2022 – CEAC

Ministerie van Berge en Shi, 50/50

root — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:14:05 +0000

Opening

December 17 at 5 PM, 2022

Duration

December 17, 2022 till January 13, 2023

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artists

Ministerie van Berge en Shi

Ministerie van Berge en Shi(MBS) is a Sino-Dutch agency that activates an exchange P2P network. Through visual and research projects MBS bridges the geo-cultural distance. Hereby the focus lays on the creation of a connection between individuals from various disciplines and backgrounds. MBS is now operating a interdisciplinary research-based project entitled 50/50 inspired by the Sino-Dutch 50th Anniversaries of 2022. Here in MBS focuses on the current trade of goods and ideas between the two nations.

Year 2022 sees the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the Netherlands. Reflecting on this, we as artists from both countries are initiating a research-based project as a duo. Starting from our own perspective, we want to collaborate and study the economic and cultural exchanges between each other’s home countries, to further merge our insight, and deliver a visual presentation. Due to the global situation and travel restrictions, we are working and communicating online, assisting each other with our developing research. This project highlights the Sino-Dutch cross-cultural interactions.

“Individuals represent the essence of the country’s bilateral relations, students and scholars, tourists, piano players and photographers, writers and entrepreneurs, architects and artists. Over the last fifty years, these personal relationships have grown in depth and number.” said Wim Geerts, Ambassador of the Netherlands to China.

In response to the “Sino-Dutch 50”, as a representative of bilateral personal relationships, Chinese artist Huilin and Dutch artist Laila initiated a dialogue this year to look back at history and reflect on the results of contemporary Sino-Dutch interactions in trade and culture, and to brainstorm, disperse, focus, invite and reach more people and issues in the process of dialogue.

The dialogue begins with a two-person transnational research-based art project: we both have our own insights on the phenomenon of cultural transplantation, which brings together a Chinese artist who studied in the Netherlands and is now practicing contemporary art in Shenzhen, the Greater Bay Area, and a Dutch artist who has has enriched her art practice with cultural research and is pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies in Amsterdam. We will both study the influence and change of each other’s countries on our own: Huilin departs from
The Dutch flower town in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen to trace the bulb roots
of the cut flowers, following the seedpods and bulbs exported by Dutch flower
companies to Yunnan, all the way west; Laila starts from the backyard of middle-class
Dutch families in the suburbs of Amsterdam, where she notices that in the secular life
of the Dutch people, Buddha as a symbol of calm and Zen, following
the label of a Buddha statue placed as an ornament to the building materials market
where it was purchased, all the way east. We will bring our own questions, from our
respective ends, and use the advantages of our native language and cultural environment
to complement each other and to exchange knowledge and labor.

That’s why we go fifty-fifty, to share and be fair, to maintain individuality and
strengthen our relationship. By devoting 50% of each partner’s knowledge and labor,
we will be achieving 100% as a result. 50% stands for the Dutch contributions to China:
flowers export from the Netherlands. The other 50% stands for the Chinese thoughts and
symbols that change Dutch people’s daily life.

We envision making our Duo Exhibition happen in both China and the Netherlands. We want
to bring the created material from each other to The Hague, Shenzhen and Xiamen and
present our insight and visuals at local project spaces, where we share our knowledge
about: how the Netherlands influenced China in commerce and creative industries in the
contemporary era. As well as insights into, and reflections on, the influence of Chinese
aesthetics and mentalities present in Dutch material and immaterial culture.

This project and exhibition is made possible with the generous support by the Consulate
General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Guangzhou.

Gallery

On Holiday

root — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 07:08:38 +0000

Opening

October 29 at 3 PM, 2022

Duration

October 29 till December 3, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

Bill Aitchison

Art often has an uneasy relationship with tourism. Art and artists will usually consider themselves to be above the industrialized consumption of leisure and relaxation. The art of tourism is epitomized as crude street-side caricatures of hapless holiday-makers drawn for fast cash.

The tourists are, in turn, pictured as little more than an uncultured mob that descends upon beautiful locations, trashes them, then flies home with a bag of tawdry souvenirs and phone full of selfies.

This polarized distinction exists, at least in part, to preserve the dignity of the artist. Reality often betrays far more communication and complicity between the artists and tourists. Modern tourism began in the 19th Century with the spread of railways and where did the tourists first go? They went on The Grand Tour, to the artistic centers of Renaissance that had become popular with aristocrats and had been popularized by artists and poets, a century earlier.

