Exhibition Opening | Kan Xuan: Racing Gravels
Apr
25
6:00 PM18:00
Exhibition Opening

Exhibition Opening | Kan Xuan: Racing Gravels

Curator-Guided Tour: 7 pm. The artist will be present.

The exhibition “Racing Gravels” assembles a series of new works by video artist KAN Xuan, informed by her parallel career as a commercial video director. Naturally, such continual exposure to brands and technologies has imbued her with related interests, urging her to explore the rites of commerce, technological ethic, and economic policy behind these commercial enterprises. KAN opts to examine the most mundane and seemingly trivial moments from a deeply personal perspective. She relentlessly attempts to expose the devils in the details of our consumerist society, alienated into spectacle.

Video artist KAN Xuan splits her time between Beijing and Amsterdam. Always taking personal experience as point of departure, KAN aims to unveil the complex relations between objective reality and subjective emotion. Precise, witty and biting, KAN’s singular visual lexicon merges playful subtlety with metaphorical profundity. Through her unique artistic language, KAN Xuan articulates vivid situations filled with contradictions: a metaphor for China, for the entire world, for us, living in the society of the spectacle amidst rapid commodification and technological acceleration, heading towards an inexplicable end, like automobiles racing through gravel at night.

The exhibition is curated by TAN Yue.

A range of works on view at Times Art Center Berlin are new commissions for Walk Strangely, Stay Strangely—Sora Kim vs. Kan Xuan: A Double One Woman Show, presented at the Guangdong Times Museum, from 15 December 2018 to 1 February 2019.

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Finissage: The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta
Apr
13
6:00 PM18:00
Finissage

Finissage: The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta

The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta
Episode III: The Politics of the Self

Panel discussion with Nikita Yingqian Cai and Melanie Roumiguière, 18:00–19:30

Storytelling and Active Withdrawal as Forms of Resistance

– Situated Practices at Times Museum and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program

Nikita Yingqian Cai (Chief Curator at the Guangdong Times Museum) and Melanie Roumiguière (Head of Visual Arts at DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program) will situate their practices by connecting the curatorial frameworks of their institutions with artistic practices supported, mediated and consolidated within and beyond their regional contexts. They will discuss storytelling and active withdrawal as an artistic strategy – taking a closer look at different forms of resistance that can be decisive for the visions of an institution and their practice.

The conversation will focus on the rhetorics of diverse geographies and the communities to be addressed, as well as the manifestation of gender politics in the programming of both institutions. These will serve as starting points to scrutinize curatorial approaches from various perspectives. In dialogue, Cai and Roumiguière hope to open up new ways of collaboration by exchanging mutual and diverse impulses and histories.

Nikita Yingqian Cai lives and works in Guangzhou, where she is currently Chief Curator at Times Museum. She has curated exhibitions such as A Museum That is Not (2011), Jiang Zhi: If This is a Man (2012), You Can Only Think about Something if You Think of Something Else (2014), Roman Ondák: Storyboard (2015), Big Tail Elephants: One Hour, No Room, Five Shows (2016) and A Man Who Never Threw Anything Away (2017), Omer Fast: The Invisible Hand (2018) and Zhou Tao: The Ridge in a Bronze Mirror (2019). Her recent curatorial research and practice have focused on issues of gender, alternative modernity and transnational trajectories between China and the global south, presented in the exhibition Pan Yuliang: A Journey to Silence (Villa Vassilieff in Paris and Times Museum, 2017) and the research initiative of All the Way South in 2017. She organizes the para-curatorial series as annual assembly, and has covered topics such as: No Ground Underneath: Curating on the Nexus of Changes (2012), Active Withdrawal: Weak Institutionalism and the Institutionalization of Art Practice, (co-organized with Biljana Ciric, 2013), Cultivate or Revolutionize? Life between Apartment and Farmland (co-organized with Binna Choi, 2014), Between Knowing and Unknowing: Research in-and-through Art (2015), Reciprocal Encounters: The Enactment of Collecting and its Modes of Representation (2016) and In the Name of Archive: Re-imagining History as Contemporary Art Practice (2017) and South of the South: Rhetorics of Geography and Imageries of Delinking (2018). Her writings have appeared in a number of publications and magazines.  

Melanie Roumiguière studied cultural sciences and aesthetic practice in Hildesheim. She lives and works in Berlin, where she took over the position as Head of Visual Arts at the DAAD artists-in-Berlin Program in late 2018. At daadgalerie she curated in 2019 the solo-exhibition The City with Rossella Biscotti and a new commissioned project with Minerva Cuevas under the title No Room To Play. Together with Anna-Catharina Gebbers she is currently developing the exhibition Deep Sounding – History as multiple narratives, to be presented in summer 2019.  

