In The Presence | Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 | ICA | London

Text by Sophie Caldecott

The Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition has long presented art lovers with an annual snapshot of emerging talent from the next generation of artists in the UK. The first exhibition was held in 1949, and despite having evolved from featuring the work of young graduates to profiling more broadly the work of emerging artists at the beginning of their careers, it has remained close to its original concept: to present a cross section of the new talent on the artistic scene. The success of its endeavour is highlighted by previous exhibitions which have included such illustrious names as Eduardo Paolozzi (1958), David Hockney (1960), Patrick Caulfield (1961), Helen Chadwick (1977) , Anish Kapoor (1977), Antony Gormley (1978), Grayson Perry (1980), Mark Wallinger (1981), Peter Doig (1982), and Damien Hirst (1989).

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011: In the Presence at the ICA in London features mixed media work by 40 new artists, whose work was chosen by a panel of internationally established artists in an open, anonymous submission. For many, this is the first time their work has been exhibited in a professional art gallery. The common theme was a prevailing fascination with the corruption of mid-to-late 20th century suburbia that carried notes of Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 novel, The Corrections (reviewed in The Guardian here). Hyun Woo Lee’s looped video of a sprinkler rotating with the words “I hate my job” flashing repeatedly across the bottom of the screen as if typed by an invisible type-writer resonated bleakly with the graffiti announcing “Death is here!”, spray-painted onto the grey doors above the hood of a woman’s grey car in Noel Hensey’s photograph.

Jonathan Trayte’s gold-plated bronze slice of tree trunk, In the Presence of Nature, presented a refreshingly tender engagement with the title of the exhibition. Every wrinkle of bark and line in the wood was glorified in gold, as Trayte brought new life to the dead stump.

The Ghosts in the Back Garden by Anna Ilsley is a large Chagall-like oil painting of a dreamscape with an orange sky and distorted perspective. Together with Ian Marshall’s video of geometrically arranged explosions, these pieces form part of the more apocalyptic end of the emotional spectrum. Hyewon Kwon’s disused buildings, Sophie Neury’s abandoned gymnastic equipment and Joshua Bilton’s black-and-white photographs of some triangular boards in an empty field and sticks woven into a triangle shape in a wood contrasted with this frenetic energy; quiet meditations upon the loneliness of the material world devoid of human contact.

Savinder Bual’s Train and Samuel Williams’ We are the Robots, both videos, raise interesting points about modern life. Train, a series of layered black and white photographs of a railway track and an approaching train getting closer and closer hint at the relentlessness of the passage of time. In his choice of a steam train, Bual draws attention to the progression of modern technology rendering what came before it redundant. We are the Robots highlights the modern disjunction between human skills and machinery. In a six-minute looped video, a pair of roughly constructed “mechanic arms” (two pieces of wood with hammers or paintbrushes and other tools attached to the end) try to perform pointless tasks like smashing a can and hammering nails into potatoes. Williams makes modern society’s reliance on mechanical world look faintly ridiculous, as well as pointing out that all machinery is human-made in the first place.

The exhibition started near the entrance to the ICA, continued past the café and up several flights of stairs. Walking through to the second half of the exhibition made the question – provoked by several of the artists – ‘what is art?’ yet more pertinent. With such a variety of media, tone and subject matter, this year’s Bloomberg New Contemporaries demands engagement and challenges the viewer to unpack the meaning behind each piece of art.

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011: In the Presence, 23/11/11 – 15/1/12, ICA, London. www.ica.org.uk

Aesthetica Magazine
We hope you enjoy reading the Aesthetica Blog, if you want to explore more of the best in contemporary art and culture you should read us in print too. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)1904 479 168. Even better, subscribe to Aesthetica and save 20%. Go on, enjoy!

Captions:
Installation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Photo: Steve White

Don't Miss This | Sarah Baker | Le Fan Fan | CARTER Presents | London

Text by Bethany Rex

In her explorations of representation and social status, Sarah Baker often disseminates her artwork unconventionally to heigten the tension between fabrication and authenticity. Over the past decade Baker has assembled obscure subjects, characters and personalities that form an unlikely amalgamation which she has showcased, interviewed, appropriated, and obsessed over. Her subjects are often lionized and made to look as if they stepped out of a glossy fashion magazine, resulting in unstable positioning within a fantasy landscape of the extraordinary.Baker's latest project Le Fan Fan at CARTER presents focuses on her obsession with a Chinese legendary ladies-fan who fights enemies with a folding hand fan. Inspired by a 1980s Chinese Soap Opera, Baker has assembled a cast and crew to reinterpret Wuxia legend, Chu Liuxiang. As in her previous endeavours, Baker makes it a point to actively involved collaborated into the making of Le Fan Fan. We spoke with Sarah about the exhibition and her plans for the future.

