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Yishu

December 2007 issue of Yishu:
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art out now
New Yishu with supplement,
http://www.yishujournal.com

This special issue is guest edited by independent scholar and curator Dr. Britta Erickson and was launched at Art Basel Miami Beach, December 6 to 9, 2007. The eleven essays and interviews that address the burgeoning market and its ramifications represent a range of perspectives, including those of artists, galleries, collectors, curators, and auction houses.

Included among them is a profile of the Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild collection of Chinese video art and photography by Michelle M. McCoy. Initiated in the late 1990s, the collection, based in La Jolla, California, is among the most important ensembles of contemporary Chinese art and one of the few to focus on new media. The exhibition, Zooming Into Focus: Contemporary Photography and Video Art from the Haudenschild Collection, travelled to venues in Beijing, Tijuana, San Diego, Singapore, and Shanghai from 2003 to 2005.

Writers contributing to this issue include Mathieu Borysevicz, Simon Castets, Chan Ho Yeung David, Britta Erickson, Joe Martin Hill, Martina Köppel-Yang, Paul Manfredi, Brandi Reddick, Ling-Yun Tang, Yang Jiechang, Pauline J. Yao, Yü Christina Yü, and Zhao Li.

Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art is the only English language journal devoted to issues addressing contemporary visual art in China and the diaspora. Yishu is produced in Vancouver, Canada and published by Art & Colletion Group Ltd, Taipei. It is distributed internationally and has gained the reputation as one of the most important resources of knowledge about contemporary Chinese art. Now approaching its seventh year, and traditionally a quarterly, as of January 2008, Yishu will be published bi-monthly.

For more information, subscription and back issues enquiries please go to our Web site: http://www.yishujournal.com

Malmö Konsthall

Pair. 2004
Mirror with silver wooden frame, shoe
48 x 57cm (mirror)

HREINN FRIDFINNSSON
16 February – 27 April 2008

Press preview Thursday 14 February at 11 a.m.

Opening Friday 15 February 7-9 p.m. The exhibition is presented by the new director Jacob Fabricius
at 7.30 p.m.

Malmö Konsthall
S:t Johannesgatan 7
Box 17 127
SE-200 10 Malmö
Sweden
info.konsthall@malmo.se
http://www.konsthall.malmo.se

Hreinn Fridfinnsson is one of Iceland’s leading conceptual artists. His art is celebrated for its lyricism and stark poetry that transcends the often commonplace subject matter and materials he uses. He often presents found objects with which he interferes as little as possible, creating new works that investigate ideas of the self and of time. Fridfinnsson’s practice encompasses photography and drawing as well as sculpture and installation. His works are linked, however, by a common sensibility and lightness of touch. The exhibition in Malmö Konsthall is a retrospective that spans four decades of his work.

Fridfinnsson’s work could be characterised as conceptual, in the sense that it is ideas driven, or as Arte Povera in its use of everyday materials; much of it might be considered stripped down or Minimalist and some of his outdoor projects can be seen as examples of earthworks or Land Art. He explores landscape in a number of ways, including an ‘inside out house’ sited in a remote part of Iceland. Text and storytelling also figure prominently in his work.

The natural world is central to Fridfinnsson’s practice. He grew up in the magnificence of the Icelandic countryside, on a farm in the 1940s and 50s. He says it is impossible to separate himself from the landscape; it is in his body and part of his psychological make-up. The early experience of a vast unpopulated landscape and its rhythms is fundamental to understanding his work.

His vocabulary, underscored by a delicate sense of humour, encompasses doubling, dreams, folklore, perceptual tricks and the supernatural. Through these means, Fridfinnsson is searching for equivalence between one thing and another. Within this exhibition, for example, no one piece is more important or central. Instead, we find ourselves in the midst of a dispersed and non-hierarchical universe, where the wonder of a simple discovery is cause for celebration.

