Posts tagged: 2013

Artist: Chen Ching-Yuan

Title: the (flare-s)

Year: 2013

Medium: Installation – Single channel video with boat sculptures

Dimensions: Variable

Accession Number: US2015-17

Acquisition info:

Chen Ching-Yuan’s works focus on the dilemma of the unstable and feeble perceptions generated when one has to face an uncontrollable and tremendous pressure.  Working in a variety of different media, including painting, video and installation, Chen Ching-Yuan often uses visual metaphor to articulate the ambiguity and perplexity of national politics and internal reflections of identity.   

the (flare-s) enjoyed a UK Premiere in 2014 in Harmonious Society, a major exhibition curated by Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) (with support from the University of Salford) as part of Asia Triennial Manchester, 2014.  The artwork is is an installation made up of a looped animation and worn lifeboats that are illuminated at intervals by spotlights. The animation shows a sea at night where waves constantly sound and wooden boats drift into view. A lone figure occupies each boat and they take it in turns to send rescue signals up into the night sky. As help fails to come, more and more flares are ignited, the sound of rockets exploding creating an unsettling cacophony: these signs and sounds of crisis paradoxically become celebratory fireworks as the boats sink. Ching-Yuan’s animation work focuses on the dilemma of misunderstanding and the terror of being faced with uncontrollable and unstable situations.  

Chen Ching-Yuan, the (flare-s), 2013. Installation photograph at St. George’s Hall by Pete Carr.

Exhibitions include: PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art, St. George’s Hall, Liverpool (2018); unfinished portrait, mor charpentier, Paris, France (2018). What am I? If I can’t be yours, TKG+, Taipei, Tawain (2016); Un title, ITPark, Taipei, Tawain (2015); (flare-s), TKG+, Taipei, Tawain (2013). 

Artist’s website: http://cargocollective.com/wanwor

Artist: Chen Hangfeng

Title: Fu Lu Shou

Year: 2013

Medium: Paper cuts, framed

Dimensions: 42.4 x 42.4cm framed

Accession Number: US2015-15a, US2015-15b, US2015-15c

Acquisition info:

Trained as a painter, Chen’s practice has included drawing, painting and paper-cut alongside video, photography and installation. His works deal with issues of commercialization, globalization, environmentalism and changing cultural values. 

Fu Lu Shou comprises three orange paper-cuts, each presenting a different Chinese character. Collectively, the characters stand for the Three Stars of Fu (Luck), Lu (Prosperity) and Shou (Longevity), in traditional Chinese culture. Papercutting has a long history in China, and has traditionally been a vernacular art form, often used decorate the home, and with particular patterns used for weddings and other special occasions. Although declining in popularity, Chen sought to utilise the practice of papercutting in his own practice in a way that reflected and commented upon contemporary society. Within the borders of these characters are the linear forms of global brand names and logos, including Gucci, Holiday Inn, Prada, Cartier and Coca-Cola. Including these symbols of global consumerism within the confines of vernacular Chinese visual culture, Chen considers the intersection of these two cultural systems and wonders whether they are mutually exclusive, or whether they might co-exist?  

The three characters stand for Three Stars in the traditional Chinese culture, which are the personified ideas of Prosperity, Status and Longevity. The pattern has been replaced with brand logos and icons, which are reflecting the values and visions are subtly changed in the modern day Chinese society… Chen Hangfeng. 

Solo exhibitions have included: All that glitters must be gold, CFCCA, Manchester, (2013); The Asian Carp – Chen Hangfeng solo project, AM Art Space, Shanghai (2015); Endless Demand, Cable Gallery, Helsinki (2013). 

Fu, Lu, Shou exhibited in PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art, St. George’s Hall, Liverpool (2018).

Artist’s website: http://www.chenhangfeng.com 

This work was acquired into the University of Salford Art Collection through a fund collected by the Salford Business School, to honour the retirement Patrick Trodden after 35 years as lecturer.

Fu, Chen Hangfeng, 2013. US2015-15a. Courtesy the Artist. Photography by Museums Photohgraphy North West.

Lu, Chen Hangfeng, 2013. US2015-15b. Courtesy the Artist. Photography by Museums Photohgraphy North West.

Shou, Chen Hangfeng, 2013. US2015-15c. Courtesy the Artist. Photography by Museums Photohgraphy North West.

