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Kan Xuan

28 April – 27 May 2006

Opening: 28th April 2006, 6 – 10 p.m.

Humor, lightness and grace as well as deep irony and dramatic sceneries characterize the works of the Chinese artist Kan Xuan. While using simple and clear images, she expresses her desire for a more direct, simple and original understanding of life.

Kan Xuan, born 1972 in XuanCheng, lives and works in Beijing and Amsterdam. As a visual artist she chooses different media like photography and video installation. Her first solo exhibition in Europe with BüroFriedrich concentrates on her video works. In a representative choice of her characteristic filmlets, projections of eight different works from the years 1999-2006, cumulate in a sound and image intensive installation.

Besides the tradition of Chinese picture language, Kan Xuan works in the language of international art and in particular of the international media. Using clearly and simply structured filmlets she describes in direct and understandable images what affects her personally. The single sequences are technically perfect, and to some extent composed to be visually irritating.

The peculiar spirit of Kan Xuan’s cheeky-feminine personality affects the short episodes of her works. With her maidenly light narration paired with deep irony she takes a stand against personal and social conditions. Her stories amuse, raising a smirk in the viewers face, and at the same time broach the issue of personally unpleasant or theoretically difficult problems. They do not try to provide an answer, but tell a story, whose continuation is optional.

Like this, the work Objects emerged from the preoccupation with the object and its material and color. Filmed in black and white, objects fall into a liquid. A new color from the palette of grey tones are assigned to them – eggs are white, blood is black, coins are white.

100times shows a 100 cups of the same series of manufacture, one after another smashed on the ground. With accent on the working process, each cup has been filled before with a different amount of ceramic glaze and baked in the oven. Manipulated in this way, each one has a different tone.

The work Countdown, however, is an attempt by the artist to grasp a moment in time. Standing on the historical Tiannamen Square, she counts the 60 seconds of a minute backwards. Counting the countdown with her fingers, she tries to reunite the past and the future for a moment, before she dissappers into the crowd.

Kan Xuan is currently showing her video work at the 9th Havanna Biennial, Cuba and the Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid. Also, her work is on display at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

Kan Xuan
Kan Xuan
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Kan Xuan, Countdownn
Kan Xuan, Countdownn

Biography

Kan Xuan lives and works in Beijing, China and Amsterdam Netherlands

1972        Born in Xuan Cheng, An’hui, China
1993-1997   China Art Academy, Hang Zhou, China
2001-2003   The Royal Rijksacedamy Amsterdam, Netherlands

Selected Exhibitions
2006             
9th Havana Biennial 2006, Wifredo Lam Center, Havanna, Cuba
‘Exploding Television – Satellite of Love’, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands,
A happy girl, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK
Never go out without my DV Cam-Video art from China, Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid, Spain
Close Reading, Galerie Julitte Jongma, Amsterdam, Netherlands
20 Desarreglos – Arte Contemporáneo de Brasil, Museo del Artes Visuales, Santiago de Chile

2005             
Mahong. Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Schweiz
Focus, China Museum of art, Beijing, China
The Second Guangzhou Triennial, GuangDong Museum of art, Guangzhou, China
Prix de Rome 2005,  De Apple Foundation,  Amsterdam, Netherlands
I Still Believe in Miracles, Museum de Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
Double Happiness, BizArt Centre, Shanghai, China
A Molecular History of Everything, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Australia
Guangzhou Photo Biennial 2005, Paris, France

2004             
Kan Xuan and Cuixiuwen, Museum for Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, France
A l’ Est du Sud de l’ Ouest/ A l’ Ouest du Sud de l’ Est, Villa Arson, Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Nice, France
Epiphytes, Classic botanical garden, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Object System : Ding Nothing, ARCO2004, Madrid, Spain
I miss you, BizArt Centre, Shanghai, China

2003             
Doing nothing anywhere is, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China
Chine: génération vidéo, MEP – Maison Européene de la Photographie, Paris, France
Panorama da Art Brasileira 2003, Sao Paulo Modern Art Museum, Brazil
Alors, La Chine?, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
New Zone, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Polan
Everyday , Kunstforeningen Copenhagen, Denmark
Video Festival, Brussels, Belgium
Echigo-Tsumari Short video Festival, Tokyo, Japan
Under Construction, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan

2002             
C’ est pas du cinema, Le Fresony studio national, France
Video art, Chinese European Art center, Xiamen, China
The First Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou Museum of art, Guangzhou, China
Fantasia-2, Beijing, China

