The Journey...

Personal opinions:

• From my previous project in the last semester to this project, I realise that there is a strong documentary trend in Contemporary Asian art in the Asia-Pacific region.
• Regardless of the Asian artist being in a Western or Asian country, they can't help but feel alienated from the society.
• Globalisation can be said to be the major cause of everything that happens today
• Contemporary Asia art reflects the contemporary Asian life
• the artworks help to educate and bring awareness to the viewers
• Contemporary Asian Art plays an imporatnt role in the present society

Chinese contemporary art is current hot favourite in art market!

Found alot of similar articles on Contemporary Asian Art being hot in the present art market, while doing my research.

here are some liks to the documents:

1.) FT.com site : Why the art market is hotter than ever

2.)I love the title for this article! Its called China's Hottest Export: Contemporary Art

here's the link...

Ideas for final essay

Idea 1: I noticed that many of the artists' works are expressed in more than one medium. They express similar ideas through different mediums instead of sticking to one type of medium -what artists did in the past.

Idea 2: Most of the artists' works reflects on how they see and feel about contemporary life and especially modern day culture, and they mainly draw examples from their surroundings.

Researching for reading materials

Went to the National library of Singapore today but I can't find any of the previous APT catalogue. =(

Hence, i had no choice but to only refer to the Internet for my research.

I would also like to add that I can't find any art books on Kwon Ki-soo and therefore, also have to rely on the information provided by the APT for my essay. As Ki-soo is still a young artist who got famous not long ago, there are also not much information on the net about him. Hence, research for him is TOUGH! =(

the only internet resource available is (click here for the link...) and a chinese website..
the rest are all in Korean!!!

The reason why i continued is because i see it as a challenge for me and it gives more room for my personal interpretation on Ki-soo's works.

Interesting work!

saw this work somewhere near the entrance of Queensland art gallery.. It is very interesting looking and reminds me of Macdonald's logo. I can't help but question if this belongs to the gallery or any exhibition as i can't find any explanation on it, in its surrounding.

this piece of work also reminds me of one of the artist mentioned by Pat during her presentation in last semester's class.

Interview with Barti Kher about her work: Never deny the other (2006)

Me: Did you do any planning before you start your work? Especially the panel work, where they look a little abstract on a first look. However, after looking at them for a while, it seems like you meant to create the swirling patterns on all of them. Can you explain what the pattern represent and why?

Kher: There is no pre-planning before I did the panel series. I usually choose a point to start and paste the bindis wherever I want. Perhaps I just want to give it a brief shape, making it look like a map or the river. The only planning I would really have would be how many colours I want in this work.

Me: May I know why is it that the four panels are not all white? Why did you put a black panel in between?

Kher: The black panel is not reflective as the other and it act as a stopper. This is very common in all my works. I usually like to have one odd one out in a series of three or four.

Me: I thought you mentioned that you wanted this panel series to relate to Indians pasting their bindis on the mirrors in the toilet? So why do you choose gold as the background colour for your work? Why didn’t you use silver aluminum panels instead as it would be more similar to a real mirror?

Kher: The aluminum panels are available on many colours. I chose gold as it is a warmer and richer colour. Also, gold is a very symbolic colour in the Indian culture.

04/12/06 – Panel Discussion: White Box Black Box: Film in the Art Museum

Speakers:
Katheryn Weir ( Head of cinema)
Yang Fudong
Sima Urale
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn


It is reflected in this exhibition that museums and galleries are able to showcase moving images (screen based medium) better and better, together with many other medium of art works.

• The art world has now recognize film as an art form

• It’s the first time APT has included film in an important degree

- 7 film makers were invited
­- There are more and more institutions that recognize the possibility of film
e.g Shanghai Biennale 2004, Busan Biennale
­- There are many important film presentation

• APT 5 has included special screening and special thematic programe in different time
• The artists’ practices include:

-­ Andrew: 3 paintings and 1 video
­- Apichatpong: Big screen flim work
­- Sima: a film maker whose work has won many art prizes
­- Yang Fudong: parallel in both film and cinema and specialize in video work


Tuan:

*** Video Sketch***
­ To him, the works don’t seem to work and the irony is that he continues to work even when he thought so

Apichatpong:

• His works mainly focuses on cinema
• Sometimes, his works would be restricted by the economy
• Like Tuan, Many of his works are sketches
• What kind of audience would experience the work would affects the way he edit that piece of work

Sima:

• Make film for cinema (it is different from making film for theatre)
• Never made works purposely for display in gallery
­- But others still managed to come out with ways to display her works
­ E.g the black box that contain the works are meant to look like televison
­- By doing so, people can position it or take it to a new context or sunject matter to suit the exhibition
­- The artist wants the viewer to experience the full story
­- By putting the works into the gallery, the films for example, are presented in loops instead of the whole film
-­ Seeing their works being shown in pieces is a little hard to take

Yang Fudong:

Strange Paradise
• Has strong narrative
• It is a portrait of a particular age and period of young people’s life coming out of the University

Qn: How do you feel to see your work (90 mins long film) to be displayed in a Cinema and in an exhibition?

