Welcome to stage候台BACK an art space from an artist for artists In Shanghai China
Showing posts with label Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Press. Show all posts

May 10, 2009

THAT'S Shanghai



" Thanks to THAT'S Shanghai for the full spread article on stageback "

April 26, 2009

March 3, 2009

Junkers work review on the KUNST BLOG


To read the whole review please click here

Thanks to Markus Wirthmann and writer and art critic R.A Suri


R A Suri (born: 1970, Montreal) is an autodidact artist/curator/critic/poet & writer.. He began as a freelance journalist in 1987 followed by independent investigations & research in socio-political experiments in film and theatre. As an artisan , artist & curator, has acted as an assistant director for Les Ateliers Graff- centre for contemporary printmaking(Montreal), Isart-independent centre for contemporary art (Montreal), artistic director for DDM Warehouse-centre for experimental art (Shanghai) where he spearheaded over 14 exhibitions & events from 2005-2006 with an axis on emergent artists from across S E Asia & in-situ creation. Independent projects since include artistic consultancy/direction for local and international figures in contemporary & experimental art within the mainland of China.
As a literary figure and critic/editor, he has acted as editor-in-chief for “Images: Revue Interculturelles” (Montreal), associate editor for “Ruptures: Literary Review of the Three Americas” (Montreal), the “Chinese Contemporary International Poetry Quarterly” (Chongqing), “Ling Du”-(Zero Writing) Literary Samizdat Journal (Shanghai), “Poetry Circle Quarterly” (Hong Kong) & “Sa Jiao” Literary Review (Shanghai). He was featured as a principle editor for the 2004 Anthology of New Chinese Poetry in Translation (Chongqing), a seminal project towards the promotion of new literature & poetry at an international scale. He has acted as an associate editor of “Yishushijie (Artworld) Magazine” since 2003. Since his arrival to Shanghai in 2001, he is the author of over 140 critical texts relating to contemporary art & performance published by both private and public press.
Regarding his own poetry, the seminal poet/performance artist of the Neo-Avant Garde movement, Julien Blaine cites…’a poetic of exquisite sensitivity…reminiscent of Giorno…with a profound sense of spirituality belonging to neither the Occident nor Orient” & the NYC based poet/video/performance artist Ellen Zweig…”a self-styled, ecstatic lyricist”.
His engagement in film and theatre brought him to work in concert as artistic director for the “Chinese and South East Asian Independent Film Festival “(Montreal), Pan Production Studio/Barrandov Studios (Prague), numerous documentary and television projects (BBC Channel 4) & cultural editor of Shanghai Television/Shanghai Broadcast Network. Contemporary Dance/Theatre works include his involvement in productions for “The Other Theatre” (Montreal), l’Agora de la Danse (Montreal) &“Zhu He Niao” (Shanghai). He has published extensively on the topics of Butoh, performance art & the evolution of physical theatre.
Current projects include acting as a literary consultant & editor for the forthcoming Pan-Asian
edition of “Doc(K)s- Review of New Literature” (Marseilles), an exploration on the emergence of new writing/visual experimentation in the Orient, the production of an independent documentary film & a volume of new poetry.

類風濕性關節炎蘇瑞(出生: 1970年,蒙特利爾)是一個autodidact藝術家/策展人/評論家/詩人& 作家..他開始作為一個自由撰稿人在1987年獨立之後, 調查與研究中的社會政治實驗電影和戲劇。同樣地 一個工匠,藝術家及策展人,擔任助理署長為法國製造 格拉夫中心當代版畫(蒙特利爾) , Isart獨立中心 當代藝術(蒙特利爾) ,藝術總監DDM的倉庫中心 實驗藝術(上海) ,他率先超過14展覽及活動由 2005-2006年的軸應急藝術家來自全國各地及東南亞地區的原位 創造。自獨立的項目包括藝術顧問/方向 當地和國際人士在當代與實驗藝術的 祖國大陸。

