Lu Lei: Floating Ice Biography, Other Gallery, Beijing,China,October 27- November 29, 2011

Lu Lei: Floating Ice Biography

Curated by Raúl Zamudio

Other Gallery

3th Street North 706 West

798 Chaoyang District,

Beijing,China,100015

October 27- November  29

Opening: October 27 5:00-8:00pm

Floating Ice Biography is a solo multimedia exhibition by Huangzhou-based artist Lu Lei.  It takes its title from a poetic, self-reflexive description of the myriad materials the artist employs culled from visual and aural electronics, heating, refrigeration, petroleum, and many other industries that are staples of the global trading commodities market.  Ice, which by nature is water in a different form, is a metaphor for not only the transformative nature of art, but many of Lu’s works have a kind of ontological elasticity such as Cloud, for example. This work includes a compressor that freezes, condenses and dissipates water in front of the viewer. As per flotation, this word that also constitutes part of exhibition’s title allude to a hybrid condition between the terrestrial and celestial, earth and heaven, inside and outside, and the local and the global that offers the artist a unique vantage point from which to purview the world and its machinations.

Shahram Entekhabi:Nothing Gold Can Stay, Other Gallery, Beijing, Sept. 1- Oct. 16, 2011

Sept. 1, 2011- Oct. `6, 2011
Other Gallery, Beijing, China

				Curated by Raul Zamudio

Nothing Gold Can Stay is a solo exhibition by Iranian-born, Berlin-based artist Shahram Entekhabi. The exhibition’s title is from one of the most celebrated poems by Robert Frost. Consisting of only eight lines with that last being “nothing gold can stay,” Frost’s opus is not only stripped down to the most essential but uses gold as metaphor to lament the fall from Eden via a tree’s fecund beauty and eventual decay. But beauty is used by Frost to underscore its temporality and fleeting characteristic, and thus the poem’s subtext is that we should concerns ourselves with loftier endeavors during our brief, human existence. Shahram Entekhabi thematically uses Frost’s poem to investigate value as well as other themes but within a contemporary context. Whereas Frost alluded to nature to question society’s material pursuits, Entekhabi challenges the premium placed on oil as global commodity, shines light on cultural misunderstandings between East and West, as well as commenting on the condition of exile that the artist finds himself living as a foreigner in Berlin. The exhibition consists of painting, work-on-paper, video, and sculpture. 
                                                                         Raul Zamudio

 

 

How To Philosophize With A Hammer, White Box, NYC, August 11- Sept. 10, 2011

How To Philosophize With A Hammer
Curated by Raul Zamudio
White Box, NYC
August 11- Sept. 10, 2011
Artists:
Isaac Aden, Luis Alonzo-Barkigia, Marcela Astorga, Marc Bijl, Karlos Carcamo, Daniel Davidson, Wim Delvoye, Adolfo Doring, Martin Ferran, Kendell Geers, Fernando Martin Godoy, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Istvan Kantor, Ray Kelly, Dominic McGill, Teresa Margolles, Dennis Oppenheim, Damian Ontiveros, Ashery Oreet, Pasha Radetzki, Joaquin Segura, Celia Elsamieh Shomal, Susan Sontag, Javier Tellez, Mookie Tenebaum, Wojtek Ulrich, Abdul Vas, Ruben Verdu, Ai Weiwei, Zhou Wendou.

How to Philosophize with a Hammer is an exhibition of international artists that work in video, painting, sculpture, works-on-paper, photography, installation, and performance. The title is taken from Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (1889). How to Philosophize with a Hammer followed the Gay Science (1882) in which Nietzsche pronounced that "god is dead."

After this deicide came other "deaths" in the late twentieth century including "the death of the author," "the end of history," and "the death of painting." As such, the works in the exhibition underscore the usurpation of authority but within a contemporary context. The artists address the exhibition's thematic framework in myriad ways where their philosophizing is articulated through diverse artistic genres. Some philosophers have viewed artistic practice as a form of philosophy, and the iconoclasm of these artists' works hammers against political, financial, social, and religious institutions. This iconoclasm signals the need to reinvent new modes of thinking and being while reflecting on the existential crisis that humanity finds itself marked by wars, ecological disaster, economic collapse, terrorism, and revolution. In short, it is the perfect end of summer exhibitions.

Don´t Ask What Capitalism Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Capitalism, June 4- August 4, 2011, Pristine Galerie, Monterrey, Mexico

Riiko Sakkinen: Don´t Ask What Capitalism Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Capitalism
June 4-August 4, 2011
Curated by Raul Zamudio
Pristine Galerie
Monterrey, Mexico
http://boletin.arteven.com/h/11/pristine_galerie_04.htm

   Encyclopedia of Riiko Sakkinen, 2 channel video projection, 

cardboard boxes,  packaging tape, paint, 2011 

Wojtek Ulrich, Other Gallery, Beijing, China, May 21- June 19, 2011

Curated  by Raul Zamudio

What does it mean for an artist to work today in the midst of the myriad forces he or she engages and is engaged by? The topical artist, however, needs to be forewarned of the rhetorical dictates of so-called politically engaged art that jettisons aesthetics and often succumbs to didacticism. It is at this point where the ethical imperative can become dogmatic directive. Can the artist engage the aesthetic dimension all the while addressing the world with an artistic practice of resistance and affirmation? However one may find a dearth of this geist in a contemporary art world consumed by market forces, it is the sine qua non of the artist Wojtek Ulrich.

