actualités

Fortune Teller

Isaac Asimov, an American science fiction novelist, put forward a discipline by the name of Psychohistory in his work Foundation. In the novel, Psychohistory became an important means of guiding mankind to step back from darkness into light. Asimov reset humans to molecules. By studying the whole humans in the galaxy, he predicted the fate of the world and the future of mankind. In reality, with the advancement of data models and algorithms, this subject seems to have some rationality: Our daily lives have been heavily dependent on networks, data, statistics and other systems. As barriers between various disciplines are quickly opened, they have made up a huge research matrix, thus contributing to a future that seems to be controlled and calculated, and makes every step of life move ahead akin to model shocks.

Psychohistory is evidently just an ideal discipline existing only in a « sterile vacuum » environment. We have to face a more complex reality: There is an underlying crisis of dictatorship with information when it provides convenience for humans. As data algorithms go deep into various fields, humans are constantly denied of the attributes of freedom of body and mind. The seemingly melting disciplinary barriers still reflect a deeper chain of technological monopolies. While enjoying the express delivery economy, we are becoming objects of consumption…. The rapid advances in technologies have “widened” the gap between cultural traditions, habits of thought, morality and ethics that have different kernels. As an organism, man develops emotions and imaginations around the two parallel and split clues.

In his book The Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku describes three degrees of the « impossible ». Except for the third most extreme case, there are only two impossible things: the perpetual motion machine and the prediction power. Although the ability to predict is still only a plot of science fictions, we can intervene in the ways things progress from a microscopic individual perspective. We need to recognize the danger of thinking according to the old practice. The exhibition tries to introduce a mode of discursive thinking in the face of the future, which is multi-dimensional, interventional and sustainable. From a microcosmic perspective, it reschedules the engineering, design and programming to approach a more resilient future.

The exhibition revolves around these observations and hopes to take the opportunity to raise a question: How have the artists and designers reflected, presupposed and introduced fictional methods into the designs of the future under the existing accumulation of reality? They grow up in mutual cooperation and competition. We can still draw on this approach in Foundation: If we take the individuals as molecules of the whole society, each individual’s unique knowledge, domain and information seem to reschedule the prophecy of the individuals after the discipline boundary has « vanished ».

The exhibition’s narrative consists 5 Chapters with keywords: « Wasteland », « Physical Romance », « Data Body » , « Algorithmic Poem » and « Perpetual Laboratory ». Each keyword can be seen as a scattering of stars in the constellation which lights up possibilities of the future. This exhibition features works from 12 artists and designers. Hao Jingfang and Wang Lingjie’s work extends the boundary of physics and illustrates the mechanical aesthetics. Qiu Chi and Zheng Jiayan’s installations create a deconstructed doomsday scenario. In addition to the imagination of the future, there are also works that reflect and response to current technologies. Shizheng uses AI algorithms to present fleeting and transmuted news; Mao Haonan attempts to seek and explore human subconscious in virtual time; Liu Wa and Zhang Ziyang’s works discuss the relationship between human sensory abilities, changes in perceptions and machines; Zhang Yuewei, Su Yuxin and Liang Wenhua’s works respond to the penetration of technology into the real world and nature. In the last session of the exhibition, an experimental field about « things » is structed by An Jing. and the New Material Design Research Center of Beijing Fashion Institute of Technology, a team of designers involved in the exhibition, provides design solutions for the future by investigating the properties and innovations of materials. As the team of designers of the exhibition, the New Materials Design and Research Centre of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology provides various design options leading to the future by studying the attributes and making innovations of the materials.

By Li Beike, Sun Tianyi

Heart Sets Out from New Starting Point — 2020 China • Shanghai Jing’an International Sculpture Project Being Held

The new public art event—2020 China • Shanghai Jing’an International Sculpture Project (JISP) is being held in Jing’an Sculpture Park from September 26 to December 31, 2020.

JISP is co-hosted by Jing’an District People’s Government and Shanghai Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, and is organized by Jing’an District Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Jing’an District Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau, Landscaping Management Center of Jing’an District, Jing’an Sculpture Park. The curation organization is Purple Roof Public Art, and the art consultants are Mr. Huang Du, a famous Chinese curator, and Menene Gras Balagurer, head of cultural and exhibition project “CASA ASIA” under the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A city of sculpture with ten years of persistent development

JISP is an international high-end public art event. Since its debut in 2010, JISP has been held for five times as a biennale, and has become a famous public art and cultural brand in Shanghai and even the whole country. The previous editions have not only introduced global leading works to China, but also enabled Chinese public artists to compete and exchange with international counterparts on the same stage, thus fully demonstrating the artistic charm and humanistic connotation of Jing’an as an internationalized district. Through the continuous holding of high-level art events, Jing’an Sculpture Park has become a platform for displaying global outstanding sculptures and excellent Chinese sculptors and for exploring the future development direction of sculpture art.

