March 6, 2019In Desire – Ho Yan Pun Nicole (courtesy of the artist)
Throughout March 2019, Ho Yan Pun Nicole is artist in residence for Both Sides Now 5 with The Marlborough Pub & Theatre in Brighton. While in the UK, Nicole will be meeting with artists and organisations. During the residency, she will be developing a new work exploring gender performativity and the ambiguous space between private and public.
Artist talk by Nicole Pun on Thursday, 21 March 19, at 6:30pm at The Marlborough Pub and Theatre, 4 Prince’s Street, Brighton BN2 1RD. Free. Tickets can be booked via Eventbrite or just show up on door.
About Ho Yan Pun Nicole
Nicole Pun is a visual artist based in Hong Kong. She uses photography, video and performance to explore queer identity, desire and female representation. Her artistic practice involves collaborations and interviews with strangers. She received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2014. She has a BSc from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with a background in Journalism and Communication.
Her work has been exhibited at Circus Gallery in Los Angeles; Avenue 50 Studio in Los Angeles; SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco; McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga; “In & Out” Nicole Pun Solo Exhibition at Lumenvisum in Hong Kong. She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including Yale-China Arts Fellowship, Emerging Artists Scheme of Hong Kong Arts Development Council, WMA Masters Special Mention Award and First Prize of Chiquita Canyon landfill art competition.
About Both Sides Now
Both Sides Now presents contemporary and historical film and video work from the UK, Hong Kong and China, curated by Isaac Leung of Videotage and Jamie Wyld of videoclub. The films explore developments within the culture and society of Hong Kong and China over the past three decades, including work which reflects on the ongoing dynamics of cultures in Hong Kong, China, and the UK. The programme contains work by some of Hong Kong, China and the UK’s most exciting artists working in film and video, and varies between animation, documentary and artists’ moving image.
March 3, 2019Prime Time, Rob Crosse, 2017 (courtesy of the artist)
Throughout March 2019, Rob Crosse is artist in residence for Both Sides Now 5 with Videotage in Hong Kong. While in Hong Kong, Crosse will be meeting with artists and organisations, and investigating the development of a new work.
In 2018, Crosse was curated into our Selected 8 programme, and chosen by videoclub and Videotage to participate in the Both Sides Now Hong Kong residency for his film, Prime Time.
Prime Time follows a group of older gay men as they journey on a cruise ship. Members of a social network of so-called ‘Prime Timers’, regularly get together on excursions, to renew acquaintances, re-affirm the bonds of belonging to a supportive community, and rekindle an itch of adventure. As the pleasure boat cruises, the un-vanishing line of the horizon doubles as a metaphor for the never-ending churn of desire (always re-forming, always out of reach), while the vessel itself, with its cargo of temporary travellers, reminds us how random connections bring people closer, or keep them apart. View an excerpt of Prime Time.
About Rob Crosse
Rob Crosse completed his MFA in Fine Arts at the Slade School of Fine Art. Recent solo exhibitions include Prime Time (2017) Grundy, Blackpool, and Clear as a bell (2016), Kingsgate Projects, London. His films have been screened as part of Different Ways, Lux, London, Transactions of desire, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, Slant : for the unsettling, Jerwood Space London, These Rotten Words, Chapter House, Cardiff, and Artist Film Weekender, HOME, Manchester. He has completed residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska, U.S.A; Katara Art Center, Doha, Qatar; Foundation Marcelino Botin, Santander Spain and Woodmill, London.
About Both Sides Now
Both Sides Now presents contemporary and historical film and video work from the UK, Hong Kong and China, curated by Isaac Leung of Videotage and Jamie Wyld of videoclub. The films explore developments within the culture and society of Hong Kong and China over the past three decades, including work which reflects on the ongoing dynamics of cultures in Hong Kong, China, and the UK. The programme contains work by some of Hong Kong, China and the UK’s most exciting artists working in film and video, and varies between animation, documentary and artists’ moving image.
February 21, 2019The Glamorous Boys of Tang, SU Hui-Yu, 2018
A- – -Z (the nomadic curatorial platform run by Anne Duffau) presents a mood board and a mix from a trip to Taipei with videoclub for Viewfinder.
