More than thirty renowned scholars, artists, and practitioners in visual arts, performance, and other cultural fields from around the world will gather in Bangkok to discuss and reflect on the dynamic, ongoing echoes of the ancient trading route Silk Road and its multiple dimensions in a four-day symposium titled “The Making Of the New Silk Roads” from Thursday, August 27th, through Sunday, August 30th. Hosted and organized by ArtHub, a Hong Kong based non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting art creation in China and the rest of Asia, the symposium aims to reassess the complex interconnections within Asia’s cultural and artistic spectrum at the beginning of the 21st century. To take place at the Bangkok University Gallery (BUG), in collaboration with the Prince Claus Fund, Bangkok University, National Research Center of the Kingdom of Thailand, with additional support from Mondriaan Foundation and ANA (Singapore), the summit will feature Arthub’s “collaborative intelligence” participants from across Asia including China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Turkey, Georgia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and beyond, along with additional participants from the prestigious Prince Claus Fund Network Partnership Program.

This four-day program will not only feature lively discussions of shared experiences among peers, examining the recent rapid developments in Asia, and among its cast of characters, issues, and mediums, but also provide an exciting forum, reflecting on the dynamic, ongoing echoes of the ancient trading route of the Silk Road in its multiple dimensions. Proposing the Silk Road as a variable metaphor for instable connections and uncertain achievements, and taking it as a departure point for continued reflections upon Asia’s cultural landscape, Arthub aims to carry this out by inviting artists, curators, and cultural thinkers from a wide array of viewpoints to go beyond a recitation of ideas or positions, and instead to bring presenters, participants, and audiences together as they explore, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of performative responses to Silk Road’s highly constructed symbolisms. Each artist and/or scholar will present a specific artwork/presentation/installation that not only implies a possible story-telling about a specific condition from his/her respective, particular context such as issues of cultural circulation, social/political activism, and the marketplace) but also that tests the idea of Silk Road’s potency for cultural hybridity across Asia in general.

To be presented in the form of a series of newly commissioned works including installations, lecture-performances, TV shows, radio interviews and publications, this collaborative symposium will put a special emphasis on process-oriented, and research-, dialogue-based artistic positions across Asia. Through the means of commissioning new responses, establishing dialogue months prior to the symposium, and enabling an alternative live context for investigation of dynamic cultural issues by its very own very actors, Arthub is committed to inspiring new forms of artistic and aesthetic experiments in China and rest of Asia. Arthub also aims to re-examine the contested idea of the cultural encounter with the “other,” and turn these peer-to-peer encounters into a generator of new impulses for the analysis of complex historical processes within the cultural systems in Asia. The symposium will be video recorded, and a film + catalogue will be produced. The outcome will be geared towards touring as an exhibition later in 2010. Yet as with the symposium’s multiplicity of strategies, the resulting exhibition will be open for constant negotiation and reformulation.

Participants include:

Agung Kurniawan, artist/curator, Indonesia

Alexander Ugay, artist, Kazakhstan

David Cotterrell, artist, UK

Els Silvrants, curator, Theatre in Motion, Belgium/China

Gary Pastrana, artist, Philippines

Ho Tzu Nyen, artist, Singapore

Howard Chan, artist/curator, Hong Kong

Iani Arahmaiani, artist, Indonesia

Jiang Jun, editor, Urban China, Beijing, China

Kyong Park, architect, University of California, USA/Korea

Lina Saneh, artist, Lebanon

Mu Qian, ethnomusicologist, China

Nikusha Chkhaidze (Nika), artist, Georgia

Onno Dirker, artist/researcher, The Netherlands

Pratchaya Phinthong, artist, Thailand

Rahraw Omarzad, curator/artist, Afghanistan

Samah Hijawi, artist, Space Makan, Jordan

Shaarbek Amankul, artist, bArt Center, Kyrgyzstan

Stefan Rusu, artist/curator, Center for Contemporary Art, Chisinau , Moldavia

Hakan Topal, artist, xurban collective, Turkey/USA

Zoe Butt, curator, Long March Project, Beijing/Southeast Asia (sharing work by artists Erin Gleeson, Rattana Vandy, Nguyen Trinh Thi)

Seph Rodney, Ph.D. candidate, University of London- Birkbeck College, UK

Veronica Sekules, Head of Education at the Sainsbury Centre, UK

Adeline Ooi, curator/writer, RogueArt, Malaysia

Agung Hujatnikajennong, artist, Indonesia

Le Huy Hoang, artist, Vietnam/Cambodia

Supersudaca, architects/artists collective, South America/The Netherlands

Edwin Zwakman and Liu Gang, artists, the Netherlands/China

Speedism, artist collective, Belgium/Germany

And more !

