Chi K11 art space Honorably Presents in August Kaarina Kaikkonen Installment Exhibition

chi K11 art space Honorably Presents in August

Kaarina Kaikkonen Installment Exhibition

Bei Bang Lines-ism Art Exhibition

Jung Yeondoo Solo Exhibition, Wonderland

After its premiere, the special 3000-square-meter chi K11 Art Space, in K11's B3, will present a whole new series of exhibitions in August. K11 Art Foundation invites three different artists of three different nationalities, with different styles, to present their modern artworks. They are: Installment Exhibition by Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen, Lines-ism Art Exhibition by Chinese artist Bei Bang, and Wonderland, Solo Exhibition from South Korean artist Jung Yeondoo.

Co-presented by both K11 Art Foundation and Collezione Maramotti, Kaarina Kaikkonen Installment Exhibition features two installments from Finish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen, whose creations are presented all around the world and known for her blurring boundaries of sculptures, installments, architecture and nature. Collezione Maramotti is a private contemporary art collection which opened to visitors in the historical headquarters of Max Mara company. This exhibition is also the first time that chi K11 Art Space collaborates with an international brand. From Aug 10 to Oct 8, the Space will also present a retrospective exhibition from China’s pioneering modern illustrator Bei Bang. Line body artist Bei Bang, born in the late 1980s, is the founder of line body art and is the most widely recognized figure in the movement. His works are simple, but there is an abundant hidden oriental touch hidden in his works. Bei Bang is both the creator and practicer of lines-ism art, whose sophisticated works have become a symbol of new-coming post-80s artists. Besides, chi K11 Art Space honorably presents Wonderland, Solo Exhibition from Jun Yeondoo, well-known South Korean multi-media artist and photographer. The exhibition, with the theme of “imaginations in the childhood and dreams in the adolescence”, features 20 photos and 22 paintings, co-created by Jun Yeondoo and other people.

With the ultimate mission of K11 Art Foundation, K11 pays more attention to the communications and collaborations between different labels, brings closer between consumers via the power of art, and create possibilities for more people to reach art projects and exhibitions. It will enrich the local art circle. The three exhibitions will definitely bring unusual visual experience to consumers.

Kaarina Kaikkonen Installment Exhibition

Time: Aug 8 - Oct 7, 2013

Kaarina Kaikkonen works directly on spaces, interpreting them anew, through the use of everyday objects, such as for example jackets and shirts which are her plastic tools of choice.

Installations made of second-hand garments, symbolizing real life and real people, become devices preserving collective and personal memories which should not be lost.

The two titles of the works on display stress the notion of community, relations, and hint at a journey waiting to be made. The monumental features of her pieces are blended in with a soul linked to impermanence and fragility of materials evoking the fragility of humankind.

Said the artist,” I like creating a dialogue between myself, my work and the surrounding space. I also like the idea of bringing my works closer to people that usually do not visit museums or art galleries… I often pick garments as material, but there is me, in my works, just me: all are self-portraits.”

Are We Still Going On? has been commissioned by Collezione Maramotti and crated by the artist for the former garment manufacturing facilities of Max Mara (now housing the Collection): it was exhibited for one year in the Collezione with a relevant success.

With this work the space is redefined as an inhabited and habitable place recalling the hull of a ship. The simple lines of the hull are divided in two parts that expand from the ceiling to brush the floor with an even semicircular compositional rhythm given by shirts knotted together evoking a dialogue between male and female, past and present.

An evocative work which - although figurative and sculptural in its approach - moves towards the dimension of an “emotional landscape”, through the use of the delicate tones of the shirt fabric and the presence of light inside an airy and suspended composition.

If We are still going on? shows a strong upward tension, as if looking for a future perspective, From Generation to Generation rests on the ground: it recalls a large skeleton where the plastic sequence of jackets hints clearly at the passing of time.

Men’s jackets have become a central item of Kaarina Kaikkonen’s work since the late Eighties; their choice as means of expression is linked to the death of the artist’s father when she was ten: wearing her father’s clothes was at the time a desperate attempt to feel his presence longer, but over the years their artistic elaboration has come to represent a sort of catharsis which, starting from a life experience, came to embrace a much wider reflection on separation and loss.