It is necessary to share some basic facts about Taipei and Taiwan, then to mention two favourite artworks (by Su Yu-Hsien & Su Hui-Yu) from our curatorial visit & to end on a special A- – -Z mix with Taiwanese sounds from historical to recent films and current musicians. (List below).
40th most-populous urban area in the world—roughly one-third of Taiwanese citizens live in the metro districts.
Age: half of the population is aged over 40 years.
Average income – NT$39,953.
Comparing Taiwan with mainland China & the Politics in Taiwan:
In China, 8% of the population live under the poverty line, against 0.95% in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s press freedom ranks 32nd in the world but China is in the 163rd place in the world and only better than 6 other countries.
As of now, most Taiwanese identify themselves as Taiwanese.
The China-friendly former ruling party, Kuomintang (KMT) made a comeback, winning 15 of the 22 cities and counties in Taiwan, defeating the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Kuomintang (Chinese National Party) was the ruling government when the Martial Law (strict regulations, propaganda and censorship on any new political parties, publications, media, and other art or creative forms) was imposed in 1947 and lifted only in 1987 – after the Japanese settlement was defeated (being present since 1895 when China ceded the island).
In December 2018, to pressure the government over changes in the tax system and to make it more transparent, Taiwanese people marched down the street and wore yellow shirts and vests (in the same spirit as the movement in France). They also protested against the unfair policy of levying taxes and for delaying the implementation of tax exemption.
Two works stayed in my mind, they both responded to older references and were exhibited in the Taiwan Biennial, Wild Rhizome, in the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art in Taichung – co-curated by Chou Yu-Ling (in-house curator) and Gong Jow-Jiun (Guest Curator) – a review of the past two years in the Taiwan Art scene.
In the “Wild Image and Alternative Histories” section, the curator Chou Yu-Ling presented to us a series of archival documents (films and photography) in relation to a group of artists, filmmakers, actors and musicians who published a quarterly ‘Theater’. All were active after the lifting of Martial Law, bringing a new wave of creativity and engagement in theatre, film and visual art. The video Prophet (2016) by Su Yu-Hsien was originally written by Huang Hua-cheng (1965). The experimental play centered on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience facing an empty stage. When it was first shown at the theatre, the actors were placed on stage facing the audience, as the original script was not accepted by the conservatism government of the time. This script represents the start of experimental writing in Taiwan after the second world war. Half a century later, actors Chuang Ling and Liu Ying-shang interpret once again the original play in front of the artist, Su Yu-Hsien’s camera. The couple argues, the woman pointing out the man’s failures; him nostalgic, representing the modernist intellectual collapse, aspiring to be better but never able to reach his ideal – thinking that he could have had an influential role since the May Fourth Movement in China.
With humour, these two characters are set in a surreal landscape, apparently waiting in an empty row of seats in a theatre or a cinema – waiting to see a play, a film, or contemplating for an instant at the end of a show. Godot’s Beckett comes to mind. The script places us, spectators in their anxiety, in their deepest & most intimate regrets and past aspirations, a lifetime has passed and nothing has changed.
The other work, The Glamorous Boys of Tang (2018), is a video by the contemporary artist, Su Hui-Yu – a new interpretation of a 1985 long feature film,Tang Chao qi li nan, (Tang Dynasty Beautiful Male) by Chiu Kang-Chien. Su Hui-Yu often researches aesthetics from the 1970s and 80s from films, pop culture, eroticism and porn. In The Glamorous Boys of Tang, he created a response to the original homoerotic movie which at the time was received with heavy criticism and censorship, two years before Martial Law was lifted.
Su Hui-Yu’s work, presented in a four-channel installation, is projected on four giant folded screens emphasizing the theatrical ‘mise-en-scene’, bringing the spectator almost behind a screen, or showing what is behind, accentuating the idea of a hidden setup being revealed. The uncanny story and atmosphere are a graphic, fantastic and phantasmagoric depiction of erotic bodies and flesh, where sex and murder occur, leading to the threshold of deepest passion. From the original film, Su Hui-Yu mentions the discrepancy in details between the script and the film, it seems that his work has translated these missing parts to another universe. The Glamorous Boys of Tang is honed, sharp, slick, dreadful and eerie; it is a tragedy that brings us into a catharsis.