The symposium is organized by Arthub’s Davide Quadrio, Defne Ayas, and Ark Fongsmut, with coordination support from Monvilai Rojanatanti.

Side events

In addition to the Symposium, Arthub, BUG and NRCT will organize side activities, including nightly video art screenings as part of this programme. Participants aprovide a selection of video work coming from their countries. The video program will be available end of July. Details about the Symposium and related events are available at www.arthubasia.org.

About Arthub

Supporting contemporary art creation in China and rest of Asia, Arthub serves as a creative think tank, a collaborative production lab as well as a research platform for new art and ideas, cutting-edge projects and dialogue within the visual arts and new media. Inspired by the opportunities generated by the collective intelligence of the thinkers across media in the region, Arthub is committed to furthering experimentation, knowledge-production and diversity among dedicated artists, art professionals and arts organizations. Arthub’s mission is to 1. identify, provide, and enable intellectual, strategic, logistical and financial means for ambitious new artistic projects and by Chinese and Asian contemporary artists; 2. actively facilitate an informal network of contemporary artists, art professionals and writers, both within the region and beyond- starting first with an Asia-wide exchange platform and community, where different ideas and individuals merge, interact and motivate each other, 3. act as a catalyzer of the same people who want to share and initiate ideas for projects including knowledge production, symposia, and publications; and 4. continue to develop new and informed audiences through educational initiatives. Arthub is registered a non-for-profit foundation in Hong Kong, with three directors based across Asia.

About Bangkok University Gallery (BUG)

Bangkok University Gallery (BUG) is a leading non-profit gallery based in the university focusing on contemporary art. It is the most dynamic gallery in Bangkok with almost a hundred of national and international exhibitions since its inauguration. BUG has just celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2006 and moved to the new building

About NRCT

One of the major functions of the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) is to coordinate and promote cooperation with international researchers and research institutes. The promotion of foreign researchers to conduct research in Thailand accordingly has been performing since 1963 under the control of NRCT Regulation of the Permission of Foreign Researchers to Conduct Research in Thailand.

Symposium Contacts:

Mr Davide Quadrio, davide at arthubasia.org

Ms Defne Ayas, defne at arthubasia.org

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ArtHub
A not-for-profit organization supporting the contemporary art creation in China and rest of Asia
Correspondence address:
Unit 201 – Building 7
50 Moganshan Road, Shanghai 200060

LORIS CECCHINI: DOTSANDLOOPS
Prato, Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci
Fino al 2 agosto 2009

