CROSSTALK Beijing #6: Archiving and Case Study in Contemporary Art from Shao Foundation on Vimeo.
Guide for Traces: Liu Xiaodong
Exhibition Traces: Liu Xiaodong opened in Beijing Angle Mordern Art on September 18, 2009. Here is a map which can help you to get a better idea of the layout of this exhibition:
After entering the entrance, there are Liu Xiaodong’s eight early sketches on your right side. Continue along the wall (Part A), you will see Liu’s sketches, notes, documentaries, photographes displayed in reverse chronological order. There are seven documentaries, A Family of Cuba (2009), Festering Heat, Eat First (2008), Grain Rain(2008), Nowincoming (2007), Beneath the Sakure Flower, Hot spring(2007), Dong (2005-2006), Domino (2006). The exhibition presents the creation process of Liu Xiaodong. The integration of motion and stills images introduces multiple ways of experiencing this process.
The dotted lines in the center shows Liu’s sketch book from 1989-1996, the sketches are displayed in hanging acrylic panels.
Part B is the video Stepping into Reality: A Conversation between Wu Hung and Liu Xiaodong.
Part C is a reading area where you can read all sixteen of Liu Xiaodong’s publications.
Part D is a slide show of Liu’s snapshot photographs and sketches.
This exhibition is not to emphasise final work but process. These are memories of the artist, which is usually kept to himself while the exhibition showed these memories to the audience for the first time by seeking the traces scattered in sketches, notes.
We look forward to your visit to the exhibition.
Co-curators: Wu Hung | Ou Ning
Exhibition Time: September 18 – October 29, 2009 (Closed during the National Day holiday)
Opening Hours: 2pm–8pm, Monday–Friday
Address: Beijing Angle Modern Art, 4/F, Tower 1, Zhongguo Hongjie (China View), Jia 2 Gongti Dong Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Traces: Liu Xiaodong opened
Presented by Shao Foundation, Traces: Liu Xiaodong was opened successfully in Beijing Angle Modern Art at 9pm, Sep 18, 2009. Despite the traffic control during the rehearsal of the National Day ceremony, the opening was crowded with guests.
From left to right: Wu Hong, curator of the exhibition and professor of the Art Institute of Chicago, Thomas Shao, head of Modern Media Group, Liu Xiaodong, painter, Ou Ning, curator of the exhibition and director of Shao Foundation.
Cheers!
From left to right: Ou Ning, Tan Ping, vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Liu Xiaodong
From left to right, Liu Heung Shing, editorial director of Modern Media Group, Thomas Shao, Ou Ning
Ms. Karen Smith
Wang Di, a good friend of Liu Xiaodong. He is one of the first rock players in mainland China and used to sing the theme song for famous Chinese film Wan Zhu. 
Zhang Xianmin, professor of the Literature Department of Beijing Film Academy, and Ou Ning
Chen Jiaying, Beijing District Manager of Modern Media Group
All photographs by Sun Xiaoxi
Exhibition “Traces: Liu Xiaodong” in preparations
Presented by Shao Foundation, Traces: Liu Xiaodong is now under preparations. The exhibition design appears simple yet the details reveal its complication.
All photographs by Sun Xiaoxi
Wu Hung’s visit at BAMA
This Thursday afternoon, Professor Wu Hung from University of Chicago came to visit the gallery space at BAMA. Together with Ou Ning, Wu Hung is one of the curator for the upcoming Exhibition: Liu Xiaodong.
After we have revealed all the design proposals for the exhibition, Professor Wu made some comments on each of the proposals and raised some questions and concerns. In the end of the meeting, Professor Wu suggested to combine some of the ideas in two of the proposals as a finalised version of display. Wu also raised some interesting ideas for displaying screens with stop motion image as digital sketchbook archive.Wu also suggested that hanging acrylic boards for displaying sketches should be arranged according to the space within the corners and the columns in the middle of the space.
Biennale’s Beijing brainstorming meeting
On April 8, 2009, the first Beijing brainstorming meeting of the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Architecture \ Urbanism was held at Beijing Angle Modern Art Gallery. It gathered together many architects, critics, artists and architectural journalists from Beijing. The meeting had two parts: one included Kong Yan’s introduction of the organizational structure of the Biennale, chief curator Ou Ning’s presentation of the theme ‘City Mobilization’, and architect Liang Jingyu’s explanation of the main exhibition sites for Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The second part was brainstorming and discussion.
Diagraming 24 City
As an intern of Shao Foundation, I contributed to the exhibition design of Jia Zhangke: 24 City by working together with Xu Yijing, the Exhibiton Designer of Shao Foundation. After the exhibition ended a month ago, I started to reorganise the sketches, plans and photos taken during the exhibition. Diagraming 24 City is my attempt at representing the realisation process of all the initial ideas. It’s originally published on my own blog, and I’m reposting it here by Ou Ning’s request.
Chutzpah! (spring issue, 2009) PDF download
We’ve finally put it together! This is _not_ the PDF file we sent to the printer, but a new version optimised for screen reading. Each article title on the Table of Content page is a link to the article itself, and you can use the ‘Back to Menu’ link at the bottom-left of every page to jump back to the ToC.
Content-wise, the PDF version features one article that’s not published in the physical book: The Politics of Living Space in Hong Kong, by activist and journalist Chu Hoidick.
Click here to download the PDF, the file size is about 18 MB. Big thanks to our designer Sun Xiaoxi for his hard work, even during sickness!
(Chutzpah! spring 2009 is currently in Chinese only.)
Audio recording of CROSSTALK Beijing #3
For those who understand Chinese, here’s the live recording of CROSSTALK Beijing #3: Social Space and the Post-1980s Generation. We are working on the Chinese transcription. The English version will come, but at a later date.
If you are suffering from slow connection, click here to download the MP3 file. (84 MB)