In the last ten years, with themes including “City Fantasy”, “Pride of City », “City Paradise”, “City Rebirth” and “City Unbounded”, the editions of the exhibition with Jing’an Sculpture Park as the main stage brought splendid works of world-class artists to Shanghai. Perfectly integrated with the beautiful environment of the park, these works demonstrated global public art and received attention and praise from all parties, leading the internationalized and high-end development of Shanghai’s public space art. After Zhabei District was incorporated into Jing’an District in 2015, JISP was also held in Daning Park and Shibei High-tech Park. During the period, public space art forums and various activities featuring citizen participation and interaction were held for several times. They allowed both professionals and ordinary citizens to fully experience the beauty of space art from different angles, making irreplaceable contributions to the improvement of urban space quality and citizens’ artistic accomplishments, as well as people’s joy of life.

The five successful editions have left many good memories for the citizens, and laid a solid foundation and left precious wealth for the development of Jing’an’s public art, the building of the international Jing’an brand, and the improvement of urban quality.

Reshaping space to continue the glory

In order to implement the development concept of “people-centered” raised by the Party Central Committee and the development ideas of “innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing”, respond to the development direction of urban refined management, urban regeneration and high-quality public space construction, and echo with “International Jing’an, Outstanding City”, the sculpture exhibition this time takes “Reshaping Space” as the theme and people’s higher demand for quality of life as the starting point, integrates ecological and artistic elements, and implants various public spaces regarding business, recreation, education, etc., with the goal of creating an exquisite, pleasant and imaginative urban environment to further enhance citizens’ sense of gain, happiness and security. The sculpture exhibition has again walked out of Jing’an Sculpture Park to the neighborhood to promote the quality and taste of the city.

The exhibition this time has launched a new program of “Reshaping Space”. Firstly, the exhibition space has been extended to Walking Street Plaza of Wujiang Road, Plaza 66, Feng Sheng Li and other busy business districts, allowing public art to further enter people’s lives. The exhibition area at SISU Jing’an Foreign Language Primary School focuses on promoting the in-depth penetration of “aesthetic education”, so as to infiltrate children into the soil of art. Secondly, the exhibition has broadened thinking by combining floral art with sculpture art. An indoor exhibition of “Flower • Art Space” being held in the Sculpture Park Art Center fully interprets the theme of “space” and provides citizens with a colorful visual experience.

During the exhibition, Shanghai Jing’an Public Art Conference (J’PAC) was also held. It had been successfully held for four times since 2012. Guided by the principle of “people’s city by the people, people’s city for the people” and with “discussions on the reshaping of space in the process of urban development” as the clue, J’PAC this time targeted at outstanding urban quality, discussed the intrinsic relationship between space, art, culture and society, and sought the path for Shanghai and Jing’an towards an innovation, humanistic and ecological city.

55 works of 29 artists from 10 countries shine this autumn

There are 55 exhibits in 33 groups for the exhibition which has attracted 29 artists from 10 countries. Among them, there are 13 foreign artists and 16 domestic ones.

Richard Long is one of the best-known British artists, a representative of the British land art, and the only artist who has been short-listed four times for the Turner Prize. He presented his work Four Ways this time. The work forms an impression of the world on images such as the earth and mountains, which has an epic and classic significance. Richard Long was also knighted in the 2018 Honours List due to his contributions to art.

Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou, who participated in Documenta 11 and two editions of La Biennale di Venezia, explores the world and the destiny of mankind with individual expression, and his works therefore feature broadness beyond regions. In his work Arbre à Palabres, plastic containers used in daily life are constructed into a work of art like tree of life, which is a metaphor for cultural changes and the emergence of new aesthetics, and emphasizes mutational and diversified forms, as well as lasting and eternal inner vitality.

Pedro Reyes has held exhibition tours in Harvard University, Cambridge University, Monte Carlo, Milan, Mexico City and Shangri-La in Puerto Rico. His work Unite reflects the influence of architecture on artists. During the exploration of “people and people” and “people and space”, artistic concepts reshape space.

