shanghai airport en route to hong kong

so all over china you can find chicken and duck wings sold pre-cooked and individually vacuum packed for your gastronomic delight. we finally broke down at the airport and bought a package of duck wings. when you break open the seal, there is a strange, yet familiar odour that emanates... then you notice the congealed duck fat encasing the wing... reminds you of crappy vienna sausages... you hesitate... you bite... and you realize that fried scorpions aren't really that bad. i love duck, for god's sake. i wanted to eat and enjoy. instead, the combo of the duck wing and a few chicken flavour pringles (also available in airport gift shop) sent my appetite packing for the night. here you see alison and andrew enjoying their wings. andrew is marvelously oblivious in his ipod distraction.

after hours--shanghai

the indomitable lin lin of jellymon with her equally intriguing friend. this shanghai crew was really fun, very cosmopolitan and definitely up to speed on all fronts. there were aussies, canadians, chinese, japanese, europeans and us americans all hanging out and talking about making and doing the things we will all be reading, blogging, hyping in the coming years. although our stay in shanghai was brief, it was the most comfortable city as far as cultural atmosphere goes. strangely enough, the local art scenes still seemed to be in its infancy relative to beijing.

after hours--shanghai

went to a spot after delish duck dish for drinks and to meet with a group of shanghai graffiti artists. this is a guy named SEAF sharing his black book with us. it's strange that graffiti even happens in china, considering the generally represssive government. however, according to these guys the police don't do anything as long as graffiti is only going up in certain places and neighborhoods. another instance where the government seems to be looking the other way while a creative culture takes hold in the younger generation.

peking duck in shanghai?

seems out of place, but it was as tasty as in peking/beijing. cut in front of us and served in three distinct courses. chinatown ain't got nothin' on this. and the chef looks like a ghost!

thrasher on the streets of shanghai

i came across this scene on the way to and from moca shanghai. some young shaman in a thrashing trance state above his sleeping eldery family member? all i know is that i was in the museum for at least 1.5 hours and i have no reason to believe that he ever wavered. unless, of course, he was just putting on a show for me...

hello pizza shanghai

"hello? pizza?"

moca shanghai

despite what you may think you know about the quality of chinese manufacturing, chinese artists are creating a lot of sculpture out of cast resin and metal with an incredibly high level of production value. granted, material and manufacturing costs are tremendously lower in china, and young chinese artists are taking full advantage. i saw quite a bit of sculpture throughout the galleries and museums in china that was ambitious in scale and finish. i was not always sold on the concepts, and some pieces definitely derived from the work of popular western artists, however i found the initiative and enthusiasm commendable. some pieces of interest, from top to bottom:

1. "the desire of a mosquito" by zhuang kolkoi, resin complete with mosquito sound effect

2. "finger pointed childish ox" by wallace chan, carved from obsidian

3. "divorce self from reality and act blindly" by liang binbin, koons-like cast metal with a hirst-like title

moca shanghai

this piece was pretty cool. as you can see, it is scaled model of all the plumbing fixtures and lines on a given floor of an apartment building. the piece was tall enough that you could walk underneath.

moca shanghai

FIRE CAT!

moca shanghai

after visiting zhang huan, a local friend of andrew wongs from his parsons days took us to moca shanghai (museum of contemporary art for the art nubes--sorry if that sounds snooty).

her name is lin lin and she runs jellymon (www.jellymon.com) with her boyfriend sam jacobs. they have some good stuff and apparently lin lin knows everyone in the world. after my return from china i was at a party and the hostess had a polaroid of her and lin lin sitting together. it was one of those classic "how do you know lin lin?" "how do you know her?" moments... she and sam had designed a nouveau tea room in the cafe area of the museum. adjacent to the tea room was a wall mural that looked half finished. however, it did sport the likeness of andy warhol and terry richardson (?). never got the full story on that one.

zhang huan studio--shanghai

i couldn't take pics inside the studio, but i got some shots of the surrounding industrial park.

zhang huan studio--shanghai

i generally don't go for the celebrity pic, but this guy is an art star and a swell fella, to boot.  

zhang huan studio--shanghai

he is also executing large scale "paintings", which are also made of incense ash.  apparently, he collects ash from temples across china.  he then has his assistants sort the ash by tone, texture and colour.  then the ash is dropped onto the surface of the canvas to produce surprisingly precise images.  again, the stability of the surface is a mystery.  there must be some sort of binder, but the surface still looks delicate and light.

zhang huan studio--shanghai

zhang huan was also working on several buddha sculptures.  the large hand is mad of copper and/or bronze.  the figures are made of compressed incense ash collected from the buddhist temples.  clearly, this is a very tricky material to utilize.  one might assume that he would use some sort of binder, like resin, to hold the ash together.  however, the surface seems to be much too delicate and soft for that to be the case.  the end result is quite impressive.