• Both are problematic
• The audiences would have different experience in different area
e.g. the raining scene
­ In the cinema or movie theatre, the audiences would be able to see more details as it is more quiet
­ In the gallery, the viewer would not be able to see the details as much
• “The viewer and the work are like key and lock, the main thing is if the key is right for the lock. Hence, it doesn’t really matter where the work is displayed.”
Apichatpong:

Haunted House
• This video is acted by the villagers in his home town (66 people in total)
• He made this work specially for the Biennale, hence he was conscious of the work being shown in a single channel

Point to note: Film makers usually apply for funding for their work and the funders may see the work differently as the artist. E.g. they would want it to be more for cinema then to be seen as an artwork.

Sima:

• Many people did not consider film as an art form
• “To me, they are like art forms because they can be broken down into frames and each frame is like a painting.”• Museums are trying to get out of the norms (the black box)
***Try and compare the film chosen and shown in recent Sydney Biennale and APT 5.***

Qn: Is how the viewers would be viewing the works seen as a challenge to the artist? E.g. the works are displayed in loops instead of the full version.

Ans: Issues that also have to be considered includes the quality of the projection and if seating are provided.

Qn: Photography versus films.

Apichatpong:
• Even if it is still, photo is still a photo and film is still a film.

Yang Fudong:
• He sees no difference between film and photography
• A photo is a film with one picture, while a film is made up of many pictures.
• If a photograph is well taken, it is a good film
• The only difference is that one is long and the other is short

Qn: There are many ways of looking at the images/film, especially in different country and culture. Are these considered as distractions?

Apichatpong:
• “We need distractions in life.”
• Going to museum is a way to interact
e.g the same film shown in certain country may make people laugh but in another, the viewers may remain quiet. These are different forms of interactions.
• The meaning of works may differ in different places but the disturbance (laughter) may be good.



***** Personal Opinion *****
Things that affect how we look at the images/film not only include the country and culture in which the works are displayed, but also the way the works are displayed at the venue. The body and space are important conditions that affect perceptions.

04/12/06 – Panel Discussion: Working through history

Speakers:

Julie Evoington (Head of Australian Art)
Justine Cooper
eX de Medici
Jitish Kallat

History is a hot topic.
e.g history of Australia (the Indigenous community)
Important thing to note: must always think of History as a multiple -> Histories


Justin Cooper:

• Extensively exhibited in the past 15 years
• See Science as part of the culture
• Interested in the Museum’s storage area and how they change over time
­ Managed to look at 20+ - 30 million collection that are part of private collection
• Interested in how the collection represented the art at the time of collection
­ Wonder if the museum does it for to gain more knowledge on the collection or out of curiosity
• Multiple history e.g. history of Museum, the collection etc.
­ Justin Cooper feels that her chance of being able to look at the private collections, gave her a chance to use her ‘modern eyes’ to see what had been collected/done, many years ago
­ The collections are in higher demand now as their monetary value has increase. The Museum therefore has to collect more to save them.
• There are 3 kinds of photos the she took:
1. the cabinet shots
2. a contradiction of the collection
e.g. millions of insects versus 1 lonely lion head in a picture
3. the anthropology collection

Jitish Kallat:

• direct and straightforward works which shows where we stand now
• interested in the pop culture
• text based work
• his works mainly focus on a period of 10 years of India (1992-2002)
­ e.g. in 1991, there is only 1 TV channel but in 1992, there are over 90 TV channels
­ because of the opening up of technology, there are many major changes in India within 1 year

Qn: How the works are addressed to the history of our time?

eX de Medici:

• she is a left wing person
• Her first large water colour painting is blue and its theme is on family history and the return of the folk
• She likes to place skull on flesh to act as great paradox
• She had done a series work for 10 years and would continue doing it until the present government in gone
­ She is actually quite sick of them now and hopes to stop doing them by next year!
• Her 3rd image (pearly capital) focus on the shift of values in present society and thet “made people’s head spin”
• Her green work is a pun (Its mainly about environmental issues)
• Her black work symbolize a ‘crash’

****Conclusion:
People are conflicting and contradicting themselves. They try to preserve histories so as to ‘keep’ them but somehow destroy them in the process.