2001             
Fantasia-1, Seoul, Korea
Or Emptiness!, BizArt Centre, Shanghai China

1999             
Wu Shi Ren Fei , Photography Exhibition, Shanghai, China
Art for Sale, Shanghai, China


Residencies, Fellowships, Prices
2005        Prix de Rome 2005,  Basic Prize, Netherlands
2002-2003   Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science, NL
2002        Dutch Ministry of Foreign, DCO, IC, NL

Club Beige and Sneakers

3 October 1998

Club Beige and Sneakers

Saturday, 3 October, 1998, 9 p.m. – 4 a.m.: Hoshimoto/musictoerist: Michael Raedecker/ Geerten Verheus (NL), Dick Donkey’s Dawn: Georgina Starr, Sean Dower and Oliver Hangl (GB/A), Wouter van Riessen (NL), Susi Pop (D): Hermoine Zittlau, 3 Pussy Kisses: Anja Czioska, Birgit Adolf and Andrea Wünsche (D) , Lowest Expectations: Angus Fairhurst, Andrew Hale, Adam McEwen (GB) and Nicole Hackert (D), Annika Ström (S), Owada: Martin Creed, Adam McEwen and Keiko Owada (GB), Bob & Roberta Smith (GB), Pony: Georgina Starr and Oliver Hangl (A), Max Mohr/ Kalaman (D), DJ Sid: Sidney Stucki (CH).

At WMF: VJs Micha Klein (NL), Daniëlle Kwaaitaal (NL); at INIT: hoshimoto/

musictoerist: Michael Raedecker/Geerten Verheus (NL) (2 October).

As a performance event parallel to the Berlin Art Fair (European Art Forum) and the opening days of the first Berlin Biennale ‘Beige and Sneakers’ was the counterpart to the exhibition ‘Standort Berlin – places to stay # 5 M(usic)’ staging performances transitory between art and music.

Featuring visual artists who use music in performance, bands, solo projects and DJs covering the range from Pop to Punk, Trash, Techno and Chanson. Wouter van Riessens introduction on the acoustic guitar carried on a singer/songwriter tradition still in practice; DJs hoshimoto/musictoerist – Michael Raedecker/Geerten Verheus – present ambient music mixed with samples from the history of mainstream pop, like they did the night before at the INIT Club. Dick Donkey’s Dawn and Pony were the band names featuring the artists, Georgina Starr and Sean Dower, together with Oliver Hangl performing in pop fashion.

The 3 Pussy Kisses, an all-girl band, promoted ‘Pussy-Pop-Trash,’ where as Lowest Expectations, artist Angus Fairhurst’s formation, staged a performance presenting a complex and disturbing layering of samples from the ‘Top Ten Charts’. Annika Ström highlighted the emotional redundancy of the classical love song in her solo-performance, while Owada condensed features of rock/pop concerts in their dialogue with the audience. Bob & Roberta Smith presented ‘Bob Smith’s One-Man Band’ equipped with HiHat, guitar, cazoo and a cardboard box as bass drum.

DJ performances by artists Max Mohr and Kalaman with their live mix of unusual samples led to DJ Sid’s funky techno set lucidly demonstrating the thrill of interaction between the artist and the dance floor audience. At WMF: Pop-Visuals, produced by artists and video-jockeys, Micha Klein and Danielle Kwaaitaal.

This event was produced in collaboration with Akademie der Künste, WMF and INIT.

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #5 M(usic)

30 September through 28 January 1999: Rineke Dijstra (NL), Lothar Hempel (D), Jaap Kroneman (NL), Bob & Roberta Smith (GB), Sidney Stucki (CH), Rirkrit Tiravanija (USA) and billboard: Felix Gonzales-Torres.

International art and its involvement with music in everyday culture was observed as a present phenomen of the cultural status quo. Pop music and its influence on everyday life had became a major topic for contemporary artists who have approached the question in a very individual manner which has since led to a renewed questioning of institutional structures. BüroFriedrich presented six different positions.

The artists approached the meaning and relevance of (pop) music in our daily lives. Rineke Dijkstra presented a first rough-cut of a new video installation: portraits of Berlin nightlife at WMF, one of the most influential clubs in post-wall Berlin. Lothar Hempel’s installation in one of the large windows of the pavilion played with the fictitious character of escape from everyday life into the total experience of a rave, whereas Jaap Kroneman responded to techno-aesthetics with precise but ironic statements. Bob & Roberta Smith created an environment of ‘fan-hood,’ wildly connecting art and music, appropriating songs with their own lyrics and under the slogan of ‘Rock’n’Roll,’ the new gardening promotes a rough and noisy form of amateurism. An audio archive by Rirkrit Tiravanija was presented in one of the smaller rooms of BüroFriedrich: 149 audio tapes recorded in a rehearsal studio, travelling art institutions all over the world. Sidney Stucki transformed the typical flyer with its ephemeral presence and esthetics within the context of the urban club music scene into a large-scale wall painting on the facade of BüroFriedrich announcing the art event, ‘Beige & Sneakers.’