A: First of all, could you tell us about your project, Le Fan Fan?
SB: It's a video inspired by a popular 1980s Chinese soap opera, Chu Liuxiang, about a beautiful man who fights evil with a fan, among other weapons including his good looks. The video is projected onto a big fan-shaped screen in a gallery that is double sided sculpture and also features a hand-made origami fan by fan maker Sylvain Le Guen who I met at The Fan Museum in Greenwich. The compositions in the video are inspired by Sylvain's fans, but also by fans that I have seen on private research visits to The Fan Museum, where curator Jacob Moss showed me 17th and 18th Century oriental fans that were at one time were high art and status fashion items that are not even rivalled by the IT Bag of today, as they were all hand painted and often featured portraits of the fan patrons. Some other scenes in my video are reenactments of Chu Liuxiang, where I actually copied the soap opera shot by shot. On the surface the piece is about lust, jealousy and revenge but has more complex preoccupations with memory, language, choreography, status, sculpture, and exoticism. I am also thinking a lot about Hollywood casting habits and how those choices effect the cultural psyche; I mostly just wanted to feature a gorgeous Chinese man on a big fan, as a sex-symbol on a status symbol of the ultimate commodity.

A: Your installation represents the character of Chinese martial arts expert Chu Liuxiang. Could you tell us a bit more about his character?
SB: Chu Liuxiang is a character developed by Gu Long, who wrote many novels as a part of Wuxia series; period adventure mysteries where there is an awful lot of fighting and killing; these novels are the foundation of many martial arts period dramas adapted for TV and film. I have never read these novels, as they are not officially translated into English, but I have found some real gems online where amateur die-hard fans have translated entire novels, and I used some of this in my script. Chu, aside from being gorgeous, is kind and good to a fault, lives on a boat, and is usually surrounded by beautiful women who are desperately in love with him and also fight along side him.

I first discovered Chu Liuxiang when I was in Taiwan and I took some Tai Chi Fan classes with my mother-in-law. I fell in love with Tai Chi Fan, the look and sound of the big red fans all snapping open and closed in a synchronized dance routine, and set to music. The routine that we learned was set to the theme song of Chu Liuxiang, and that is why I became interested in the soap opera. I am fascinated with the idea of Chu's character but I'm also really interested in how popular the TV show was in Taiwan and China in the 80s; it was as famous as Dynasty in America in the 1980s, and was similarly obsessed over, particularly by the women who were all in love with Chu Liuxiang, the ultimate stud.

A: This project has seen you collaborate with various people in the making of Le Fan Fan. Where do you find these people?
SB: Everywhere. Some collaborators are friends, some are referred, some are met at parties, on the street, and some are discovered through research. Collaborations are an important foundation in my practice and I choose my media so that I can collaborate. It's important for me to delegate aspects of the work to those who are of specialized expertise, and that's why my work generally has a polished look to it. For instance if I'm doing a magazine spread, I treat the process the way I think an actual professional magazine fashion shoot would be treated; I fantasize about how its done and use that fantasy to drive my process within my means. I try to make the work look as close as possible to the thing I am talking about weather it be criticizing or celebrating; it's that fine line that I am carefully balanced on, often delivering a somewhat unstable outcome.

A: What experience are you trying to create for the viewer here?
SB: Mostly I wanted to create an immersive viewing experience where details, down to the red gel in the spot light on Sylvain's fan, are not only visually pleasing but also have symbolic meaning. To me, the red spot light evokes the moodiness of film noir, and I wanted to question Western film tropes in relation to Oriental martial arts films. But I don't want to give anything away too easily, and the soundtrack is a good example of my attempt to keep my audience considering the work beyond the gallery experience. I found a very authoritative yet gentile English voice-over actor to tell the story throughout the piece, like a narrator somewhat reminiscent of an David Attenborough programme. The dialogue is a mix of the Chu Liuxiang translation, Kabuki dance translations from Youtube, The Cure song lyrics, and bespoke lines written by Shumon Basar. The music is Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, and royalty-free heavy metal. I want the work to have a different meaning depending on each viewers personal perspectives, and to bring up questions of authenticity, authority, and challenging expectations like, what we are used to looking at, and hoping to offer some element of delightful surprise. But, one can only hope!