The opportunity to travel to South Korea with videoclub came at a very timely moment in my curatorial career. I was about to open Phantom Limb (phantomlimb.info), an exhibition I co-curated with Kathy Cho at Cody Dock in East London that brought together Korean diaspora artists Dylan Mira, Jette Hye Jin Mortensen, Joan Oh, Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin and Zadie Xa.
My visit to South Korea – and the artworks at Gwangju and Busan biennales that stood out to me the most – were undoubtedly shaped by my current research, curatorial and personal preoccupations with the histories and subjectivities of Asian diasporas.
At Busan Biennale, Taiwanese artist Chin Cheng-Te’s American Pie (2016) comprised historical documents relating to the United States’ relationship with South Korea and Taiwan during the Cold War, a complex military and political history that contributed to their diaspora populations in the United States. Joo Hwang’s Minyo, There and Here (2018) is a four-channel video showing members of the Korean diaspora singing Korean folk songs, reflecting the ways diaspora populations hold onto traditional aspects of culture.
At Gwangju Biennale, Singapore-based artist Ho Rui An’s Asia The Unmiraculous (2018) presented media imagery of Asia in the setting resembling a real estate office. The fourteen posters offered analysis into media imagery Time magazine covers and yellow peril journalism, representing the Western imaginary of Asia in relationship to the economy.
The biennale’s section, “Returns” curated by David Teh, explored the Biennale’s archive, where I learned about “THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora” curated by Yong Soon Min in 2002. The exhibition looked at how “diaspora could be a key concept for understanding Korea itself – histories of diaspora tend to encompass political, ideological and territorial conflict, and might thus reveal more about a nation’s past and present more than its official narratives do.”
Growing up with the sense that the diaspora carried negative connotations in South Korea – and that I was too Asian for America and too American for Korea – motivated me to create a unique space for Korean diaspora artists living in Europe and North Korea to explore identity through the exhibition Phantom Limb. Learning about Yong Soon Min’s project in 2002, as well as being able to connect with new art networks and organizations during this trip to Korea, encourages me to continue to build bridges between transnational Korean populations.
December 10, 2018Zheng Bo, Pteridophilia 1, 2018. HD video, 20 min. Courtesy of the artist.
‘Mycelia can save the world’, artist and co-curator of this year’s Taipei Biennial, Mali Wu tells us with ardent optimism. Post-Nature – A Museum as an Ecosystem, curated alongside Francesco Manacorda, goes on to articulate this foundational belief by collating projects from artistic, filmic, activist, and architectural contexts that interpret this in degrees literal and imaginative.
Mycelium Network Society (Franz Xaver, Taro, Martin Howse,Shu Lea Cheang, and global network nodes), Mycelium Network Society, 2018. Courtesy of the participants.
An ‘underground network imagination powered by fungus’, Mycelium Network Society (MNS) have installed a physical web of transparent chambers incubating a porcelain-white fungus and monitored by instruments which translate the augmentation of mycelial atoms into audible radio frequencies. The initiative advocates for the unique properties of mycelia, its interconnected thread-like network of hyphae holding the promise of a flourishing ecological restoration, whilst inspiring the organising structure of the society’s six transnational nodes. The value of this fungal saviour is twofold, offering an ecological solution whilst proposing a conceptual model for non-hierarchical global relations, assimilating the perceived categories of human, nature, technology.
In Hong Kong-based artist Zheng Bo’s video series (see lead image) Pteridophilia (2016–) the otherworldly subtropical forests of Taiwan dominated by ancient pteridophytes (ferns) provide the stage for slowly unfolding and increasingly erotic reunifications of man and nature. With reference to the wooded spaces of cruising, Zheng proffers a permissive, queer utopian future that challenges orthodoxies of consumption—that we might rethink the singular relationship of plants only providing sustenance. An anthology of gloomy green idylls, each scene lingers over the serpentine lines of arched backs and unfurling ferns, accumulating in something exquisitely strange.