For more than 30 years, Liang Shaoji has been dedicated to the exploration of art and biology, installations and sculptures, and media and behavior. His works enable people to have a new enlightenment on the relationship among life, ourselves and nature as well as their meaning. His work Moon Bay is created with a fume exhaust pipe, which implies that inorganic industrial materials that purify the air are transformed into organic organisms and melted into nature.

Juan Garaizabal’s work Ever Time Gate uses simple lines to outline the tension between reality and the opposite bank, as well as the future and the present, and explores the common destiny of mankind.

La question est souvent posée : pourquoi donc est-ce l’art contemporain qui est invité à « investir » les églises et chapelles du haut-Doubs retenues par art en chapelles dans ses circuits ?

« Art » : le mot rebute parfois ; indiffère souvent. Alors quand l’art devient contemporain au mieux il surprend, interroge, questionne. L’interrogation est légitime : dans son livre Vérité en art, le philosophe et critique d’art, Philippe Sers, écrit : « le paysage artistique actuel manque de lisibilité. Il est difficile d’y trouver ses repères et de construire un jugement de valeur (…). En face de l’art contemporain, la tentation vient alors au public de tout rejeter, dans l’impossibilité de discerner, ou bien de tout accepter par intimidation. Deux attitudes
qui n’ont de sens ni l’une, ni l’autre ».

C’est donc un choix exigeant que le nôtre, car il fait appel à toute la capacité d’attention et d’interrogation. c’est un choix qui s’impose, car l’art contemporain est porteur de l’essentiel :

— en rendant présent l’inapparent, il est par définition, un acte créateur.

— en posant des questions sur l’homme, sur sa vie, sur ses doutes, la nature…

Il nourrit la réflexion spirituelle, sur notre histoire passée, présente et… L’art contemporain se montre sous toutes ses facettes, invitant le visiteur-spectateur à la curiosité, l’écoute, la rencontre, la réflexion.

Co-commissariat : Puzzle et Centre Jacques Brel
Vernissage le 30 janvier à 18h30

Matériau sans corporalité, la lumière interagit et dialogue avec la matière sans laquelle elle reste invisible. Composée de particules photoniques, elle change la géométrie et la nature des objets si bien que grâce à elle, les artistes jouent et expérimentent pour offrir une nouvelle vision imaginaire, poétique, inattendue.
Salle blanche, nous invitons le public à appréhender le soleil comme source de vie. Cet astre divin dont l’Homme à toujours cherché à maitriser la lumière et à s’approprier le rythme. Salle noire, nous proposons un regard sur la lumière artificielle et les technologies qui permettent de contempler son mouvement.
Dans la bulle forum et la caverne, à travers le medium vidéo, nous donnons à voir des images contemplatives et méditatives presque figées qui revoient à l’Histoire de l’Art et à la peinture.

Benoit Billote
Bertrand Gadenne
Jingfang Hao & Lingjie Wang
Nancy Holt
Martin Messier
Gjon Mili
Jiro Nakayama
Bill Viola

> Exposition du jeudi 30 janvier au samedi 7 mars 2020
Du mardi au samedi de 14h à 18h
Les dimanches 02 février et 1er mars de 14h à 18h
Entrée libre
Salle blanche, Salle noire, Bulle du Forum et Caverne.
Visites découverte les matins sur RDV : 03 82 56 12 43

avec Benoit Billotte, stanley brouwn, Alain Colardelle, Jennifer Douzen, Peter Downsbrough, Wang Lingjie & Hao Jingfang, David Lamelas, Valentin Pierrot, Rémy Zaugg

L’albédo est une grandeur scientifique qui se définit comme le rapport entre l’énergie lumineuse reçue et réfléchie par une matière. Cette énergie s’exprime indifféremment en
fraction de 0 à 1 ou en pourcentage de 0 à 100 % ; celle d’un miroir parfait serait alors équivalente à 100%. L’albédo est un concept que l’on retrouve aussi bien en écologie :l’albédo de la planète, des forêts ou d’une plante qu’en urbanisme ou en architecture avec
l’albédo d’une place, d’une route, d’un bâtiment. Cette exposition invite à explorer cette notion à travers l’expérience de la lumière et des matières. Les artistes nous convient à un moment scientifique, poétique et parfois même politique.

