Monday, December 07, 2009

office chair redux


office chair redux
Originally uploaded by raniaho

we were just in shenzhen for the shenzhen-hong
kong architecture biennial
. wandering around the electronics market i
came upon this guy and a jury-rigged trash bin that he was dragging around
to sweep up garbage on the street. He said he made it himself. awesome.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

up-dating down-loading over-reaching


up-dating down-loading over-reaching
Originally uploaded by raniaho

finally got around to updating a few new projects to my website. in the last 10 months or so
i've been making fountains, doing some farming, and a little bit of "urban
planning." hope you like it.

up-dating down-loading over-reaching


up-dating down-loading over-reaching
Originally uploaded by raniaho

finally got around to updating a few new projects to my website. in the last 10 months or so
i've been making fountains, doing some farming, and a little bit of "urban
planning." hope you like it.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

'rounding (english version)


'rounding (english version)
Originally uploaded by raniaho

Just Around the Corner Arrow Factory, Beijing
August 15, 2009 - January 15, 2010
Curated by Chen Shaoxiong and Pauline J. Yao

*Announcing NEW WORK **Nov 29**, 2009** - Jan 15, 2010**:
**Li Ming, **Lin Tianmiao and **Wang Wei (this is the final rotation for
this exhibition)*

Please note: Artists and artworks in the show will be on view in four
different sections, each lasting for approximately one month. Please check
the website www.arrowfactory.org.cn for the most current information.

Participating artists: Lim Tzay-Chuen (Singapore/Beijing), Liang Yuanwei
(Beijing), Xijing Men (Beijing/Tokyo/Seoul), Yan Lei (Beijing), Ken Lum
(Vancouver), Wang Wei (Beijing), Patty Chang (New York), Liu Chuang
(Beijing), Li Ming (Hangzhou), Rania Ho (Beijing), Hong Hao (Beijing), Koki
Tanaka (Tokyo/Los Angeles), Dan Perjovschi (Bucharest), Lin Tianmiao
(Beijing)

Just Around the Corner is a group exhibition that looks at the street and
hutong environment as a site for artistic creation. Marking Arrow Factory’s
first group exhibition, Just Around the Corner invites international and
local artists to make new projects that interact, engage, embed themselves
or otherwise respond to social conditions that persist within Arrow
Factory’s storefront location. Extending beyond the four walls of Arrow
Factory’s space to engage more directly with the outdoor street and
neighboring businesses and residents, these works wish to promote a seamless
relationship with the local economies and micro-environments of hutong life.

In taking the hutong as site for artistic production, Just Around the Corner
also aims at engaging strategies of looking and visibility, especially as
they pertain to our understandings of consumption and exchange in daily
life. The audience at Arrow Factory is made up of immediate neighbors and
residents of Jianchang Hutong, namely local residents, merchants and random
passersby. Unaccustomed to the modes of visual consumption we readily
associate with contemporary art, they are regular users of the space and
inhabitants whose daily practice is composed of less visually oriented
types of consumption—buying vegetables, cigarettes, pancake bread, etc—that
permeate everyday life. Even though modern lifestyles and new inhabitants
have invaded the hutong, modern visual culture and art has yet to
incorporate the hutong and its residents into its own horizon and hutong
residents are nonchalant when it comes to contemporary art. The art world
views its audience as the museum director, curator, collector, art
researcher and art student, gradually abandoning the general public and
enforcing a high-minded view of art. But what does it mean for works of art
to be seen, noticed, witnessed, and felt in contexts where the modalities of
art merge with everyday human experience? Are there ways to approach a
particular location, like Arrow Factory Hutong, as a site for examining the
systems and structures of consumption that overlap with but remain
fundamentally different than those of the ‘art system’? These are some of
the ideas Just Around the Corner seeks to identify and pose through its own
formation and realization. *

International artist participation has been made possible through the
support of several organizations and individuals: Asia Art Archive, Hong
Kong; Libreria Borges Institute of Contemporary Art, Guangzhou;
Manufactura's Studio, Wuhan; Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou/Beijing;
Triangle Arts Trust; the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA); Waling Boers
and Beatrice Leanza/BAO Atelier. *

'rounding the final corner...