A: Finally, what are you working on at the moment?
SB: I'm on my way to Buffalo, where I grew up, to do a residency at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. Hallwalls is a really interesting organisation that has existed since 1974 on Buffalo's west side, where i'm from, and was founded by Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo, among others. Hallwalls are supporting my production of a new work which is a mini soap opera series about characters and dramas that have had some impact on Buffalo and the surrounding area including Niagara Falls. I will be collaborating with local actors and musicians, including students from Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, where I graduated. The work will be exhibited in the gallery at Hallwalls, but will also be broadcast on the local TV station.

But before I shuffle off to Buffalo, I have been commissioned by the Bethnal Green Town Hall Hotel to do a series of works, mostly signage and ephemeral pieces that the hotel guests are sort of forced to handle. I am currently in the midst of my first piece, which is the Do Not Disturb sign. For the card, I am modeling as a maid, indicating Please Clean Room. Inspired by stripper pens but made from cardboard, I have designed it to be have a reveal/conceal mechanical black card that moves. When you flip the card over, the maid's dress disappears (to reveal me in my knickers) indicating Do Not Disturb. A real collectors item, or at least I hope they will get nicked by the hotel guests.

Sarah Baker Le Fan Fan, 08/10/2011 - 10/12/2011, CARTER Presents, 59 Old Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 6QA. www.carterpresents.org

Aesthetica Magazine
We hope you enjoy reading the Aesthetica Blog, if you want to explore more of the best in contemporary art and culture you should read us in print too. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)1904 479 168. Even better, subscribe to Aesthetica and save 20%. Go on, enjoy!

Caption:
Video Still. Courtesy the artist.

Who should win the Turner Prize 2011?

The Turner Prize will be awarded at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art later this evening, during a live broadcast on Channel 4 between 8:00 - 8:30pm, to an artist under fifty, born, living or working in Britain, for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation in the twelve months before 4 April 2011.

An exhibition of work by the shortlisted artists is currently on show at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead until 8 January 2012. The following images are a selection from the exhibition and, away from the noise of the fervent criticism and the energetic debate and countless column inches, they are something to behold.

Karla Black

Karla Black has been nominated for her solo show at Galerie Capitain Petzel, Berlin, and for contributions to various group exhibitions, which together consolidated her innovative approach to sculpture and displayed her increasingly powerful works made with ephemeral materials.

Earlier this year, Regina Papachlimitzou reviewed Structure & Material, Black's joint-show with Claire Barclay at Spike Island, Bristol. Follow this link to read the piece.

Martin Boyce

Martin Boyce has been nominated for his solo exhibition at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, which built upon his project for the 53rd Venice Biennale by holding the viewer within an atmospheric sculptural installation. Boyce's work combines references to design history and text and is marked by a subtle attention to detail.

Boyce's work is featured in the current issue of Aesthetica as part of a survey of this year's Turner Prize. To buy a copy click here.




Hilary Lloyd

Hilary Lloyd has been nominated for a solo show at Raven Row, London. The exhibition marked a step-change for the artist in terms of the ambition and scale of her project, which investigates the interrelation of moving image, sound and sculptural form in the portrayal of the urban environment.

Lloyd's work is featured in the current issue of Aesthetica as part of a survey of this year's Turner Prize. To buy a copy click here.

George Shaw

George Shaw has been nominated for his solo exhibition at BALTIC, Gateshead. Shaw's paintings depict the area around his childhood home and are rendered exclusively in Humbrol enamel paint. With their deeply personal juxtaposition of subject matter and material, they lie intriguingly on the edge of tradition.

Earlier this year, Paul Hardman reviewed The Sly and Unseen Day when it travelled to the South London Gallery. Follow this link to read the piece.

Turner Prize 2011 Exhibition continues until 8 January 2012 at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

balticmill.org

Aesthetica Magazine
We hope you enjoy reading the Aesthetica Blog, if you want to explore more of the best in contemporary arts and culture you should read us in print too. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)1904 479 168. Even better, subscribe to Aesthetica and save 20%. Go on, enjoy!

