The Intrude project made several of the "Best" lists on Art Forum. Biljana Ciric an Art Forum writer and also Head of the Curatorial Dept. at the Zendai Museum for the Intrude project listed it at #3. She writes……………
3. "Intrude: Art and Life 366" (Zendai MoMA, Shanghai) One of the larger projects of the year, Intrude attempted to bring art out of the white cube and into the public sphere. It was an ambitious project, with one artist or work per day, and the different reactions of media, artists, and others made for an interesting year. (I was involved as a member of the curatorial team for this project.) Perhaps its biggest contribution was its attempt to establish dialogues with very different social groups and fields of inquiry that had previously had no contact with contemporary art. At this scale, it becomes difficult to speak of curatorial discourse or critical intent, but it nonetheless created possibilities and opened passages, hinting at future directions for art in Shanghai
http://artforum.com.cn/angle/1381
Biljana Ciric will be presenting this April at the Transcultural Exchange Conference hosted by Mary Sherman in Boston, MA.
Saturday, April 4, 20094:00 pm – 5:00 pm
LATE AFTERNOON SESSIONS
Country Overview of Programs for Artists: China,
Moderator: M. Isabel Meirelles, Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts,
Northeastern University
Presenter: Biljana Ciric, Free-Lance Curator based in China
For more conference info:
www.transculturalexchange.org
Four artists, Anne Laprade Seuthe, Alicia Hunsicker, Deborah Garner, and Laura “Lola” Baltzell presented their project “Eye to Eye” to the Intrude: Art & Life 366 Interdisciplinary Art Exhibition at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China. Their project addresses the concept of seeing “eye to eye” both individually and culturally to broaden understanding and respect of other points of view.
About Intrude Art & Life 366 and the Zendai MoMA
Zendai Museum of Modern Art invites you to Intrude: Art & Life 366 in Shanghai. Intrude: Art & Life 366 is an unprecedented event in the city of Shanghai. Starting January 1, 2008 and ending on December 31, 2008, Zendai MoMA will present a cultural event to the people of Shanghai every single day of the year. This cross-cultural and interdisciplinary project is called Intrude: Art & Life 366 and aims to intervene in people’s daily lives, engage them to take part in art happenings and stimulate the public debate on art. An event of this scale and influence has never taken place in China before.
Curated by the director of the Zendai MoMA, Mr. Shen Qibin, Intrude: Art & Life 366 is a interdisciplinary project that connects culture and daily life in many forms and through different media. With a total of 366 events happening throughout the year, the events will be very diverse and will come from different cultural fields — exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances, concerts, film screenings, debates, etc. In order to present their work differently, artists will explore new concepts and venture out into the public sphere
Intrude: Art & Life 366 will present 366 different cultural events, taking place in public and private venues like parks, gardens, squares, shopping areas, etc. 100 Chinese and 266 international artists will participate, including local and internationally well-known artists and curators like Gu Wenda, Wang Jianwei, Yang Fudong, Xu Zhen, etc. There will also be collaborations with local and foreign institutions like the National Acadamy of Art in Hangzhou, the Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics, College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales in Australia, Institut pour la Ville-en-Mouvement in Paris etc.
Intrude: Art & Life 366 was created as a long-term project, continuing beyond the 366 days of events. All of the events will be methodically archived and will be presented in the future as international touring exhibitions. In addition, Zendai MoMA will regularly publish catalogues with scholarly essays on the projects and related ideas and issues, and magazines to inform people on the progress of the project.
ABOUT Zendai MoMA - Founded in 2005 and located in Pudong New Area in Shanghai, Zendai MoMA exhibits and collects innovative contemporary art from China and around the world. Zendai MoMA’s diverse program covers a broad spectrum of cultural activities, including film screenings, talks and educational events, theatre and music performances, and exhibiting visual and new media arts. The museum facilities include 4 galleries, a classroom, a gift shop/bookshop and a café. Covering 3000m2, and located in one of the fastest-developing areas of Shanghai, Zendai MoMA functions as a bridge between the local and international community, connecting both to the world of arts.
Curated by the director of the Zendai MoMA, Mr. Shen Qibin, Intrude: Art & Life 366 is a interdisciplinary project that connects culture and daily life in many forms and through different media. With a total of 366 events happening throughout the year, the events will be very diverse and will come from different cultural fields — exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances, concerts, film screenings, debates, etc. In order to present their work differently, artists will explore new concepts and venture out into the public sphere
Intrude: Art & Life 366 will present 366 different cultural events, taking place in public and private venues like parks, gardens, squares, shopping areas, etc. 100 Chinese and 266 international artists will participate, including local and internationally well-known artists and curators like Gu Wenda, Wang Jianwei, Yang Fudong, Xu Zhen, etc. There will also be collaborations with local and foreign institutions like the National Acadamy of Art in Hangzhou, the Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics, College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales in Australia, Institut pour la Ville-en-Mouvement in Paris etc.