'rounding the final corner...
Originally uploaded by raniaho

The final rotation for Arrow
Factory's Just Around the Corner
is up! this one features Li Ming
(pictured), Lin Tianmiao and Wang Wei. this will be up until mid jan. hope
you can make it. it's a been a marathon 5 month show. come see this last
installment of artists "playing" in the hutong.
yes, it's cold, but not as cold as its been and a nice walk around the
hutongs for some fresh air is exactly what you've been missing.
here's the press release:

就在拐角 - Just Around the Corner 北京箭厂空间 2009年8月15日至2010年1月 15日
策展人:陈劭雄与姚嘉善 *2009年11月29日-
**2010年**1月15日将在箭厂空间展出:
**李明 **, **林天苗**,* *王卫**新作品(本次展览的最后一个阶段)
*
请留意:这个展览的艺术家和作品将分成四个部分,每个部分的展出持 续大约一个月。想知道最新消息请浏览我们的网站:
www.arrowfactory.org.cn

参与艺术家:艺术家:

林载春(新加坡/北京), 梁远苇(北京), 西京人(北京/东京/首尔) , 颜磊 (北京) , 林荫庭 (温哥华) , 王卫(北京) , 张怡 (纽约)
, 刘窗(北京) , 李明(杭州) , 何颖宜 (北京) , 洪浩(北京) , 田中功起(东京/洛杉矶) , 丹·皮乔沃维奇(布加勒斯特) ,
林天苗(北京)

《就在拐角》是一次群展,将街头和胡同环境视同为艺术创作现场。作
为箭厂空间首次全方位群展,《就在拐角》邀请国内外艺术家们创作新作,这些计划令他们互动、引起他们的兴趣并使之深入其中,或者与箭厂空间临街场地固有的
社会环境相呼应。这些作品跨越空间的四壁,直接与外面的街道、近邻的商铺和居民接触, 而推动了与当地经济以及胡同生活微观环境的密切联系。
在北京,胡同不仅仅是房子与房子之间的过道,在东西南北沿经纬延伸的京城道路里,它是这个城市敏感的神经末稍,在这里,爷们侃大山、妇女聊八卦,犹如今天
的互联网,是主流话语之外民众之间交流的重要场所。而各种小生意如:包子、煎饼、水果、菜市、香烟和汽水,买者和卖者都是这些人,像一个物物交换的自给自
足的小社会,当旅游者进入这个社区才把这些买卖变成真正的商业化。当现代生活及旅游者侵入胡同之后,当代视觉文化却未把胡同及其居民纳入他们的视野之中,
而对等地,胡同以及居民也对当代艺术不加理睬。

在探索胡同半公共环境作为艺术创作的空间之外,此次展览的目的还在于吸引人的观看手法和可视性,特别是它们隶属于我们对日常生活中消费与交换的理解。箭厂
空间的观众,由近邻的街坊以及箭厂胡同的居民组成,也就是说,是当地居民、商贩以及偶然路过的人。他们并不熟悉我们很容易便同当代艺术相联系的视觉消费方
式,但却是空间的常客,他们的日常生活由很少具有视觉导向的消费所组成:买菜、买烟、买烙饼等等——这些都渗透在每天的日常生活当中。艺术界把观众设定为
美术馆馆长、策划人、收藏家、艺术研究者和学生,放弃了普通民众而把艺术的高雅模式不断地强化。艺术作品在一个多种形态或艺术与人类日常生活经历结合在一
起的语境之下被观看、留意、亲眼目睹或感受,这意味着什么呢?有没有什么方式可以进入某个现场,例如箭厂胡同,以此作为一个现场,审视与“艺术体系”相交
叠但从根本而言仍有所不同的消费体系和结构?这些就是《就在拐角》试图通过其形成和实现而认识并提出的问题。

*国际艺术家参与者的赞助: 香港亚洲艺术表演文献库, 广州博尔赫斯书店当代艺术机构, 武汉造实验工作室, 广州与北京维他命空,
英国三角基金会,中央美术学院, Waling Boers and Beatrice Leanza/BAO Atelier.*