Si è inaugurata sabato 4 aprile alle ore 18 presso il Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato la mostra: LORIS CECCHINI: DOTSANDLOOPS. Curata da Marco Bazzini e Stefano Pezzato, la rassegna si pone come la più completa e dettagliata panoramica sull’attività di Loris Cecchini. La mostra, realizzata in stretta collaborazione con l’artista, si sviluppa entro un articolato e suggestivo percorso appositamente ideato da Cecchini e dai curatori per le sale espositive del Pecci.
A caratterizzare questa straordinaria rassegna, che ripercorre le fasi principali della ricerca artistica dell’autore, interventi ambientali uniti ad un’ampia selezione di fotografie, sculture e installazioni realizzate dalla metà degli anni Novanta ad oggi. Loris Cecchini, da sempre impegnato nell’indagine dell’oggetto e dello spazio, con questa importante personale si afferma quale artista fra i più apprezzati in Italia e all’estero.
La rassegna si apre con una serie di installazioni/ambienti, ovvero, “esercizi di architettura”, che sviluppano un’idea del luogo modificandone il rapporto dello spettatore con esso. Si inserisce in questo gruppo di lavori l’opera Disegno Reticolare, un’enorme griglia volumetrica percorribile che prende ispirazione da Density Spectrum ZoneAround and Around (2002-2004), installazioni ottenute dalla deformazione e concatenazione di elementi in pvc che si sviluppano nello spazio. Il percorso espositivo segue con la nuova versione di , paesaggio schematico modellato tridimensionalmente al computer e riprodotto come reticolo prospettico a tromp-l’oeil sulle pareti di una stanza, presentato e realizzato nel 2001 come progetto speciale per la Casa della musica - Sonar di Colle Val d’Elsa.
Per Cecchini l’ideazione e la formazione di “strutture” si articola in una serie di involucri e moduli abitativi intitolati Monologue Patterns: Matrici (2003) costituita da schizzi progettuali realizzati in digitale e intagliati su superfici grigie di pvc e Crisalide (Premio per la giovane arte italiana, 2005), sorta di serra artificiale intesa come zona di interscambio tra organismo naturale e forma architettonica transfigurata. Alla serie Monologue Patterns appartengono anche le Roulottes (2004-2007): oggetti-ambiente trasformati in “veicoli di luce” che proiettano ombre di griglie reticolari o trafori modulari che li ricoprono, oppure in luoghi trasparenti che ospitano al proprio interno piante, libri, oggetti d’affezione praticabili dal pubblico.
La relazione diretta con lo spazio e la passione per la morfologia biologica si manifesta con l’espansione di bolle e la proliferazione di forme organiche, molecolari o artificiali prodotte con metalli e materie plastiche. L’artista realizza la serie dei corpi estrusi in resina che come scheletri (Morphic Resonance, 2004-2007) o elementi familiari all’architettura emergono dalle pareti assumendo l’aspetto surreale di finestre, librerie e termosifoni (Gaps, 2004-2009), oppure si aggrappano alle architetture sotto forma di grandi gonfiabili trasparenti e sospesi nello spazio (Blaublobbing, 2004-2009).
Il percorso espositivo procede con le foto-assemblaggi degli esordi dove, con la fotografia rielaborata al computer, Cecchini crea ambienti fittizi abitati da personaggi reali, abitacoli trasparenti, (No casting, 1997-1999), vedute esterne associate a cromie accese, morfologie fluttuanti di bolle, involucri trasparenti, (Powderscape/Seedscape/Pigmentscape, 2005-2007), modelli 3D di alberi e foto di icebergs ricostruiti in studio con modelli architettonici d’invenzione (The painted distances, 2008 e Sliding constructions and drifting  thoutghs, 2008-2009).
Si passa poi alla replica di oggetti, elaborazione di “modelli” virtuali ottenuti manipolando materiale analogico che accostato alle messe in scena spaziali trasfigurano la realtà destabilizzandone la percezione. Nella versione tridimensionale proposta con la serie Stage Evidence (1998-2007), l’artista ironizza sull’idea di “usura dello sguardo”. Su scala ambientale, invece, i “modelli” virtuali acquistano un impatto fortemente scenico facendosi carico della denuncia sociale come in BBBreathless, lavoro presentato alla Biennale di Venezia, nel 2001, costituito da una cella d’isolamento per condannati a morte dotata di un sofisticato sistema di aerazione che imprime alle pareti in gomma un movimento simile alla respirazione, in espansione e contrazione. L’elaborazione di “modelli” virtuali prosegue con Empty walls - Just doors (2006), serie di porte replicate in gomma e installate in modo da formare uno spazio labirintico, quasi sospeso fra senso del mistero e claustrofobia.
Alla più recente ricerca appartengono le installazioni immaginifiche, opere composte da migliaia di moduli in polietilene o acciaio, che fluttuano nello spazio come onde (Morphing Wave, 2005-2007), rimangono sospese come nuvole (Cloudless, 2005-2007) o si stagliano nell’ambiente come concrezioni naturali o minerali (Steelorbitalcocoon, 2007-2009). Realizzate attraverso un laborioso processo di progettazione, fabbricazione e montaggio, queste installazioni evidenziano un complesso impianto tecnico, base di tutta la produzione artistica di Cecchini. Da questi lavori emerge la curiosità dell’autore per i prodotti artificiali e le tecniche di lavorazione, per la chimica e la fisica degli elementi, unitamente alla costante ricerca di un’esperienza diretta con la materia associata a forme di crescita organica e di aggregazione cellulare.
La mostra è accompagnata da un nuovo catalogo, con i testi critici di Marco Bazzini e Lorand Hegyi, testi dello stesso artista, oltre ad esaurienti apparati iconografici e bio-bibliografici.

LORIS CECCHINI - DOTSANDLOOPS
Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci
Prato, dal 5 aprile al 2 agosto 2009

Apertura: ore 10-19, chiuso martedì
Visite guidate gratuite: ogni sabato e domenica, ore 17
Biglietti: intero 5€, ridotto 4€
Ufficio Stampa: Ku.Ra Comunicazione, Rosi Fontana
Via Garibaldi 63, Pisa, Italy
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