to the backyards of societies, to the basements and undergrounds and back to the future of our neighbourhoods. How do citizens envision their living environments and how can they shape them? What skills are needed to survive in a hostile environment? Whose ideas prevail if they are not documented? Can art be a vehicle for social change, or should art be a self-critical discipline that pursues primarily aesthetic ends? What is the relationship between art and mass culture?

Everybody is invited to join the INTERCITY exhibitions, parties, film screenings, performances, panels, discusssions and meetings. The entrance is free. A share of the revenues will be donated to the "Children’s Help Cambodia“ Foundation, which is building a children’s village for 96 orphans and vulnerable children on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Please hook up with us! We are not only encouraging artists, painters, sculpturers, filmmakers, photographers, poets, performers or musicians, but also forethinkers, urban planners, architects, scientists and journalists to contribute something special and unique to the INTERCITY project. Anybody who would like to participate should write to: Nico Mesterharm, mesterharm@gmx.net.

Information
+ Art Asia Pacific
+ Reflow. Java Arts.
+ Meta House. Intercity Asia 07.

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