art reviews
Shanghai Profile:
A Conversation with Elisabeth de Brabant >>
By Vivi Ying He
Sandra Gottlieb
Room >>
By Mary Hrbacek
La Biennale di Venezia
53rd Venice Biennale 2009 >>
By Nicollette Ramirez
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Shanghai Profile:
A Conversation with Elisabeth de Brabant
ByVivi Ying He
New York native Elisabeth de Brabant recently opened a new gallery in Shanghai’s storied French Concession area, in addition to her galleries in Paris and Hong Kong. Vivi Ying He, the Asia bureau editor for the M magazine in Shanghai, spoke with Ms. de Brabant about her plans.
You opened your gallery in Shanghai at a time when others have closed or scaled back. How did you come upon locating in the French Concession? I used to have a gallery with another partner, but we could not continue. I was frustrated, because for a long time I loved being involved in art. So about a year ago I got the idea to do a different kind of gallery, something more like a cultural center, with many programs, different curatorial programs. The galleries that I had before were huge white spaces. We had 500 sqm in 798 in Bejing, and 1,800 sqm in Moganshan Lu [M50] in Shanghai. But in the French Concession there weren’t many galleries, only one or two.
This part of Shanghai has an interesting history, so the idea was to do something different. I found this old residential building [built in1933], which had three apartments and several people living there. Over the last couple of years, though, most had left and soon it was empty. So we took over the building. It took us about between five or six months to renovate it. We opened the ceiling on the top floor to add another floor. We also took away the plaster on the walls. This revealed the original and beautiful Shanghaiese bricks; the bricks even had the construction workers’ names on them. We kept the original wood floors, as well as the layout of rooms on each floor. Now it’s much more interesting than a “white cube”.
How do you choose the artists that you show? I think a lot of things are destiny; I believe in Feng Shui. I do believe that you need people to come into your life. Each artist is different. Sometimes it takes a long time for me and an artist to work together, even though we have known one another for many, many years. Because I'm able to offer them a program of lectures, private dinners, installation projects, public programs at this gallery, now I feel it is the right time to start working with them.
What do you look for in an artist as an individual, beyond the artwork? We are very close; the point is not a single nice meeting, or just looking forward to the next exhibition. It’s a long-term agreement where we are always together. We offer them exhibitions that may not money, or they may not end up going to a museum. Nevertheless, we provide a platform for them; we work very, closely together. In this sense, the gallery is like an artist's residence.
When you say that you wanted to make a gallery that was more like a cultual center than just another white box, what else do you have planned for this space? We are building a reading library, and we will have a virtual library. We are also going to have an art film house in our program. We will provide a platform for young Chinese directors. The idea is to establish a dialogue; people will come here and hang out. I like Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and I would love to have more communication with Chinese people. The idea is to create a space that is very active, buzzing with new original projects that don’t exist elsewhere.
Can you tell me something about your background? What brought you to Shanghai? I was born in New York City and brought up between Asia and New York, since part of my family has been in Asia since 1908 and some still live in Bangkok. We returned to Asia permanently in 2004 after living 15 years in Paris, where my two children were born. I come from a family of three generations of art collectors and museum benefactors. We’re all very passionate about each of our collections.
When did you open your first gallery? What was it called? When I first arrived in Shanghai I got involved with charity work. I was asked to help to organize a charity art auction with the American Women’s Club, through which I met my former gallery co-director. My first gallery was called Art Scene. Since my family is very involved with museums in North America and England, I brought my knowledge and experience to the gallery. In 2008, after four years of growth and development, I felt it was time to start a new direction on my own. So I opened this new gallery, the Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center in the French Concession.
How do you define "Chinese art"? How is this different from contemporary art in other countries? There is something very refreshing about the art scene in China. It’s dynamic; it’s progressive; it’s optimistic. Whereas in Europe and North America, the dialogue of the contemporary art scene is more established. The Chinese art scene relates to the cultural and social changes of the new China. It is this evolving art scene that we focus on. China’s contemporary art scene is only twenty-five years old; it is very exciting time to be part of it.
Everyone talks about Beijing as the main art scene in China, with the most art galleries, but you opened your gallery in Shanghai. Why did you choose Shanghai over Beijing? Yes, Beijing is a big art scene. Central Academy has produced some of the most outstanding contemporary artists since 1986. But because of globalization, Chinese contemporary artists can work internationally. Shanghai to me is like Paris, it has a feminine character, it’s charming and it’s more intimate. Beijing is more stately and grand, which explains the huge “white cube” art spaces.
