Month: November 2014

Louvre Abu Dhabi: Can Museums Be Exported?

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Abu Dhabi has a new cultural center on the island of Saadiyat. Importing the expertise of the most recognized institutions, the city brands its image as universal and global. The most famous architects of the post-modernist era such as Jean Nouvel have been selected and are at the source of this new branding approach. Lack of knowledge and experience in creating cultural institutions led the Arabian power to collaborate with the Louvre, the Guggenheim Museum and the British Museum. As a result, a collection belonging to the Louvre was moved to Abu Dhabi for a summer exhibition. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is born. However, this does pose questions. The issue of exporting culture has become crucial as our world becomes increasingly fragmented since global. Can culture be exported? Can art be read in a foreign context regardless its place of creation? For some experts, separate artistic creation from its nation of origin would lead to eliminating its sense and integrity whereas on the other hand, some institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum highlights the history of avant-garde through museums perceived as …

Untitled by Lu Guang

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Lu Guang’s work covers a wide range of consequences due to China’s rapid industrialization. A reoccurring theme is that of ‘cancer villages’ in certain affected provinces, the negative environmental conditions such as water pollution and the effect of industrialization on Chinese countrysides and its people. Guang has stated that his choice of subjects is done to raise awareness in both China and on a global scale. More about Lu Guang http://bit.ly/1twa0wj  

Hong Kong-born Artist Paul Chan Wins Prestigious Prize In NY

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The artist Paul Chan was awarded the prestigious Hugo Boss prize in New York last week. Initiated in 1996, the prize is awarded every two years to an artist who has made “a significant contribution to the evolution of the contemporary visual arts“. Paul Chan is prototypical of his generation, exploiting the potential of the World Wide Web and its information overkill to excess, redesigning it and establishing links with goal-oriented, unbridled enthusiasm. He has already created a wide-ranging oeuvre that reveals him to be one of the most inventive and multifaceted practitioners in contemporary art. His studies of current political and social issues, as well as the great and timeless concerns of history, literature, and philosophy, are incorporated into his art with lighthearted verve. More about Paul Chan http://bit.ly/1xHql3C

The East is Red by Ling Jian

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Ling Jian was born in the Shandong Province of China in 1963. He graduated from the Qinghua University Art College and has exhibited his work in Germany, Bangkok, Amsterdam, and Italy. Ling Jian’s art is neither westernized Chinese art nor orientalized western art but a carefully negotiated hybridization calibrated to the artist’s expressive concerns. More about Ling Jian http://bit.ly/1uELDQI

Most Wanted French by Sheng Qi

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Sheng Qi is a Chinese performance artist and painter. He was one of the original founders of the Chinese performance art group, Concept 21. In 1989, in protest to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, he severed the pinkie finger of his left hand and buried it in a porcelain flowerpot which remained in Beijing during his subsequent exile in Europe. In 1999 he returned to Beijing but mostly lives in London since 2010. His prevelant themes are the body language and its culture. All his works are painted in black, grey and red. More about Sheng Qi at http://bit.ly/1Aev9Dm

The Geography Of Innovation Is Shifting

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When a prominent venture capitalist of California invested one billion dollars in high risk green technology, Silicon Valley recalled the world that in innovation, geography is karma. What Vinod Khosla’s story tells us is that location is crucial when dealing with innovation and technology. Thirty years earlier Vinod left India to study management at Stanford University in California. In 1981, fresh out, he founded Sun Microsystems, a computer manufacturer . Innovations do not occur anywhere but often in geographic clusters where investors, large research universities, existing technology companies, engineers, designers, artists and scientists are always willing to think outside the box. Those people are part of what Richard Florida calls the Creative Class. His paradigm asserts that innovation is the outcome of creativity, this latter being the outcome of human creation for a concrete realization which then might lead to innovation. As far as geography and clusters are concerned, the Silicon Valley has been for several decades considered as the only creative and innovative hub worldwide. This is clearly changing. The geography of innovation is shifting. For proof, start with Google, …

Diaspora by Omar Victor Diop

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New work from Omar Victor Diop, the Senegalese photographer behind the striking [re-] Mixing Hollywood (Onomollywood), Le Futur du Beau and Le Studio des Vanités projects, is always a cause for excitement. The artist cimes back this month with a photo series at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London. In a twelve-image set titled Project Diaspora, Diop showcases his penchant for vibrant colors and highly stylized portraits while again delving into the conversation about representation of Africans on the world stage. See more at http://bit.ly/1we57i5