Zhang Hui once acted the lead role in a movie called Soap Opera, by Wu Ershan. The plot revolved around a middle-aged man who was tortured by the racket of everyday life, constantly struggling in the intermediary space between normal and abnormal. The expression of the man’s face was always that of numbness, like a […]

As a platform for my findings and proposals, octomat.com was formed in 1996 as entrepreneurial design research model. Octomat works to link the disciplines of industrial design, sculpture, multimedia, animation and cultural studies with a broad interest in game theories in order to contemplate the game as metaphor. The octomat logo is a brand-figuration of […]

China is no doubt the most attractive centre of attention for the world today, not only in terms of its economic development, but also in terms of its cultural and social mutations. Accordingly, China’s contemporary art is becoming a new emerging force in the global art scene at the beginning of the 21st century. The […]

German-Danish sculptor, painter and performance artist Christian Lemmerz has been known for his incredible life-like marble sculptures, blood paintings and installations of dead pigs in display cases since the 80s. I had a rather arbitrary talk to Christian about his oeuvre, audience and the current state of art. Much like Christian’s artworks, our conversation circled […]

Ask Tony Gill, 39, what the role of the artist is and he’ll answer: “Shaman.” Healing through art is exactly what Gill has been doing for the last two decades. Having grown up in England, Gill first decided he wanted to be an artist when he was at an exhibition with his mother. She pointed […]

“Bodies discovering dreams” is the theme of this year’s Beijing International Dance Festival, an event that started in 2004 and that, for the first time, dedicates an annual contribution to the cultural environment of the capital city while providing the artists with more communication opportunities. From this perspective, body and language are today brought onto […]

Popular culture in everyday life is all around us. It should be the most familiar and common thing. However, as Hegel said: familiarity is not true knowledge. We actually know very little of the popular culture in our everyday life. From the beginning of the 20th century, due to its fast development, society has gradually […]

Jon Schluenz is a New York based artist who works with paintings, installations and sculpture. His latest show in the M Gallery titled “M is for Mmmm” proves him to be not only talented, but also on his way up in the New York art scene. I had a talk with Jon about his thoughts […]

It was a surprise to meet a genuine, happy girl with positive energy when sitting down with the young, New York-based artist Ali Gallagher, whom I knew painted dark and vivid imagery.  I talked with Ali and discussed her recent artworks. We touched upon how death, spirituality and the unknown influence her overall aesthetic.Victoria Mayer: […]

The notion of uncertainty is both disconcerting and liberating. By definition, uncertainty resists definition. Most synonyms for the word carry negative connotations: doubt, skepticism, mistrust, suspicion. While the term may seem unsettling, and perhaps appropriately reflects a shared awareness of the complexity of modern life, uncertainty can also be quite compelling in an artistic context. […]