Also, I chose the French concession because the area evokes Shanghai’s special character. We are trying to create something unique, something not found in other galleries in Shanghai, because primarily we do not see ourselves as a gallery but instead, like I said, we’re really more of an art center.
What kind of work do you collect? Is it mostly Asian artists? I collect Asian and European contemporary art, as well as European modern art. Yes, I have a good Asian collection, but as a collector, you are always looking for the next great, wonderful treasure.
When you sell artwork, do you sell only work that you own or do you sell work on commission? I do not sell from my private collection, and I don’t buy artwork specifically to sell. I buy for passion, and so far I am very lucky in that what I have bought has increased in value over the years. The artists that we represent and give a platform to, we represent internationally. Our collectors are international, mostly from Europe and North America; however they also include Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Koreans, and Japanese. We want to encourage our Chinese and Asian clients to have more confidence in China’s contemporary art market, so we emphasize that there is real quality and talent to be found among today’s Asian contemporary artists.
Who is your favorite living artist? It’s a very difficult question. I‘m very passionate about all the artists I work with. In my personal collection, I adore an artist who is also a friend, Hong Liu.
What is your next exhibition? Our next exhibition features Shan Sa, an accomplished Chinese artist based in Paris. She's both a very successful writer, and painter. She wrote The Girl Who Played Go and The Empress, for which she won the Prix Goncourt. This exhibition, called Time in West, Light in East, has travelled to New York, Paris and Tokyo, and we are re-introducing her to China. She paints using a traditional Chinese method, but her use of color is very fresh and contemporary. She first signed with the Marlborough Gallery, who consider her to be following in the footsteps of another of their featured artists, the famous Zao Wu Ki.
You did an exhibition and collaboration with Wang Xiaohui at your house in Shanghai called “isolated paradise.” What was that about? Xiao Hui and I met a couple years ago. There was an immediate connection and we decided to work together. As we were discussing our collaboration in my house, Xiao Hui became completely inspired by the house; the historical significance of the compound which is called Shang Fang Hua Yuan or “isolated paradise”. Shang Fang Hua Yuan had its glory days in the 1930’s, but it’s now deteriorated. The house in which we live, however, has been renovated back to the original Art Deco style by Michael Graves, and strongly contrasts with the present day shabbiness of the surrounding area.
The house echoes the thread that runs through the works of Xiao Hui, which is often a paradox between inner beauty and outer beauty. So we decided to do a solo exhibition there, set in the 1930's, which is centered upon the story of the girls that might have lived in the house during that time; trapped in their “isolated paradise”. Shanghai women of the1930's were like birds in cages. If they were rich, their husbands kept them at home, as decorative items. If they were not rich, they were often forced into work as hostesses or prostitutes at Shanghai’s “Glamour Bars”.
Chinese traditions are still very, very conservative; most women still cannot marry any man they choose. In this context, Xiao Hui’s work is about the parallel between Chinese women in the 1930's and contemporary Chinese women; it’s a discussion of morality and social inequalities. M
Ed. Note:
Elisabeth de Brabant Chinese Contemporary Fine Art is located at 299 Fuxing X1 Road, Shanghai, 200031. Telephone +86.137.6497.073. www.elisabethdebrabant.com
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Sandra Gottlieb
Room
By Mary Hrbacek
For ten years Sandra Gottlieb has observed and photographed the changes in natural light that transform the shoreline and horizon near her home at Rockaway Beach, New York. Her digital C-prints capture light fluctuations that rapidly alter the tones defining sea, sun and sky, on a daily basis. Gottlieb is not interested in storm clouds, or the effects of the wind on the ocean. She is tuned into the cycles and rhythms that create the light effects to be seen most dramatically at dawn and dusk. For many people tuned to city-life, nature and its splendor have become remote, even forgotten. These photographs remind us of the calming, regenerative effects that everyday contact with a natural environment can bring.
In the Seascape Series, 1996 – 2006, Gottlieb explores the territory between the abstract and the real. The seascape provides the source for a minimal format in which heightened purity of expression can be achieved through the interaction of color and image. Color is her primary expressive element; she sensitively juxtaposes flat realms of pure color with blackened indefinable hues. These unusual color relationships are enhanced by ambient light and atmospheric mist.
These minimal formats stress the uncluttered grandeur of the natural environment. Gottlieb’s photographs convey the reflected light on the sea at the apex of its luminosity, when it lingers as traces of color on rippling water. Horizontal # 14 is a medley of warm yellow and pale reddish purple, which mingles and blends in an emotionally stirring combination. Gottlieb’s spare use of art elements creates ephemeral poetic works that hint at Winslow Homer’s Caribbean watercolor series. Her photographs capture a sense of pulsing energy that gives them a feeling of truth and reality.
