Author Archives: jolanta
Forming Alliance
Showtime is meant as a series of events that will happen every two months in Shanghai inviting artists to explore possibilities of performance art under different themes that myself and artists find important after discussions. Performance art as a main activator of new ideas through development of Chinese contemporary art in the last ten years […]
Undetectable Grooming
Avi Davis: This will be an interview about art generated (largely) by interviews. So we’re operating with the ghosts of a lot of interviews looking over our shoulders. Did you ever feel like this was a commentary on the interview form, that the art is interviewing (or interrogating or commenting on) the interview that generated […]
From Body to Media
It took Qu Zhi-Hang eight years to finish the series See and Be Seen. It seems kind of random and ridiculous that this group of work has attracted so much attention in 2008, a special period of time that belongs to China. With much contemplation, however, one would realize the randomness is inevitable. It’s a […]
Brushing It In
Agnès Pezeu meets me with a wide smile, her long golden hair flowing. Her studio has the shape of a half moon. Canvases are hung like tapestries; others are rolled on the floor. She pulls out of the shelf her sketchbook. A series of heads drawn in charcoal appears on the page. In an ample […]
Hole of Desire
This year, aside from my collaborative projects, I have been making black photographs. The photographs are printed black from 4-by-5 negatives. Although no image can be seen in the print, the content is described in the titles: Woman Waiting (referencing a Faith Wilding piece), Two Friends at Home (referencing a Diane Arbus photograph of lesbians), […]
LOST UTOPIAS: Photographs by Jade Doskow
As any cynic will tell you, a utopia is not only a perfect world, but it is also a purely imaginary one. And looking to the word’s etymology, there’s some truth to this contention: “Utopia” comes from the Greek ou, “not” and topos, “place,” and so beneath the term’s idealism, there is an underlying pathos—the […]
Wild and Ecological
Contemporary art in Guizhou usually impresses viewers as “bizarre,” “neurotic,” and “whimsical.” People consider Guizhou as a place where there are no great artists. This is partly because Guizhou is located in the mountainous area southwest of China, which makes it difficult to reach, hence the lack of cultural exchange with the rest of the […]
Mementos of Fantasy
I shall be honest; I never was interested in photography in any form two years ago. I would look at a photo, perhaps in a magazine, on a billboard, but didn’t look any further than the image itself. I didn’t know any photographers, and didn’t go to galleries. However, I’ve always been interested in women, […]
Fiercely Fragile
I first came across Nava Lubelski’s work in 2007, during open studios at CUE Art Foundation while she was a resident artist there. Her delicate and sinuous abstractions beckoned me from across the room. It was only up close that I realized they were not just made of paint, nor were they merely drawn. The […]
Hawa Kaba
The Colors of the Mandé series was inspired by my recent trip to West Africa, my childhood home. The Colors of the Mandé series was inspired by my recent trip to West Africa, my childhood home. The colors of mud brick and indigo sky, the heat of the sun, and the dryness of the […]