他參與的電影和戲劇的工作使他在演唱會的藝術總監的“中國和東南亞獨立電影節” (蒙特利爾) ,潘Production Studio中/ Barrandov工作室(布拉格) ,無數的紀錄片和電視項目(英國廣播公司第4頻道)及文化編輯上海電視台/上海廣播網絡。當代舞蹈團/劇院工程包括他參與製作的“其他劇場” (蒙特利爾) ,歐萊雅小組德拉薩舞(蒙特利爾) & “朱赫妮遨” (上海) 。他出版了廣泛的專題舞踏,表演藝術的演變與物理劇院舉行。
目前的項目包括作為文學顧問和編輯為即將舉行的泛亞洲
版的“文件(金)的S -審查新文學” (馬賽) ,探索,出現了新的寫作/視覺試驗在東方,製作一個獨立的紀錄片及大量的新詩。


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January 6, 2009

ICS TV - city beats - @ Limbo Grid





stage候台BACK had its first TV appearance last month covering Rolf A. Kluenters Limbo Grid in a 6 Minute feature. Check out the video on_site

December 11, 2008

Geiles Globales Gesicht - Susanne Junker - Soloshow - September 8 - 28 2008 " 個人表演 "



An essentially untranslatable term, “Geiles”, either grand or aroused by desire, has been coined by Susanne Junker for her most recent photographic series. 12 images of the artist transformed after painstaking applications of facial paint confront spectators with a work constituent of anonymity, cultural associations & iconography as well as silent protest. In the traditions of Chinese Opera, female characters were exclusively portrayed by male performers, the masks and painted visage irrefutably linked to dramatic personae, and narrative discourse predictable and unwavering. With “Geiles Globales Gesicht” (Grand Global Masks), a seductive counterpoint is given: the performer is one female, the symbolic reference of the masks sabotaged, rendered “perverse”, and visual reference one of auto-portraiture. For those familiar with Susanne Junker, this versatile artist/conceptual photographer is not adverse to challenging either gender portrayal, sexual iconography or to employ role-reversal as a means of visual subterfuge. The use of the masked figures is a conscious attempt to address specific social constraints and paradoxical elements in the visual vocabulary of the people of the PRC, the voyeurism of the nations’ expatriate audience and community. The faces are silent, the facial details entirely submerged in centuries old practice of multiple layers of grease paint, mouths obscured, and save for one image, reminiscent of the European Harlequin (yet, derived from a traditional character of Chinese Opera), reflect upon the inherent associations of the art form and its transformation. The “Harlequin” poses an interesting jest, as the character itself plays against cultural monogamy and symbol: an image shared by radically different cultural histories and traditions ridicules us with a sad air as part of the exhibition.

In contemplation of the use of the mask not only as a cultural icon or metaphorical device for whatever proposed allegory, we need to recall the significance and conscious/unconscious associations in our collective visual experience. A central vehicle for dramatic anonymity, as well as character portrayal, the mask today symbolizes what aspect of our society? The stage of today, inundated with virtual and artificially manipulable digital sequencing and projections has near abandoned the craft of the mask, yet their appearance is evocative nonetheless.
This work well reflects Barthes associative logic of the photographic moment with that of “death”. Times passage demands the re-analysis of form & & psychological association, history reminds of our changing perceptions of what constitutes cultural symbols & technological advent and innovation now demands we challenge aspects of our cultural heritage. Fascination and voyeurism are doubtlessly aspects of the human condition which have been amplified, and the artist transfixes the stage in mute protest. For Barthes, this suggests that photography creates the conditions for a profound loss of meaning, an absence in which referentiality is removed although we still understand what we see.