I remember an artist friend of mine from Europe told me about her Summer holiday. Together with her partner they wanted to catch some sun but had to be careful with money so asked the agent where was on discount. This brought them to a Greek island for ten days. The island was beautiful but the town and beach were very crowded. The evenings in the town saw wild scenes of drinking and partying every night till the sun came up, which brought a brief respite, before the tourists crept out again and began the cycle once more. At first my friend avoided the crowds and explored the stunning nature in the hills but with each day’s passing, she started to join the nightly party. By the end of the holiday she said she had become exactly the same as the other tourists, drinking till dawn and waking at noon.

Tourism in China has grown at breakneck speed over the last two decades. What’s more, at the same time as I have watched Chinese tourism grow, I’ve also noticed a huge expansion in artist residencies both within China and around the world more generally. It has become very normal for artists to travel and to make their artworks away from home. That is indeed how I first discovered Xiamen: I came to CEAC for a three-month artist residency. As artists we like to believe our ideas and impulses are unique and an integral part of our artistic process.
Yet, we are human too and when we first arrive in a new country and city we are apt
to look at the place somewhat as conventional tourists do. Our insights, which inform
our artworks, might be no more penetrating than those of any other tourist.

Alongside this growth in tourism has been an effort on the part of cities to present
themselves for the tourists. We have learnt to look at our home cities with the eyes
of the tourist to the extent that the tourist imagination has gotten under our skin.
It has become one of the main ways we look at the world around us. Following this
absorption of the tourist gaze, our streets, cafes, squares and entire cities have
started to be designed and constructed with tourism in mind. The tourist gaze is not
all bad but it is selective. We are in danger of losing our respect for nature and
losing our sense of darkness and mystery. The tourist city is a cleaner and more
brightly packaged city that exists primarily on the phone and only secondarily in
reality.

This exhibition features artworks that attempt to reimagine tourist sites and deal
with this question of the tourist imagination and the simulation of reality. I have
tried to create my own narratives around many of the popular tourist sites of Xiamen
and beyond. I am happy to accept the labels of both tourist and artist, for me they
are not in contradiction. Indeed, the more one tries to deny being a tourist, the more
likely you are to unconsciously be one anyway. What I can hope for is that art can be
a means by which I become active in engaging with and even adding to the meaning of the
space around me, rather than consuming it with nothing more to show than a few images
that belong in the realm of pure tourist simulation.

Bill Aitchison 2022

Gallery

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The One Minutes X CEAC | The BOLOHO Series

root — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 06:11:23 +0000

Opening

2023

Duration

2023

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

More info

The One Minutes X BOLOHO X CEAC

The BOLOHO Series consists of 38 one-minute films. The BOLOHO Collective from Guangzhou in China together created 18 One Minutes and invited artists and filmmakers from all over the world to respond. An open call inviting artists to participate in this project was send out by CEAC and The One Minutes. The submitted films were send in from Belgium, China, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Rwanda, Spain and United Kingdom and will be installed together with BOLOHO’s compilation.

The installation of multiple projections will offer a kaleidoscopic whole, in which image and dialogue correspond in different contexts. The consciously created distraction will invite the spectator to move between the films and to extract a personal experience from the gained impressions.

“When eating jackfruit, people often throw away its center, not knowing that it can also be enjoyed as its own special delicacy. The name BOLOHO is a Cantonese romanization of the Chinese word for ‘jackfruit core’, and it is from the crevices of an old residential neighborhood in the core of the Guangzhou megalopolis where BOLOHO Collective began in 2019.

When we met The One Minutes, it was a period when many of our friends are preparing to leave Guangzhou for short and long term. Therefore, we liked to invite those who often cook, chat, and share food and life at BOLOHO to accomplish the ‘One Minute’ together. It is not only a gift for togetherness but also a blessing for the coming departure.