Zheng’s attention to languorous, painterly compositions is taken to a cinematic extreme in Swiss artist Julian Charrière’s feature-length work An Invitation to Disappear (2018). In a single shot, the film tracks steadily through the unending forest of a palm oil plantation on the Indonesia island of Sumbawa, also home to Mount Tambora—the site of the largest recorded volcanic eruption, which in 1816 produced uniquely golden sunsets famously captured in paint by J.M.W. Turner. The work creeps through darkness towards a muffled electronic bassline and foggy lightshow, growing in intensity and sharpness but seemingly absent of its ravers, before passing through this man-made event and returning to the underexposed green. Charrière brings together the ecstatic but short-lived lightshows of the forest rave with the Turner-esque sunset to comment on the feverish temporality of the dangerous global palm oil trade—another kind of flash in geological history.
Julian Charrière & Inland, An Invitation to Disappear, 2018. Courtesy of the participants and Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
Post-Nature is pervaded by this ever-present awareness of deep time; it calls for strategies of return and assimilation and demands action. Outpacing the malaise of so many recent biennials, it pushes beyond description and diagnosis to offer a welcome vision—even if it is mushroom-based.
The 11th Taipei Biennial continues at Taipei Fine Arts Museum until 10 March 2019.
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Marcus Jack is an independent curator and writer based in Glasgow. He is an AHRC PhD candidate at the Glasgow School of Art and Research Associate at LUX Scotland. In 2015 he founded Transit Arts, an organisation for the exhibition of artists’ moving image, and has developed screenings in partnership with ATLAS, CCA Glasgow, GFT & GSFF, Goethe-Institut, Scalarama, Scottish Contemporary Art Network, and Tyneside Cinema.
December 7, 2018360° Without Dead End, Jiu Society, 2016
Di Fang will talk about his exhibition Streets Paved with Pearl – showing at Phoenix in Leicester till 23 December – and his practice as an artist filmmaker, both solo and as part of the collective Jiū Society.
Venue: Phoenix, 4 Midland Street, Leicester LE1 1TG Date and time: Sat, 15 December 19 at 3pm Price: FREE – no booking needed
About Di Fang
Di Fang is a Chinese artist based in Shenzhen (China) and Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). His works convey not only the evolution of urbanisation, but also his political attitudes. He is interested in urban practice, global new references, and views himself as a tourist in his videos and multimedia installations. His work uses multiple vocabularies to investigate the intertwining experiences of city life, and reflects on the rapid and chaotic changes that affect today’s society.
Fang has exhibited in many places internationally, including: Shanghai Biennale (Shanghai, 2018), Julia Stoschek Collection (Düsseldorf, 2018), Vanguard Gallery (Shanghai, 2017), Lost in Shenzhen presented by Jiu Society at 33 Art Space (Shenzhen, 2016), Delaware Centre for the Contemporary Arts (Wilmington, 2013), The Museum of Moscow (Moscow, 2014), Maryland Art Place (Baltimore, 2013) and Connersmith Gallery (Washington D.C, 2013).
Abut Jiu Society
Jiu Society consists of three members, Di Fang, Ji Hao and Jin Haofan. The three young artists were all born and raised as part of a new generation of Shenzhen citizens, in what they refer to as an ‘immigrant city’. They are the experimental products of Reform and Opening, and also sons of dispersed culture. Shenzhen to them is not anymore what it was to their parents – a place to make money. They live and create in Shenzhen, their own city, and, by using their young perspectives, they reconsider their city and make themselves heard.
Streets Paved with Pearl has been curated and produced by Phoenix, videoclub and International Art + Science Research Institute (AS). Streets Paved with Pearl is part of ON AIR, a collaboration between videoclub and AS, enabling cultural exchange across the UK and China.
November 25, 2018Divided We Stand – Busan Biennale
This was my first visit to the Busan Biennale, and having been the day before to the vastly overpopulated Gwangju Biennale, the Busan Biennale curators’ choice of focusing on the work of just 66 artists meant that there was more breathing space to invest the necessary time to properly engage with the works and to reflect on the theme of divided territories.
The biennale was presented across two spaces, clearly demarcating its two main concerns – the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan where the work themed around the Cold War era was presented, and the former Bank of Korea where the more dystopian and futuristic pieces were displayed.
A strong collection of moving image work had been selected for the Biennale, and a clear rationale for how they fitted the curatorial vision. Some of the stand out pieces included:
Hayoun Kwon’s 489 Years, one of the few pieces that employs animation to skillfully create a fictional representation of the DMZ landscape. The detailed computer graphics wonderfully leads the viewer on a journey much as though experiencing a first person shooter game, into a space that divides two nations and has been visited by few Koreans, and that is both simultaneously a deadly war zone and a beautiful wilderness. The piece also exists as a VR work and I imagine would be an excellent way to experience the narrative. Here is an excerpt.
