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Bonner Kunstverein

Claudia & Julia Müller
Black Silhouette (Schafsmann), 2008
Pencil and Silhouette on Paper
Courtesy Galerie Peter Kilchmannn, Zuerich

CLAUDIA & JULIA MÜLLER:
Tut tut tut.

FOYER
PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT

KIOSK
CHRISTOPH KELLER:
BEYOND KIOSK

7 April - 1 June 2008

http://www.bonner-kunstverein.de

Sunday, 6 April 2008, 11 am opening
Reception: Thomas Grundmann, chairman
Greetings: Klaus Bucher, consul general of Switzerland
Introduction: Christina Végh, director

2 pm KIOSK: Introduction by CHRISTOPH KELLER on the project
BEYOND KIOSK and independent art publishing

CLAUDIA & JULIA MÜLLER:Tut tut tut.

In a world pervaded by fears and desires, the distinction between being and seeming is in the eye of the beholder. For their solo presentation at the Bonn Kunstverein, the artists CLAUDIA & JULIA MÜLLER (*1964, *1956, live in Basel) have designed rooms of illusion. Starting out with their graphic work, a dispositive unfolds, whose unstable semantic carriers are linked in a changeable narrative structure.

Similar to an ancestral portrait gallery, the sisters stage a series of flip-flop pictures that, designed as multiple wall collages, take in the room’s full height of six meters. The double portraits involve the viewer in a game of different, yet simultaneous contexts.

The coupling and the pictorial union of political figures, animal and man, freedom fighters, carnival merrymakers and figures from the contemporary media world call up an absurd, vanity-fair society. Shadow projections and masquerades, silhouettes and three-dimensional elements, doubling and inversion, all serve as a means of presenting outward illusion in its proper light. In between the wall collages, small-scale work series from the past five years alternate.

A collection of pictures and collages somewhere between (art) historical models, everyday media reality and science fiction serve as the basis. In the installation at the Bonner Kunstverein, the pictures merge into a complex narration of the story and the fear of our possible cultural molding in the
present-day world.

PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT

The mural that PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT (*1974, lives in Lausanne) has designed for the Bonner Kunstverein is assembled from alternating black and magenta-colored lines spanned across 20 meters. They are gradually inscribed in the wall’s white plane so that, after a pictorial crescendo, they just as gradually fade again.

The movement of the incoming visitor is absorbed by them and visually reinforced. The precision of the lines leads to a shimmery moiré effect that sets the stage for the theme of motion as the phenomenological process of perception.

The work exists in a series that DECRAUZAT has continued since 2000, whose starting point is a fascination with REM sleep (rapid eye movement) that commonly describes the dream phase in which the eyes move jerkily under closed lids. The work, under constant threat of disappearing via its flickering effects, allows after-images to arise: images seen without use of the eyes.

With his work that includes painting, film and sculpture, DECRAUZAT stands within the force field of artistic abstraction. He deploys, as his starting point, Russian Constructivism, OP Art or the geometrics of Minimalism in order to link them to pop culture, science fiction or cinematography.

CHRISTOPH KELLER: BEYOND KIOSK

BEYOND KIOSK, Modes of Multiplication. Independent Art Publishing today is an archive project of CHRISTOPH KELLER (book designer, editor, publisher, et al. Revolver, Christoph Keller Editions, JRP/Ringler), which was developed for the Bonner Kunstverein and ICA Philadelphia. The presentation is based on Keller’s comprehensive archive KIOSK on the theme of “Independent Art Publishing” that, over the past seven years, has toured the world and been exhibited in over 20 institutions.

From approx. 6,500 archive publications from over 450 publishers and magazine projects, approx. 500 of the most interesting publication models were chosen for BEYOND KIOSK. The selection criteria were, above all, the strategies, motivations, programs and profiles of the editors and publishers.

BONNER KUNSTVEREIN
Hochstadenring 22, 53119 Bonn, Germany
Tel. +49 228 693936, Fax +49 228 695589

Tue - Sun 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thu 11 a.m. - 7 p.m., closed on Mondays
ARTOTHEK Wed, Fri 2 - 5 p.m, Thu 2 - 7 p.m, Sat 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
http://www.bonner-kunstverein.de

Anna Ning Fine Art

“As Free as a Bird”
An exhibition of paintings by Ye Yongqing
5 - 19 April, 2008

Exhibition Venue: 4th & 5th Floors
Hong Kong Arts Centre
2 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong

http://www.annaningfineart.com

Anna Ning Fine Art is delighted to announce its forthcoming solo exhibition of paintings by the renowned Chinese artist Ye Yongqing. The exhibition will be a retrospective of Ye Yongqing’s work from the past 30 years.

When Picasso wrote “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary”, he did not mean that art recorded a catalogue of events; rather that art was his way of expressing his feelings about life and the nature of life itself. Ye Yongqing (b. 1958), one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Chinese art, has a similar philosophy and approach to art and life.

From his childhood in Yunnan Province, Ye Yongqing’s art and life have been closely intertwined. He has consistently bucked trends and followed his own path, making him one of the most distinctive and individual Chinese artists of his time. Ye Yongqing was born in Kunming, Yunnan Province, in 1958 and graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chongqing in 1982. During the 1980s, he joined the New Wave Arts movement, becoming a leading figure of the influential “Southwest Art Group” which also included such significant artists as Mao Xuhui, Zhou Chunya and Zhang Xiaogang. Today, as well as being an artist, Ye Yongqing is an Associate Professor at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, a well-known curator and exhibition organizer. He is also the founder of the Upriver Gallery and Self-Run Space in Chengdu and the Loft in Kunming.