After the dinner, the group chose a few keywords in casual conversation and talked about their understanding of ‘One Minute’ one fixed shot, and one phrase…

We invited artists and filmmakers all over the world to participate. Along with the
tacit understanding that was diverging at all times, we met 38 travelers around the
world who found that minute in their journeys and time, making up the series you are
watching here.” BOLOHO

Participating Artists
冯頔 Qidi Feng, 柯冥 Christoph Plutte, 张煜航 Yuhang, 黄婉珊 CAT, 冯伟敬 Fong Waiking,
谭婧 Tan Jing,刘菂 Liu Di, 吴文礼 Wu Wenli, 朱建林 Zhu Jianlin, 李嘉欣 Li Jianxin,
弗赖德 Fred Lai, 谢思堰 Xie Siyan,李致恿 Li Zhiyong, 刘嘉雯 BUBU, 吴建儒 Jianru Wu,
贺聪 He Cong, Zhang Jiayi 禾, 郑可 ZHENGKE, Paul Malone,Lin Li & Chris Croft, Yinglin Zhou,
Anabela Costa, Yang Yu, Olivier De Vos, misha de ridder, Rita Casdia,丰丰 Fengfeng,
Remy Ryumugab, Gordon, Chris Furby, Tom van Veen, Yahav Gal, Zhiwan Cheung, Room 8,
Yuxuan Shi, anna recasens, Pierre Yves Clouin, Su Tomesen.

BOLOHO was initiated by two family women working away from home; a business venture
and a place to get some fresh air where they could sort out their lives and work.
In three years, the project developed into a ‘company’ platform based on the principles
of self-discipline, equality and mutual-aid, providing work for collaborators as well as
friends like them who cannot make a living from art alone. BOLOHO also allows them to
better understand how to live and work communally when taking jobs together, and provides
the opportunity to think about, discern and solve some of the real issues that we all face.
BOLOHO participated in documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany.

Using the forces of video, The One Minutes wants to contribute to creating spaces for
free expression, collective imagination, and global solidarity in our different, yet
deeply interconnected realities.

Every two months, The One Minutes releases a new series of one-minute films exploring
our current time in moving images. Museums and cultural organisations around the world
subscribe to the series.

Send in your videos and participate in the project! http://theoneminutes.org/participate

For 2023, The One Minutes will create a globally oriented program, focused on solidarity,
collectivity and equal allocation, with which we want to make more voices heard.

Upcoming:
Jan/Feb ‘Rest Hard: an act of doing nothing in a safe company’ curated by Party Office
Send in your videos and participate in the project!
http://theoneminutes.org/participate

Gallery

Cirrus World, Paul Malone, 2020 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Gaze, Yang Yu, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Inyambo, Remy Ryumugabe, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

KEF-AMS, misha de ridder, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Mist-ory, Lin Li & Chris Croft, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

One Minute Homecoming, Yuxuan Shi, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Pomegranata, anna racesens, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Untitled, 丰丰Fengfeng, 2022 (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Nothing

root — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 09:38:19 +0000

Open

August 13 at 13:30 PM, 2022

Duration

August 13 till September 2, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

Alan Smith

Nothing evidences the importance of casting a net with no anticipated catch, or predetermined focus.

On the 17th of January 2020 I began capturing videos every day, three per location and each for 20 seconds. Using my phone, I captured the Nothing videos from wherever I happened to be, with the exclusion of any human presence and with no limit to the number of video sets per day.

For the film, a sequence was constructed with a new video appearing every 2:3 seconds and remaining visible for 19:07 seconds, (19:07 is apparently the average length of time someone looks at an artwork in a gallery). The videos sequentially roll through time covering a period of one year starting on the 17th January ending on the 16th January the following year and rolling into the next year on the 17th.

At the outset, the videos were personal to me, the three 20 second videos amounted to a one-minute rest break, necessary while out walking, as I was striving to recover my breathing through asthma.

I couldn’t have known of the impending, significant shift in daily life that would be
brought about by Coronavirus; socially, culturally, in employment and with human
visibility and physical contact diluted to an absolute minimum, ‘Nothing’ had been
contextually relocated and questions regarding solitude and isolation while on my walks
became more significant.

Living in the remote village of Allenheads in rural Northumberland has provided space,
quiet, and a strong sense of seclusion for the last 27 years. But Covid brought a whole
new silence and with my senses on high alert my experience of place was amplified and
the magnitude of all around me from the smallest particles to the grandest expansive
vistas had become as if in high definition. The seemingly inconsequential had been
stirred, redirecting the way I had previously and inadvertently engaged with planet
Earth. Normality had lost all meaning and ‘Nothing’ was growing in scale and importance.
‘Nothing’ had become a new way of recognising time as it passes and reconnected me with
the place I have lived for 27 years. ‘Nothing’ and the covid isolation rebooted me and
I became more able to see and feel my locale with a new purpose.