Born in 1943 in Baer Dölum, Iceland, Fridfinnsson gained prominence as a leading figure on the Icelandic avant-garde scene after founding the group SÚM with other artists in Reykjavik in 1965. He moved to Amsterdam in the early 1970s and has been living and working there ever since. In the year 2000 he won second prize in the Carnegie Art Award, and was awarded the Ars Fennica Prize.

’’Hreinn Fridfinnsson is a great Icelandic hero.
He gives the subtleties of life a language.’’
Olafur Eliasson, 2007-10-08

This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Serpentine Gallery in London and artist
Olafur Eliasson.

Jacob Fabricius is the new director of Malmö Konsthall

Jacob Fabricius has worked as a curator since 1995 and has produced
many international art exhibitions at institutions, galleries, and
biennials. He has also produced a number of exhibitions of public art, in
part as director of KBH Kunsthal in Copenhagen; and recently been curator at Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona. In addition to published exhibitions, Fabricius has produced books, CDs, and exhibition documentation.

Jacob Fabricius is very familiar with Malmö Konsthall thanks to his
work as a curator for the exhibitions on Susan Philipsz in 2005,
Simone Aaberg Kærn in 2006, Elmgreen & Dragset earlier in 2007, and
now most recently David Shrigley.

For further information, please contact
Lena Leeb-Lundberg +46(0)40 34 12 94 or lena.leeb@malmo.se

Berlinische Galerie

Emilio Vedova at work on the
Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch
Berlin 1964
Photography: Archive of the Emilio and
Annabianca Vedova Foundation

Emilio Vedova 1919-2006
January 25 - April 20, 2008

Press conference:
January 23, 2008, 10 am
Opening:
January 24, 2008, 7 pm

Berlinische Galerie
Alte Jakobstrasse 124-128
10969 Berlin, Germany

http://www.berlinischegalerie.de

Emilio Vedova’s first retrospective in the Berlinische Galerie

“Addio Vedova, artist of the rebellion” – that’s how La Repubblica bad farewell to Emilio Vedova in fall 2006. A good year after his death and for the first time in Germany, the Berlinische Galerie is presenting an extensive retrospective on the Venetian painter who is among the most significant artists of gestural abstract painting in Europe. Vedova felt closely connected to the city of Berlin ever since his stay there from the end of 1963 to mid 1965 as ‘artist in residence’ funded by the Ford Foundation.

The Berlinische Galerie has been able to realize this major retrospective, Emilio Vedova 1919-2006, in collaboration with the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome and the Emilio and Annabianca Vedova Foundation in Venice. Vedova was also very much involved in the development of this large exhibition of his work until his death on October 25, 2006. The exhibition, open from January 25 until April 20, 2008, shows a cross-section of all of the artist’s creative periods – from his first to his last work. The retrospective is complemented by documentary film material and an ambitious supporting program developed in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute Berlin. In addition, the Berlinische Galerie is showing six large works by Georg Baselitz – these works were shown at the Biennale di Venezia 2007 as part of a tribute to Vedova in the Venetian Pavilion.

Emilio Vedova is the leading representative of Italian abstract expressionism and is regarded as one of the most important post-war artists in Italy. His work has been honored with numerous prizes such as the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennial for his life’s work (1997) and most recently in 2004 with the Art Prize of NORD/LB Hanover. Vedova has exhibited works four times at documenta and was a regular at the Venice Biennial. In 1993, the artist was selected to become a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. A good year after Vedova’s death, the Berlinische Galerie would like to do justice to the Venetian painter’s impressive and substantial creations with his first extensive retrospective in Germany.

Electa Publishers is publishing a full 290 page, two-language (German/English) color catalog for the retrospective with contributions from important authors, curators, and theoreticians from Germany
and Italy.

The catalog and the exhibition Emilio Vedova 1919-2006 in the Berlinische Galerie are made possible by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin (German Lottery Trust).

Press contact:
Goldmann Public Relations Berlin, Julia Boberski
Zimmerstrasse 11, 10969 Berlin, Germany
phone: +49 (0)30-259 357-14, fax: +49 (0)30-259 357-29
e-mail: jboberski@goldmannpr.de