In her City Tulip series, Gottlieb tunes into the delicacy and fragility of interacting shadows cast by petals on tulips in a City flowerbed. She focuses her camera on close-ups of jutting stamens and pistils, within the surrounding curling petals. Tulips are especially symbolic of rebirth and the opportunity for renewal this rebirth implies. The allegorical implications of flowers as signifiers of fragility, youth, beauty and the fleeting character of life’s passages become pronounced in these closely observed, selective floral images. City Tulip #5 shows the inner section of the flower that seems to morph into an insect within its center. Tulip #5 features grey shadows that blend with soft yellow stains on white petals. Here the stamens poke up from the lower format, revealing fuzzy looking greenish tips. Gottlieb’s archival digital C-prints capture details that make the moment eternal.
Photography has long come into its own as a form that extends and amplifies the visual culture well beyond the camera’s obvious documentary capabilities. Gottlieb’s attention to natural themes, sensitively conveying their frailty and mutability, is daring in its clarity and sincerity. M
Ed. Note:
Room is a high-end minimalist furniture and accessories store in Tribeca, which also exhibits original artwork. The exhibition runs through August 15, and the address is 182 Duane St., New York, NY 10013. Tel: 212.226.1045
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La Biennale di Venezia
53rd Venice Biennale 2009
By Nicollette Ramirez
What struck me most about the 53rd Venice Biennale, besides the subdued tone of most parties and events, was the almost complete absence of new art. By new I mean something refreshing that our tired art eyes can be startled with, linger on, and move back to with wonder and awe. I think Michael Kimmelman said it best in his New York Times review: “The 53rd Venice Biennale is tidy, disciplined, cautious and unremarkable, suggesting a somewhat dull, deflated contemporary art world, professionalized to a fault, in search of a fresh consensus.”
Kimmelman ends his article on a high note, however, emphasizing the playful aspect of art within all the “professionalism”. I believe this is where the “fresh consensus” will be found in the contemporary art world now. Already there are burgeoning examples across New York City; Happenings curated by Seth Carnes, (Disclaimer: Produced by Nicollette Ramirez), 50 parties (studio parties hosted by Ryan McGinniss), as well as small, intimate salons taking place in people’s homes to celebrate an artist’s work. After the mega-mega era of art as product, the art world is about art again — the essence of art creation. We are seeing a return to something fun and collaborative.
I was lucky to have a friend (a co-collaborator filmmaker type of friend from Lebanon, Wael Nourredine) exhibiting at the Biennale who gave me access to the Giardini and the Arsenale on June 3. After that, forget about it; lines to see Steve McQueen’s beautiful though self indulgent 30 minute Giardini film at the British Pavilion, lines to see Fiona Tan at the Dutch Pavilion, lines to see Bruce Nauman at the American Pavilion. Now it takes a Pre-Preview Pass if you want to escape the lines, or else you have to skip the opening completely (like some curators I know), and go later.
I loved the Russian Pavilion’s offering in Victory Over The Future, featuring the work of Alexei Kallima, Pavel Pepperstein, Andrei Molodkin, Anatoly Shuravlev, Sergei Shekhovtsov, Irina Korina and Gosha Ostretsov. Besides the good eye that selected works from artists we in the West have begun getting to know, all of the work still had a refreshing element that captivated the viewer. From the drawings of Pavel Pepperstein, to Andrei Molodkin’s transparent sculptures of the Venus di Milo’s in which what looked like oil and blood circulated and then were projected onto a wall in monumental videos, there was no lack of creativity or of technical ingenuity. I saw a few of the artists putting the final touches on this work, but I couldn’t communicate with them to tell them how much I liked their work since I don’t speak Russian and apparently no one at the Pavilion spoke English.
Another favorite of mine was Fiona Tan at the Dutch Pavilion. Born in Indonesia to Chinese and Australian parents, Tan brings this idea of the Orient to her piece entitled Disorient. Venice’s political power in the past is the focus on which we see Marco Polo’s travels as they transfer into our present time. As East and West meet, one can see the need for a new understanding between not only the past and present, but the way the West still views the East. These juxtapositions of time are also present in Tan’s Rise and Fall where we see moments from a woman’s life on two screens, intersected with the tumultuous movement of bodies of water. Provenance, comprised of six small screens, is a video recreation of paintings from the 17th Century which exist in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Here Tan creates in black and white video contemporary versions of the paintings, again highlighting the link between past and present and the movement of time.