Personally, I am astounded by the immense power that each set of three videos has to
trigger detailed and specific memories of each location, time of day and feelings.
Engaging with the seasonal changes the twelve month cycle has gifted me a time-lapse
of life events, meteorological movement and psychological and emotional shifts.

I am now in my third period of ‘Nothing’ which will end on January 16th 2023, I have
to ask myself will it continue? I am starting to believe that ‘Nothing’ can last forever.

Gallery

The Medusa Effect

root — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 07:56:03 +0000

Opening

July 16 at 7:30 PM, 2022

Duration

July 16 till 23, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

A performance, exhibition and auction of contemporary art

Open: July 16, 2022
Performance: July 16 at 7:30 P.M.
(Bill Aitchison, Michelle Lewis-King, Mimi Shi Co.,Ltd)
Duration: July 16 till 23, 2022
Auction: July 23 at 7:30 P.M.

Artists:
Bill Aitchison, 陈溢 Yi Chen, Jaime Ekkens, 金晶 Jin Jing, 刘圆圆 Liu Yuanyuan, Michelle Lewis-King, 咪咪史有限公司 Mimi Shi Co.,Ltd, 潘菲菲 Pan Feifei

Curator
Bill Aitchison
Chinese European Art Center (CEAC)

Bill Aitchison is a British theatre director and performance artist based in China. He has presented his shows widely in galleries, museums, theatres and festivals in Europe, Asia, America, Australia and The Middle East, has exhibited in major museums and galleries and his artwork is held in both private collections and museums. He is curator of the Chinese performance platform Last Minute Live Art, holds a practice-based PhD from Goldsmiths College University of London, and is an associate professor at Xiamen University.

Yi Chen currently lives in Xiamen, China. He received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2019. Chen walks around between digital and analog in photography. His photographs have always been about the perception of reality versus reality by creating their own sense of place, yet they are often manipulated digitally or shot in studio environments—thus evoking a sense of alienation through both form and content.

Jaime Ekkens has worked for some of the biggest names in television and media in New York including Yahoo!, Hearst, CBS News, Nickelodeon, ABC News and NBC Sports. Having received a BFA from Kendall Collage of Art and Design in 2007, she moved to New York City and successfully pursued her MFA in Computer Arts at The School of Visual Arts. Her independent short films have been
screened in international film festivals all over the globe and won numerous awards
both in New York, Los Angeles, and abroad.

Jin Jing, born in Huangshi, graduated from Xiamen University and Sandberg Instituut，now works
and lives in Xiamen, China. The main issues of her work are about individual life and living
conditions in the urban space, as well as our own situation in the “world”, and present the
experience of being double marginalized in the natural landscape and urban jungle from the
perspective of non-human center.

Liu Yuanyuan’s artistic practice stems from the dual pursuits of cognizing the true self and
exploring the freedom, and during this process, she has been building a self-consistent creation
system——the “Bottle”, which is an analytical methodology, contains concepts such as transitional
abstraction, deconstruction-construction-reconstruction, geometric structure, and shadow zone.
Meaningless is the core concept of the Bottle, which means space, interspace, and nothing. At
the same time, she created the Bottle Language, which is the imagined community in the sense
of the Bottle. The Bottle Language is like the minimal sequence, and the artist composes music
with spiritual feelings through the way of cyclic repetition and trans shape sequences. For her,
art creation is a pursuit of a sense of existence. She aims to construct a meaningless poetic world,
because she believes that the free-land only can be reached without meanings.

Michelle Lewis-King’s projects explore cosmological approaches to the embodied performance of
medicine and technology in a globalised world. Drawing on her experience as an artist and
acupuncturist, Michelle restages the Chinese medicine encounter to provoke reconsideration of
what the body ‘is’ and can do- and to illuminate how traditional East Asian medicine practices
combine poetic and scientific thinking together to diversify perspectives on the body, medicine,
wellbeing and healing.

Mimi Shi is an image supply chain service provider. The company builds a metaverse ecology around
its own worldview and ideology, using narrative images as the terminal form of strategic communication
to produce stylized and packaged concepts. Mimi Shi is committed to developing a sustainable meme
product line.