In these works life and death, presence and absence, are inseparably intertwined and recall a feeling of transiency also evoked in the titles of the pieces. From Generation to Generation thus becomes a metaphor for life.

We carry inside ourselves the story, the past, our ancestors, so that they become part of us; a relational system between generations enabling us to know who we are, and strengthening our individual and collective identity.

In essence Kaarina Kaikkonen’s sculptural installations represent a concert of voices passing by and dialoguing with social spaces, they are the story of each of us and everyone; a story that openly conveys a universal feeling which everyone can identify with and glean what each of us experiences most strongly.
The exhibition also features a video made in 2012 by Beatrice Marchi, Italian videomaker, during the ten days of the installation of the work at Collezione Maramotti by the artist with the help of a team of young women.

(Marina Dacci, director Maramotti Collection)

Bei Bang Lines-ism Art Exhibition

Time: Aug 10 - Oct 8, 2013

During the summer of 2011, the four artists Bei Bang, Liu Zheng, Zhu Jingyi, and Li Qing proposed the “Line-ism” style of painting. It is mainly composed of lines and focuses on the expression of the lines themselves to create a unique line-based aesthetic.

Line body artist Bei Bang, born in the late 1980s, is the founder of line body art and is the most widely recognized figure in the movement.

This particular line body exhibition by Bei Bang represents his main artwork exploring line body art over the past 8 years.

As early as 2005, Bei Bang appeared in the first Get It Louder as a cutting-edge illustrator, during which time he had already started accumulating line body art experience. He worked to improve personal aesthetic characteristics and to achieve new artistic breakthroughs.

Beginning in 2009, Bei Bang allocated three years to complete his first mature line body art collection — Triennial — and also held a solo exhibition in Beijing in October which garnered unanimous praise. This established Bei Bang’s exploration direction in the path of Line-ism.

As Bei Bang explains, you can feel direct emotions in each piece in the Triennial collection, naked and strong. Compared to his more mature pieces later on, they were more wild and unruly. However, these works helped them get through his most important transition period so the form of line body art had a clearer direction. This was a difficult and confusing three years, so there was no hesitation. When someone is going a time of difficulty, a way out will always appear.

Drifting Zoo is another important collection for Bei Bang and represents a subdued conclusion as well as an interpretation of a particular stage in his life.

The creative background of Drifting Zoo is his first collection after leaving the advertising industry. He left his flashy career and rediscovered peace and tranquility through painting. He used the simplest line body strokes to depict the most complicated and indescribable world he knew.

He took all that he had encountered and those living people related to these things and implied the emotional characteristics of lack of security and sense of belonging that modern people face in an era of rapid development. He used the innocent body of animals to transmit the indescribable complexity of human nature; it was a tough attempt to create and make art with a calm attitude, while using a realistic and fairy tale perspective. He tried stepping aside and using a macro perspective to express a concept and sympathetic attitude to lament the emptiness and sadness behind glamorous human lives.

These are iconic works after his line body art matured and are Bei Bang’s most well known and loved pieces.

The two goals of the collections are totally different and even completely opposite. Triennial is passionate and the Drifting Zoo is calm; the prior consists of personal emotions and the latter exhibits the world’s feelings; the former is an individual perspective while the latter is a view of humanity; the former is release, and the latter is a conclusion; the former is uncontrollable venting and the latter is careful reflection; lastly, the former is the artist’s inner world and the latter is the real world that we live in.

What this all boils down to is actually a retrospective exhibition of Bei Bang’s line body art. In it, we can see the path that Bei Bang took and cultivate a deeper, more profound respect for his persistence and faith.

Jung Yeondoo Solo Exhibition, Wonderland

Time: Aug 16 - Oct 7, 2013

Wonderland - The power of the Child’s Imagination and the Adolescent’s Dream

2004/2006, C-Print (20 photos and 22 drawings)

