I Am Standing in the Middle of the Information Highway and Laughing is a new exhibition curated by Raha Raissnia and Martin Germann, opening August 16 through October 18 at the Argo Factory in Tehran. Taking its title from late artist Jonas Mekas’ Manifesto Anti-100 years of Cinema, a performative exhibition in Tehran will unfold over two different episodes. Its main aim is to celebrate the unbound energy of collaborative work and friendship on the one hand and moments of reflection and stillness on the other. Its point of departure is the Manichean binary between darkness and light, as sine qua non condition for the existence of technologically mediated images.
The second chapter of the exhibition, curated by Martin Germann, opens on Friday, September 27, with Marco Fusinato, James T. Hong, Tiffany Sia and Sam Lewitt.
Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork is participting in the group exhibition Slipper at Personal Space, Vallejo, California.
Featuring works by: David Bayus, Lemia Monet Bodden, Kari Cholnoky, Ximaps Dong, Erik Frydenborg, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, Albert Herter, Catalina Ouyang, and Elina Vainio.
“Slipping between registers, like prophesy, some excessive field leaves deposits in our shared existence. It takes form, in the shape of slips of the tongue, or a slipped disc, articulated and yet still monstrous. The environment is overpopulated by tools and weapons that encode our lust or aggression into metal, plastic, or paper, infused with the unspeakable. Here is a collection of objects, of various media, that cannot be fully accounted for, that leave a remainder or lapsus, that aren’t completely discrete, and sit like cairns on a landscape, death’s representatives, recording trajectories between past and future. Marking the differences that matter, that can be utilized to situate oneself and guide a famished party. Small signs, like fragments of fossils, can refer to immensity.” – Albert Herter
Improvisation is on view through January 19th, 2025 at the Inside Out Museum in Beijing. It was curated by Carol Yinghua Lu with Na Rongkun, Sining Zhu, Cao Liyao, Li Huiyi and Sun Yuhan.
Participating artists and collectives include Cang Xin, Chen Liang, Chen Zhou, Ergao (He Qiwo), Gao Fu, He Liping, He Ruijun, Hu Yiyao, Liu Zhan, Luo Lin, M Art Group, Ma Liuming, Pak Sheung Chuen, Peng Xueying, Rong Rong, The Cement Park, Song Xiaohong, Song Dong, Vunkwan Tam, Tong Tianqing, Wang Shihua, Wang Sishun, Yorkson, Zhang Huan, Zhang Wei, Zhang Zhihui, Zhong Yunshu, Zhou Bin, Zhu Fadong, Zuoxiao Zuzhou.
Improvisation is one of the characteristics of art, as well as a method of creative practice. It highlights an artistic process where the artist finishes their work immediately and swiftly, using everything at hand, when the inspiration, provoked by an external stimulus or an internal impulse, hits unpreparedly and uncontrollably. In the context of traditional Chinese music culture, due to its unique system of notation and inheritance, improvisation was once a ubiquitous technique in musical practice. Improvisation is a cross-cultural phenomenon that is probably as old as the human race. This is the reason why we encounter improvisation frequently throughout different historical moments and creative activities in the long history of art. From the Dada’s rejection of logic and introduction of chaos and irrationality into their creative practice, to the Situationists who, out of an ideal to fight against Capitalism’s alienation of the individual, advocated the pursuit of genuine desires, the experience of life, and the sense of adventure. People can see that improvisation is the method, the idea, the principle, and the real life itself.
Empty Gallery is pleased to announce the appointment of Alexander Lau as senior director, and Kaitlin Chan as director.
Lau has served as director of the gallery, and its associated label Empty Editions, for over nine years, and been foundational in the development of our exhibition program and artist roster. Based in New York and Hong Kong, Lau also sits on the board of Primary Information (NYC).
Chan joined the gallery in 2020 as associate, and has since contributed to over ten exhibitions as an artist liaison, as well as through public programming, communications, art fairs and sales. Chan is also a cultural worker who creates comics and lectures on self-publishing amongst other topics.
Participating artists include Koichi Enomoto, Ester Knapová, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Autumn Ramsey, Emma Reyes, Margaret Salmon and Henry Shum.
formazione di forme.. curated by Matilde Guidelli-Guidi at Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna, as part of curated by 2024, is on view from 17 September through October 19, 2024. The exhibition features works by Alighiero Boetti, Aria Dean, Taro Masushio, and Samson Young, chosen for their distinct approach to form-making.
Masushio took the Untitled (Youth) pictures in San Francisco in the early aughts, at a time of youthful infatuation with the aesthetics and techniques of formalist photography. He shot the SoMa scene through that lens: analog camera and the zone system, the body flattened and closely cropped in black-and-white symmetries. Finding those negatives in his archive last summer arose feelings of embarrassment toward his puppy love days. An embarrassment that he worked through, coming face to face with that innocent attraction to formalism, and by extension to a younger self, that is akin to kink. So that in the printing process, he treated the negatives to further heighten the compositional elements in ways that replay the darkroom devotion of his youth. Masushio said: “Vis-à-vis my personal history, I want to propose a provocation of (modernist?) aesthetics and the taboo of being a formalist, which I thought was kind of kinky. (A kind of parallel between concept/ form vs norm/ taboo). But there is always a bit of embarrassment about making these kinds of (po-mo) gestures, too.” The form/ affect dyad shifts valence from attraction to embarrassment to kink in the reception of these works. Which is real? This fractal approach to the archive is typical of his overall method. An earlier body of work emerged from fortuitously finding, in a temporary lodging, a box of prints and recognizing them as the work of the late Jun’icha En’ya—an elusive figure and one of the earliest Japanese photographers of homoerotica. A visit to En’ya’s environs in Osaka generated Masushio’s works: photographs of pencil-traced snapshots that he furtively took in En’ya’s archives, and still-life pictures of the objects that En’ya owned or that he might have. Between Masushio and the En’ya “idea” there is no articulated relationship of influence. Form escapes filiation there: the pressure of the archival materials and the pencil pressing against paper.