Monday, November 23, 2009

more apothecary


more apothecary
Originally uploaded by raniaho

a recently finished project. beijing's *apothecary* bar/restaurant is now
open. designed and built by kupa
studios

more apothecary


more apothecary
Originally uploaded by raniaho

a recently finished project. beijing's *apothecary* bar/restaurant is now
open. designed and built by kupa
studios

more apothecary


more apothecary
Originally uploaded by raniaho

a recently finished project. beijing's *apothecary* bar/restaurant is now
open. designed and built by kupa
studios

more apothecary


more apothecary
Originally uploaded by raniaho

a recently finished project. beijing's *apothecary* bar/restaurant is now
open. designed and built by kupa
studios

beachy


beachy
Originally uploaded by raniaho

just back from xiamen where we installed some work at the chinese european
art center (http://www.ceac99.com/exhibition/present/present.htm). the city
is a laid-back beach town with a good portion of the population taking
seaside wedding photos (see above). we ate beautiful curry shacha noodles
streetside, went to a totally surreal party on a rooftop of a villa, and
wandered around the markets.

if this post works it will be a small victory over the firewall. have been
blocked for the last 6 months. fingers crossed.

apothecary


apothecary
Originally uploaded by raniaho

built by kupa studios

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Fwd: 大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志-- 林一林艺术方案 Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades-- A project by Lin Yilin

hello friends!

we are having a small gathering at the arrow factory this sunday (2009.06.14) from 4-6pm as part of a new project by Lin Yilin. If you are in the area, please stop by and visit us. it would be great to see you.

best-
rania


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arrow factory <arrowfactory@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Subject: 大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志-- 林一林艺术方案 Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades-- A project by Lin Yilin



6月14日星期天下午四时至六时请光临本次展 览的特别活动!
Please join us for a special event on Sunday, June 14, 4-6pm
Lin Yilin

大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志

林一林艺术计划,蔡青、蔡伟和方璐作品共同展出

2009年6月15日-2009年 8月9日

6月14日星期天下午四时至六时请光临本次展览的特别活动!
 
《大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志》,是一个从看似无关紧要的立场出发来讲述所谓重大事件,进而探讨集体与个人经历之间动态变化的项 目。林一林一改"历史"作为重大事件、地点和个体编年史的标准叙事手法,《大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志》这件新作呈现了与平凡、随意和个人密切相关的纪录。 作品试图将附带事件置于核心舞台,进而削弱书面历史的主导方针,把玩我们用以将重要事件从不相干事件中区分出来的方式。


由于采用了宏大的历史年表的风格特征,《大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志》运用录像、摄影和文本,来标记海外华人艺术家这一特定群体中的活动和事件——可以说, 这是一个分布在不同国家和大陆的家庭—他们通过1990年代走出国门这一共同经历而联系起来。其中一些艺术家非常有名,另一些名不见经传;有人横贯欧洲, 而有些则前往美国。一些人功成名就、时来运转,而另一些则贫病交加、郁郁而终。然而,从某些方面来讲,他们的生活不经意间同有意或无意地离开中国后的边缘 生活所导致的事件和经历相联系。描绘这些偶然经历如何发生,如何彼此重合,如何同毛主席、卡尔·马克思以及弗里德里希·恩格斯这些著名政治人物相重叠,重 点强调了这些个别经历和轨迹的随机性和不重要的特征。就像之前在箭厂空间的其它艺术项目一样,《大家庭:是兄弟,不是同志》也考虑到其周边环境和背景语 境,在这种情况下,微渺的个体当中所发生的一系列琐碎事件被有意呈现在一个边缘空间中,唤起我们对于为不同遭遇和经历赋予不同的"重要"程度时我们自身偏 见和判断的关注。年表一直延续至今,箭厂空间和艺术家为此将在六月十四日周日下午四时至六时举办一次特别的非正式活动,在纪念《大家庭:是兄弟,不是同 志》的同时也将这些历史经历在北京一条不起眼的胡同中进行延续。


"箭厂空间"是一个由独立策展人和艺术家组织 策划的艺术橱窗项目。空间位于 北京市中心的胡同里,原本是个小商铺,经过改造后拥有10平方米的展出面积。"箭厂空间"首先希望通过橱窗这种特殊的展示方式,为艺术家的创作方法提供一 种新的可能,空间内定期更新的艺术作品将会在这里每天面对不同的社会群体和文化情境。其次项目自身也试图探讨艺术与日常生活之间的美学关系,尝试艺术创作 与公共空间的有机对话,促进当代艺术的试验,交流与研究。"箭厂空间"将会积极地邀请国内和国外的艺术家提供现场装置和项目。

Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades

A project by Lin Yilin, with works by Cai Qing, Cai Wei and Fang Lu

June 15 – August 9, 2009

Please join us for a special event on Sunday, June 14, 4-6pm

Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades, is a project that explores the dynamic between collective and personal histories through the telling of so-called important events from the perspective of the seemingly insignificant. Inverting the standard narration of 'History' as a chronicle of major events, places and individuals, Lin Yilin's new work, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades, presents a record that relates to the mundane, arbitrary and personal. The work attempts to undermine dominant strategies of writing history by putting sidelined events into center stage, playing with the ways we distinguish the important from the irrelevant.