Prior to joining the DAAD artists-in-Berlin Program she worked as curator and exhibition director at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum for Contemporary Art – Berlin. She was part of the curatorial team for the project Hello World. Revising a Collection, where she conceived the chapters Entangled Holdings: Arte Popular, Surrealism and Emotional Architecture and Communication as Global Happening: Performance Art, Concept Art, Media Art in 2018. Since 2013 she curated exhibitions with Mariana Castillo Deball (2014), Michael Beutler (2015), and Gülsün Karamustafa (2016) at the Hamburger Bahnhof, where she also oversaw numerous publications and events. Previously she worked as a curatorial assistant for documenta and realized projects at the MACBA: Museum d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, at the GAK Society for Contemporary Art in Bremen, and at the Frankfurter Kunstverein.  

Performance by Isaac Chong Wai, 20:00–21:00

Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises (Part 2)

In this performance, Isaac Chong Wai will take the history of protests – through its repetitive expressions and actions – as the point of departure. "Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises" is a continuation of Chong’s investigation into imagined futures and how, through certain movements and postures, past ideology can be interpreted and improved upon by future generations.

Isaac CHONG Wai is a Berlin-based artist from Hong Kong, with an MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies from the Bauhaus-Universitat in Weimar, Germany, and a BA in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts at the Hong Kong Baptist University. His work has been shown at M+ Museum and Para Site in Hong Kong, Stiftung Brandenburger Tor and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Deutsche Künstlerbund, Berlin and Gwangju Media Art Festival, Kunstfest Weimar and Macura Museum in Novi Banovci and the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art in Museum of Moscow. He has had solo exhibitions at Kunstraum München in Munich (2018), Goethe Institut Hongkong in Hong Kong (2018), Bauhaus Museum in Weimar (2016). His work employs a range of media, including live performance, video, photography, and site-specific installation, and explores the interplay between the collective and the individual, the politics of time and space, and real and imagined futures.

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Feb
28
6:00 PM18:00
Exhibition Opening

Episode III: The Politics of the Self

Times Art Center Berlin is pleased to announce the opening of “Episode III: The Politics of the Self” of the inaugural three-part exhibition “The D-Tale: Video Art from the Pearl River Delta” co-curated by Hou Hanru and Xi Bei.

Participating Artists:
ALLORA & CALZADILLA, CAO Fei, CHEN Shaoxiong, CHOI Sai-Ho, FANG Lu, May FUNG, HO Sin Tung, KWAN Sheung-Chi, LI Xiaofei, Natalie LO Lai Lai, Anson MAK Hoi Shan, MAP OFFICE, QIN Jin, SHI Qing, Koki TANAKA, Jalal TOUFIC & Graziella Rizkallah TOUFIC, WONG Wai Yin, XU Tan, ZHU Jianlin

Video art in the region of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) emerged as early as the mid-1980s. Collectives such as “Videotage" in Hong Kong and “Southern Artists Salon” in Guangzhou were pioneers and galvanizing creative forces in the field. This movement was carried forward, in the 90s, by the rise of certain collectives and individuals, including the “Big Tail Elephants Working Group”, the “Borges Bookstore”, “U-theque”, JIANG Zhi and CAO Fei.

A highly specific part of China with its distinct cultural characteristics and traditions, the PRD has been closely related to international influences and interwoven with popular culture from the beginning. Frequent exchanges between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the impacts of Hong Kong’s popular culture, film, television and pop music concerning visual culture, coupled with a sensitivity for and references to international new media art, led to rapid experimentation in video art across the entire PRD. The art communities in the region have continuously developed their own aesthetics, merging individual independence, freedom, cultural hybridity, humour and irony with avant-garde experiments in open, diverse, fluid and natural manners.

At the same time, video art of the PRD has also been integrated into the process of high-speed urbanisation. It utilises strategies of witnessing and intervention to open up spaces for criticism and alternatives while paying close attention to the “supra-political”, bottom-up social expressions generated in the realms of everyday life. From the perspective of visual culture, video art of the PRD reflects the culture of this region and individuals’ singular involvements in the globalisation.

By adopting the medium of moving images, artists from the Pearl River Delta are looking for freedom and forms of resistance against dominant ideology and powers, turning ordinary gestures into artistic strategies to construct diverse personal utopias. Their video practices represent the most ground-breaking and powerful visions of experimental art and culture in the PRD. As a result, the PRD has become a creative hub for international exchange and art activities, as well as a deviating model which inspires artists from other regions.