The One Minutes X CEAC | Squeeze Crush Press Blush

root — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 05:56:29 +0000

Opening

September 24 at 5 PM, 2022

Duration

September 24 till October 22, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

The installation of multiple screens will offer a kaleidoscopic whole, in which image and dialogue correspond in different contexts. The consciously created distraction will invite the spectator to move between the films and to extract a personal experience from the gained impressions. In this installation ‘Squeeze Crush Press Blush’ will offer a non-linear journey across a multitude of feelings.

In ‘Squeeze Crush Press Blush’, curated by Afra Eisma and Marnix van Uum, twenty-one artists and filmmakers invite you to take a dive into their ever-changing minds. A crack in the gloss, a break, a rupture, a split, a breach, a slit, a smack, a smash, a blow, a bang, a grin, our mind is a container. The selected One Minutes were sent in from China, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Netherlands, Suriname, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.

Participating artists:
Margaret Haines, Bob Demper, Pieter Van Den Bosch, Daisy Madden-Wells, Florent Meng, Hilary Yip, Elina Alekseeva, Kubilay Mert Ural, Gijsje Heemskerk and Sjuul Joosen, Foteini Makri, Alejandra López, Mimi Shi Co., Ltd, Cabenda, Alfie Dwyer, Annemarie Wadlow, Naïmé Perrette, Jef Nollet, Erkka Nissinen, Juyi Mao, Heleen Mineur,
Kim David Bots & Eliane Esther Bots.

Afra Eisma (b. 1993, the Netherlands) creates intimate worlds bursting with colour and energy.
Her work consists of tufted carpets, ceramics, drawings, paintings and textiles that lead to
radiant tactile installations in which connection and generosity are central. She studied
Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Hague, and Central Saint Martin’s, London.
She has recently shown work at Fries Museum, 1646, Vleeshal (all in the Netherlands) and
garden lab, Kyoto, Japan.

Marnix van Uum (b. 1991, the Netherlands) works with media (i.e. video, photography
and text) that have descriptive qualities and thus imply to depict (fragments of)
reality. He received his BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, as well as his BA
in media studies from the University of Amsterdam. Marnix has recently shown work
at the MACA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante (ES); The Wrong Biennale
(Online) and Art Rotterdam (NL).

An open call inviting artists to participate in this project was send out by CEAC and The One Minutes.
Send in your videos and participate in the project!
http://theoneminutes.org/participate

Gallery

Video still A Message From The Last Summer, Juyi Mao, 2020, United States (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Another Sea, Elina Alekseeva, 2022, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Dagwesus, Cabenda, 2022, Suriname (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Evidence of non-harmonious being, Heleen Mineur, 2020, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Forebear Forward, Naïmé Perrette, 2014, France (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Inverted Fountain, Gijsje Heemskerk, 2021, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Ltd_A Testimony, Mimi Shi Co., 2022, China (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still pigeon, Alejandra López_, 2022, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still Room Tone, Bob Demper, 2022, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still STAN - Slowly Transducing Altering Notion, Jef Nollet, 2021, Netherlands (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still The Alignment Problem, Hilary Yip, 2022, United Kingdom (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Video still The coyote plays the win, meng florent, 2018, France (© the artist, courtesy by The One Minutes Foundation)

Rolling Snowball 15, Djupivogur, 2022

root — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 09:06:49 +0000

Opening

July 9 at 3 PM, 2022

Duration

July 9 till August 28, 2022

Location

ARS LONGA, Vogaland 5, 765 Djúpivogur, Iceland

Artist

Artists:
Carien Engelhard, Claire Paugam, Guðjón Ketilsson, Jin Jing, Josefin Arnell, Karin van Dam, Katrín Elvarsdóttir, Kristín Karólína Helgadóttir, Logi Leó Gunnarsson, Meiya Lin, Mica Pan, OPEN (Arnar Ásgeirsson, Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, Una Margrét Árnadóttir & Örn Alexander Ámundason), Pan Feifei, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Sigurður Guðjónsson, Tara Fallaux, Una Björg Magnúsdóttir & Yang Jian

Turning Point
Artists: Guðný Rósa Ingimarsdóttir, Kristbergur Óðinn Pétursson, Kristján Guðmundsson, Margrét H. Blöndal & Sigurður Guðmundsson