04/12/06 - Artist Talk: Micheal Parekowhai

• He is a tutor in an Art School
• He feels that art is about empowering people and him
• The system about being an artist is a question to him
• To him, art is not about personal expression
­ He doesn’t care about what the viewer think
­ He said: “It is more about you then me.”

The indefinite article (1990)



• The idea of “I am” is from a New Zealand painter, Colin McCahon, who is also a tutor in school.
- This artist mainly does text base painting and the word ‘I am’ usually dominates his painting (see example below)



Colin McCahon, A question of faith 1970. Private collection, California, USA .


• The word ‘He’ has indefinite meaning in Maori language
­ It can mean ‘a’ or ‘some’

• To Michael, in English, ‘I am he’ is a macho statement
­ Relationship to who he think he is

• Michael feels that the viewer is significant
­ Communication has to go on between the viewer and the work
­ He also feels that “If the work excites you, that’s enough!”

• Works that are exhibited over here are his older works
­ They play with the idea of how he can be fitted into the art world
­ He feels that museums have a tendency to categorize artists into groups

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The picture below shows another piece of interesting work of Michael that was not mentioned in his talk.

Kiss the baby goodbye (1994)



This work resembles an oversized kitset toy. It is a reference to Kahukura, 1968, a painting by Gordon Walters (see picture below), one of New Zealand's most celebrated artist. Ironically, this piece of work is also exhibited in APT 5 and it is placed not far from Michael's work.



The repeated pattern that we see in these two works is based on the traditional Maori koru (fern motif).
The only difference between both work is the colour and a full stop at the bottom right hand corner of Michael's work. "enough has been said" (quoted from the description on the wall)


***** I don't really understand what Micheal really means by that. But I think that it is more of a homage to Walter's painting then a critique to it. *****

03/12/2006 - Artist Talk: Yang Zhenzhong

• Types of medium used for his artworks: Sound, installation, dynamic sculpture, photography and video


• “Often try to use different material for my works” said Yang

Light and Easy, 2003 (also known as Light as Fuck II)

Available in both photograph and video (so as to try different medium)

• Yang feels that video and photographs are mediums that ‘trick people’s eye’ so he wants to play with it and see how it works

In Light and Easy series, he did about 20+ photos

• The person in each photo does something that is impossible in life – balance large upturned objects with their middle finger


• “It is a game to me” said Yang Zhenzhong

After so many years, he found out that this new game – digitally re-touched photo and video – is more popular now as more artists are using it now

922 Grains of Rice, 2000

This is how it looks like on the screen.


This is how it looks like in the gallery.

(click here for the link to additional information on this piece of work)

• Starts with simple idea – want to see how much rich grain he has in his palm


• Male voice for the cockerel and female voice for the hen


• Don’t sound like they are eating the rice, more like the chicken are counting the number of rice they are eating

I will die, 2000-2005 (10 different versions)

• The first version was made in chinese


• He find different people from different level of life


• Each person will say “I will die” in front of the video


• Now this work is available in French, Korea, Arab, Italy, English and Japanese


• People find it hard to say those words, esp. when camera is facing them


• They know what they are saying is true but when they say it, they try to think of what to say

Power of camera:

• when people say things in front of the camera, they tend to ACT

03/12/06 - Artist Talk: Tsuyoshi Ozawa

There are 3 groups of work participating in APT 5:
1. Photography
2. Futon Mountain (Kids APT)
3. Little Milk Tin – Natsubi Gallery

Natsubi Gallery (2006)

• Uses 28 milk tin
• He uses milk tin as he likes milk tin
• Each milk tin/box contain interesting work of artist from other country
- Each milk tin is a small gallery for each participating artists in APT 5 ( see the video below)



• He started this project 10 years ago
- Around 150 artists had ‘exhibited’ in these gallery, in various location
- About 15 years ago, he was unknown to others
- He was looking for places to exhibit his works (no place to exhibit as he was unknown) and that marks the beginning of Natsubi Gallery
• He started it as a criticism of conventional galleries
• He held exhibition once a month (change the ‘exhibiting artist’ every month) on Ginza Street, Japan, Tokyo, together with Takashi Murakami and Masato Nakamura
- He started to gain the attention of the media and also the police (haha..)
- He therefore stopped the ‘Travelling Exhibition’
• He exhibited Natsubi Gallery along street of Venice Biennale to gain more attention
- He succeeded
- After going to Venice, he was also invited to France, England etc. and ‘exhibited’ artists from other town and country in his Natsubi Gallery
• Boxes are usually return to participating artists after exhibition
- Some are sold to museum or continues in other exhibition