The development of the Guangdong Times Museum was informed by these singular cultural explorations and artistic expressions. As a parallel institution and the first international branch of an Asian art institution, namely, the Guangdong Times Museum, Times Art Center Berlin is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta which introduces the shifting cultural landscape and visions of the region in an era of globalisation. The exhibition is part of the Operation PRD curatorial framework following the exhibition Big Tail Elephants at the Guangdong Times Museum in 2016.

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Feb
23
6:00 PM18:00
Panel Discussion

Episode II: Towards Autonomy, Panel Discussion

As a closing event of “Episode II: Towards Autonomy” of the inaugural three-part exhibition “The D-Tale: Video Art from the Pearl River Delta”, Times Art Center Berlin hosts a panel discussion between Li Zhenhua and Olaf Stüber, moderated by Marie-France Rafael. Throughout the discussion, the panelists will give an insight into their curatorial approaches and further investigate certain specifications of the time- and technology-based art form in terms of authenticity, curation, and distribution. 

Li Zhenhua is an independent curator. He works and lives in Zurich and Berlin. 

Marie-France Rafael is a researcher at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel. In 2017, she published the monograph “Reisen ins Imaginativ. Künstlerische Displays und Situationen” at Walther König, Cologne. She was in charge of the concept and organisation of the VIDEOART AT MIDNIGHT Symposium in 2018.

Olaf Stüber is an art dealer, curator, publisher and lecturer. In 2008, together with Ivo Wessel, he founded an international platform for artists’ films and videos in Berlin: VIDEOART AT MIDNIGHT. He is an active member of IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.

Free admission.

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Jan
17
6:00 PM18:00
Exhibition Opening

Episode II: Towards Autonomy, The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta

Curated by HOU Hanru, co-curated by XI Bei

18.01.2019 - 23.02.2019

Participating artists:

CHEN Shaoxiong, CHEN Tong, CHENG Chi Lai Howard, Isaac CHONG Wai, Simon DENNY, HUANG Xiaopeng, KWAN Sheung-Chi, Linda LAI, Warren LEUNG Chi-Wo, LI Liao, LIN Yilin, LIU Chuang, Phoebe Ching Ying MAN, PAK Sheung-Chuen, Eric SIU, SONG Ta, TSANG Kin-Wah, YANG Yong, Samson YOUNG, Ming WONG, WONG Ping, ZHOU Tao


In its three-part inaugural exhibition, Times Art Center Berlin (TACB) will introduce a part of the Chinese art world which is critically important but remains lesser known in the West and underrepresented in the global art scene, namely, the contemporary art production from the Pearl River Delta. In recent years, art created in China, by artists both from China and abroad, has become a major part of the global art scene. Now, the time has come to reflect this progression in Berlin. As an associated organisation of the renowned Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou in southern China, TACB has been established with that mission in mind. It is the first time an independent Asia-based art museum has founded a parallel institution abroad.

Times Art Center Berlin, a new experimental space for contemporary art from China in Berlin, has opened to the public in November 2018. It is initiated by the Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou.

The D-Tale, Videokunst aus dem Perlflussdelta

Kuratiert von HOU Hanru, co-kuratiert von XI Bei

EPISODE II: Towards Autonomy

Laufzeit der Ausstellung: 18. Januar – 23. Februar 2019

Teilnehmende Künstler*innen

CHEN Shaoxiong, CHEN Tong, CHENG Chi Lai Howard, Isaac CHONG Wai, Simon DENNY, HUANG Xiaopeng, KWAN Sheung-Chi, Linda LAI, Warren LEUNG Chi-Wo, LI Liao, LIN Yilin, LIU Chuang, Phoebe Ching Ying MAN, PAK Sheung-Chuen, Eric SIU, SONG Ta, TSANG Kin-Wah, YANG Yong, Samson YOUNG, Ming WONG, WONG Ping, ZHOU Tao

In einer dreiteiligen Eröffnungsausstellung stellt das Times Art Center Berlin (TACB) einen bedeutenden Teil der chinesischen Kunstwelt vor, der im Westen wenig bekannt und in der globalen Kunstszene unterrepräsentiert ist – die zeitgenössische Kunstproduktion aus dem Perlflussdelta. In den vergangenen Jahren ist in China geschaffene Kunst – ob von Künstler*innen aus China oder dem Ausland – zu einem wichtigen Teil der globalen Kunstszene geworden. Nun ist es an der Zeit, diese Entwicklung in Berlin stärker sichtbar zu machen. Dazu möchte das TACB, eine dem renommierten Guangdong Times Museum im südchinesischen Guangzhou zugeordnete Organisation, einen Beitrag leisten. Erstmals hat damit ein unabhängiges asiatisches Kunstmuseum eine parallel institution im Ausland gegründet. 