In contrast, Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theories on photography explain a moment of perception which exceeds the normal boundaries of the everyday. This excess is at one and the same time an encounter with the self and with history. It moves the activity of viewing from a transparent relationship of meaning and expression to a level in which meaning seems to be there without the presence of subjectivity. It is as if the photograph brings out the unconscious, is also a representation of the unconscious and at the same time denies all of these relations of meaning. Junker has undoubtedly redoubled the examination of these two contrastive theories, the loss of meaning is observed, in a relational sense, yet, by the incorporation of more sublime elements rather than a clearly defined "studium" and "punctum", she delivers a visual experience which is highly evocative, more akin to a Lacanian analysis of the medium.To graft the mask from the dramatic arts and make it a central component of conceptual photography, to transform the characters associated with each specific folkloric character (in this case those immediately recognizable from either Jinju or Kunju Opera) as an extension of an artist's adopted psyche- a precarious venture which Susanne Junker has attempted in multiple previous experiments- is no small task. A new representation of an object already categorical & representational, embodiments of narrative fictions to be performed onstage and now suspended in a silent two-dimensional vortex, specters of themselves cast upon the visage of the artist at work in an indivisible act of auto-portraiture, leads to an annihilation of the former and enlivening to the latter. In her work, the artist has afforded new life, and in doing, contrast socio-cultural parallels with her own personal inclinations to provoke the unthinking mechanisms and latency of our image ridden society. Ours is a visual culture, her attempts reminds us that we need constantly analyze and re-analyze the immediacy of our visual environment, and equally, that this auto-reflex has become a part of our post-industrial, ultra-technological society...we are made dependent on the same devices which we have created towards an actual liberalization from the past and former bastions of cultural and societal "advance", now, defunct. While the sincerity of the artist is undoubtable, her personal situational "flux", (from her former series attempting to transgress the field of vision from her experience as a model to that of photographer, from a past of the fashion industry to that of conceptual or fine art...) has led to a body of work which signals diversity and boldness. The current series, while aesthetically and technically more mature leaves one with a sense of greater coherency than several of the series of experiments by the artist of past years, yet the depth of examination is somewhat lacking. While having consciously decided on 12 faces/masks and there presentation is remarkable, within the sphere of cultural reference & social commentary, there remains an understatement in content & manner. Would it not be in order to cross-reference the function of the mask and its use in photography ? A similar re-examination of those faces of antiquity well known and understood in the Italian traditions of Dell'Arte, the Medieval traditions of the Mime and later comic characters of the popular drama's and repertoires of North American film, television and theatre may have a direct trans-cultural impact for the audiences of Chinese origin? For a similar lack of full comprehension and a similar field of misinterpretation exists in visual translations from the Occidental to Oriental vocabulary. We may anticipate an extenuation of the Geiles Globales Gesicht in new applications of form and content in the near future with an emphasis on the Global. To bridge the representational is perhaps to command or control the representational, and while the Geiles Globales Gesicht manifests as a travesty of the transformations behind a medium from one iconographic reference (whether contemporary or traditional) and to another symbolism a minor note of detraction exists in her derisive mirror of the sublime and the crass. It is one where the most neglected audience is denied a role of similar contrastive analysis as the artist, while in a full enthusiasm and passion towards the act of auto-portraiture and individual transformations of the representative icon, has overlooked the importance of the signifier of the "Other" beyond the Euro-Centric errors of both the past and present, and has forgotten the importance Sino-Centric errors of the interpretation of cultural symbols in balance. Nonetheless, a stark commentary is inherent in the message itself & as an emergent series, proves to be confrontational and engaging.
R A Suri







After a long summer break we got ready for the Shanghai "art month" Septembe
r that featured 2 art fairs, the Shanghai Biennale and about 80 gallery openings in one week. Jam! I hung my newest series "Geiles Globales Gesicht". Take a look on the piece I done, you can find it here.
等到很長的暑假我們準備趕上上海 “藝術月” 9月兩個藝術務,Shanghai Biennale 還有80多哥艺术家的开幕式在同一周. Jam! 我吧我的最新的个作品瓜 " Geiles Globales Gesicht". 情到这里看 GoSee











Smart Shanghai on stage候台BACK " 新聞界 "


Smart Shanghai did a piece on stage候台BACK. You can find the full article here.
Smart Shanghai (上海,英文雜技公司) stage後台BACK 記者報道。情到這裡看。


 

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