Outsite Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ poster project ‘Untitled (Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit/It’s Only a Question of Time)’ was presented as a billboard on Friedrichstraße. Like the works of Rineke Dijkstra and Rirkrit Tiravanija, this work was realized in cooperation with the Berlin Biennale.

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #4 P(rinted) M(atter)

5 September through 27 September: Liam Gillick (GB), Eva Grubinger (D) Yvonne Trapp (D), Marijn Bolink (NL), Mat Collishaw (GB), Liza May Post (NL).

(continuing: Standort Berlin – Places to Stay # 4 A(udio) & V(ideo) – Journeys from Berlin).

Traffic Jam, part 5 (through 18 September): Jun Jieh Wang and part 6 (through 29 September): David d’Heilly (USA) & Kayoko Ota (Japan).

In a presentational model seeking to discover more about relations between different formats of artistic production, printed products were presented alongside recent works of the artists. These works functioned as counter parts of the book presentation.
Mat Collishaw, Merijn O. Bolink and Liza May Post presented their publications, published by Artimo, a private art supporting foundation in Holland.
The fragmentary novel based on locations and surfaces, ‘Big Conference Center’, produced in collaboration of Kunstverein Ludwigsburg and Orchard Gallery, London, by Liam Gillick, was shown together with his ‘The What If? Scenario Dining Table,’ a blue table tennis table sprinkled with silver glitter from 1996. Yvonne Trapp showed a fragment of her documentation on the subject of the ‘male muse’ collected in ‘Das Museum des Verschwindens/The Museum of Disappearance/Le Musée de la Disparition’. A videotape and poster showed her attempt to make this collection disappear. With the book project ‘group.sex’ Eva Grubinger took on the role of the editor, carefully assembling essays on group dynamics from the late nineteenth century to the Nineties. Her initial interactive work for the book, ‘Sacher Torture’, complemented the presentation.

11 September
discussion: ‘group.sex.’ Discussed were the liberal sexual practices and utopias of the sixties and seventies with e.g. Matthias Frings (TV-producer of ‘Liebe Sünde’) and Kathrin Rohnstock (gender studies, book editor).

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #4 A(udio) & V(ideo) – Journeys from Berlin

5 August through 27 September: Audio and video works from the collections of ‘Gelbe Musik’ and Mike Steiner.

In collaboration with Ursula Block and Mike Steiner, an archive of VHS and audio material was installed, tracing a selective history of Berlin in the Seventies and Eighties. Focusing on artists who took up residence in Berlin during these years, the archive displayed early experiments in video, sound and performance. Reassessing the notion of crossover in a historical and local perspective, ‘Journeys from Berlin’ was one step in an ongoing path of research.

Works by: Glenn Branca, Joseph Beuys, Luciano Castelli/Kiddy Citny, Colette, Philip Corner, Die Tödliche Doris, Brian Eno, Valie Export/Monsti Wiener, Robert Fillou, Terry Fox, Geile Tiere, Gilbert & George, Al Hansen, Nan Hoover, Dorothy Iannone, Sven Åke Johannson, Frieder Butzmann/ Thomas Kapielski, Martin Kippenberger, Arthur Köpcke, Takehisa Kosugi, Joan La Barbara, Györgi Ligeti, Charlotte Moormann, Virginia Quesada, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, Yvonne Rainer, ‘Rosenfest’, Walter Ruttmann, Carolee Schneemann, David Tudor, Ben Vautier, Ingrid Wiener, Emmett Williams and Krysztof Wodicko.

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #3 f(ashion)

16 May through 30 July: Viktor & Rolf (NL), Purple Institute – (Olivier Zahm and Katja Rahlwes (F)).

‘Standort Berlin – Places to stay # 3f’ formed a new episode of the exhibition project at BüroFriedrich. Already present in earlier episodes, the focus of this part was fully concentrated on f = ‘Fashion’ – new links between art and fashion.

The artists/designers Viktor & Rolf from Amsterdam, performing as stage designers, used BüroFriedrich as the location for a sinister and, at the same time, hilarious play on labels and fashion. Transformed into a promotional boutique, their logo dominated the (showcase) windows and hundreds of black balloons in the exhibition. A video projection of their latest fashion show underlaid with a soundtrack of a hysterically cheering crowd was combined with a billboard displaying a self-portrait of Viktor & Rolf presenting their own latest creation in the vicinity of Friedrichstraße. The billboard made for this presentation showed the artists wearing their proposal for a cross-gender haute couture.