Wojtek Ulrich plays many roles demanded of his protean art including that of architect, philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist, oceanographer, and zoologist, to name just a few of the disciplinary activities outside the boundaries of conventional artistic practice. This is adamantly underscored in his recent body of work in the exhibition simply titled Wojtek Ulrich. As with his other exhibitions, upon entering this particular show one is first struck by the diversity of media and the myriad themes that the artist engages.

 

http://www.hiart.cn/tv/video.php?id=22
http://www.artspy.cn/html/exhibit/2/2928/view.html
http://www.artspy.cn/html/video/0/739.html
http://news.99ys.com/20110521/article--110521--65114_1.shtml
http://artlinkart.com/cn/space/exh_yr/ef0aAyrq/389buwmj

Shahram Entekhabi: A Taste of Gold, March 27- May 27, Prisitne Galerie, Monterrey, Mexico

Shahram Entekhabi: A Taste of Gold
Curated by Raúl Zamudio
March 27-May 27, 2011
Pristine Galerie
Monterrey, Mexico

A Taste of Gold is a solo exhibition by Berlin-based, Iranian
artist Shahram Entekhabi. The exhibition takes its title from a
work in the exhibition titled Golden Edition (2011). The
work is a large photograph of a Muslim woman elegantly dressed
head-to-toe in Burqa and wearing boxing gloves. The traditional
Islamic orthodox covering is, however, adorned with actual gold
glitter on top of the picture’s surface.

Continuing with the artist’s exploration of Islamic culture in the
world-at-large, Entekhabi’s works in the exhibition mix humor
with a critical eye in addressing exile and xenophobia. The exhibition
brings together works-on-paper, photography, and video.

A Taste of Gold is the first solo exhibition of this Iranian artist
presented in Mexico.

Third Eye/I (II), Other Gallery Shanghai, March 17-April 17, 2011

THIS EXHIBITION WAS CLOSED BY THE CHINESE CULTURE DEPARTMENT. ITS CENSOR COINCIDENTALLY OCCURRED 4 DAYS AFTER THE ARREST OF ARTIST AI WEIWEI. BELOW ARE THE REASONS GIVEN BY THE CHINESE CULTURE DEPARTMENT AS TO WHY I T WAS CLOSED?:
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The Third Eye——Iranian Contemporary Art Exhibition

Stop Show Announcement

As in consideration of different culture identification problem in the exhibition “The Third Eye-Iranian Contemporary Art Exhibition” and the long term support on the China-Iran culture communication and friendly cooperation. Here is the suggestion by the department in charge that Other Gallery | Shanghai Space call off the exhibition, inconvenient to you and your understanding will! We will as always commit ourselves to the academic development of contemporary art and promote art activities in all nations and regional interaction.
     

Other Gallery
Apr.7 2011
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The Third Eye

Curated by Raul Zamudio
Other Gallery, Shanghai, China
March 17-April 17, 2011
Artists:
Majeed Beenteha, lives and works in New York City
Ala Dehghan, lives and works in Karaj and Tehran
Shahram Entekhabi, lives and works in Berlin
Parastou Forouhar, lives and works in Germany
Pouran Jinchi  lives and works in New York City
Raha Rastifard, lives and work in Berlin and Tehran
Vahid Sharifian, lives and works in Tehran  
Celia Eslamieh Shomal, lives and works in Amsterdam 
Mehran Tizkar, lives and works in Berlin and Tehran  

The Third Eye is an exhibition of Iranian artists that culls its title from disparate sources. It uses as curatorial framework the cinematic vernacular for the camera, known as “the third eye,” with the notion of third space articulated by geographer Edward Soja, and that of the literary critic and theorist Homhi Bhaba. As a film trope, the third eye is the camera lens that captures the world independent from the human eye; in doing so, it can reveal to us its overlooked beauty as well as exposing the social disparity.

The artists use these open-ended narratives as thematic touch stones as well as reflecting on an ever-changing world where tradition rubs up against the contemporaneous, religion with the secular, and orthodoxy with heterodoxy. The Third Eye does not claim to be representative of art being made by Iranians today, regardless whether they live within their country or abroad; rather, it serves to underscore the heterogeneous nature of an emerging contemporary artistic practice that evinces an artistic vocabulary rooted in a formal, social, and cultural crucible situated at a nexus between the past, the present, and the future.

A catalog will be published in conjunction with the exhibition with aritsts' statements, bios, full color reproductions of artworks, and an essay by the curator.

Link: http://www.artlinkart.com/en/space/exh_yr/8eeatCul

  

John Zieman: Time Suite Series

John Zieman: Time Suite Series
Curated by Raul Zamudio 
March 5 - 27, 2011
White Box
329 Broome St.
NY, NY 10004
Opening Reception: March 5, 6 - 8 PM

"TimeSuite" 2007 4:00 min, single channel, hi-definition, stereo.

"First Dream" 2008  4:00 min, single channel, hi-definition, stereo.

"TS3", 2010  3:30 min, 3-D, hi-definition, stereo.

Appearing together for the first time, these three video works share a unique mode of inquiry, blending word art and portraiture.  Zieman literally projects his animated text upon the human form, then records the composite image as as sort of "layered portrait".  

Texts range from social dissections, ("Something you almost said gave me hope") to meta-commentary ("I saw a story was to be written on me - with my choice - without");

terse utterances, ("Stop projecting on me"), to inner realizations, ("It all comes faster now- This is how change feels").  

Texts topographically map the subject, propelling the visual portrait toward new densities of observation. 

The viewer is offered a complex psychological space, suggesting inner musings, explicitly naming interpersonal tensions,  and witnessing the shared human condition, where time itself becomes the ultimate metric.