Two pieces by Hito Steyerl were included – Die Leere Mitte (The Empty Centre) from 1998 and ExtraSpaceCraft from 2016. Where the first piece as a single-screen essay film analyses the historical significance of Potsdam Square in Berlin and how migrants have been treated in its gentrification, the second piece employs a multi-screen setting and sculptural seating arrangement in a more playful imagining of how an observatory in Iraqi Kurdistan that is a base for drone surveillance might be one day be employed by a fictitious space agency. Aside from being great works, it was interesting to see how Steyerl’s practice has developed over nearly two decades.
Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi felt well situated within the former bank given the theme of government control underpinning the work. Kahiu has crafted an Afrofuturist work about climate change and territorial control with excellent sci-fi styling and computer graphics. As a cautionary tale it looks to a future where water is scarce and dreams are to be suppressed. Trailer can be viewed here.
Ming Wong’s Tales from the Bamboo Spaceship (Part 1) connects historic Cantonese Opera to contemporary science fiction on screen. The piece makes use of the office space of the former bank, where Wong’s research notes are displayed alongside the monitors. The piece critically explores gender, sexuality and racial politics and is a rich introduction to Wong’s interest in identity and cultural authenticity.
Whilst dealing with challenging concerns and the psychological impact of division, war, territory, and conflict, the works in the biennale were unified in their presentation of thought provoking, and at times, playful ideas with an optimistic message at the core.
November 22, 2018Performance by Videobardo at OSMOSIS Festival, Taipei, August 2017
The finale of our Viewfinder programme – a series of visits across East Asia with artists and curators to promote their work – takes us to Taiwan. While there we will be visiting Taiwan Biennial in Taichung, and Taipei Biennial. We will also be visiting one of the latest and most important sites for the arts in Taipei, C-LAB (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab), plus we’ll be hosting a dinner with curators from Taiwan to meet with curators from the UK who will be joining us. UK curators on this visit are: Marcus Jack, Laura Leuzzi, John Bloomfield and Anne Duffau.
While there, Jamie Wyld, videoclub’s director, will give a talk at C-LAB about videoclub’s work, comparisons between European and Asian moving image, and the future of artists’ film and video from his perspective.
Viewfinder has been supported by Arts Council England and Creative Scotland.
November 2, 2018brother to brother, Imran Perretta, 2017 (courtesy of the artist)
Selected is a new collection of diverse artists’ film and video, taking place at some of the UK’s leading venues for showcasing artists’ film and video. In November, the final screening of the programme takes place at Vivid Projects, Birmingham.
Nominated by the artists shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2017, Selected brings together some of the best work from early career film and video artists from the UK in a vibrant programme of recent artists’ moving image.
Shortlisted artists for the 2017 Film London Jarman Award – Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Oreet Ashery, Adham Faramawy, Melanie Manchot, Charlotte Prodger and Marianna Simnett – have nominated work by up-and-coming filmmaking talent, to develop an invigorating new programme of work. The screening will be followed by an in conversation with some of the artists.
Date and time: Thursday, 22 November 18, 7pm Price: £2.99 Address: 16 Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5RS – Directions Web / contact: www.vividprojects.org.uk / info@vividprojects.org.uk / BOOK TICKETS
Programme:
Afro-Glitch, Kamile Ofoeme, 2017, 6:50 mins Gaby, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, 2018, 8 mins The Blushing Valley, Gery Georgieva, 2018, 4 mins Oh Leander!, Jala Wahid, 2017, 4:15 mins People say it’s fireworks, Tim Bowditch, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and Sybella Perry, 2017, 13:45 mins brother to brother, Imran Perretta, 2017, 6:36 mins Prime Time, Rob Crosse, 2017, 20 mins
Produced by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network. Supported by Arts Council England and Film London.
Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network
Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) supports London-based artists working in moving image, working in partnership to deliver a comprehensive programme including production award schemes, regular screenings, talks and events, as well as the prestigious annual Film London Jarman Award. www.filmlondon.org.uk/flamin