Vegetable Weapon series (2002)



Seafood hotpot/Beijing (from 'Vegetable weapon' series) 2002
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery


• Ozawa always wanted to make something anti-war and anti-weapon (using soft humour)
• Beginning stage happens when 9/11 happened. It provides more incentives for Ozawa to produce it

Process:
1. Find the right person for the photo
2. Discuss what they want to eat (local food)
3. Meet up with model and purchase the ingredient for the dish
4. Assemble the ingredients in the shape of a weapon
5. At the end of the project, disassemble the ‘weapon’ and cook the local dish and invite people to eat it together

****This final step of disassemble the ingredient and eating it has a special meaning****

• Ozawa believes that through food, we can understand more about each other (between country and people)
- Helps to reduce misunderstanding i.e. fights and therefore, we would have a better world
• In this project, he has done about 25 photos and he would want to continue

Qn: How does he decide the location of the photos?

• Before choosing the models, he would research about the town and also discuss with the model
• Usually, its an everyday location for the model

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Particpating work in Kid's APT:

Everyone Likes Someone As You Like Someone(also known as Futon Mountain)



this is one of the most popular interactive art work of the Kid's APT.it is a mountain-sized pile of futon cushions installed in the gallery for the kids to climb on or sit on to draw pictures of their favourite people and swap their drawings for one made by a child in Japan.



Top view of the artwork, where we can see the 'face' in the 'crater' of the Futon mountain.



this is the table where the kids can create their artworks.

03/12/06: Panel Discussion – The Long March

Speakers:
Suhanya Raffel (Head of Asian, Pacific and International Art)
Lu Jie (Chief curator, initiator of the project)
Hong Hao
Qin Ga
Mu Chen
Shao Yanhong
Zhou Xiaohu

Lu Jie:

· Started this idea when he was doing his research in the 1990s.
· The starting point for him to go back to China to do the project:
- Want to represent Chinese art in global space
- The politics in China (relationship between Art and Politics)
- To create opportunity for interactive works

· Starts working with history (revolution)
- Link the dislocation between old and new Long March
- Feels the need to connect/re-engage with history

Qn: How did you start to participate?

Hong Hao:
· This project started in Beijing
· A speech was given to encourage more people to participate
· He was inspired by the speeches and participated with a lot of enthusiasm
· Didn’t participate in the real work itself
· Instead, he does research on the long march info (1year)
· Bought 2nd hand stuff from the market in Beijing and kept the stamps, old books, phonecards and scan them into the computer to print

Qing Ga:
· This project started between march and April 2002
· Similar to Hong Hao, everyone became very enthusiastic to take part in the project after the inspiring speech was given
· Everyone wants to participate in this project in their own way
· The Long March takes place in many places
· It is a great source of inspiration for artists as it is different from many other project that stays in 1 place
· They walk on the old Long March route
· He record the route people take through walkie talkie and record the walk by tattooing on his back
· This project was stopped for 3 years and he stopped too
· At 2005, Qing Ga decided to finish the rest of the route himself
· He started on January 2005 and he gave himself 1 month to finish the route, regardless of weather condition
· Realise that the route did not change (same as 1934-35) but the social and economy content is completely different from what he imagine
· Especially the changes in social and economy

Mu Chen:
· Before he was involved in the project, he already had an idea to travel along China and take pictures of the public house
· However, he feels that it is hard to look at the houses without looking at the history of the communist party. Therefore, he started by looking at the history of the communist

Zhou Xiao Hu:
· There is no use looking for relationship with Long March from the surface level
· The way he understands the project is totally different
· He feels that it should be an attitude and a position, the attitude to what we think about current situation and the changes
· His works are the clay animation
· It is about what people would see in the news at night (what Chinese people watch every night on CCTV)
· He sort of reply (2nd-hand) the news
· He exhibited the clay model works together with the TV screen, to create a 2nd and 3rd scene of the work
· We usually watch the news at different times
· This work is created to show all of them at the same time, and to let the viewers see the things they have created in life

The Long March Project

· Work with many artists, both local and national (40 international participants)
· Aim to reorganise the relationship between rural and urban, international and national, tradition and modern to understand the past and present society.
· Different sites are devoted to different themes
e.g. feminism, public art and mew media art
· Long March Project is not a re-enactment of the original Long March. It is a new cultural dynamic ….

