Official Website
Photographs
61 x 86 cm
The “One China Policy” is written on the official map of China made with meat.
The work was conceived for the exhibition 7 Ideas in 7 Days as part of a series of ephemeral installations at the construction site of gallery.sora. in Tokyo.
Special thanks to the team at gallery.sora. and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo.
A Solo Exhibition by Charwei Tsai
gallery.sora.
Tokyo, Japan
Press Release:
Charwei Tsai was born in Taiwan (1980) and presently lives and works in Paris and New York. Tsai earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2002) and is presently engaged in post–graduate studies at the L’ École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Tsai’s work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions internationally including Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008), ZKM Center of Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (both 2007), Singapore Biennale (2006) and Foundation Cartier, Paris (2005). In 2009, Tsai will participate in the 6th Asia-Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. In addition to her art practice, Tsai publishes, designs and edits Lovely Daze, a contemporary art periodical released biannually.
Tsai utilizes a variety of media in a politically engaged, performative practice. At once highly personal yet general in concern, Tsai grounds herself and art practice in a sense of (national / Taiwanese) identity and the consequent implications. Geographical, social and spiritual concerns inform a body of work directed towards activating participation outside the confines of complacent contemplation.
Tsai’s exhibition with gallery.sora. will exist in-process. Rather than completing a body of work for presentation within a gallery space for a set period of time, Tsai will take advantage of the unique opportunity, which the space-less gallery provides and will realize approximations, sketches, first-steps towards the completion of a variety of projects -7 to be precise – during the course of a single week. The projects, each of which will be burned at the close of each day, will subsequently be presented under the auspices of gallery.sora. in further realizations at the NADA Art Fair (Miami Beach, USA, December, 2008).
As part of the 7 projects at gallery.sora., a public outdoors screening of a documentary will take place on Friday, November 14, 2008, 18:00-20:00.
A selection of projects to be presented in Tokyo/Miami includes:
Hermit Crabs:
Tsai will place a number of hermit crabs on the vacant gallery site. The shells will have written on them intermingling thoughts of the artist; thus the crabs will proceed from one thought to another, the thoughts determined both by the artist’s concerns and the movements of the crabs.
Fish Project:
Tsai will project a film work presenting a text-based performance in which a fish-out-of-water serves as a ground on which official text relating to the relationship between Taiwan and China is written.
gallery.sora.is currently undergoing reconstruction with a new building due to open in 2010. The design, conceived by Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata, proposes a new and dynamic building complex.
http://www.hao.nu/project/tak/gallerys4.html
In the coming months, every weekend (Friday or Saturday or both days), the empty lot on which the gallery will be constructed will be used for various projects and events involving photography, film or sound.
The gallery is planning to create a book and an accompanying DVD documenting this series of projects and events that take place during this transitional period. We hope that these materials will allow viewers to reflect further on the ephemeral events and serve as visual reference material in the future. This project is genuinely perceived as a „warming up‟ for the new gallery.sora. We are asking participating artists, without any inhibitions, to use the vacant space/lot to play creatively and see to utilize the opportunity to experiment.
The opening of the new gallery.sora is planned for the spring of 2010 and the book preparations, by designer Kazunari Hattori, are presently under way. gallery.sora. is scheduled to participate in the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) art fair in Miami in December 2008.
http://www.newartdealers.org/miami/2008/
In addition to “7 Ideas in 7 Days”, the gallery is pleased to announce a special exhibition of Lovely Daze published by Tsai at NOW IDeA by UTRECHT.
Lovely Daze Exhibition: November 18 – 23, 2008, 12:00-20:00
Special Edition Book Launch Party: Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 19:00-21:00
Location: NOW IDeA by UTRECHT
Address: 201 5-3-8 Minami-aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03 5468 9657
URL: http://utrecht.jp/aoyama/
Curated by Claude d’Anthenaise
Benefit Auction for Deyrolle by Christie’s
Museum of Hunting and Nature, Paris, France
4 ~ 13 November 2008
Exhibited works:
Massacre, 2008 and Coquillage, 2008
Press Release:
(In French) Du 4 novembre au 13 novembre 2008, Le Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature accueillera les œuvres de nombreux artistes contemporains, réalisées suite à l’incendie dont a été victime Deyrolle le 1er février 2008. Cette collection sera dispersée aux enchères par Christie’s et le profit de cette vente ira intégralement à l’association Les Amis de Deyrolle pour contribuer à la restauration du mobilier historique et à la reconstitution des collections scientifiques de Deyrolle
Au lendemain du sinistre ayant dévasté Deyrolle, le spectacle affligeant des vestiges du décor d’origine et des collections zoologiques ne pouvait que frapper les artistes qui étaient déjà familiers de ce lieu. L’ensemble dévasté se présentait comme une évidente métaphore de la fragilité de la nature et de la précarité des espèces. D’emblée certains photographes se sont proposé d’en faire le reportage. Le résultat frappant de leurs prises de vue a donné l’idée de poursuivre l’opération en sollicitant d’autres créateurs.