Artist: Cao Fei (b.1978)

Title: Haze and Fog

Year: 2013

Medium: Single channel video (digital film)

Dimensions: Variable. 46m 30s

Accession Number: US2014-02

Acquisition info:

Cao Fei is one of the most significant young artists to emerge on the international art scene from China. Her multi-media projects explore the lost dreams of the young Chinese generation and their strategies for overcoming and escaping reality. 

Haze and Fog, by Beijing-based artist and filmmaker Cao Fei, was the first acquisition made by Lindsay Taylor in her role as Art Curator for University of Salford in 2013, and it has since been screened across the world including at Tate Modern, London, Pompidou Centre in Paris, and MoMA New York.  

The film is a zombie movie set in modern-day China and explores the unfulfilled aspirations and lost dreams of contemporary Chinese youth. Rather than present a narrative based on ‘good versus evil’, Fei presents the zombies as those who have lost their traditional ways of life and exist in a state of ‘neutral modernity’, struggling to cope with the pressures of daily, urban, routine. Having migrated to the modern metropolis, the zombies fulfill their roles as cleaners, couriers, security guards and baby sitters, moving through their urban environments without fulfilment or meaningful direction. At first Haze and Fog seems to take a critical stance towards China’s rapid urbanisation as a catalyst for social disintegration. However, Fei’s work moves beyond the specificities of the local, to ask more complex questions about how societies operate according to class-based hierarchies, and what we can do to break free from oppressive systems.   

Haze and Fog was co-commissioned by the University of Salford with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), in partnership with Eastside Projects (Birmingham), Arnolfini (Bristol), Bath School of Art and Design and Bath University

Cao Fei studied at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. Recent group exhibitions include: One Hand Clapping, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (4 May – 21 Oct 2018); Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture VII: Cities Grow in Difference, Nantou Old Town, Shenzhen, China (2018); Simultaneous Eidos – Guangzhou Image Triennial 2017, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2018); PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art, Liverpool, UK (2018); What’s in Store?, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford (2017).

Recent solo exhibition have included Cao Fei, MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2016); Cao Fei, The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2016); Cao Fei: La Town – 30 years of CFCCA, CFCCA, Manchester (2016).   

Artist’s website: http://www.caofei.com/ 

Gallery representing artist: http://www.vitamincreativespace.art/en/?artist=caofei 

Trailer for Haze and Fog.

Artist: Mishka Henner (b. 1976)

Title: Wasson Oil and Gas Field, Yoakum County, Texas

Year: 2013-2014

Medium: Archival pigment print mounted to aluminium

Dimensions: H:149cm W:258cm

Accession Number: 2015-6

Acquisition info: Purchased in 2015

Henner is one of the UK’s most significant artists working with and interrogating the photographic medium. Based on the collection and mediation of publicly available imagery sourced through the internet, satellites and television, his appropriative practice explores the use and value of photography and its relationship with contemporary experience.

Henner’s Oil Fields series of large-scale photographic prints are composed of hundreds of high-resolution satellite images of each location stitched together to show intricate detail.  The prints are reminiscent of vast Abstract Expressionist canvases and represent landscapes carved by industries meeting extraordinary levels of consumer demand for one of North America’s most prized commodities: oil. Sourced from Google Earth, these satellite images of oil fields represent a systematic intent to maximise production and yield in order to satisfy extraordinary levels of human consumption. The result is a natural landscape transformed into something akin to the circuit boards that drive the logistical operations of these industries, and ultimately, feed consumers’ appetite for these resources.

Artist: Mishka Henner (b. 1976)

Title: Cedar Point Oil Field, Harris County, Texas

Year: 2013 – 14

Medium: Archival pigment print mounted to aluminium

Dimensions: 149 x 258 cm

Accession Number: US2015-5

Acquisition info: Purchased 2015

Henner is one of the UK’s most significant artists working with and interrogating the photographic medium. Based on the collection and mediation of publicly available imagery sourced through the internet, satellites and television, his appropriative practice explores the use and value of photography and its relationship with contemporary experience.

Henner’s Oil Fields series of large-scale photographic prints are composed of hundreds of high-resolution satellite images of each location stitched together to show intricate detail.  The prints are reminiscent of vast Abstract Expressionist canvases and represent landscapes carved by industries meeting extraordinary levels of consumer demand for one of North America’s most prized commodities: oil. Sourced from Google Earth, these satellite images of oil fields represent a systematic intent to maximise production and yield in order to satisfy extraordinary levels of human consumption. The result is a natural landscape transformed into something akin to the circuit boards that drive the logistical operations of these industries, and ultimately, feed consumers’ appetite for these resources.