03/12/06 - Artist Talk: Bharti Kher

Time has changed. Because of Globalisation, people can now move between places and countries easily. Her works are mainly about the idea of normad (not this or the other)
• Not Indian when in India, not British when in Britian
• Her works starts with modern day clichés
• She often uses the forms of animals and nature in her artworks, usually turning them into strange objects, to act as warnings
• The elephant eyes are almost the same size as human eyes and therefore she uses elephant in her work
• She see the white elephants as spiritual animal

The skin Speaks a language not its own (2006)



• This work is about language and culture:
- The elephant is seen differently in different culture
- The idea of duality/double side of meaning
- E.g. the white elephants are meant for the king (especially in Thailand) but white elephants are seen as something bad in Western countries
• She took about 3 months to work on it
• Snake in to Indians is a symbol of fertility and also destruction
• The layer on bindis on the elephant sculpture are in the shape of a snake/sperm and it act as the texture of the elephant skin
• The stick-on bindis are bought from the market
• She feels that she is creating some contradiction in her work whereby she is giving life to something that is dying – the form and weight suggest death but the surface texture suggest life.
• The surface of this sculpture makes it irresistible to touch
• Bharti Kher usually gives character to her works and this elephant here is a she.
- It has no tusk
- She did a small elephant before she did this work, thus this work can be seen as the mother of the previous elephant (some of her works actually refers to past pieces and it sort of connect all her works together)

Never deny the other (2006)



• Initially wanted to use mirror but scared that it may drop
• She therefore changes to using aluminium sheets for this work
- Mirrors in India are usually stuck with old bindis at the end of the day
- The artist sees it as the residues or testament of the day (by looking at the bindi, it is as if we are looking at the person’s entire day)
- She was thinking about this when she was creating this panel of work



This is how the works are being displayed at APT 5.

***** Bharti Kher seldom displays her panel work and her sculpture together. She feels that the 2 works appeal to viewers in separate ways and displaying them together is too much of a re-affirmation. She feels that the 2 works appeal to to viewers in different ways.

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Another interesting work that was not mentioned:




This structure here is sort of a 'station' for the kids to apply their free bindis on. A mirror is provided. I can't help but wonder if it is meant to be seen as a piece of art work or not. I find this piece very interesting. It especially shows what the artists had mention at the artist talk - Mirrors in India are usually stuck with old bindis at the end of the day. even though we can't see any old bindis on the mirror, we do see some interesting 'things' on the mirrror. (see image below)



I was laughing when i first saw this. Its so cute! But at the same time, it shows that people, be it children or adults, they actually like to stick their bindis on the mirrors! This dog looking image is only one of them. There are also some abstract designs pasted on the mirror and after seeing them, I feel that i can relate better to her panel work now.

03/12/06 - Panel Discussion: Kids APT

Speakers:

Lynne Seer (Assistant Director, Curatorial and collection development)
Andrew Clark (Assistant Director, Public Programs)
Kwon Ki-soo
eX de Medici
Justine Cooper
Eko Nugroho
Khadim Ali

50 staffs have worked together for 2 years to present the Kids APT to the audiences. 5 members of senior curatorial team is also part of Kids APT, which shows how important it is.

Kids APT

• This years Kids APT represent the best of all the things that the gallery wanted to show in the past exhibitions
• It is a challenge for the Children Arts Centre, to develop an on-going project throughout the year.
• There are 6 components to the Kids APT:
- 13 participating artists
- The activity book
- 2 weeks children festival
- New project “Summer Spectacular Queensland” hope to attract the more ‘remote’ community to visit the gallery
- Hopefully can create a series of online activities
• Aim:
- Connecting the younger audiences with Contemporary Art in the Asia-Pacific
- Hope that the kids would ‘take something’ with them when they leave
- To create a chance for the kids and adults to communicate
- The Gallery also hope that the kids would help to ‘open up’ the eyes of the adults who participated the Kids APT with them

The mascot for Kid APT this year is:



Scoots, the turtle!!

Quoted from the information given:
Let Scoots the green turtle be your guide around the exhibition. Sharing the same waters as the APT5 artists, Scoots’s migratory pattern brings him to Queensland at just the right time for APT5. The green turtle and its ancestors have lived in the Asia–Pacific region for just about forever (around 100 million years!) and feature in many myths and legends from different cultures in the region.