À partir de ce qui subsistait du cabinet naturaliste, les artistes invités ont donné leur interprétation de cette métaphore de la fragilité de la nature. Il en résulte une étonnante « galerie » : puissante, homogène par le thème, mais enrichie par la diversité des tempéraments et des modes d’expression (photographie, peinture, vidéo, sculpture, installation).
Pierre Alechinski, Yan Arthus Bertrand, Miquel Barcelo, Vincent Beaurin, Valérie Belin, Pascal Bernier, Laurent Bochet, Sophie Calle, Saint Clair Cemin, Johan Creten, Nicolas Darrot, Marc Dantan, Anne Deleporte, Mark Dion, Jan Fabre, Nan Goldin, Annabelle d’Huart, Jean Baptiste Huynh, Karen Knorr, Claude et François Xavier Lalanne, Fabrice Langlade,Tania Mouraud, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Martin d’Orgeval, Philippe Pasqua, Stéphane Pencreach, Anne et Patrick Poirier, Bettina Rheims, Charwai Tsai, Bernar Venet, Karl Grims, Chrystel Lebas, Olivier Dassault, Dune Varela Montebello, Anne Roger Lacan, William Curtis Rolf sont au nombre des artistes qui ont contribué à la constitution de cette collection. L’ensemble des œuvres est emblématique de cette anxiété de notre société face à l’avenir de la planète qui inspire une partie de l’art contemporain.
A cette occasion sera également publié l’ouvrage Nature Fragile, Le Cabinet Deyrolle, chez Beaux-Arts TTM Editions. Textes de Claude d’Anthenaise et Patrick Mauriès, avant propos par Louis-Albert de Broglie.
Vente aux enchères le jeudi 13 novembre 2008
AU MUSEE DE LA CHASSE ET DE LA NATURE
Présentation de quelques lots du 11 septembre au 1er novembre 2008 chez Christie’s.
Exposition du 4 au 13 novembre 2008 au Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature.
Curated by Jean de Loisy
Pompidou Center, Paris, France
7 May to 11 August 2008
Exhibited Work:
Mushroom Mantra, 2009, Ephemeral installation for the exhibition
Press Release:
With “Traces du Sacré,” already promising to be one of the major artistic events of the year, the Centre Pompidou returns to the tradition of major multidisciplinary exhibitions that made its reputation, offering a visual exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Following what has come to be called “the disenchantment of the world,” a significant strain of modern art has found its roots in the turmoil attendant upon the loss of conventional religious belief, a terrain that continues to nourish the development of contemporary forms.
Taking in the whole history of twentieth-century art, from Caspar David Friedrich to
Kandinsky, from Malevich to Picasso, and from Barnett Newman to Bill Viola, the exhibition looks at the way in which art to continues to testify, in often unexpected ways, to the existence of a universe beyond, remaining, in a thoroughly secularised world, the profane vehicle of an ineluctable need to rise above the quotidian.
This broad selection of paintings, sculptures, installations and videos brings together some 350 major works – many of them never seen before in France – by almost 200 artists of international renown.
The distinctively multidisciplinary character of the exhibition will be reflected in the Centre’s regular ancillary events, with a programme of film, video and live performance, a lecture series and a literary colloquium expanding on the theme.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book and a catalogue, both published by Éditions du Centre Pompidou.
After Paris, the exhibition will travel to the Haus der Kunst in Munich (Germany),
19 September 2008 – 11 January 2009.
THE CONTEXT OF THE EXHIBITION
A distinctive feature of the human species, art makes its appearance in prehistory in close connection with our fundamental concern with the questions of what we are, where we come from, and where we are going.
This link between artistic creation and spiritual uncertainty has been manifest in all the great religions. Since the eighteenth century, however, the West has seen a profound transformation in the relationship between art and religion. The Reformation, the rise of capitalism, the ideals of the Enlightenment, the worship of Reason and the growth of the town all led to what Max Weber called “the disenchantment of the world.”