Curator
Hildur Rut Halblaub
in collaboration with:
Ineke Guðmundsson, /Senior Director CEAC
Kristín Dagmar Jóhannesdóttir, / Board member ARS LONGA
May Lee, /Director CEAC
Sigurður Guðmundsson, /Founder ARS LONGA
Þór Vigfússon, /Founder ARS LONGA

Design
Studio Studio
(Arnar Freyr Guðmundsson, Birna Geirfinnsdóttir)

ARS LONGA contemporary art museum opens on July 9th 2022 for the first time in its own building, which the municipality Mulathing donated to the museum earlier this year. We are grateful for this generous contribution.

The opening program consists of selected works from the ARS LONGA collection under the title Turning Point and Rolling Snowball 15, an exhibition where 22 artists from China, Iceland and The Netherlands show their works.

We would like to thank the Minister of Culture and Business Affairs, Lilja Alfreðsdóttir, for formally opening the museum and welcome everyone to celebrate this turning point for the cultural life in Djúpivogur, Iceland.

Sigurður Guðmundsson|Founder ARS LONGA

Rolling Snowball 15 is an international visual art exhibition which takes place for the eighth time in Iceland at ARS LONGA’s new premises by the bay in Djúpivogur. The exhibition marks a turning point for ARS LONGA, as it is the first amongst two exhibitions at the museum.

This year, 22 artists are participating in the exhibition, 11 Icelandic artists and 11 international artists from Europe and Asia. The artists work with various subjects and media, including drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, and video.

Rolling Snowball 15 is a joint project of ARS LONGA and the Chinese European Art Center (CEAC) in Xiamen, China. Supported by Múlaþing and The Visual Arts Fund.

Hildur Rut Halblaub|Curator

Gallery

H2O:Hydrolysis•Habitat•Ours

root — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:02:12 +0000

Opening

June 4 at 5 PM, 2022

Duration

June 4 till July 9, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

Zhu Zhu, Deng Yangqi, An Peiqi

H2O: Hydrolysis・Habitat・Oursexplores the different existence forms of water and its continuous vitality in the contraction of change and constancy.

We find that plants and water share similar habitat forms in a changing state of being. Being the habitat of water, plants themselves inhabit the natural world, interweaving and developing in the form of mutual transmission and flow, becoming a symbol of natural creativity.

Based on the idea that “the definition, use and change of water by human beings are the aggregate of human thoughts and wisdom about water as a natural element”, we believe that the human community is a continuous entering and detaching existence in the habitat landscape of plants and water.

The concept of the work is that there are two kinds of water being discussed, the tangible water and the intangible water. Tangible water is the familiar forms of water existence, such as liquid, gas, solid; static and flowing modes of movement; different volumes. At the same time, it is also just a residual trace.

The intangible water is the water we are about to know, the free water, the entry point to embody the dynamic of water and the mechanism of association. The first is its imminent change and reorganization, constantly reborn in the invisible transmission and dissolution. The second is its eternal mechanism of symbiosis and balance, where the decomposition and generation of water allows it to be associated with other organisms to form a stable and infinite flowing habitat.

H2O: Hydrolysis・Habitat・Oursis an exploration and response to both tangible and intangible water.

Hydrolysis is the migration and association of tangible water, tracing the form and role of water, the process of using water to decompose human landscape into flowers of different colors, rhythms and scents. It remains between the breath of the flower and flows between the liquid tissues.

Habitat is the understanding and exploration of the intangible water, which is the body of water and plants. Water connects everything and balances between the contraction of plants. It embraces everything. When people enter this habitat, they will be mapped with the plants through the connection of water, forming a new balance mechanism in the space. The human intervention will share the gift of water with the plants, reflecting the mode of living with nature. Habitat explores
a symbiotic landscape between human and nature. Are we able to co-habit
with plants? Are we the intangible water?