Adopting the stylistic hallmarks of a grand historical timeline, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades uses video, photographs and text to chart the events and episodes amongst a specific group of overseas Chinese artists—a family so to speak, spread across different countries and continents—that are united by their joint experiences in migrating from China during the 1990s. Some of the artists mentioned are famous, some are lesser known; some traversed Europe and some went to America, some encountered fame and fortune while others fell ill and died. Yet their lives are all in some way linked by chance episodes and experiences that result from a life in the margins after voluntary or involuntary exile from China. Tracing how these random histories coincide and overlap with one another and with preeminent political figures such as Chairman Mao, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, underscores the random and nonessential roles of these individual histories and locations. As in previous Arrow Factory projects, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades is ever mindful of its surrounding environment and context. In this case a set of trivial events occurring amongst minor individuals are purposely presented in a marginal space, calling attention to our own bias and judgment in attaching scales of 'importance' to various encounters and experiences. Continuing the timeline up to the present, Arrow Factory and the artist will hold a special informal event on Sunday, June 14 from 4-6pm to commemorate Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades and to realize the ability for these histories to leave their mark on such far-flung places as an inconsequential hutong alley in Beijing.

Arrow Factory is an independently run alternative storefront space that seeks to advance artistic collaboration, exploration and experimentation across different cultural contexts and viewing publics. Located in a small hutong in Beijing's city center, Arrow Factory reclaims existing commercial space to present artworks that stimulate dialogue between art and contemporary urban space. Aimed at reaching a diverse public made up of local residents, as well as local and international art audiences, our modestly sized space (approx 10 square meters or 100 square feet) is intended to create new avenues for artistic production in China and further aesthetic relationships between contemporary art and everyday life. Arrow Factory will invite artists living inside and outside of China to create site-specific installations and projects that will be available for view in its storefront location 7 days a week.

箭厂空间
箭厂胡同38号 (国子监街内)
北京 100007 中国  

Arrow Factory
38 Jianchang Hutong (off Guozijian Jie)
Beijing, 100007 China
arrow factory map
www.arrowfactory.org.cn
arrowfactory@gmail.com



Friday, May 08, 2009

jumping the wall

now that kan xuan's work is up, i had a free moment to tweak the kupa studios website. okok, actually what happened was that our original domain name got blocked in china. so given flickr's spotty accessibility (also firewall related), we decided to acquire a new name and a new server (inside china this time - yeah, try to block me now suckas!), and *hot damn* we found some leftover tech-no-lo-gee to make us a website. nothing better for motivating action than trying to circumvent authority. haven't the slightest idea why we were blocked. maybe because we were linking to flickr? anyway, here tis:

www.kupastudios.com.cn
kupa studios is a design collective based in LA and Beijing. we're designers, architects and artists. we make stuff.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

light












now playing at the arrow factory:

Kan Xuan – Light

April 15 – May 7, 2009

Beginning April 15, Arrow Factory will present a series of temporary projects by Beijing-based artist Kan Xuan. Gathered under the collective title “Light”, Kan Xuan will use the space of Arrow Factory as a testing ground for a variety of ideas and concepts, showing only semi-finished work or works-in-process that are continually modified over a fixed period of time. Over a period of six weeks, Kan Xuan will present four to five different projects, each on view for a period of ten days or less. Instead of exhibiting a finished work at the beginning, the work will only reach completion at the end, representing an inverse model of the conventional static and unchanging exhibition format. Working with artists under these provisional conditions, Arrow Factory hopes to open new modes of exhibition-making by diverting attention away from a finished artwork towards something that evolves within the space and that gives the viewing public a deeper look into the artistic process.