At the same time, the sense of the withdrawal of the divine that found expression in the Romantics, followed later by Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God, the advance of science, the emergence of psychoanalysis and the growing influence of Marxism, led to a reconsideration of Man’s place in creation and thus of his relationship to the religious.
It was in this landscape of belief violently unsettled that Modern art came to birth.
If in the course of this long process the secularisation of society delivered artists from their subordination to the Church, the crisis of religion did not at all mean the disappearance of metaphysical questioning. The argument of this exhibition is that a significant strain of modern art has its roots in such concerns.
The goal of the exhibition is thus to explore the significance of the survival of such questioning throughout the twentieth century, and to show that it continues to fuel the invention of contemporary artistic forms, and as such represents an essential key to the understanding of modern art.
In collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, the Centre Culturel Suédois presents the exhibition “Hilma af Klint, une modernité révélée,” 11 April – 20 July 2008 (Curators: Anna-Maria Svensson, Jean de Loisy and Angela Lampe).
Works by Hilma af Klint are also included in the exhibition “Traces du sacré.”
Centre Culturel Suédois, 11 rue Payenne, 75003 Paris.
ORGANISATION OF THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition is chronologically organised by thematic sections that successively examine the major aesthetic and spiritual preoccupations of the twentieth century. Each of these twenty themes is also echoed in a contemporary work, demonstrating the continuing actuality of these concerns.
Introduction
Francisco Goya, Bruce Nauman, Christian Boltanski, Mounir Fatmi
Traces of the Fugitive Gods
Caspar David Friedrich, Carl Gustav Carus, August Strindberg, Henry De Groux, Edvard Munch, Lucio Fontana, Gino De Dominicis, Damien Hirst
Nostalgia of the Infinite
Ferdinand Hodler, Odilon Redon, Giorgio De Chirico, Kasimir Malevich, Constantin Brancusi, Gina Pane, Pierre Huyghe
The Great Initiates
Akseli Gallen Kallela, Jean Delville, Charles Sellier, Paul Elie Ranson, Rudolf Steiner, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Hugo Ball, Aleister Crowley, Hilma af Klint, Usco, Gino De Dominicis
Beyond the Visible
Louis Darget, František Kupka, Marcel Duchamp, Theo Van Doesburg, Vassily Kandinsky, Alberto Giacometti, Rudolf Steiner, Paul Sérusier, Yvan Kliun, Jean Crotti, Anish Kapoor, Frank Scurti
Cosmic Revelations
Hilma af Klint, Augustin Lesage, André Bély, Johannes Itten, Gulya Pap, Sigmar Polke, Matt Mullican
Rising to the Future
Wenzel Hablik, Bruno Taut, Hans Scharoun, Kurt Schwitters, Constantin Brancusi, Lyonel Feininger, Robert Delaunay, Hermann Finsterlin, Wassili Luckhardt, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Huyghe, Corey McCorkle, Vyacheslav Akunov
Homo Novus
Jean Delville, André Bély, František Kupka, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Umberto Boccioni, Otto Dix, Alexej von Jawlensky, Adel Abdessemed
The Absolute
Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Niele Toroni, Constantin Brancusi
Eden
Franz Marc, Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné, Erich Heckel, Jean Arp, Paul Klee
Sacred Dances
Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle, Léon Bakst, Adolphe de Meyer, Vaslav Nijinski, André Derain, Emil Nolde, Ernst Kirchner, Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban
Pagan Spiritualities
Pablo Picasso, Emil Nolde, Marcel Janco, Victor Brauner, Aby Warburg and André Breton, Jan Matulka, Cameron Jamie
Eros and Thanatos
André Masson, Pablo Picasso, Eli Lotar, Salvador Dalì, Man Ray, Pierre Molinier, Svai and Paul Stanikas
Offensive
George Grosz, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Salvador Dalì, Man Ray, Antonin Artaud, Thierry De Cordier, Andrès Serrano, Gérard Garouste, Mounir Fatmi
Apocalypses
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Vassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Maurizio Cattelan, Bruno Perramant
Homo Homini Lupus
Georges Rouault, Christer Strömholm, Francis Bacon, Robert Smithson, Jerzy Grotowsky, Bruce Nauman, Thierry De Cordier
Sacred Art
Maurice Denis, Georges Rouault, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Le Corbusier, Germaine Richier, Jean Lurçat, Jacques Lipchitz, Joseph Beuys
Although it is Night
Alfred Manessier, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Arnulf Rainer, Bill Viola, Emmanuel Saulnier, Pierre Buraglio, Jannis Kounellis, Jean-Michel Alberola, Yazid Oulab, Kris Martin, Eli Petel
Resonances of the Archaic