Images (Top to Bottom):
All Photos Colin Davison
All Images © BALTIC & the artist
Karla Black Turner Prize 2011 Installation View
Martin Boyce Do Words Have Voices (2011)
Martin Boyce Turner Prize 2011 Installation View
Hilary Lloyd Floor (2011)
Hilary Lloyd Moon (2011)
George Shaw The Devil Made Me Do It (2011)
George Shaw The New Houses (2011)

Artistic Responses to the Icelandic Ash Cloud 2010 | Under That Cloud | Manchester Art Gallery

Text by Liz Buckley

The Icelandic ash cloud of 2010 brought many parts of the world to a halt, and showed international societies just how fragile our technological networks really are. Despite unbelievably advanced machinery and the ease of travel in our modern world, nature usually always wins. For those stranded in foreign destinations across the globe, the easy option may have been to panic, and spend what was essentially an extended holiday just trying to find a way home. The new exhibition Under That Cloud at Manchester Art Gallery showcases work from 18 international artists, all of which were stranded in Mexico City during the air travel standstill. Fascinatingly, they have all chosen jewellery as a way to manifest their responses to the crisis, as well as their experiences of Mexico and its culture.

The conflict between nature and human technology is a perplexing one. Many of those prevented from flying due to the ash cloud simply put faith in technology to let them know when it was safe to travel again, and get to where they needed to be. Others turned to God. The feeling was that if he had caused this then he was surely the one to rectify it. Jorge Manilla’s necklaces entitled Two Possibilities, embody his religious response to the predicament. As a Mexican artist stranded in Mexico, he did not feel too alarmed by the situation, but instead tried to imagine how others were feeling. Had he been far from home, Manilla said he would have turned to his religion to return him safely; the crucifix on one of his necklaces symbolises this. This artist has used predominantly black for his pieces, as he felt this implied both the negative and doubtful nature of the situation, but also how from the darkness often comes new beginnings.

Colour is definitely a prominent theme in this exhibition. Many of the artists have chosen to use grey, black and silver to represent the mechanical nature of the crisis. Jurgen Eickhoff’s steel and silver abstract mesh brooches signify the conflict between home and far away, and the mass of networks in-between. He feels that “the local has global effects,” and that one small breakdown in a network can bring all corners of the world to a standstill. Disasters such as the ash cloud can often show us the sheer fragility of networking, and how nature can overwhelm even the most complex technology, bringing back a primitive feeling of uncertainty.

While it may have been easy to feel trapped by the upheaval, many saw the ash cloud crisis as an opportunity to experience more of the place they were stuck in, and to absorb the culture further. This is certainly true of many artists in this exhibition. Karin Seufert’s necklace and brooches, made of melted plastic, embody the vivid and colourful personality of Mexico City. She tried to create pieces which for her represented the heat of the sun, the noisy streets, colourful surroundings and exhausting chaos of Mexico’s culture. The deep purple of Jiro Kamata’s Arboresque brooch shows how this artist was also inspired by the rich colours and particularly the architecture of the city. Nedda El-Asmar’s piece Structured Coloured Chaos is a beautifully quirky reaction to her experiences. This artist has used many colourful clothes lines, which she bought while in Mexico, as a representation of how she experienced the environmental qualities and vibrant nature of the place.

Andrea Wagner’s brooches entitled When Skies Were Silent hope to symbolise how society can take for granted the ease of transport in modern life, and this is really the underlying message of this entire exhibition. The artist said, while stuck in Mexico City, she took time to appreciate the “rare beauty of the silent skies,” while air travel was briefly halted. The collection of works in Under That Cloud are an intriguing insight into how people’s reactions can differ so greatly, and how an unexpected breakdown in our global networks can make us take time to consider the vulnerability of technology. Culture is integral to this exhibition, whether it is regarding the vibrant societies of Mexico, or our worldwide cultural dependence on travel and communicative networks. In creating jewellery, which is a beautiful thing, the pieces in this exhibition have managed to extract something positive from the dark cloud, whilst also engaging the viewer with how it felt to be at the heart of such an exasperating situation.

Under That Cloud, 19/11/2011 - 15/05/2012, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3JL. www.manchestergalleries.org

Captions:
1. Nanna Melland
2. Caroline Broadhead
3. Andrea Wagner
4. Tore Svensson
5. Cristina Filipe
All courtesy of Jonathan Keenan

Aesthetica December/January Issue Out Today

This issue offers a diverse range of features starting with The Way We Live Now, which is on at the Design Museum and explores Sir Terence Conran’s impact on contemporary life in Britain. Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break runs at SFMOMA and reflects on the position of the individual in the framework of industrial labour.