***** I personally feel that this mascot for this year is the most suitable of all (compared to the 2 previous mascot - the beetle and the lucky dragon)! As this turtle actually lives in the same region as the APT 5 artists and his migratory pattern would bring him to Queensland. What other mascot would symbolise this exhibition better? *****

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Khadim Ali (Gallery 15):
• Had exhibited widely
• Works are about culture heritage and contemporary concern

The Bamiyan Drawing Project

• A series of drawings by children
• The children consist of both boys and girls in his home town
• The work is about the children’s daily life

Connection with Kids APT:
• Children in Afghanistan and Taliban grew up in scenes of war
• Books that were used to teach the children in Taliban (shown in the Bamiyan Project) consist of many destructive objects
• When asked to draw what they want, the children drew images of destructive weapons as these are what they see everyday

Image’s impact on Khadim Ali:
• The images drawn in Children’s notebook are unusual
• Although they had never seen any car, Osama or Bush, they drew these in their book
• The drawings are very pure

He told the children a story where the main character is Rus-dem (the hero)
• When asked to draw, the children drew Rus-dem as Taliban
• And they drew the Rus-dem with wings (a song to promote the heroics of the Taliban)

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Eko Nugroho:
• Created Mural with local young people
• Works in diverse media e.g. video, collage, embroidery etc.



Mural Project: Work with local high school children
Postcard Project: ‘work’ with the children visiting the gallery
Comic Book project: n/a

What do you want? & Trick me please!

• Comic book project
• Involved 2-3 different school
• Accidentally, the title is What do you want?
• For Eko, is more important to glue the communication and therefore he made the book project
• He gave the children 2 questions: “What is the best and worst thing in their life?”
- In the end, beautiful images were produced
- From these images, he got the idea for the mural which is also called What do you want?

Postcard project:

• Visitors can send the postcard to friends from the gallery
• They can also add words to the postcards provided
• The kids can also draw or do whatever they want on the postcards
• Main theme is about communication

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Justin Cooper:

• Born in Sydney and works in New York
• Had unprecedented access to the museum during her residency in New York
• She was drawn to the images of closed cabinets as she wonders what is inside
• Interested in what they have for each of the collection in the museum and how the cabinets help to organise them

The game:
• Allows the kids to open the cabinets and match the animals in the cabinet to the sound and release them to the wild
• People look at the collections in the museum is different ways. From here we can see how the world has evolved

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eX de Medici:
• Its her 2nd time participating
• Works in many medium and is a well-known tattooist
• Her recent works, which is also her participating works in APT 5, are large watercolour paintings
• Her watercolour paintings reflect what had happened in the past 10 years
• Her works mainly focuses on science and power, natural history, symbols of mortality etc.
• Many of her works also focus on animals and the world
• Her participating work for the Kids APT is the Tattoo shop, where the ‘tattoos’ are all specially designed

Tattoo Project:



• Developed from her previous project that was 2 years ago



• She repositioned the tattoo for Kids APT and the finalised 4 images are chosen by the children – the top 4 favourite design
• To eX, Tattoo is seen as a new identity
• The works in tattooing also reflects her watercolour works

Sound Track:
• It is about children and their interaction with the world
• It can be said as the most dominant sound in the gallery

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Kwon Ki-soo:

• Works in many medium, including painting, installation and animation
• His works are seen as child-like/childish



The character Dongguri. Isn't it cute?!


• The character Dongguri is a simple looking character that represents Ki-soo’s alter-ego
• When creating the works, he never thought of relating his works to the children at all
• Dongguri is cute now
- He started it with the idea of creating something to represent the identity of modern Korean people, especially the difficulties that the Korean face
- Through the process of drawing, the character Dongguri is created

Run Run Run



• What Ki-soo is trying to express is that modern people can’t stop and keep running in life
• He is worried about the fast-pace of modern life
This work invites children to interact with this colourful character in a playful environment. Children can manipulate hundreds of Dongguris made out of foam — creating and recreating different versions of the artist’s cheeky creature. (this process of playing with the foam is physically slowing the active children down)

“Beautiful misinterpretation”
• His works are always misinterpreted
• The viewers see them as child-like and playful but his works are actually about more serious things in life
• But to him, this misinterpretation may not be bad at all as it helps him to reach out to more people and gave him more/new point of view to his works
• Therefore, he call it a ‘Beautiful misinterpretation”

*************************************************

Kids APT to Me:



Despite the busy day, having to attend artist talks and panel discussions, me and erika are still trying to have some fun with the games that were designed for the kids (Kids APT)! hehe.. =P



Game Over! =(



This is me with the Mascot of this exhibition, Scoot!! He is so cute! haha.. I want to hug him! Too bad i am old for it. hehe.. =P





seems like the kids are having a good time! Love the designs on their face! Wish i can turn into a kid for that day.. ha..