zhang huan studio--shanghai

i saw a version of these sculptures at a pace wildenstein show in chelsea about 2 years ago.  they are called "giants" and are large-scale bio-morphic figures that are covered in full cow pelts (hooves and all) that are attached to the forms via large, visible staples.  if memory serves, the images that show the high, trussed ceilings must have been shot in his studio at some point.  there were two more of these "giants" completed in his studio space.

zhang huan studio--shanghai

we were fortunate enough to be invited to visit the main production studio of zhang huan, one of the most famous artists in china.  he came to international prominence as a performance artist in the 90's (including the performance of him walking through new york in a suit made of cuts of meat pictured here).  more recently he has been working in large scale sculpture and painting.  while zhang huan was very friendly and accommodating, he requested that we not take photographs in his studio.  however, i did find several images online that depict the projects (or at least the types of projects) that we was executing in his studio with a society of assistants.  

shanghai

this image was on a sign in the m50 art district.  not sure if it was related to an art exhibition or gallery, but it caught my eye.  check out the nuggets on that dead donkey.  damn!  now that's good eatin'!

shanghai

while the government is very strict about topics of sexuality and pornography, i was happy to see that not all of the sex toys produced in china are for export only...  if you zoom in, you can clearly see pink phalluses and nipple clips from the street--neat!

island 6 arts center--shanghai

i was diggin' on this sofa at island 6.

island 6 arts center--shanghai

this may have been my favourite piece of art that i saw in all of china.  the expression on the dogs face is priceless.

shine art space--shanghai

there is an art district in shanghai called the m50.  our first stop was the shine art space where we saw a series of large scale paintings and installations by zhong biao.  andrew wong was a good sport and  mirrored the seemingly ubiquitous outstretched arm pose of the camera phone generation--what a card.

massage time--shanghai

we got into shanghai late night but andrew wong and i decided to head out to a massage parlour anyway.  while i'm sure there are plenty of happy ending spots in shanghai, we went to one of the nicer, legit, spas in the city.  it was a different from any massage experience i have ever had.  the attendants lead us down a candle lit hallway to a private room.  they proceed to give us a change of clothes consisting of lightweight, pyjama type pants and buttoned shirt.  then they take our food and drink order.  i think i had some soup and tea.  after a relaxed snack, two men came in to inflict rigorous, dry massage on us.  i'm pretty sure it was the most intense massage i have ever received.  final bill...less than $20 US. 

cao chang di--beijing

i was nearly as impressed by the roof structure as i was by the art work at boers li gallery.

cao chang di--beijing

this is the boers li gallery.  the space was immense and seemed like it could have been an airplane hangar at one point.  the artist is song kun, from inner mongolia.  her work consisted of very simple graphite drawings, cut-outs and small objects on paper.  the frames reminded me of mathew barney's self-lubricating plastic frames.  overall, a mixed bag.  some pieces were impressive and others disappointing.  

cao chang di--beijing

another of the hologram sculptures.  obviously, this is a chinese honky rooster.

cao chang di--beijing

 

at pekin fine arts.  these hologram boxes were done by a japanese artist named kohei nawa.  the effect doesn't translate incredibly well to video, but in person these images seemed to pop open out of their lucite boxes with a hyperreal dimensionality.  this is a hologram sculpture of a spotted panther

cao chang di--beijing

not sure of the gallery or artist, but i enjoyed looking at this piece.  so simple, yet so intriguing.  just cascading plumes of smoke mirrored along a central axis, no sound.  the piece was projected on a 12 foot tall wall.  i watched it for a while...until i felt the vertigo.

cao chang di--beiing

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another great gallery in cao chang di was pekin fine arts.  they had several large halls dedicated to large scale video projections and installations.  while 798 had the soul of the old front and present, cao chang di had more of a slicked out chelsea vibe.  impressive spaces not trying to hide their white box aspirations.  this video installation was interesting.  the calm music juxtaposed with the classroom propaganda atmosphere.  i don't know what the text said, but the irony still registered

cao chang di--beijing

another video installation an han ji yun.  gotta love the dog spouting/spitting truisms on the nature of humanity and god.  this installation had several (about 8) projections on the walls in one room.  each projector showed the dog "writing" the same text in different languages and alphabets.  not only is the pup eloquent, but also multi-lingual

cao chang di--beijing

this video was on display at han ji yun gallery, which is a south korean based gallery.  don't recall the artists name unfortunately.  

cao chang di--beijing

another one of those instances where you want it to be an art installation, but it turns out to just be the storage area of a gallery.  maybe i'll start making "storage area art".

cao chang di--beijing

no story here.  just a pic that i liked taken in cao chang di.