Yue Minjun
Until 15 October
Beijing Commune
Dashanzi Art district, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 8456 2862
www.beijingcommune.com
A gaping hole has been knocked in the gallery's roof, exposing art to the elements. Only, in terms of quantity there's not much art to speak of. A single painting, entitled 'Looking for Art', hangs on the wall. The labyrinthine stalls found in the painting itself suggest a surrealistic resemblance to art fair booths - and the show opened just in time for both SH Contemporary in Shanghai and Art Beijing here in the capital. Yue Minjun continues to be one of China's highest selling artists. In early October, his 'Massacre at Chios' (1994) goes on auction at Sotheby's Hong Kong with a pre-auction estimated value of 8 to 12m HK$.
'Looking for Art' by Yue Minjun
Acrylic on canvas, 200 by 400cm
Courtesy of the artist and Beijing Commune
Anish Kapoor
Until 23 December
Galleria Continua
Dashanzi Art district, 2 Jiuxianqiao lu, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 6436 1005
www.galleriacontinua.com
Anish Kapoor makes his solo debut in Beijing with a site-specific work that features a cyclonic tunnel of mist that jets out of the gallery's floor and spirals up into the ceiling. Mr Kapoor effectively transforms an imagined energy between simple, inanimate objects into a work of art that animates the space where those objects (and the viewer) are contained. A visual conversation develops between viewers and the objects - ceiling, floor and tunnel. Viewers can also easily influence and shape the tunnel with their hands or breath, demonstrating how the energy within a space is malleable rather than fixed. The in-situ installation, entitled 'Ascension', is complemented by a selection of painting, sculpture and video in the three-storey mezzanine-style gallerias that open up to the main space.
Anish Kapoor, 'Ascension' (2007), detail
On-site installation, dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua (San Gimignano-Beijing)
Park Seo-Bo
Until 18 November
Arario Beijing
The Brewery Art Complex, Beiqu lu,
Anwaibeyuan jie, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 5202 3800
www.arariobeijing.com
This painterly show comprises of 36 mixed media works with Korean paper on canvas and a selection of sketches. The show, which includes a video documentary of the artist, serves as a retrospective with the earliest piece dating from 1976. But most of the mixed media works here were completed over the last two years. The new work is still a continuum of the Ecriture series that Mr Park's career has revolved around for the past three decades. The artist's method and choice of materials have not changed, and he remains firmly planted in an abstract minimalist tradition. The process of making the work is still cathartic for the artist and most pieces assert a calm physical energy that viewers find therapeutic. The soft natural colours that dominated his palette before, however, are now interspersed with vibrant greens, oranges and yellows.
'Ecriture No. No. 070405 (2007)' by Park Seo-Bo
Mixed media with Korean paper on canvas, 195cm x 162cm
Courtesy of Arario (Seoul-Beijing)
Julian Rosefeldt
Until 21 October
Platform China
319-1, East End Artzone, Zone A,
Caochangdi village, Chaoyang district
Tel:+86 (10) 6432 0169
www.platformchina.org
Beijing audiences get a taste of Rosefeldt's quirky imagination with two video works at Platform. 'Lonely Planet' (2006) is a single channel video that spoofs off Westerners in search of nirvana as we follow a backpacker (starring Rosefeldt himself) on a spiritual quest through India. Clichés of what travelers expect to find in India - Bollywood movie sets, bathers at Benares - are balanced with the clichéd reactions of Indians to the foreign traveler. Rosefeldt also presents the third part of his 'Trilogy of Failure'. Entitled 'The Perfectionist', the three-channel video makes generous use of a continuous slow-panning shot of a parachute academy where anything that can go wrong, does. The parachutist faces an onslaught of failures packing, unpacking and inspecting his chute. The repetitious absurdities of failure are met here with comic stoicism from the video's protagonist, the kind of reaction we might expect of Buster Keaton in a Sisyphean hell.
'The Perfectionist' by Julian Rosefeldt
Video still, Three Channel video
Courtesy of the artist and Platform China (Beijing)
Xue Song
Until 14 October
Chen Linghui Contemporary Space
Dashanzi Art district, 4 Jiuxianqiao lu, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 6435 9665
www.chenlinghui.com
Since the mid-1990s, Xue Song has utilized a unique collage method that takes on a sharp personal reference. The artist's studio burned down in 1991, which he alludes to indirectly through each work. He collects old newspapers, magazines and photos, rips them into pieces, then burns them at the edges and rearranges them on canvass into images that are by turns iconic and demotic, social and personal. Mao Zedong shares space with adulating schoolchildren. Other historical personages in this presentation of both previous and new work include Marilyn Monroe, Lenin, Che Guevara and Sun Yat-sen. The Shanghai-based artist makes scathing commentaries - particularly in his most recent mixed media works from 2007 - on disparities between the wealthy and the poor in China's booming cities.
'It's a Dog's Life' (2007) by Xue Song
Mixed-media on canvas, 150 x 150cm
Courtesy of the artist and Chen Ling Hui Contemporary Space (Taipei-Beijing)
Zhong Biao
Until 31 October
Xin Dongcheng
Dashanzi Art district, 4 Jiuxianqiao lu, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 6433 4579
www.chengxindong.com
Zhong Biao's ambitious new solo effort at Xin Dongcheng is called 'Beyond Painting'. The largest work in the show is a four-panel acrylic and charcoal on canvas and measures 380 x 1200cm. Two large mirrors have been placed at perpendicular angles at each end of the painting, effecting an uncanny extension of gallery space and enveloping the viewer within the work. The painterly work thus becomes an installation that the viewer participates in simply by stepping foot in the gallery.
'Beyond Painting' (2007) by Zhong Biao (detail)
Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, Four panels, 380 by 1200cm
Note: Painting is part of an installation by the same title
Courtesy of the artist and Xin Dong Cheng Space (Beijing)
Qiu Anxiong
Until 13 October
Universal Studios-Beijing
8a Caochangdi Village, Chaoyang district
Tel: +86 (10) 6432 2620
www.universalstudios.org.cn
An entire train car has been hauled into the space as 24 separate videos project from the outside of the train, twelve on each side, onto each window of the car. As visitors walk down the aisle of the car they have the option of sitting down to watch the screenings - which includes excerpts from the archives of Chinese film history as well as animation works from the artist himself. The ambient effect of the whole here is as important as the content of each video. The train's interior, complete with a separate, multi-layered soundtrack, imposes the eeriness one associates with forgetting. The sad idea that reverberates here is that one can actually be conscious of amnesia as it is happening. We feel as if we are on a train with no specific destination and no specific point of departure. Thus, the mental process of amnesia is manifested in the physical reality of the train. Forgetfulness is made tactile, like ghosts made flesh.
'Staring into Amnesia' (2007) by Qiu Anxiong
Video and installation view
Courtesy of the artist and Universal Studios-Beijing
Stacey Duff is Saatchi Online magazine's China correspondent and Time Out Beijing's art editor.
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