* 20 C-Prints: 154x190cm 2pcs, 150x125cm 9pcs, 105x85cm 9pcs

* 22 Children’s Drawings: 52x39cm 22pcs

Jung's series of photos, "Wonderland" (2004), presents costumed adolescents posing in sets based as closely as possible on children's drawings. He collaborates with many people to bring to life the boundless imagination in the drawings. For four months, Jung oversaw art classes in four kindergartens in Seoul and collected 1,200 drawings by children between the ages of five and seven. After pouring through them, he carefully selected 17 drawings and interpreted their meanings. Then he recruited 60 high school students by passing out handbills at their schools in which he invited them to act out the scenarios in the children's drawings. In order to recreate faithfully drawing details such as dresses with uneven sleeves or buttons of different sizes, he convinced five fashion designers to custom make the clothing for the photo shoot. He also made props unlike any scale found in reality but similar to those in the drawings. "Wonderland" changes fantasy into photographic reality without the aid of computer-generated graphics. The works, entirely made by hand, are a tremendous group effort similar to a stage production that captures the sudden changes in the actors' forms, in the midst of people going about their lives against the backdrop of the city.

Shanghai chi K11 Art Space is a wonderland of art. It creates stage-like experience for the public, and provides opportunities for artists to meet. The three exhibitions will bring a whole new art journey for the public, grant them all-dimensional experience, and bring the art lovers closer to the art.

THE END

About Shanghai K11

Shanghai K11 Art Mall is located at the prime location of Huaihai Road. The art mall covers a total area of 40,000 square meters and has complete supporting facilities around. With the ideal of combining art, people and nature, K11 Shanghai is committed to becoming the largest interactive art facility, the most creative shopping destination and the most cutting-edge hub of cultural pluralism. The K11 creative events, which are held non-stop 365 days a year, will further improve the interaction among art, people, nature and shopping, bringing unprecedented sensory enjoyment to customers and tourists.

In Art We Live

A global high-end lifestyle brand operator under New World Group, K11 is the world’s first original brand to pioneer the blend of three essential elements of Art · People · Nature.

Art - K11 not only displays a permanent collection of local young artists’ works, but also allows the public to appreciate different local artworks and performance during shopping and leisure through the provision of various multi-dimensional spaces. This can help enhance the communication and exchanges between local artists and the public, nurture habits of art appreciation, and allow young artists to have more opportunities for showcasing their works so as to foster the development of local art.

People - K11 manages, reorganizes and integrates humanity, history and geography of the adjacent regions from various perspectives in different cities. It revitalizes, regenerates and recreates the humanistic experience, art and culture in the regions so as to create a unique K11 multicultural living area. 

Nature - Various green design and technology concepts are taken into account in the interior architecture of K11 projects so as to minimize the negative impacts on the natural environment and upgrade the overall quality of urban public premises. Designed with a garden concept, K11 features a multidimensional natural landscape with a variety of local plants, green roof, vertical greening and urban farming, and creates a perfect integration of natural space and local culture so that visitors feel like indulging in an urban oasis and are inspired to consider the intimate relationship between human and nature.

K11 Art Foundation (“KAF”)

 

Vision:

To be a sustainable incubation force in the global ecosystem of art, design and creativity, and to create strong public desire for the local contemporary art scene:

·         K11 Art Foundation is a registered not-for-profit organization that serves as a sustainable incubating springboard where young emerging artists from Greater China are nurtured and their creative ideas and contribution to humanity globally manifested ·         Through our innovative educational programs, art spaces, art database across Greater China and unique collection of contemporary art, KAF provides local communities, especially young and inquisitive members of our generation, easy access to appreciate art and thereby elevates our collective understanding of culture

 

Mission:

·         KAF is to offer a creative platform to talented young artists from Greater China, and provide them opportunities to realize and showcase their full potential via amicable collaborations and cross-regional experimentations regionally and globally.

        Through research, initiatives and partnerships, and harnessing the passion and energy of our active participants, KAF facilitates the public to enjoy a diverse array of programs and exhibitions that will enrich the city’s art scene and enable it to become the leading multi-cultural art hub among its neighboring peers ·         Art for the Masses -- the extensive network and resources of K11 in Hong Kong and Mainland China catalyze a continuous interaction among artists, students, office occupants, patrons and the general public to strengthen art appreciation and awareness for our current and future generations

 

       Leveraging on the success of our flourishing K11 Art Space Workshops, K11 Art Village, K11 Artist-in-Residence Program, K11 Artist Klub and K11 Kollection, the activities and infrastructure in these convenient destinations and their outreach extensions allow KAF to attract and engage a steady stream of participating audiences and maximise the public exposure of local artists and programs

Introductions to Artists and Artworks