Do museums matter? Looking beyond cultural nationalism in Asia

Dr Hongnam Kim
Wednesday 7 July
Hochhauser Auditorium, Victoria and Albert Museum
19.00-20.00

Dr Hongnam Kim, former Director of the National Museum of Korea and a leading thinker on cultural policy, gives a special lecture at the V&A. She will explore the changing role of cultural institutions in Korea and other Asian countries, as they respond to the challenge of demonstrating their value to their societies in the post colonial era. A drinks reception will follow the lecture at 20.00.
Free admission

  

(link) 

Daiwa Foundation Small Grants

Next deadline: 31 March

Website: www.dajf.org.uk

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation offers grants from £1,000- £5,000 to individuals, societies, associations or other bodies in the UK or Japan to promote and support interaction between the two countries. Grants can cover all fields of activity, including educational and grassroots exchanges, research travel, exhibitions, and other projects and events that fulfil this broad objective. There are two application deadlines each year, 31 March and 30 September.

East Asia Forum Quarterly (EAFQ) – Invitation for Articles from Emerging Scholars

The East Asia Forum (EAF), supported by The Australian National University (ANU) College of Business and Economics, is pleased to invite the submissions of articles from emerging scholars (35 years and younger) for publication in a special edition of the EAFQ. EAFQ seeks submissions from up-and-coming scholars on the issue of Asia’s economic and political challenges and how to deal with them. Articles may address this subject from a regional, sub-regional, national, or thematic perspective. Selected articles will be published in the special edition of EAFQ and online.

The authors of submissions selected for publication will receive travel and expenses to attend a Roundtable of Emerging Scholars of Asia at the ANU, 12-14 July. The Roundtable will be held in conjunction with the China Update at the ANU.

In addition, the article judged best and the article which receives the largest number of unique hits on EAF will receive prizes of AU$1,000.

The closing date for submissions is 5pm, 2 April, 2010.

For further information and submission requirements click here.
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/EAFQ_Emerging_Scholars.pdf

Chiharu Shiota at Haunch of Venison

A Room of Memory, 2009

1000 windows
Installation view at 21th Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanzawa, Japan
© Chiharu Shiota 2009, Photography: Sunhi Mang

West Galleries
19 February - 27 March

From the gallery website:

"Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota will present her first UK solo exhibition this winter at Haunch of Venison London, following her UK debut at the Hayward Gallery in 2009 in the group show Walking in my Mind.

The exhibition will include a major installation made from over 400 found windows from East Berlin where the artist lives and works, collected over the years from deserted and dismantled buildings, construction sites, disused psychiatric hospitals and uninhabited apartments. Stacked ceiling-high, lit from the inside, the frames are layered and combined to create their own building or structure, the windows transformed into something nearly spiritual. Central to the artist's work are the themes of remembrance and oblivion, dreaming and sleeping, traces of the past and her childhood, and the dealing with anxieties. Several years ago Shiota started working on room-filling; impenetrable installations made of black thread which arose from the artist's desire to draw in the air, and the start of the artist's Trauma/Alltag and State of Being (Zustand des Seins) series. These disorienting cocoons of black yarn often enclose various household and everyday, personal objects, a burnt-out piano, a wedding dress, a lady's Mackintosh. Shiota will create a new installation especially for the Haunch of Venison exhibition, as well a series of smaller boxed thread works, holding children's clothing, toys, scissors or mirrors."

Website

4482 Sasapari

25 - 28 February 2010
Open Daily 11am - 6pm
Private View: Thu 25 6-8 pm
Admission Free

An exhibition showcasing the work of 53 contemporary Korean artists living and working in the UK. Venue: Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, Southbank, London, SE1 9PH

Website

Zhang Enli at Hauser & Wirth

Sky, 2009, Oil on canvas, 230 x 200 cm / 90 1/2 x 78 3/4 in

15 January – 27 February 2010, Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly

Hauser & Wirth is pleased to announce Zhang Enli’s first solo exhibition in London. Zhang Enli has created a new series of works that continue to invest life into the most common of signifiers from details of trees and lace curtains to bare mattresses and rubber tubing.

Hauser & Wirth

Dazed and Tiger celebrate the Chinese New Year

Dazed & Confused and Tiger Beer will be bringing in the year of the Tiger with four specially curated events in London's Chinatown.

| Published 12 January 2010

Photography by Pixie Felton

Image Gallery

Dazed & Confused and Tiger Beer will be getting together to welcome the year of the Tiger and celebrate Chinese New Year 2010 in style. With four special events all happening on Thursday February 11, we will be taking over some of London Chinatown's most well-known restaurants to showcase a new wave of exciting Chinese creative talent.

We will be exhibiting a mix of post-apocalytic visions, melting landscapes and video installations by artists Gordon Cheung, Gayle Chong Kwan and Suki Chan at the New Loon Fung restaurant. The legendary Chuen Cheung Ku will play host to a trio of Chinese photographers; Kai Z Feng, Madi Ju and Li Wei. At the Prince Charles Cinema, we will be screening the award-winning feature debut She, a Chinese by director and novelist Xiaolu Guo.