Das Times Art Center Berlin hat im November 2018 in Berlin als neuer experimenteller Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst aus China eröffnet. Es ist eine Initiative des Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou.  


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Nov
30
6:00 PM18:00
Exhibition Opening

The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta

Times Art Center Berlin (TACB), a new experimental space for contemporary art from China in Berlin, will open to the public on 30 November 2018.

Panel Discussion 
Video in the Pearl River Delta: An Eye Opener
with HOU Hanru, David ELLIOTT, and Anselm FRANKE
6:00 – 7:00 pm

Performance 
Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises (Part 1)
by Isaac CHONG Wai
Performers: Katherine Leung, Manuel Lindner, Imola Nagy, Nobutaka Shomura
7:30 – 9:00 pm

In its inaugural three-part exhibition, Times Art Center Berlin will present a vital component of the Chinese art world which remains lesser known to international audiences and is under-represented on the global art scene, namely the contemporary art production from the Pearl River Delta (PRD). A highly specific region of China with its distinct cultural characteristics and traditions, the PRD has been closely related to international influences and interwoven with popular culture from the beginning. Frequent exchanges between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the impacts of Hong Kong’s popular culture, film, television and pop music concerning visual culture, coupled with a sensitivity for and references to international new media art, led to rapid experimentation in video art across the entire PRD.

By adopting the medium of moving images, artists from the PRD are looking for freedom and forms of resistance against dominant ideology and powers, turning ordinary gestures into artistic strategies to construct diverse “personal utopias”. Their video practices represent the most ground-breaking and powerful visions of contemporary art and culture in the PRD. As a result, the PRD has become a creative hub for international exchange and art activities, as well as a deviating model which inspires artists from other region.

In recent years, contemporary art created in China, by artists both from China and abroad, has become a major part of the global art scene. Now, the time has come to reflect this progression in Berlin. As an associated organisation of the renowned Guangdong Times Museum, in Guangzhou in southern China, Times Art Center Berlin (TACB) was established with that mission in mind. It is the first time an independent Asia-based art museum has founded a parallel institution abroad. As a non-profit art institution, TACB aims at facilitating cultural conversations between Asia and Europe through collaborations with artists, curators, intellectuals and institutions based in Berlin. TACB operates as an independent and autonomous organisation and will produce a series of exhibitions, research projects, commissions, screenings, discursive events, artist residencies and publications. As an experimental space and research-oriented platform, it hopes to add a voice from the Global Souths to Berlin’s vibrant artistic scenes. Its inaugural exhibition is part of the Operation PRD curatorial framework following the exhibition Big Tale Elephants. The exhibition presents 58 artists and features more than 80 artworks.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

EPISODE I: Urban Explosion
01.12.2018 - 12.01.2019

ART JONES, CAO Fei, CHAN Chui Hing Nose, CHEN Shaoxiong, CHEN Tong, CHOW Chun Fai, HO Tzu Nyen, HUANG Weikai, JIANG Zhi, LIANG Juhui, LIN Yilin, LIU Chuang, OU Ning, João Vasco PAIVA, Ellen PAU, SONG Ta, TANG Kwok Hin, TSANG Kin-Wah, Morgan WONG, WONG Ping, WONG Wing Sang
 

EPISODE II: Towards Autonomy
18.01.2019 - 23.02.2019

CHEN Shaoxiong, CHEN Tong, CHENG Chi Lai Howard, Isaac CHONG Wai, Simon DENNY, HUANG Xiaopeng, KWAN Sheung-Chi, Linda LAI, Warren LEUNG Chi-Wo, LI Liao, LIN Yilin, LIU Chuang, Phoebe Ching Ying MAN, PAK Sheung-Chuen, Eric SIU, SONG Ta, TSANG Kin-Wah, YANG Yong, Samson YOUNG, Ming WONG, WONG Ping, ZHOU Tao


EPISODE III: The Politics of the Self
01.03.2019 - 13.04.2019

ALLORA & CALZADILLA, CAO Fei, CHEN Shaoxiong, CHOI Sai-Ho, FANG Lu, May FUNG, HO Sin Tung, KWAN Sheung-Chi, LI Xiaofei, Natalie LO Lai Lai, Anson MAK Hoi Shan, MAP OFFICE, QIN Jin, SHI Qing, Koki TANAKA, Jalal TOUFIC & Graziella Rizkallah TOUFIC, WONG Wai Yin, XU Tan, ZHU Jianlin

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