I think the Kids APT is GREAT! Kids and learn some things about the world and have fun at the same time!! **Two thumbs up!**



For the explanation on the wall,there is also a simpler version at the bottom for the kids to read. (the part where the arrow points to) I feel that the height where the text is placed and the simple explanation itself, is a very good idea. It would help to encourage the kids who visit the gallery to have a higher interest on the exhibits.

02/12/06 - Panel Discussion: Translating Tradition

This is the first panel discussion that i have ever attend. It turn out to be not as formal as i thought it would be. Very interesting! =)


Speakers:
M and Page (not sure about the spelling of the name) (curator, Contemporary Pacific Art)
Michael Parekowhai (NZ Sculptor)
Nusra Latif Qureshi (Pakistan/Melbourne) (focus on miniature)
John Pule

Qn: The word ‘Tradition’ is often used in theme culture. And what is ‘translation’?

Nusra:
• The word tradition is not a good word. It often means old fashion and not interesting.
• The word tradition has a lot to do with miniature painting.
• Many Pakistan artists see miniature painting as something bad and old fashion.
• But miniature painting is regarded as a new experience for her. It’s a new language.
• The word ‘tradition’ means making new/interesting language and a journey of discovery.

John:
• Agree with Nusra
• “Tradition don’t really exist in what I do”
• In his opinion, the form of art his is doing is not something traditional, it is the passing on of story, knowledge etc. to each other. It is not tradition, but more of the knowledge of the past and it’s a continuation of knowledge.
• Talking to aunties taught him many simple but powerful knowledge. (Not many youngsters like to talk to aunty nowadays. Aunty is regarded as old fashion)

Michael:

**Tradition and how they are translated:

• Tradition is and interesting topic
• E.g. celebrating Christmas
- He comes from a place where people get together on 25th Dec and dress up for 3-course dinner. But as time goes on, people celebrate this occasion with BBQ etc.

Qn: Things that are important to you. What you did and what you learnt.

Nursa:
• Intense technique/ skill base trainings are not popular in Art school now.
- E.g. Many have moved to contemporary painting instead of miniature painting for better future.
• Her works are about displacement that happen during de-colonisation

John:
***Translation***
• He became a poet because he is reading TV guide and saw weird words in it
- Amazed by using a few words to describe something
- A few years later, he starts to translate the words from English to U-en language

Michael:
• Definition of words can also be troublesome
• Interested about education:
- The process of learning
- What we know and what we think we know
****Moving tradition to a new spot****
• Education is crucial
- How we make Art etc..
• Who we are? How we are forced to …. Into the global community

Nursa:
• Aunties are disappearing fast
- This figure is not popular anymore. They are seen as old tradition
• Aunties impose certain strict discipline for people who want to learn
- Artist see it as an important learning process
- But this is not what young people would want to do now. They learn things in a different way.

Michael:
• “Tradition is one thing that is always changing.”
• “It is not important where your physical body is” (his tradition is always there with him.


Conclusion:

***We are living in a polycultural society now
***Many traditional practises are not personality based
***Place give culture (people are travelling so often now)
***Tradition provides the foundation to make you strong

APT 5 Artist Talk – Masami Teraoka

Part of the 3 day orientation programme is the Artist Talk.
This is the first artist talk that i have ever attend and its so interesting! I learned so much about Masami Tareoka's work from this talk and feel that I learn more from Artist Talk than from reading the work descriptions on the walls
He is one of my favouraite artist in the exhibition.. =)



• Oi-shi-wa: meaning delicious, enjoyable
- To him, sex is ‘delicious’
• 1st person whom he encounter that has AIDs, is his friend’s 1 year old baby girl
- she got AIDs by blood transfusion and Masami was very taken by it
- Masami expresses his fear of AIDs and mother’s fear of contracting AIDs in his artworks
• Calligraphy seen in his works:
- Writing style of the 1600s
- Masami is fascinated by the visual effect of this calligraphy



Painting description:
• Idea comes from the Japanese who likes to dress like the westerners but usually still think in conventional Japanese style
- E.g. is the man at the right hand side