Super producer Howie B who has travelled to China regularly will be DJ at our New World party along with a live performance from electronic duo White from Beijing. You can then pop along back to Prince Charles for a midnight screening of the classic A Chinese Ghost Story starring Leslie Cheung.

The Dazed February issue out next week will also come with a supplement with profiles of all participating artists as well as a mini-guide to the different Chinatowns in the UK.

Events Programme for Thursday February 11, 2010

New World (1 Gerrard Place) 9pm-12pm, Live Music and Party: White (Live), Howie B(DJ Set)

New Loon Fung (42-44 Gerrard Street) 7pm-11.30pm, Art Exhibition: Gordon Cheung, SUki Chan, Gayle Chong Kwan

Chuen Cheung Ku (17 Wardour Street) 7pm-11.30pm, Photography Exhibition: Kai Z Feng, Madi Ju, Li Wei

Prince Charles Cinema (7 Leicester Square) 6pm Screening of She, A Chinese (dir. Xiaolu Guo) and a midnight screening of a A Chinese Ghost Story

We are giving away 600 wristbands that will give access to all four events on the night. Click here for more details.

China: Birth and belonging

Performance Fri 26 Feb, 19.00-21.00. Talks and discussions Sat 27 Feb, 10.30-17.00.

With a population of over 1.3 billion, China is the most populous country in the world. Chinese ideas of family and the individual differ dramatically from those we see in the 'Identity' exhibition. In various ancient philosophies, a person's essence is founded in their interaction with the world. Life does therefore not begin at conception, but at birth. In traditional medicine the body is influenced by inheritance, the environment and also Qi ('breath of life').

How do these ideas influence an individual's sense of identity and belonging? By casting our thought to another nation, can we learn anything new about our own?

We have invited Sally Lai, Chief Executive Officer at the Chinese Arts Centre, to curate a special performance in Wellcome Collection on the Friday evening. There will also be an opportunity to see the 'Identity' exhibition and meet the curators.

On Saturday an international panel of speakers will explore the complex nature of Chinese identity. There will be sessions on ancient ideas of the body, individualisms, the diaspora, and contemporary biomedical ethics and science - as well as plenty of time for audience discussion.

Tickets must be booked in advance.
£30 full price / £20 concession for both days, including refreshments and lunch.
Please call 020 7611 2222 to book.

To accompany the Identity exhibition.

Contributing artists:
Yuen Fong Ling, Brendan Fan, Seaming To

Speakers:

Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Curator, 'Identity: Eight rooms, nine lives'.
Therese Hesketh, Professor of Global Health, UCL Centre for International Health and Development
Vivienne Lo, Senior Lecturer and Convenor of Asian Studies, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford
Jack Price, Professor of Developmental Neurobiology, King’s College London
Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner, Reader in Anthropology, University of Sussex
Diana Yeh, Visiting Lecturer, University of East London

Chair:
Toby Murcott, science journalist, author and broadcaster

More information

Artist talk: Kimsooja at Tate Modern

Kimsooja: Talking Art

Kimsooja, video still detail of Patan from A Needle Woman - Patan, Havana, Rio de Janeiro, N 'Djamena, Sana'a, Jerusalem, 2005 © Courtesy Kimsooja Studio

Saturday 20 February 2010, 14.00–15.30

Korean born artist Kimsooja is internationally known for her installations, films, photographs and performances. Her interest in fabrics references nomadic life in her trademark Bottari -bundles made of traditional Korean bedspreads, usually used to pack clothes.

This sense of wrapping and framing is also at the base of her video works, of which her multi channel pieces A Needle Woman and Mumbai: A Laundry Filed are the most striking examples. She is in conversation with film historian Maxa Zoeller.

In collaboration with Art Monthly

Tate Modern Starr Auditorium
£9 (£5 concessions), booking recommended

For tickets book online
or call 020 7887 8888

Laughing in a Foreign Language

by Mami Kataoka (Author), Simon Critchley (Contributor)

Features Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn

What is the role of laughter and humor in contemporary art? In a time of increasing globalization, this book questions whether humor can only be appreciated by people with similar cultural, political or historical backgrounds and memories, or whether laughter can act as a catalyst for understanding that which is not familiar. Do laughter and humor transcend difference and language, or are they dependent on inside knowledge and shared experience? Featuring illustrations of more than 70 video, photographic and installation works, this volume includes many artists who have relocated from their home countries, leading them to exploit the humor that arises out of everyday gaps in translation, or even to use humor to fill those gaps. Artists include Makoto Aida, Candice Breitz, Olaf Bruening, Marcus Coates, Cao Fei, Ghazel, Matthew Griffin, Taiyo Kimura, Peter Land, Julian Rosefledt, Shimabuku, Nedko Solakov, Roi Vaara, Martin Walde and others.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Laughing in a Foreign Language, The Hayward, London, UK, 25 January - 13 April, 2008.

Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: Hayward Publishing (March 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1853322660
ISBN-13: 978-1853322662

(possible resource for our conference next year)