Gallery

Rolling Snowball 14, Xiamen, 2022

root — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 17:00:14 +0000

Opening

April 30 at 3 PM, 2022

Duration

April 30 till June 5, 2022

Location

Xiamen Powerlong Art Center, China

Artist

2022 marks the 23rd anniversary of the Chinese European Art Center (CEAC) taking root in Xiamen, and also the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Netherlands. At this significant moment, the Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen Powerlong Art Centerand the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Guangzhou jointly present Rolling Snowball 14 — a Sino-Dutch Contemporary Visual Art Exhibition with the theme of “Ni Hao?” This exhibition will showcase 36 artists from the Netherlands and China who have strong ties with two countries. They have participated in various ways in the practices organized by CEAC in the past few years, including the artist-in-residence program in Xiamen, the solo exhibitions and the traveling exhibitions of the Rolling Snowballseries. The efforts of CEAC throughout the 20 years have contributed to the artistic practice and cultural exchanges between China and the Netherlands, allowing artists to gain rich experience in the exchanges and further develop their own work, and mean while stimulating active dialogues between the two countries in terms of ideas, information, art and artists. Through the this exhibition at Xiamen Powerlong Art Center, we want to share and discuss with the public the past and future exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. Besides, the exhibition is also an important cultural event launched by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Guangzhou to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and China and the Dutch Days Program.

“Ni Hao?” is a polite opening remark for a general meeting. After nearly two years of (international) travel bans and social distancing policy, the artist residency program, which is CEAC’s cornerstone, has been forced to suspend. Taking this exhibition at the Xiamen Powerlong Art Center as a new starting point, we would like to send a long-awaited greeting to all of you, includingthe old friends of CEAC. Is everyone good under the current new social order?

In this exhibition, “Ni Hao?” is not a courtesy. Embodying rich emotions,it will invite the audience to join the narrative to form an interactive and subjective extension of the situation. The essential thing is not the polite reply of “I’m fine, thank you”, but the conversation with old friends and new friends alike, who sit in a circle with “purposeless purposiveness” and are eager to know each other’s current situation after saying hello. As the speaker and questioner, we CEAC looks forward to receiving the audience’s answers from the
bottom of their heart. The exhibition aims to remove the subject’s state analysis
of existing issues by getting rid of the original question frame. It is more of
various connections extending “Ni Hao?” to individuals, groups, related events,
and relational research implying the orientation for the current experience, or
a question/rhetorical question in the present tense.

“Ni Hao?” presents the audience with a visual narrative consisting of five chapters.
The exhibition site is related and interactive with the artworks and the chapters.
Throughout the narrative, the “person” becomes the subject of the greeting. With
“Man and Poetry” as the first chapter, the audience pays attention to the poetic
nature that flows between man and others, and furthermore to the wider world.
We are driven by distant similarity and ask “How are you?” This greeting can either
be an impromptu melody, or the liveliness when passing others. No matter it is as
big as the universe or as small as a roadside stone, it can be equally colorful or dull.

In the second chapter “Artificial and Natural”, we wander around the material basis
that has been recreated. Artificial intervention is already an important part of the
natural landscape that we see; while the photographed wilderness is also selectively
edited, presenting an artificial virtual world for the human spirit to roam, with a
tendency of being regulated by AI. In this sense, our living space is already a blend
of artificial and natural.

To further explore this altered nature, we are about to delve into the third chapter,
namely “Individual and Group,” where groups are regarded as composite and independent
beings that perceive the world around them. Medium, book and texture are the nature
faced by the individual and the trace left by the group.

When the group respond to “How are you?”, the questioner not only gains the information
from the group, but also sees his or her own shadow between the lines of the response.
As the boisterousness fades away, the audience will enter the fourth chapter “Inner Channel”.
Walking through the dark paths, they will see humorous or heavyimages of self and others,
as if in front ofmultiple mirrors, through whichtheywitness the joys and sorrows of “I”
without any emotional changes.

“A few moresteps, and we suddenly became enlightened,” wrote one ancient Chinese essay.
There is more than one way out in our heart, and what we see from each exit will be the
fifth chapter “Me and the World”. There is a realmess, the unspeakable, the vicissitudes
of life, the small household affairs and the fragile, which are diverse, calm, lively,
chaotic and orderly. And all of these constitute the “world” that “I” face.