Roberto Matta, André Masson, Wifredo Lam, Lee Mullican, Wolfgang Paalen, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Robert Smithson, Étienne-Martin, Joseph Beuys, Tobias Collier
Doors of Perception
Henri Michaux, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, John Giorno, William Burroughs, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Aldous Huxley, Robert Whitaker, Rick Griffin/Kenneth Anger, Cameron, Aleister Crowley, Harry Smith
and Frieda Harris, Isaac Abrams, Jud Yalkut and Nam June Paik, Frederick Pardo, Peter Sedgley, Paul Thek, Patrick, O’Neill, Usco, Harry Smith, Joshua White
Sacrifice
Herman Nitsch, Marina Abramovic, Michel Journiac, Rebecca Horn, Yazid Oulab, Christoph Schlingensief
Oriental Wisdoms
Jean Degottex, Yves Klein, Ad Reinhardt, Nam June Paik, Robert Filliou, John Cage, On Kawara, James Lee Byars, Marc Couturier, Charwei Tsai
The Shadow of God
Andy Warhol, Moshe Ninio, Paul Chan
Close
Jonathan Monk, Jean-Michel Alberola
ELSEWHERE IN THE BUILDING:
Forum, Level -1: Huang Yong Ping
Level 6: Valère Novarina and Jacques Lizène
Lovely Daze is a collection of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The fifth issue explores how Hunter-Gatherer societies live in accordance with Nature and ephemeral elements.
Often one discovers ease and creativity in adapting to the perpetual flux of Nature – the shift of light densities from day to night, season to season; the affected air as the natural consequence of altitude, temperature, and vegetation inspired by nomadic values prevalent in hunter-gatherer societies, this issue reveals our instinctual habits in preconditioned light and air, and the experience of transition. Here, nights are celebrated in darkness (with just a little fire) and summers are spent in sweat with beasts roaring here and there…
publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ hisham bharoocha, mark borthwick, brian
chippendale, john giorno, fritz haeg, jungil hong, baptiste
ibar, mateo lópez, papabubble, rosario lópez parra,
thiago rocha pitta, cristina rodriguez, dana schutz, su-mei tse, and grigoris tsolakis.
cover ~ mark borthwick, joey an fin
copyright ~ lovely daze, summer 2008
printed in my beloved formosa
CONTRIBUTORS
HISHAM BHAROOCHA is an artist and musician born in Nidata, Japan, and is now based in New York. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998. Hisham was part of the Providence based bands Lightning Bolt and Black Dice and currently formed a solo band, Soft Circle. He was one of the core organizers and drummers at Boredom 77 on July 7th, 2007 at Brooklyn Bridge Park. His artworks have been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005, 2006); John Connelly Presents, New York (2006); De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2007), and Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece (2007) and he recently co-curated a photo exhibition at Mountain Fold, New York (2008).
MARK BORTHWICK an some`time`s will shine….. last seen onna pilgrimage leav`in spain with donkey in hand, travel`in upon a journey opper`tune`ing no`where`s land introduce`ing tal`is`man`s lover`s hand inna gypsy`s land…
KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.
BRIAN CHIPPENDALE stems from Providence RI, mixing time between drawing and playing drums in rock band Lightning Bolt and solo as Black Pus. In the spring he also spends a lot of time chasing leaks around with buckets before they hit him in the head. He is not growing any leeks this year.
JOHN GIORNO was born in 1936 in New York. He is a poet and performance artist. He founded the artist collective Giorno Poetry Systems and coined its mass communication experiment Dial-A-Poem. He was the prominent subject of Andy Warhol’s film, Sleep. Currently, he also works as an AIDS activist and fundraiser.
FRITZ HAEG like a system of crop rotation, the artist works between his architecture & design practice Fritz Haeg Studio (though the currently preferred clients are animals), the happenings & gatherings of Sundown Salon (now Sundown Schoolhouse), the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab (including Edible Estates) and his role as an educator. He has produced projects and exhibited works at the Tate Modern; the Whitney Museum of American Art; Mass MoCA; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Wattis Institute; the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Maastricht; and the MAK Center, Los Angeles, among other institutions. His first book, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, is published by Metropolis Books and distributed by D.A.P.
www.fritzhaeg.com
JUNGIL HONG aka “jhonni glug” must eat burdock to pull burdock from the ground.
BAPTISTE IBAR was born in France in 1977. He immigrated to the US at the age of seven and attended Rhode Island School of Design where he received a BFA in Painting in 2000.