Ye Yongqing is perhaps best known for his bird paintings, which he began in 2000. These are executed in a quirky style featuring scratched black lines using the traditional medium of Chinese brush and ink on rice paper. Some paintings are very large, and are achieved by using a projector to beam simple sketches of birds in the artist’s notebook onto canvas or paper. Then he traces the enlarged shapes using a thin brush to draw abstract lines. At first sight, one might say that Ye Yongqing’s birds look like childish scribbles, lacking in refined skill; yet on closer examination they turn out to be very delicate
and beautiful.

The leading art critic Li Xianting has described Ye Yongqing as “a poet with literary talent in his bones”. Ye Yongqing was influenced by Western masters, especially Cezanne, and later discovered the metaphysical painting of De Chirico and the surrealism of Dali. However, while other Chinese artists idolized the West and followed the path of “Political Pop”, Ye Yongqing rejected both Westernization and modernism, moving instead towards to a more inward-focused self-analysis.

In the 1990s, after traveling to the USA and Europe, he made collages that assembled images of trivial daily life – bird cages, light bulbs, pipes, cars, old photographs, caricatures – drawing them in the casual manner of Chinese literati artists. These paintings were divided into sections like a big cartoon describing his life with his own language and icons. He wrote, “I often see my life as like that of a migratory bird moving among several different cities, fragmented and with no fixed abode. I paint and put together my creations the same way.”

The bird has become Ye Yongqing’s personal form of symbolic expression, a reflection of his spirit and emotions. By using the medium of traditional Chinese brush and ink but with a detached sense of freedom from literati paintings, Ye Yongqing seems to revive his life and spirit in his bird paintings – as a painter as free as a bird.

For further information, please contact:
Anna Ning Fine Art
Room 101, 1/F, St. George’s Building, 2 Ice House Street, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 2521 3193
Email: info@annaningfineart.com
http://www.annaningfineart.com

PRO ARTE FOUNDATION
FINLAND LAUNCHED
http://www.proartefoundation.fi

Last autumn, a new contributor to the visual arts scene was founded in Finland, Pro Arte Foundation Finland. The Foundation sees art as an essential resource in contemporary, democratic society. It focuses on the visual arts including new, critical art. It aims to promote the status, visibility and accessibility of visual art, and to explore the relationship between art and its audience. The Foundation’s activities are international and cater for everyone with an interest in art.

The Foundation will regularly produce and organise projects in contemporary art, either independently or in collaboration with partners. The nucleus of its operations will be an annual cluster of events known as the IHME Productions.

Each year, the Foundation will invite an internationally recognised visual artist or artist group to realise a temporary public work, the IHME Project, in the Helsinki Metropolitan region of Finland. One criterion for selecting the work is the way it can engage the local community.

The artist selected to carry out the Project will also publish the IHME Edition one year prior to the project. The form and medium of the Edition are to be determined by the selected artist and it will be distributed to the public free of charge.

The first IHME Edition is being created to accompany the launch of the Foundation’s operations at the end of March 2008.

The “days for art”, the IHME days, aim to generate wider discussion on themes and topics surrounding the Project, and will be accompanied by lectures, publications and art education.

The first cluster of IHME Productions will take place in 2009.

THE ARTIST SELECTED TO MAKE THE FIRST IHME PROJECT
The artist selected to make Pro Arte Foundation Finland’s first IHME Project is Antony Gormley, the British sculptor (b. 1950). His work will be unveiled in spring 2009.

Over the last two decades, Antony Gormley has shown exceptional talent in working in public space. He is not only capable of working on a large scale, but also has subtlety to touch the social dimension of a place with his work. His work investigates the nature of collective space, and can catalyse it, creating communities of interest through collaboration and confrontation. Proof of this are many of his large-scale installations such as Allotment (1996, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden), Another Place (1997, Liverpool, UK), Domain Field (2003, BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK) and Inside Australia (2002-2003, Lake Ballard, Australia).

In Helsinki, Gormley’s challenge will be to create a temporary work in a collective space.
The first IHME Edition, devised by Antony Gormley, will be a full-page newspaper announcement made in accordance with the artist’s ideas by the Kokoro & Moi design consultancy and published in major Finnish daily newspapers.

IHME 0 – FILMS AND VIDEOS BY CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
The Foundation will present its first production at the Bio Rex cinema in Helsinki on Saturday March 29. The IHME 0 – Films and videos by international contemporary artists programme includes a number of works not previously shown in Finland from artists such as Francis Alÿs, Jeremy Deller & Mike Figgis, Matthew Barney, Runa Islam, Christian Marclay, Deimantas Narkevicius and Anri Sala. Participating from Finland are Lauri Astala, Elina Brotherus and Hanna Brotherus with their joint work Minun onneni on pyöreä (My Happiness is Round, 2007).

The Foundation’s activities are being planned by a team led by Museum Director Emerita, Doctor of Visual Arts Tuula Arkio and including art researcher Hanna Johansson, Ph.D.; art historian Kaija Kaitavuori, MA; critic and curator Timo Valjakka; and the Foundation’s Project Manager, Paula Toppila.

For further information, please contact:
Pro Arte Foundation Finland
Eerikinkatu 2, 3rd floor
FI-00100 Helsinki
Tel. +358-(0)9-42899778
Fax. +358-(0)9-2783388
Info(at)proartefoundation.fi
http://www.proartefoundation.fi