Erling T.V. Klingenberg appears often in his work when he uses art history as a form of objective presentation and subjective images. His working methods fluctuate between the challenging and the sincere, while allowing obtrusive emotions to enter his work.

Erling puts the concept of artist into an unexpected and humorous context, just like in his motto; “it´s hard to be an Artist in a Rock star Body”. His obsession with defining the role of the artist in this “Rock Star” based society is what takes him to actually investigate not what the artist does but how he does it. Therefore, it is not in the final product but in the process that his interests lie.

Erling wants to challenge the given foundations of visual art and stretch beyond them, while at the same time stretching beyond the conscious framework of his own creativity.

Erling T.V. Klingenberg´s works at CEAC are bronze castings from lumps of clay, paper sculpture, clay sculptures and a sign for it all. Body is the key here. They all have in common that it´s about the artist´s body, and the idea of creation. Most of the works are either made by using the artist´s body directly or they include a material from his body.

The three bronze sculptures have fingerprints and black holes. We peep through a hole on the surface because touching is forbidden, and we feel the presence of an infinite source, a well that grows blacker and deeper the longer we look. In these black holes we find clues of the force that at once destroys all and creates all.

At a closer examination it does not come as a surprise that Erling T.V. Klingenberg has in creating these works, seized the material with conviction and brandished the body part that identifies his gender and thrust through the hard surface and created an infinite hole.

In these actions some hairs fell off the artist, that he then used to create two clay sculptures. Is it possible these sculptures are positive holes? Or are they simply a support for the hair?

Maybe the answer can be found in the paper sculpture?

The works themselves are satirical manifestations of the attempt to create art, where all that comes across is the echo of their creator.

Sirra’s work often seems to find its footing on a thin line between art and entertainment, catching the viewer’s attention without revealing careful artistic investigations into the colour spectrum and principles of movement and space. Certain personal symbols bear reference to art history, the status of the artist, statistical information, scientific theories and topographical contexts.

The works of Sirra Sigrún Sigurðardóttir on display in the exhibition Inside the outside are made here in Xiamen during the last two months. Drawings and photographs that have been inspired by objects, places and rituals found while exploring the city and its rural surrounding.
A 300 years old Euphoria Longana tree in Zhaojiabao, it´s thriving crown the most impossible sight with its paper-thin trunk, withered away by time. Owing its bloom entirely to the support carefully placed by its co-inhabitants in the village.

Fragile tree branches that are placed under a huge boulder as if to support its place in the world.Symbolic gestures, turning the world upside down – for a moment – magical moments.

From an image of a black hole to a Bi-disk that becomes a doughnut, cut diagonally in half to reveal a hidden geometry.

A shape or form can be informative in and on itself and reflect both on historical and philosophical questions, as well as the quest of beauty. Each form has elements that touch the viewer in different ways, while interpreting information or theories that the viewer might be familiar with, sense, or not notice at all. Art history is riddled with quests for beauty, while social influences form or effect what is deciphered or perceived as beauty. The quest for beauty can, therefore, take on different forms. Scientists present their theories in equations where each symbol holds meaning for those who know how to read them. In the eyes of the scientist, the equation as a whole has aesthetic value. This value is not only in what instantly meets the eye but also in the deciphering of the symbols, the message they carry, and the knowledge they convey. Thus, the beauty of the equation is not the same for those who know the world behind it and those who look at it in the context of form studies or simply as beautiful writing.

Gallery

]]> https://www.ceac99.org/4437/exhibitions-and-events/feed/ 0 https://www.ceac99.org/4448/exhibitions-and-events/ https://www.ceac99.org/4448/exhibitions-and-events/#respond Sat, 27 Apr 2019 16:50:47 +0000 http://u28436p22281.web0115.zxcs.nl/?p=4448

Opening

April 27 at 17:00, 2019

Duration

04/27 till 05/08, 2019

Location

CEAC (Xiamen, China)

Artist

Bilal Chalal

My interest is to get closer to Chinese culture by exploring the Abacus and play with different motives, colors and styles. I try to bring eastern and western cultures together, understand numbers and merge them in our own space, our daily life. We are always counting we are always evaluating our future past and present according to our experiences and we make calculation to predict and make our decisions. Numbers have a great value and the eastern Chinese method of counting the first or the base of a digital computer. Western world should not forget this amazing instrument Abacus that has been used for 100 of years. What can we learn from that and how can we enrich ourselves with other cultures and especially not to forget our own.

— Bilal Chahal

In Lebanon he grew up until his tenth, moved to Curacao due to the civil war in Lebanon, on Curacao he finished primary school and received his first lessons in painting in 1990.

Chahal refers to this as an important stage in his life. He took lessons from Luigi Pinedo, from 1990 till 1994 who taught him everything about oil painting. At the same time Chahal found his way to Raed Selman, under whose influence he started more free painting and learned acrylic techniques. This is followed by studying with Ria Houwen., Hortence Brown, Tieneke van der Geest and Brandt. This is when he develops his own signature.

In 1999 he moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he studied at the University of Amsterdam till 2009. ArtHistory was his major study but he also was interested in philosophy, psychology and law and there, at the UVA, he followed various minors in those subjects.

Since this period, color and materials became an important character in Chahal’s work. He makes abstract work that ranges from seemingly simple, but on closer inspection complicated accumulated monochromes, mixed medias and techniques, from bright colorful canvases in which the paint in various techniques are applied so that a nearly three-dimensional artwork is created, demonstrating that artistic and technical innovation go hand in hand.

Apart from paintings, Chahal also brings forth abstract sculptures, and photography.