In 2006, Baptiste completed a set of twelve paintings (the disasterology calendar) to be featured in Michel Gondry’s feature film, The Science of Sleep. Ibar’s paintings are the product of a visionary visual sensibility coupled with a Blakean conception of history. His works are in private collections worldwide.
www.baptisteibar.com
MATEO LOPEZ was born in 1978. He earned his degree in Fine Arts at Los Andes University in Bogotá. He has had solo exhibitions in Bogotá and Mexico City, and was recently awarded first prize at this year’s Cuenca Biennale in Ecuador. His work was recently shown at the MAMBA (Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires) as part of the exhibition Sincronias, and at Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation’s Interrogating Systems: 2008 Grants and Commissions Exhibition. Currently, he is also commissioned to work on a book of his works for the Triennal Poligrafica de San Juan, Puerto Rico.
LESLEY MA once studied hunter-gatherer societies and the human-animal relationship presented in children’s literature. She is glad that this issue of Lovely Daze made her think about that period of her life and knowing that the random knowledge she thought she would never use again is actually quite worth revisiting. This time through art.
PAPABUBBLE was born in Barcelona in 2003 and has since created candy-making homes in Tokyo, Amsterdam, and New York City.
www.papabubble.com
ROSARIO LOPEZ PARRA is an artist based in Bogotá and is currently a professor in sculpture at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She received an MFA in 1997 from Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. Her works have been exhibited at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Casas Riegner Gallery, Bogotá, Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá, and Galeria Nara Roesler, Sao Paulo.
www.rosariolopez.info
THIAGO ROCHA PITTA was born in 1980 in Tiradentes MG Brazil. He is now based in Rio de Janeiro where he has lived and worked since 1999. He began his formation as an artist in his childhood with his father who was also an artist, Fernando Pitta (1952-2006).
CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombia native who forever travels from place to place working as an artist and designer. She received a BFA in Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and furthered her studies at Parsons School of Design. She is currently living in Miami Florida where she co-founded the art and design collective by_number.
DANA SCHUTZ was born in 1976 in Livonia, Michigan and received an MFA in 2002 from Columbia University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rose Museum at Brandeis University, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas. Her work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Hermitage, St Petersburg; the Royal Academy of Art, London; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
SABRINA SHAFFER is living the better part of this year at the beach where she spent her childhood summers. She hugs and kisses her mother everyday, misses her father and her brother Ryan while they are working overseas, and thinks of Charwei when collecting seashells.
www.otabo.com
www.christopherbevans.com
CHARWEI TSAI is caught romanticizing in Paris again today. (And the mice-free and light-flooding studio only enhances this old habit of hers.)
www.charwei.com
SU-MEI TSE is an artist based in Luxembourg. She uses various media (videos, photographs, installations, objects…) in function of the core idea she wants to express. Sound, rhythm, and music are also important components in her work, which are characterized by a placing in suspension, moments of silence, and an invitation to a degree of introspection. Su-Mei’s work has recently been exhibited at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, at Beaumontpublic in Luxembourg and MOCA Taipei with her friend Lee Mingwei. For 2009, she is preparing a show for Contemporary Art Center of Mito in Japan and working out a project for the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. She is a big fan of Lovely Daze and is happy to participate in this current issue!
GRIGORIS TSOLAKIS was born in Greece in 1981 and raised in Belgium. He moved back to Greece in 2004 where he currently studies graphic design.
~ special thanks to aa, aaron, abby, alba + family, alessandra, alex h, ama, ana calle, angela l, angelita + family, anna j, aoi, baptiste, barbie, bebe, boris, brian c, cai+hh+studio, cat k, catalina, chris liu, cristina, dad, dimitrios, doggie, duke, dunbar, eugene, federico, fiona, fritz, gilles, godmother, grace, grandma, grigoris, heather, herve, hisham, irene, james, jason, jason b, jasper, jc, jean dl, jean-lou, jenn+richard, joanna c, john g, julia c, jung, keisuke, kelly, kelly ma, leif, leila, lesley, lili, linda, lots of aunts+uncles+cousins, lumi, mandy, mari, mark p, mateo, max, mika + howie, mingwei, mom, naoto, nicolas, nigel, pat, printed matter, rachel, rene, roni, ronnie, rosario, ryan s, sabrina + family, sarah, shunyi, sis, suhanya, su-mei, taka, terresa, thiago, tina, tony b, veronique, vicson, yonatan, yulin jie, and will shine. (to honor h-g egalitarian attitudes, names are listed alphabetically.)