Kan Xuan (b.1972) is a graduate of the China Academy of Art specializing in video and video installation. Her work has been exhibited widely in China and internationally, notably in the Chinese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2007), 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007), NONO at the Long March Space, Beijing (2007) and China Power Station I, II, III in various locations (2006-2008). She completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende in Amsterdam and was the winner of the De Prix de Rome Prize in Holland in 2005. She lives between Beijing and the Netherlands.


阚萱展览-《轻》

展出时间:2009年4月15日-2009年6月7日

箭 厂空间从本月15日开始,将展出艺术家阚萱的新作品系列。在“轻”这样一个主题框架之下,阚萱将箭厂空间作为实践她近期概念与想法的一个“试验场”,在其 中只呈现一些尚处于未完成状态的以及正在进行中的作品。在大约6周的时间里,将陆续展出四到五件作品,每件作品只有十天左右的时间面对公众。与箭厂空间之 前的项目从一开始就呈现已完成的作品不同,这个项目中的作品都是被艺术家称之为接近于完成的,它呈现出异于通常展览模式的另一种相反模式。箭厂空间在此不 再关注于“完成”的概念,而是趋向通过持续不断的变化从而使得观者得以更加深层地关注于艺术的创作过程。

阚萱毕业于中国美术学院,从90年代后期开始主要致力于影像艺术的创作与实践。她的作品广泛地展出于国内外的各种展览当中,其中包括2007年威尼斯双年 展中国馆的展览,伊斯坦布尔双年展(2007),长征空间NONO展(2007),中国发电站展(2006-2008)。她参加了位于阿姆斯特丹的 Rijksakademie van Beeldende艺术家驻扎计划并在2005年赢取了荷兰的艺术奖项 the De Prix de Rome Prize。阚萱目前工作生活在中国北京与荷兰的阿姆斯特丹。

......................................

please feel free to stop by if you're in the area.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

document


getting settled back into beijing time/space/mindset. things that felt huge upon re-entry 5 days ago are starting to feel normal again. the sun is out, the sky is relatively clear and actually kind of blue (!). food is getting less salty (although there will always be too much salt), and the dust less noticeable. all the STUFF that we have to deal with here in beijing is slowly encroaching over the lingering images of yokohama. but before we get swept up into the whilrwind, and before flickr gets blocked in china again, here are the photos from our Open Apartment Event. much takoyaki was consumed, as well as beer, wine, a lovely nikujaga- beef and potates, hainan chicken and rice, nice red bean sweets from gifu, doburoku- homemade rice wine, an amazing fish head stew, gorgeous chicken wings, oh and we had some art here and there, AND even a performance. you'll have to wait to see the video of the performance as youtube is blocked in china at the moment too. annoying, for me and for you.

once we are connected to the world again, videos and other amusements will follow...

Saturday, March 28, 2009

live photos and maybe some blogging


ok sports fans, here are some pics from yesterday's Open Apartment event in Yokohama. we had about 20 visitors come through and the last one left at 11pm. thanks to Natsuko Kido for amazing takoyaki using a family heirloom cast iron plate that her parents had custom made in osaka. thanks to Hitome Hasegawa for delicious hainan chicken rice and nikujaga which we devoured.

more today. already Yamane arrived with a bag of t-shirts that he and Yuka made of his drawings. he's managed to sell both t-shirts and a copy of the live publication. today's "chaos" is off to a pretty good start.

live

live blogging, kind of, of our open apartment event. and flickr photos to be uploaded soon. another installment of LIVE OPEN APARTMENT starts today at 14:00 Japan Standard Time.

see you then.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

open apartment

here's our little flyer for the event:


hope to see you at our place.

Monday, March 23, 2009

open open open!

sweets on the streets of koganecho

we're winding up our residency in yokohama with an OPEN APARTMENT event on March 28 & 29. If you are in the area between 2-7pm on either day come on by! wangwei and i will be doing a "musical performance" with Zulu and Kuri of Art Lab Ova at 6.30pm on Sunday March 29th. Not to be missed. we are musically transcendent.

also not to be missed:
  • live publishing with Yasuhiro Yamane March 28th 2-7pm
  • limited edition t-shirt prints, but you must bring your own t-shirt (available both days)
  • food, drink and lively conversation on the balcony or indoors if it rains (available both days)

here is a map to the Bashamichi apartment:


and then, on march 31, we leave our lovely little temporary homestay in yokohama and go back to beijing... hope to see you before we go.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

festa


so wang wei and i have some work up at ZAIM in yokohama for the ZAIM FESTA.
[so... is that a word in any language, 'festa'? infesta?]