Anselm Kiefer opens Shevirat Ha-Kelim: The Breaking of the Vessels at Tel Aviv Museum of Art to inaugurate their new building. Zarina Bhimji’s retrospective of 30 years and the premiere of her new film Yellow Patch open at Whitechapel. There’s a visual survey of this year’s winner and shortlisted photographers for the National Portrait Gallery’s photography prize, and we look back at this year’s cover artists with an overview of their works, as well as introduce two new series of works.

In film, highly acclaimed and award-winning director, Pablo Giorgelli, talks about his subtle and beautiful new film, Las Acacias. There is also a round-up of ASFF 2011. In music, we examine the niche genre of musical comedy and chat with American four-piece Wild Flag about their new album. In performance, we look at Danser Sa Vie at Pompidou Centre, which examines the place dance holds in art history.

Finally, Christoph Benjamin Schulz discusses Alice in Wonderland, Tate Liverpool’s latest show.

Pick up a copy from one of our stockists or order online.

Share Aesthetica with your friends and family this Christmas. With six issues over 12 months, Aesthetica keeps you up-to-date on the very best in contemporary art and culture all year round! Covering the latest exhibitions, events, performances and reviews, Aesthetica offers a comprehensive overview of the international art world. Each issue is liberally accompanied by a selection of stunning images and makes for a beautiful Christmas gift.

Images:
Image One: Still from Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break (c) the artist
Image Two: Zarina Bhimji, Your Sadness is Drunk 2001-2006 Ilfochrome Ciba Classic Print 127 x 160 cm Courtesy the artist.
Image Three: Nicolas Floc Performance painting 2005 Interprete Rachid Ouramdane Reims Frac Champagne Ardennes Adagp Paris 2011

ASFF 2011 | Q&A with Maria de Gier | Winner of the Best Music Video Category

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) was a dynamic, four-day international event that took place in the City of York from the 3 - 6 November. After screening 150 films in 15 venues across 4 days, and after hours of deliberation, the judges announced the category winners on Sunday night at our Awards Ceremony. Amongst the winners was Maria de Gier, whose music video for Amatorski, Soldier won the Best Music Video category. We caught up with Maria post-festival to talk about the video, and her future plans.

A: Congratulations on winning the ASFF Best Music Video Award. What impact do you think this will have on your career?
MDG: It’s a great kick-start for my film career! This is my directorial debut and this prize really means a lot to me. I have a feeling the benefits will slowly present themselves to me over the next few months, which is an exciting prospect.

A: How would you describe your work?
MDG: To me Soldier is a mixture of pain and beauty. I feel it contains great sorrow, yet hope. It is a collection of lost dreams, but you can still catch a glimpse of them. The overriding message is that all is not lost. War breaks, destroys and tears apart. I wanted to show, not only the horror of war, but also the personal face of war, sort of like a stream of consciousness, or a memory in the mind, perhaps one of a dying soldier.

A:Could you tell me a little bit about your music video and how it came about?
MDG: At the time (and now still) I was very much interested in the possibility of different layers of film merging with each other. I made a short clip that I sent to Amatorski, which they liked very much. That little experiment is the very first beginning of what was to become the music video. Soldier is composed of stock material, mostly from an internet library; an amazing initiative containing accessible knowledge of all sorts mixed with all new material that I shot myself. (www.archive.org) Mixed with all new material I shot myself. When I was editing I felt like I was piecing together an enormous puzzle, but this puzzle came without a box! There were moments when I felt it was an impossible project I had made for myself but somehow I made it all fit. I’m really glad it came out the way I hoped and imagined it to be.

A:What were some of the challenges involved in making your film?
MDG: Mixing the, often very short, fragments of film, collected from hundreds of hours of old news reels and documentaries. It was a real struggle to make everything work together. At some points in the video there are up to nine layers of film that had to merge into one. Finding balance in image, pacing, movement, transition and meaning throughout the whole timeline of the music video was a big challenge.

A:What is your all time favourite music video?
MDG: I have several, it is hard to pick just one. I admire Jonathan Glazer's video for Radiohead's Street Spirit (Fade Out), Royksopps's What Else Is There? by Martin De Thurah. Björk has so many amazing video’s, I could go on for a while...

A: What are you working on next?
MDG: I’ll be working on a cross-over film, art and music video project with the wonderful musician Ozark Henry. You will definitely hear from me in the future, I feel like this is the start of really something.

www.mariadegier.com

Maria travelled to York from Brussels via Eurostar and East Coast Trains.