Claude Leveque, the representative for the French Pavilion, was seated outside the pavilion surrounded by admirers and his gallerist Kamel Mennour, and the gallery’s staff. Inside the Pavilion, one walked straight ahead or to the left or right along bars that gave you the sense of being in prison. Behind the bars at the end of the hall in the darkened pavilion a flag flapped; stimulated to movement by an unseen fan. The sound that enveloped the viewer, in addition to the sound of the moving flags, made for an uneasy feeling.
The cold emptiness and sterility of the French Pavilion contrasted with a similar dark space in the Japanese Pavilion. Miwa Yanagi, who exhibited two years ago at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City, built on her Fairy Tales series to create larger-than-life images of Windswept Women: The Old Girls’ Troupe who stand firmly on the earth though they are evidently being challenged by the elements and seem on the verge of being lifted off the ground by strong winds. In addition to the surreal surroundings of the women in the photographs, the Pavilion was outfitted with a dark tent within which was another tent that one could crawl into to see a new video created by Yanagi.
Ivan Navarro also showed a video, but one stimulated by the pedals of a bicycle; a combination of sculpture and video entitled Resistance. By far one of the most popular Chilean artists today, Navaro created a three-part piece called Threshold which consisted of Resistance, Bed and Death Row. Bed was a sculpture filled with blue LEDs of the word “BED” which fell into infinity through the round hole in the floor. Death Row was a series aluminum doors, each filled with a different color of LEDs mimicking the colors of the rainbow. Going through each color filled door one had the sense of marching on through to infinity.
There were many performances throughout the Biennale, some small and spontaneous, others planned well in advance. Atta Kim: On Air took place in Palazzo Zenobio. Kim stood atop a high Pavilion from which he scattered ten thousand photographs of Rome printed on Koran paper as the audience below sipped cocktails while looking up under the shower of paper; giving physical expression to the Biennale’s theme of Making Worlds.
For the first time the United Arab Emirates had a Pavilion and disappointingly, though perhaps understandably, the art was predictable; if you could call it art. My friend Wael Nourredine, whose work was specifically commissioned for the Adach Pavilion, didn’t want to show me his work at first because he felt he had not been allowed to produce the best work possible.
Around Venice some major artists presented work at the various locations. The Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa showed Rebecca Horn’s Fata Morgana and Yoko Ono’s Anton’s Memory. Mona Hatoum presented new work at Fondazione Querini Stampala as did John Wesley at Fondazione Prada. At the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, a group show entitled Glass Stress, organized by Adriano Berengo and Susan Scherman, Albers, Arman, Jean Arp, Barbara Bloom, Louise Bourgeois, Sergio Bovenga, Daniel Buren, Lawrence Carroll, Cèsar, Soyeon Cho, Tony Cragg, Marie Louise Ekman, Jan Fabre, Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Francesco Gennari, Dan Graham, Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Hye Rim Lee, Charlotte Hodes, Roni Horn, Mimmo Jodice, Marya Kazoun, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Raimund Kummer, Federica Marangoni, ORLAN, Jean Michel Othoniel, Luca Pancrazzi, Anne Peabody, Giuseppe Penone, Anton Pevsner, Bettina Pousttchi, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, René Rietmeyer, Silvano Rubino, Sandro Sergi, Kiki Smith, Jana Sterbak, Lino Tagliapietra, Koen Vanmechelen, Fred Wilson, Kimiko Yoshida and Chen Zhen. As I said, a long list!
One amusing exhibition,100 Sexes D’Artistes by the artist Jacques Charlier, was located on a boat at the Riva dei Sette Martiri, and offered the public documents related to the censorship of the collateral exhibition proposed by the curator Enrico Lunghi. The proposal involved showing large posters throughout the city of Venice which featured the work of Charlier, who over many years has created a body of work showing the genitals of famous artists.
And speaking of intimate body parts of famous artists, it’s always curious to see the effect Venice has on the people one knows and sees regularly. As usual, there were many parties, breakfasts, lunches and brunches. Though everyone seemed to be having a good time, there wasn’t as much “energy” as I’ve seen at past Biennales. Even the people with the lists at the entrances to palazzos seemed more uptight than usual; often erring on the side of not letting in the most fun people. Consequently, there wasn’t much fun to be had. One example of this was the Vogue Oumo party at Palazzo Grassi. So many über stylish people milling around, sometimes watching the art, but who couldn’t bring drinks onto the dance floor; this didn’t make for a fun party. Meanwhile the real fun crowd who were turned away at the door went elsewhere to dance and make their own party.
Most definitely those canals and bridges and the wonderful light that reflects off the water at sunset, and the ever present history of the city puts everyone “under the influence”... Art is sexy, and Venice is perhaps the sexiest city in the world to showcase art. M