Chahal was not only influenced by his teachers, but also by other painters, for example Mark Rothko , Tapies, the Dutch informal artist of the 50’s and the Zero movement. Which indeed can be seen in his own work as well. Just like Rothko, Chahal’s masters the art of omission. The subject becomes more free and the sense abstraction, more visible. The development continues, Chahal: ‘I’m not at all restricted anymore by elements as the size of the cloth or the paint or the material I’m using. I’m in the painting: that is my universe and that universe is unbounded.’

Gallery

]]> https://www.ceac99.org/4448/exhibitions-and-events/feed/ 0 https://www.ceac99.org/4492/exhibitions-and-events/ https://www.ceac99.org/4492/exhibitions-and-events/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:07:49 +0000 http://u28436p22281.web0115.zxcs.nl/?p=4492

Opening

April 13, 2019

Duration

April 13 till 23, 2019

Location

CEAC (Xiamen, China)

Artist

Annie Mackinnon

Subliming Skying, Star Gazing, Screen Glazing, is a solo exhibition by Annie Mackinnon.

Focusing on the motif of Chaos, the exhibition draws from research into the anxieties of ecological destruction, the pervasiveness of technology, and mythological beliefs that once formed the basis of interrelations between people and the environment in the past.

One key mythological narrative to Mackinnon’s work is the Chinese primordial chaos or ‘Hundun,’ which varies across different accounts. In the Zhuangzi, 莊子, Hundun is described as having no eyes, nose, ears or mouth. Shu the God of the Southern Sea, and Hu God of the Northern Sea opened one of Hundun’s apertures per day. On the seventh day, Chaos died, and the universe was born. In the Shanhaijing山海经, Hundun resembles a sac like creature, with six feet and four wings, with no face and no eyes but knows how to sing and dance. In another text, the Shen yi jing神異經 Hundun embodies a divine dog who lived on Mt Kunlun.

Within the artworks, the character of Hundun is taken as a re-occurring emblematic metaphor for present chaos between people and environmental impact. The exhibition explores the idea of simulated desires within ‘Nature’ landscapes: how being in nature has gained consumerist agency. Landscapes have been altered according to aesthetics, and non-native plant species prevail. Furthermore, tourist landscapes and the urge of creating content for social media leads to gestural and performative documentations of being in nature.

A New Video work filmed in Xiamen: ‘Cosmic Resonance, or Spewing Inertia’ explores an undercurrent of inactivity, inattentiveness despite the symbiotic nature of environmental destruction. Sublime nature scenes flick between manufactured aestheticised landscapes, plastic pollution, and surveillance mechanisms, all inhabiting a chaotic present. Two people move and pose in stillness, as an undercurrent, entwining amongst Chaos, Nature, Rocks, the Sea. In shadows of the past digitalised relics and fragments spin, nodding to characters of Chinese Mythology: Hundun or Chaos, Xiangliu the nine-headed snake who devastated ecology everywhere he went.

Alongside the video, a series of sculptural garments are exhibited at CEAC. Annie MacKinnon’s physical works are always created from up-cycled materials and discarded textiles. The garments on display are representative of the interplay of fauna, mythological characters, and the bulbous Hundun, and are made from second hand bedding, and collected discarded fabric from Fashion brands.

Gallery

]]> https://www.ceac99.org/4492/exhibitions-and-events/feed/ 0 https://www.ceac99.org/4532/exhibitions-and-events/ https://www.ceac99.org/4532/exhibitions-and-events/#respond Tue, 12 Mar 2019 19:10:49 +0000 http://u28436p22281.web0115.zxcs.nl/?p=4532

Opening

March 2, 2019

Duration

March 2 till 23, 2019

Location

CEAC (Xiamen, China)

Artist

About Echo and Kaki

Echo Linjin, Born in 1990, Lin Jing is an exotic native of Shapowei, Xiagang District of Xiamen.

A game for one
Yell
In accordance with the law of collective prayer
Yell
until
yell out one
constantly moving room
with no door
and no button
until
yell out thirty people
They
goin and out
up and down
In my body
A paternoster game

Step1, Place the recorder “1” in the corner of the wall and walk around the room while yelling for one minute. Step2, Place the recorder “2” in the corner of the wall, walk around the room holding the player which plays the recording “1” while yelling for one minute. Step3, Place the recorder “3” in the corner of the wall, walk around the room holding the player which plays the recording “2” while yelling for one minute. Step30, Place the recorder “30” in the corner of the wall, walk around the room holding the player which plays the recording “29” while yelling for one minute.

Kaki, Cai Jiaqi, Born on December 7, 1995
Villager of the ninth group of Xiayang Village, Haicang District, Xiamen, Fujian

In 1982, the Danish director Jorgen Leth directed a documentary about the different aspects of American society, 66 Scenes from America,in which Andy Warhol ate a burger. After a long gaze, he said:”My name is Andy Warhol. I just finished a hamburger.”

Some people call it”immortal famous sentence”.

Nowadays, the trivial behavior of eating and broadcasting and various other live broadcasts have formed a new phenomenon of onlooking.

There is no need to think and it appeaseanxiety. Moreover, a special sense of satisfaction could be achieved. Both being watched, the anchorand the successful artist have plausible differences between their behaviors.

Is it because of the context, the profound ideas, the unique insights, or just because this is done by artist?
Yayoi Kusama, Joseph Beuys, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst
KAKI has swinging feelings for them.
KAKI completed four bread dishes for them based on their well-known labels.
So this bread is not even made by KAKI.

Gallery

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