and it is after the fact, but we did a talk on feb 28th. we talked about our work, Pauline flew over from beijing to talk about arrow factory. a small but lively group showed up and we had a lively but small conversation. it seems a good time was had by all.

i can't really remember what we've been doing in the last few days. i guess we've been recovering, cleaning up, fixing things, and planning for the next project. i've started a garden on the balcony. originally this was going to be some kind of organic vegetable garden, but since my fascination with the beautiful veggies in the supermarket, i'm thinking now to actually buy and replant the supermarket veggies and see if they can keep growing on the rooftop garden. somehow it seems more appropriate for this environment. still thinking the details through, but here is a photo of where we're at with this thing:

Sunday, February 08, 2009

produce obsession


we will be at the one week mark in yokohama as of tomorrow evening. a lovely place, and our sponsor Takahiro Kaneshima is taking very good care of us. yokohama is mellower than tokyo but with all the japan wackiness. i don't know what i mean by that except that these perfectly shaped radishes pictured above all neatly tied and meticulously plastic wrapped are in EVERY grocery store at the moment. how do they get them all to look exactly like that? how do they get them all to the shops without damage? somehow it seems more surreal because the pace in yokohama is quite calm. we settle into a regular rhythm, relax into thinking that we are acclimatizing nicely then suddenly KA-BLAMO, you turn around to find that the bizarre vegetation has surrounded you.

this week's adventures included a 5 hour guided walking tour around the city that started at a temple and traditional noh theater, meandered around to tiny (tiny!) yakusa run bars, reclaimed brothels that are now being rented to artists as live/work spaces, open air markets and a trapse through what i guess would be considered the slums, although since it's japan, it's still pretty clean and civilized. The yokohama arts commision coordinator, mr. sugizaki, took us to a slurp-worthy soba restaurant along the canal and then headed us over to the yokohama hostel village which is in the aforementioned derelect part of town. the youth hostel is run by a charismatic mr. okabe, an artist and activist. not only did okabe run a very successful 'get out the vote' campaign in this last election, and help to revitalize the area by opening the youth hostel, he is also one of the contributors on a very cool project called populuscape which maps population of cities over time, flight routes and other statistical data in a poetically beautiful and meaningful format. one of the best data visualizations i've ever seen. really.

we also went to tokyo one day and basically didn't stop moving the whole time we were there except to eat. we were out and about for twelve (12!) hours which looked something like this: a train, a shop, a shop, a mall, a subway, a museum, a museum, a subway, an office, a meeting, a subway, a sake bar with endless drink choices to go with a beautiful beautiful meal, a subway, a collapse in bed at home.

yesterday we were invited to an international pancake party where team japan made okonomiyaki, team austria proffered sweet crepe-like palatschinken, and team usa/china made no pancakes, but offered a light salad and stir-fried celery to balance out the copious amounts of flour and eggs. i was so full. all delicious, every last bite.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009


in the last 48 hours we have lovingly consumed the following in excellent company:
pork ramen
tempura oysters
tempura shrimp
tempura eggplant
tempura green peppers
tempura yam
soba noodles (noisy!)
breaded fried mackerel
grilled chicken with lemon sauce
mushroom salad in orange sauce
potato croquette
grilled shitake mushroom
daikon radish with beef
garlic scallops
grilled sardines
sashimi... everything
beer
pickled eggplant
sochu
potato and pork croquette
fish cake croquette
plum wine
egg omlette

i'm sure there is more i'm forgetting...

Friday, January 30, 2009

new NIU year



happy new year, happy NIU year. fireworks are still exploding overhead in beijing. one tradition says that today, the 5th day of the lunar new year, lighting firecrackers drives out the demons. obviously nobody is taking any chances this year, because it's currently a COMPLETE war zone outside my window. this morning half-asleep, i mistook the sound of firecrackers for a heavy rainstorm. no complaints though, i'm very happy to be demon-free.

so here's the latest: we're going to japan on sunday. ww and i will be there for the next 2 months doing an artist residency at ZAIM in yokohama, organized by the generous and lovely folk(s) at far east contemporaries. not sure what's going to happen while we're there, but we're leaving it open enough so that something interesting can. i think there might be something exhibition-like going on in the near future. i'll keep you posted. if you are in japan, or know of something interesting in japan that ww and i should do/see, drop us a line. i'll definitely be posting more while we're there as well as uploading copious amounts of random photos (like the one above which was taken last month in a taqueria in san francisco).

stay tuned....