- His traditional shoe is replaced by a Nike shoe
- It shows how Japanese culture is westernised

*Most of the Japanese culture is influenced by the Western Culture (homogenizing culture)

• The geisha in his works usually represent Japanese women



Geisha in Bath

• The geisha is getting ready to meet her boyfriend
• What the writings on this work says is :She is opening the condom and found that the size of it is too big for her boyfriend and he can't use it! (haha... interesting)

There are many AIDs issues in Japan

- In 1986, there were not so many AIDs issue in Japan then
- Masami feels that its the Japanese who had sex in Western countries who brought AIDs back to Japan and the immediate people who have AIDs are the Geisha
• When people go to different country, they use to travel by ship
- Black ship: Japan and U.S tradings

Moved to Hawaii

• Hawaii is famous for its beachbut Masami can't swim
- he even nearly drown
• when he was drowning, he felt that he has not done much in life yet
• innocently, he wanted to swallow all the sea water so that he could be saved
• he feels that the ocean in Hawaii is friendly as it 'taught' him how to swim

Sea Waves



• the waves he paints are like carassing fingers (looks softer and less angular than how the other artists would paint)
- it is in the shape of fingers playing the piano
- they are 'friendly looking' waves
Masami says: "Anything you draw reflects what/how you think/feel", "water is now my friend"
• he hope to swim in the huge waves
• his wave paintings are related to balance
• he used to be able to swim in the ocean in his hometown but it has now become too polluted to swim in
- the beaches in Santa Monica have life gurads and stuff that attract people to swim but not Masami

One of my favourite work in the exhibition:



McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan/Chochin-me, 1982
Purchased 2005. The Queensland Government's Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

02/12/2006 - APT 5 Artist Talk: PACIFIC TEXTILES PROJECT

Purple lady:
Hawaiian women and their relationship with patchwork:
• Transfer their life onto the fabric
• Usually use 1/8 of the fabric pattern

• Of the 4 Hawaiian Quilts that are on display,
- 2 of the 3 patterns are symbols of the olivy and crown flower (crown flower is loved by the Queen)
- this is the only way to honour the King and Queen (people whom they like very much)
• They proud to be Hawaiian and the quilts represents who they are
- Since then, women continue to make quilts

Lady with Flower head:
Making Ti-wai-wai:
• The Patterns come from the surroundings e.g. flowers
• Red and Yellow are the symbols of royalty
• Its done in the same way as the Hawaiian Quilts
- Only difference is that it is folded twice only, not 8 times

• Significance of the quilts:
- Used to be blankets
- Being used as gifts now because quilts are very valuable now
- Especially used as gifts for the favourite child’s wedding (would display the quilts on the walls as decoration for the wedding)

• Fan pattern is important as it is from Mania (?) Island

• It doesn’t take very long for small works (around 30cm x 30 cm) to be made
- Usually take 2-3 days for 1 small work
Quilt on the floor:
• Rose patterns (they like the rose patterns)


***** Personal thoughts *****
• Didn’t know that the colours in the quilts are actually of symbolic meaning.
• Apart from wedding ceremony, I wonder if they use quilts as gifts for other special occasions.

02/12/06 - First Orientation Day

Woke up and had my breakfast at the backpackers. Had ham with egg and bread. Yummy!! hehe..



Its so fun! So many people again! and there are some 'crazy' people acting as crowd control and they are holding the 'stop' and 'slow' sign.. Can you see?



I was taking pict of one of e girl and the other girl ran over! ha.. They are really fun! They purposely stop the people suddenly and ask them to go slow. Haha.. cute!

The Orientation day is so fun! It breaks my usual image of the boring museum/gallery. They made visiting museum/gallery an enjoyable and interesting thing to do. Good job guys! =)

01/12/06 - APT 5 Opening Night

Thank you Johnathan for the dinner! =)





This was how packed and happening the opening night was and many people specially dressed up for it! Its the first time I am attending such a grand opening and its really an unforgettable!



This is an interesting artwork by Japanese artist, Yayo Kusama. Its called the "Infinity Room". When I went into the small room, I suddenly lost my sense of space and feel like I am floating in space.. Its very interesting!

I have always wanted to see the works of the Asian artists whom we have learnt about, during the last semester. Now that I am given this chance to see some of the works right in front of me, I suddenly realise how great the difference is, between looking at the real work itself and its reproductions.



This is a pict of me having a pict taken with another interesting artist. He believes in e presence of the 'other beings' (e.g. alien) and he calls himself Pope Alice.