Ineke Gudmundsson
May Lee
Qianfu Ye
Chinese European Art Center

Participating Artists:
Albert van der Weide｜Arnoud Noordegraaf
Cathelijn van Goor｜Chen Rongxin 陈荣鑫
Danielle Lemaire｜Doina Kraal｜Hester Oerlemans
Huang Shizun 黄仕尊｜Jaring Lokhorst｜Jens Pfeifer
Jia Zhixing 贾志兴｜Jin Jing 金晶｜Kan Xuan 阚萱
Katrin Korfmann｜Lin Meiya 林美雅
Liu Yuanyuan 刘圆圆｜Lova Yu 余立尧&Tycho Hupperets
Marike Schuurman｜Marjan Laaper｜Mica Pan 潘迪
Nick Renshaw｜Pan Feifei 潘菲菲｜Peer Veneman
Persijn Broersen&Margit Lukács｜Oey Tjeng Sit 黄清石
Sarah Mei Herman｜Scarlett Hooft Graafland
Sigurdur Gudmundsson｜Tanja Smit｜Temo Dou 窦笑雨
Voebe de Gruyter｜Wei Na 维娜｜Wu Yanbing 吴妍冰
Yang Jian 杨健｜Yang Zhiqian 阳芷倩｜Ye Qianfu 叶倩甫

Gallery

The One Minutes X CEAC | Mind-body-problem

root — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 03:49:31 +0000

Open

April 16 at 5 PM, 2022

Duration

April 16 till May 21, 2022

Location

CEAC, Xiamen, China

Artist

Group exhibition

The One Minutes X Chinese European Art Center (CEAC) present ‘Mind-body-problem’.

On show from April 16 till May 21 at CEAC is The One Minutes Series ‘Mind-body-problem’ curated by Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen and 10 new works responding to the theme of ‘Mind-body-problem’ selected by CEAC.

Artist duo Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen selected videos that depict the relationship between the soul and the body – whether as a metaphor, a problem or even a bad joke. ‘Mind-body-problem’ asks the age-old question: how can matter ever come to life?

The 22 selected videos were sent in from Belgium, Benin, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Kurdistan, Morocco, Netherlands, Senegal, Spain and United Kingdom.

“The mind-body-problem is a question one runs into almost inevitably when working with figurative sculpture. How can matter ever come to life? It is an age old question in itself that inspired the medieval Arabic novel of Ibn Tufayl in which a boy growing up on a deserted island dissects the dead deer that raised him, looking at the intestines, the lungs, the heart, the brain, in a search for the part that made her alive. It seemed to us a question worthwhile to ask to our
colleagues, our fellow filmmakers and artists, and one that evoked many
counter-questions, such as:

Would you like to be cremated or buried?
Does a fly have thoughts?
Can I see what someone else sees?
Is the cat in the box alive or not?
If the soul inhabits a body, could a spirit inhabit a sculpture?
What is the difference between a video of a man and his mirror image?
Is a fight with an umbrella ever a spiritual struggle?
Why is it so hard to say goodbye?”

Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen are two cousins who collaborate on the production
of videos and performances focusing on human behaviour; the encoded structures in that
behaviour, the influence of time and place on the relationships between people.
Theater has been an important factor in their work from the very start. They studied
at Rijksakademie voor beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam in 2017 and began making sculptures
– assemblages in the form of human figures.

Participating artists:
Heidi Vogels, Elle Burchill, Thierry Oussou, Sabine Mooibroek, Elisabeth Molin, Michelle Son
Kani Marouf, Vincent Verhoef, Natasha Papadopoulou, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Denise Kehoe
Emma van der Put, Peter Ewig, Christine Moldrickx, Raluca Moldoveanu, Bas Schevers
Ben Rivers, Antonis Pittas, Daouda Dia, Iqra Tanveer, Paulien Oltheten, Hamza Halloubi

The One Minutes Series ‘Mind-body-problem’ is selected for 68th International Film Festival Oberhausen,
one of the most important short film institutions anywhere in the world.

The 10 newly selected films can be regarded as a second inner dialogue of artists within
the theme series “Mind-body-problem”. Based on the original concept, the reconnection and
questioning of the individual brought by the theme are triggered. Faced with the age-old
philosophical question, we may wonder: are mind and body separate entities, or are they
closely linked by unity?

Participating artists:
Temo Dou, Johnnie, Frank Stassen, Maartje Jaquet, Elaine Crowe, Jiawen Li, Zhiwan Cheung
Sheng TangHua, Othonas Charalambous, Chenny Ye

The exhibition ‘Mind-body-problem’ is a collaboration between The One Minutes and
Chinese European Art Center (CEAC).