This presentation merged with a choice of 17 videotapes viewed simultaneously, curated by

Olivier Zahm, founder of the Purple Institute and editor of the Paris-based artists’ magazine,

‘Purple,’ together with Katja Rahlwes. As a kind of video magazine, the tapes focussed on the

overlapping aspects between art and fashion. In the form of a catwalk, the videos were

presented on monitors in a strict line-up, allowing the visitors to perform a passage between

the different statements. Performance videos were presented as well as artists’ documentations

of fashion ‘defiles’: Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Martin Margiela, Kostas

Murkudis were shown with their recent collections. ‘Dynastie’ by Antek Walczak,

performance work by Sarah Schwarz and Giasco Bertoli and a video statement by Tomato

installed next to each other in a non-hierarchical set-up proposed a shared laboratory of

working and thinking on contemporary lifestyle.

Traffic Jam, billboard project

January 1998 through October 1999: Zhou Tiehai (VR China), Xu Tan (VR China), Liew Kung Yu (Malaysia), Lee Bull (Korea), Jun Jieh Wang (Taiwan), David d’Heilly (USA) & Kayoko Ota (Japan).

Extending BüroFriedrich’s activities into the city, ‘Traffic Jam’ was an intervention outside the exhibition space. Guest curated by Hou Hanru and conceived in collaboration with ‘Cities on the Move’ (curators Hou Hanru/Hans-Ulrich Obrist) six artists from different metropoles in Asia were invited to create billboard works. The artists’ contributions to the project concentrated on the experience of rapidly shifting urban environments, modernization as a global phenomenon bringing about specific moments of parallel development in a shift towards a new urban reality. For almost a year the project ran parallel to the continuing exhibition ‘Standort Berlin – Places to Stay,’ establishing links of varying intensity from a parallel presentation to an actual intervention with the exhibition (Standort Berlin – Places to Stay #2 +X (Strange Fruits)). The posters were shown in front of BüroFriedrich and in different places in the city of Berlin. Succesivelly they were part of traveling exhibition ‘Cities on the Move’ and presented in Museum CAPC Bordeaux, PS1 New York, Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana (DK).

Discussion

19 April – Grüne Salon, Berlin. The project ‘Traffic Jam’ was discussed with the

curator Hou Hanru together with Christian Rattemeyer and Mark Glöde. Moderation: Waling Boers.

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #2+X (Strange Fruit)

18 April through 10 May: Xu Tan (VR China), (continuing: Johan Grimonprez , David Powell, Sean Dower, Purple).

Traffic Jam, part 4 (through 25 May) Lee Bull (Korea)

The extensive installation of Xu Tan added another layer to the pre-existing presentation at BüroFriedrich. With six series of projected slides, video screenings and objects of papier-mâché and real fruit spread throughout, this work discretely imbued the ongoing exhibition with imagery from contemporary urban life in China. Scenes of high-tech urban development were confronted with low-key esthetics of everyday life. His installation forced a dialogue with the works installed earlier by other artists.

The video library ‘Dorothy doesn’t Live here Anymore’ was enlarged by a constant addition of films and reading material. In dialogue with Johan Grimonprez, the video library was opened for the addition of films or books by the public, which began to play an increasingly active part in using and supplementing the proposed archive.

Discussion:

20 April – Under the title ‘The Making of the Video library’, Johan Grimonprez and his partner, Herman Asselberghs, introduced and discussed the work with the public.

Standort Berlin, Places to Stay #2+

21 March through 20 May: Sean Dower (GB), special guest: Purple (Number One) (F),

(continuing: Johan Grimonprez, David Powell).

Traffic Jam, part 3 (through 18 April) Liew Kung Yu (Malaysia).

As a new work in the exhibition, Sean Dower’s ‘Clothes Recycling Video’ played on questions of identity and above all the recycling culture of the second-hand clothing hype. Dressing culture is also the subject of special guests, Purple Institute, from Paris. Almost unknown in Berlin, the magazine was presented in Berlin for the first time as ‘Purple Number One’. The summer issue of the artists’ magazine was launched in a redesign: the previously published single issues ‘purple prose,’ ‘purple fashion,’ ‘purple fiction’ and ‘purple sexe’ now came in one volume provocatively stating the indivisibility of lifestyle, sexual preference and imagination.