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

neighborly


Latest News from the Arrow Factory: our most recent offering features new work by esteemed video installation artist, Wang Gongxin. here's the press release...


Beijing based artist Wang Gongxin and Arrow Factory are pleased to present It’s Not About the Neighbors, a video installation that engages with the immediate visual and social context of Arrow Factory’s hutong alley location. Replicating the façade of the adjacent pancake shop and projecting video during nighttime hours, Wang creates an eerie sensation that fluctuates between alternate states of absence and presence, image and reality, day and night.

During the day, It’s Not About the Neighbors is a sculptural installation, an uncanny imitation of the neighboring pancake shop’s façade—a simple aluminum and glass storefront commonly found in Beijing’s older neighborhoods. At nightfall, a video projection on the façade depicts the neighbors at work making and selling their bread and noodles. The work’s relationship to the adjacent business changes depending hour of the day; at times it is a physical imitation, at times it is a virtual simulation, and sometimes it’s both. The overriding visual connection between these two adjacent spaces is undermined by their different functions: one is an operating business that depends on local residents and neighbors for its income; the other is independent and non-functional, relying instead upon the visual economies of the hutong and patterns of everyday life. The dual meaning of the word “neighbors,” proposed by Wang’s installation refers to both those who occupy the adjacent shop as well as those who frequent the shop for their daily meals. Offering an indexical relationship to its own location It’s Not About the Neighbors also uncovers new questions about presenting contemporary art in public contexts.

Wang Gongxin (b.1960) is an internationally recognized artist specializing in video and video installations. His practice centers on conceptions of reality and imagination as represented across cultural, economic and historical divides. Moving to New York City in 1987, Wang’s work contained a strong element of self-exploration, and upon his return in the mid-1990s took on a renewed perspective on China’s social and economic transformation. He was a key force in what is known as Apartment Art in the mid-1990s and other pioneering art groups in China. Based in Beijing, Wang is a guest professor in the New Media Art Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.

王功新作品《与邻居无关》

北京箭厂空间荣幸地推出 王功新的录像装置作品《与邻居无关》。该作品借助于箭厂空间位于胡同之中这种直接的社会语境,复制了邻近饼铺的店面外观,在夜间巧妙地通过影像的投射,王 功新在此成功地营造出一种怪诞的感觉,一种摇摆于缺失与在场、影像与现实以及白昼与黑夜之间的交替状态。

白天的时候,《与邻居无关》是一件雕塑装置,它是隔壁饼铺店面的离奇复制—北京的胡同里经常可以见到的一种简易的铝合金玻璃店面。夜幕降临后,在店面上呈 现出的影像则描绘了邻居店铺制作和出售大饼与面条的工作场景。作品同隔壁商业活动之间的关系变化取决于日昼之间的光线差异;有时它表现为一种真实的复制, 有时它只是一种视觉上的戏仿,而有时又两者兼而有之。两个近邻空间之间至关重要的视觉联系被它们不同的功能所破坏了:一个是仰仗当地居民来获得收入的营业 场所,而另一个则是独立的、不具备任何实用功能的,但又有赖于胡同和日常生活模式的视觉机制。王功新在作品中提出的“邻居”一词在此也具有双重意义,既指 的是占据隔壁店铺的人,又是那些每天光顾小店购买食品的人。由于为其自身的特定现场搭建了一种既明确且模糊的指向关系,《与邻居无关》在这里提出了一种在 公共语境下创作当代艺术作品的新的可能。

王功新(生于1960年)是一位在国际上获得公认的录像装置艺术家。他的创作以现实和想象之间的矛盾作为 概念的核心,并尝试在作品中跨越文化、经济和历史的边界分隔。 他是1990年代中期所谓的“公寓艺术”和中国新媒体艺术群体的核心力量。目前,王功新在北京生活和工作,任北京中央美术学院新媒体艺术系客座教授。



if you're in the area, feel free to swing by. the projection gets turned on after dark.