Tishan Hsu’s solo exhibition Interface Remix at MOCA Toronto opens to the public on Sunday, September 8. “Interface Remix” showcases key works from the past five decades of Hsu’s career alongside never-before-seen creations that explore themes of transformation and alienation. In his first ever Canadian solo exhibition, Hsu’s groundbreaking work navigates the intersection of technology and the human body through his multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture, and installation.
Hsu will also be in conversation with Alex Da Corte on September 8th at 2PM in an accompanying program.
Cici Wu’s Lovers Revolt, Lovers Resolve (Reincarnations of Lantern), 2020, is now on view at 47 Canal through September 14 in a group presentation with Mickael Marman and Emmanuel Louisnord Desir.
Jes Fan’s Bivalve II is now on view at Dream States, Groundspace of The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, through January 2025. Artists: Jes Fan, Katharina Grosse, Michael Ho, and Olafur Eliasson.
Special thanks to Tim Tan.
I Am Standing in the Middle of the Information Highway and Laughing is a new exhibition curated by Raha Raissnia and Martin Germann, opening August 16 through October 18 at the Argo Factory in Tehran. Taking its title from late artist Jonas Mekas’ Manifesto Anti-100 years of Cinema, a performative exhibition in Tehran will unfold over two different episodes. Its main aim is to celebrate the unbound energy of collaborative work and friendship on the one hand and moments of reflection and stillness on the other. Its point of departure is the Manichean binary between darkness and light, as sine qua non condition for the existence of technologically mediated images. For the first chapter of the exhibition, a number of artists have been carefully selected by Raha Raissnia to accompany two of her own works. In the spirit of Mekas’s Manifesto, they are all friends whom she has known personally from many years of living and working in New York City. Artists: Jonas Mekas, Raha Raissnia, Andrew Chalk, Pip Chodorov, Martha Colburn, Milton Cruz, Albert Herter, Andrew Lampert, Jeanne Liotta, Timo Van Luijk, Panagiotis Mavridis, Jordan Mintzer, Jason Babak Mohaghegh, Stom Sogo and Justina Zukauskaite
“Olistostrome: Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork” installation view at Empty Gallery, 2021 Courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery Photo: Michael Yu
Empty Gallery 很高興為大家帶來Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork(原為Gordon)在我們畫廊舉行的第二個個展《 Olistostrome》。Gork 多元混雜的藝術實踐往往意在重整觀眾、表演者和展覽建築間的接收分類等級制, 她的作品存身於雕塑和聲音裝置間含糊多變的規界縫隙中。Gork對聲音世界如何規範和塑造我們的主體內在性有敏銳的察覺,故她運用和顛覆遺存的控制論,創出多個反饋具現化系統,試圖動用存在於基礎建設、日常物料以及聆聽行為中有助解放的可能潛力。
展覽的名稱 「Olistostrome」 是地質學名詞, 指由半流體沉積物塌瀉堆積而成的岩體;是次展覽將展出一系列新創作的聲音雕塑組合,並將設置在Gork以Supercollider開發的聲音裝置當中。 Gork透過以特定方式排列的多組麥克風、揚聲器及特設訊號處理軟件,把畫廊19樓的上層空間轉化為一個包含了設備機具、雕塑、建築和觀者的不穩定環路裝置。 她如網絡般的潛在聲音事件,佈置在意喻乾涸觀景園又或硒廣袤的敏化河石床間,引發具體互動。身體在這樣一個實體與虛擬同場的空間內所產生的噪音,透過一系列現場計算式的轉換在空間上和時間上呈現出怪異的脫置。這些脫置令人質疑我們思想、身體和如內/外、主動/被動、因/果般的線性二律背反環境刺激間的主權關係,並展現聲音經驗在保持這些文化建造時所發揮的作用。
介入這個視覺與聲音景觀的是Gork另一組雕塑作品〈Attenuators〉。乍看之下,這組作品讓人想起聖石、希羅式雕像以及地誌學排列式,當中如謎般的結構(像是在河石儲存庫上分散的島嶼)是古典意義上的雕塑,但亦同時是Gork心理聲學環境的音波定語。作品以氈毛加上巧心的人手針織技巧製成,Gork在當中貫徹了她對手工藝、編織藝術(特別它的女性主義及後極簡典型)和工業隔音物料的持續探索。這些看似是同質的雕塑表面,隱含了疊褶、細孔和毛線受限於裝置振動影響複雜躍動的幾何形狀,就像我們身體褶起了的薄膜。〈Attenuators〉是這次展覽結構的重要參與者而非被動的基建成員,它戲劇化及具體化勞力吸取這無形的行為,它能在空間中吸引聲音能量,減低空氣中某些頻率的存在。
在Gork的創作實踐中, 聲音處理專門領域的概念如回饋、反射、聲濾等皆成為了具作用的比喻,指向世界中主體的心理社會時刻。揚聲器與麥克風,房間與紡織,甚或是身體與耳朵,只是不同複性與規模的環路,微觀與宏觀系統多孔而脆弱的混合。《Olistostrome》中展出的作品要求觀者重新定義其自身能動性的邊界,挑戰主動參與和被動觀看、智性物質與愚材的分界。它們試圖探索如何,集體地,我們或能抑制互為主體性物化、重要沉積物石化為堅硬再現的悚然過程。