Intrude: Art & Life 366 was created as a long-term project, continuing beyond the 366 days of events. All of the events will be methodically archived and will be presented in the future as international touring exhibitions. In addition, Zendai MoMA will regularly publish catalogues with scholarly essays on the projects and related ideas and issues, and magazines to inform people on the progress of the project.
ABOUT Zendai MoMA - Founded in 2005 and located in Pudong New Area in Shanghai, Zendai MoMA exhibits and collects innovative contemporary art from China and around the world. Zendai MoMA’s diverse program covers a broad spectrum of cultural activities, including film screenings, talks and educational events, theatre and music performances, and exhibiting visual and new media arts. The museum facilities include 4 galleries, a classroom, a gift shop/bookshop and a café. Covering 3000m2, and located in one of the fastest-developing areas of Shanghai, Zendai MoMA functions as a bridge between the local and international community, connecting both to the world of arts.
Eye to Eye project Summary
This project was created specifically with the intentions of Intrude 366 in mind and took place on Dec. 18, 2008 in Thumb Plaza in front of the Zendai Museum in Shanghai, China.
“Eye to Eye” is a North American expression that means two individuals (or groups) agree to acknowledge each other’s viewpoints. It is a courageous act to see “Eye to Eye”. It
causes one to open oneself to the possibility of new thinking. It is a step towards standing on common ground and arriving at mutual understanding In this time of cross cultural exchange, it is more important than ever that this concept of seeing “Eye to Eye” be promoted.
For Intrude 366, four American artists using the simplest of means, and drawing on over 2000 years of Eastern and Western art history, will construct a strand
comprised of 734 visual representations of eyes sourced from centuries of evolving culture. (366 on front and 366 on back)
In “Eye to I”, we will use standard 4.25 inch long shipping tags as surfaces. Onto the front and backside of each tag’s surface we will print or paint image of eyes culled from the canons of art history: From anonymous portraits painted in 3rd century c.e. Central Asian cave paintings to the expressive eyes of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, to the stylized eyes of
Warhol’s celebrities, and to the piercing eyes of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, each of the participating artists will select eye imagery, enlarge them to fit the each side of a standard tag and transfer them to the surfaces using traditional and non-traditional painting and printing techniques
such as linoleum block prints and Xerox transfers. Strong visual impact and unity will be produced through the use of the standard surface and by maintaining a restricted palette of
blacks, reds, and golds. Each tag will have one Eastern eye and one Western eye - adding another layer of the original concept of Eye to Eye. The resulting Eye to Eye strand will be held out at chest level with one of the participating artists holding the first tag at one end and a partner artist based in Shanghai holding the first tag at the other end. This will result in approximately meters of these historic images being exhibited. Once the entire strand is on display, pedestrians will be invited to cut a tag from either end.
As this performance takes place the three accompanying artists will be documenting the performance through video and photography and inviting the public to participate, facilitating the cutting away.
Each cut tag that people take away will serve as a talisman towards seeing eye to eye. With each tag that is cut, the two representatives from the East and the West will take one
step closer to each other. When all 366 tags have been cut and given away, the two artists will stand firmly and confidently, physically and emotionally: Eye to Eye.
In Summary, the Eye to Eye project collapses the past with the future. It places us in the present to combine images that may be obscure with images that have saturated contemporary culture. Eye to Eye underscores the commonality between East and West.
Using the simplest of means, Eye to Eye offers profound possibility for forging a rich collaborative cultural vision for the future.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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2 comments:
What a wonderful project "Eye to Eye" is! I wish you success - and endurance is completing all those paintings. Will you show it locally before it moves to China?
We presented the Eye to Eye project Dec.18th in Shanghai, China. It was well received and we had a great time giving away the Eye tags. We had about a month to each paint 92 double sided tags. I finished my last one on the day we left for China!
Both Deborah and I are still being inspired to create "eye" art and are hoping that we can do some sort of show or artist talk in the future here in Western, MA. I am not sure if you were able to see the whole blog where you can see pictures in other blog entries about China but if you enter the blog at
http://eyetoeye-intrudes.blogspot.com/ instead of a specific blog entry you should be able to see all the info posted.
I love your new Eye piece!
Thanks for connecting,
Alicia
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