Commissariat | Valentin Wattier
Scénographie réalisée par les étudiantes du Master 2 Art de l’exposition et scénographie: Julie Accorsi, Verónica Marcovich (Vero Mar), Isa Hafid, Pauline Jeannette, Aurore Genitoni, Emeline Bénard, Juliette Catelle , Louise Derbez (Louise Dbz)

En partenariat avec l’ Université de Lorraine ,
49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine et Frac Champagne-Ardenne

Exposition visible du 13/12/2019 – 02/02/2020
Fermeture du 25 décembre 2019
au 05 janvier 2020 inclus

The Process of Art: TOOLS AT WORK

Curator: Zhang Yingying

Artists: Guo Cheng, Hao Jingfang & Wang Lingjie, Jiang Zhuyun, Liu Fujie, Slime Engine, and Ye Linghan

About the Exhibition: As a definable movement, Conceptual Art in the 1960s-1970s attempted to bypass the increasingly commercialized art world, emphasizing that « thinking process and production methods are the value of artworks ». As a mysterious bridge, tools have realized the visual transformation of artworks from virtual individual consciousness to tangible objects. An artist’s conception itself does not constitute art – but if the artist seeks to materialize it, he or she must utilize the power of technology and tool. Tool is a clue that can return to the essence of art. As a part of artists’ practical behavior, it has its own way of seeing. This approach guides artists to operate, and makes the operations own their specific material properties.

Manufacturing, manipulating, editing or processing represent a way of art’s uncovering as well as a pattern of creating an open area and revealing truth within – they are closely related to the emergence of art essence. When works lose themselves in the art market or fall into theoretical crisis, tools become a gradual link – a link that can produce infinity, a link that has creativity to break the existing cognition, and a link that carries out the internal test of art. It makes us re-examine the creation of art again…

About the Curator: Zhang Yingying is a Shanghai-based curator and writer. She started to engage artistic creations in 2010, turned to art review and focused research on Kassel Documenta in 2015, and devoted to curatorial practices in 2017, searching for the best fitting points between art, theory and social reality from basic elements.

Emerging Curators Project 2019
Time: October 25, 2019 – February 23, 2020
Venue: Gallery 1, 1F, PSA
Organizer: Power Station of Art
Special Thanks to: Consulate General of France in Shanghai, Pro Helvetia Shanghai
Special Partner: TOTO (China) Co., Ltd.
Support: Shanghai HELU Culture Communication Co.Ltd., Project Woo
Admission: Free

About Emerging Curators Project
PSA’s Emerging Curators Project is China’s exclusive young curator development and research project. As the contemporary art museum’s annual exhibitory and academic trademark, the project stays committed to exploring young Chinese curatorial talents and providing them with a platform to practice conceptions, an opportunity to access comprehensive and in-depth guidance, a path to enter the public’s eyes, and an environment to enjoy healthy growth. Since its inception in 2014, the Emerging Curators Project has so far supported more than 30 Chinese curatorial talents to realize a total of 14 exhibitions. With an open and fair reviewing principle that disregards backgrounds and encourages adventures, the six-year-old project has been gradually rising to become an important platform for young Chinese curators. Through exhibition-based practices, young curators emerging on this platform gain experiences as well as attention from the industry, while some of the curatorial plans taking form here are also translating into sustainable research and exhibition projects.

About PSA
Established on October 1, 2012, the Power Station of Art (PSA) is the first state-run museum dedicated to contemporary art in mainland China. It is also home to the Shanghai Biennale. Renovated from the former Nanshi Power Plant, PSA was once the Pavilion of Future during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The museum has not only witnessed the city’s vast changes from the industry age to the IT era, but also provided a rich source of inspirations for artists with its simple yet straightforward architectural styles. And as Shanghai’s generator for its new urban culture, PSA regards non-stopping innovation and progress as the key to its long-term vitality. The museum has been striving to provide an open platform for the public to learn and appreciate contemporary art, break the barrier between life and art, and promote cooperation and knowledge generation between different schools of art and culture.

About Consulate General of France in Shanghai
The Consulate General of France in Shanghai represents the Service of Cooperation and Cultural Action of the Embassy of France in China, which bears a mission to spread the French culture, promote French education, and boost Sino-French cultural exchanges in China.

About Pro Helvetia Shanghai
Established by the Swiss Government in 1939, Pro Helvetia is dedicated to the promotion of contemporary cultural works of national and international interest. Pro Helvetia Shanghai, founded in 2010, carries an aim to encourage dialogue between Swiss and Chinese cultural practitioners and institutions by supporting projects that enhance the exchange of knowledge and experience in the cultural field. Most projects undertaken by Pro Helvetia Shanghai focus on Swiss contemporary art, with special emphasis placed on the disciplines of visual and performing arts, design and music.