Four seasons: cold winter of 2009

Curator: Sun Guojuan
Executive curator: Liu Lifen
Art Director: Lei Yan
Artists:Chen Lingjie, Du Xi, Fei Min, Fei Yumei, Guan Saimei, Lei Yan, Liu Lifen, Long Yumei, Li Jingfei, Ma Ping, Ma Dan, Pu Yan, Pu Huaxian, Song Zhiping, Su Yabi, Shi Zhijie, Sun Jin, Tu Xiao, Wang Han, Xu Yun ,Wu Yanxi, Wu Wen, Ye Songqing, Yang Wenpingg, Yang Yanqiu, Marjan Verhaeghe(Belgium), Miree Abrahamsen(Norway).

Host by: TCG Nordica (www.tcgnordica.com)
Opening: 20:00pm, January 10, 2009
Duration: January 10–February 2, 2009
Add: Xi Ba Road no.101, Loft, Kunming
Tel: 0871-4114691,4114692
Poster Design: Wang Han Studio

Preface

Four seasons: cold winter of 2009
Sun Guojuan

This is a four-year exhibition plan, with each season as one of the exhibition subjects.

The first part of exhibition will be arranged in the new year time of 2009, which is time for winter. Everyone’s artwork will be focused and created with the season of winter as the subject.

This is a subject about time and life. There are four seasons about life, about time, and even about a piece of ordinary article. These four seasons, however, are not understandings or expressions about seasons by common means, but much more interesting.

How large part of our feelings belongs to winter in daily life? Every time when I open refrigerator, a kind of unspeakable pleasure will come to me. That kind of rich colors should be in summer, but with winter temperature. Are all these foods that in refrigerator asleep? Is maintenance of food hibernation? What will winter remind us? Everyone can exert his or her every effort to imagine, illustrate, and express.

These words were written in June of 2008 to those female artists who would take part in this exhibition. Nobody knew at that time that this winter would come so early and so cold. In the cold winter of world finance, our exhibition starts, which is a helpless coincidence. We sincerely hope when next year we name our second part of exhibition after the season of spring, the spring of finance will also come.

In this exhibition, there gathered most of Yunnan female artists that we can contact. Most of them are in Yunnan, with a few exceptions in Beijing and abroad. Today, they can gather here because art is still with them, and because art still can make them gain happiness or feel pain. It is them who create this interesting exhibition.

I would like to thank facilitator Liu Lifen and curator Lei Yan of this exhibition. There can’t be this exhibition without their hard work and support. Their efforts will be showed in every detail of this exhibition. Thanks!

Our thanks go to TCG Nordica, the space for every artist to show and express. Thanks also go to the manager of TCG Nordica, Ms. Wu Yuerong, and the curator of TCG Nordica, Mr. Luo Fei!

December 29, 2008

Kaarina Ormio’s exhibition:My chinoiserie

Opening:Jan 5,2008,20:00
Exhibition Duration:Jan 5, 2008 – Mar 6, 2008
Address:TCG Nordica,xibalu 101,Kunming,Yunnan,China
Tel:0871-4114692,4114961
www.tcgnordica.com
TCG Nordica Gallery

The Finnish artist Kaarina Ormio is spending 5 months in Kunming.

artist statement:
I work with the theme ‘chinoiserie’. This historical art style from the rococo time means European eager for the Chinese based on exotic fantasies. The Finnish Chinese-translator Pertti Nieminen has said about ‘chinoiserie’: “The fairytale ‘The Nightingale’ of H.C. Andersen was as good an information as decorative pictures on English porcelain plates.”

In Kunming I sew ‘Chinese princess dresses’ that are based on my European fantasies, they are a mixture of the European and the Chinese. They are also real, wearable dresses.

I have worked with different media like performance, book, film,installation, dresses, but mostly for the same theme, where the traveling fairytale princess always appears in one way or another. She is like a western explorer and imperialist, but in a mild and a bit playful sense. I try to sew the ‘Chinese princess dresses’ on the basis of the local taste with a wish to conform with an unfamiliar culture. When conquering a country I also become conquered myself. By sewing a dress in a strange country and dressing up in it I try to get inside the strangeness.

Kaarina’s website
Kaarina’s blog in Kunming(GFWed)

Lei Yan’s solo exhibition 2007

Lei Yan’s Solo exhibition 2007:Frozen Series and Camouflage Cloth-making

Exhibition duration:9 November-22 November,2007
Openning:9 November,8:00pm(Friday)
Curator:Luo Fei

For the first Solo Exhibition in the newly renovated TCG Nordica gallery, we proudly present the recent art works from Leiyan, one of our old friend, loft female artist.

Leiyan was born in 1950s, she cultivated a special life experiences in the army for 30 years. As a sensitive and exuberant creativity female artist. Rigid military life formed tension with her personality , naturally this period constructed the special resources and thoughts of art creation. There are army stuffs often appearing in her arts over and over again,as the uniforms, the badge, te Red star, even some events of histories. Interesting is that she got inspiration from army stuffs and history stories. But, meanwhile she didn’t stop pace from these Materials, Conversely, she prestige all of these stories, to recall the privacy and romantic Feelings and more broad daily emotions.

After she left the army, she trys to use new creation language in her arts. From Traditional Prints, oil painting, Transition to photos, videos, installations and handcrafts. She is not only a generalist in art styles and forms, but also in the topics that her focus on. Included: process of Urbanization, female identity, and throughout leiyan’s works from the early army career.

The exhibition will show Leiyan’s recent art works, it is also related to about her army career. the one group, she took photos about the fozen army stuffs in the ice, the other one is the conceptual works of handcrafts. it will be the surprise from her. All of these army stuffs, history events, and handcrafts, like as the treasures stored in somewhere of grandmother’s box under her bed. We can feel a female artist how to thoughtfulness from private to public.

—writer:Luo Fei,translator:Liu Jun

Related articles:
An Archaeological Tour of Revolutionary Romanticism and the Metaphor of Camouflage written by Luo Fei
Memorywritten by Tang Zhigang

Frozen Red

That was a memory of red, a memory of hotness and also a memory of youth.

In China, everyone who has ever lived in that time would be impressed by the frozen red. That was an age, an age had been frozen — for everyone, there could be only one faith, one idea and one dream — as pure as ice, and also as white as ice. The life though seemed to be simplified and repressed, everyone could have a stable life everyday. Since each one, living in that time, had one faith and one objective, and therefore the red then became hallowed.

However, when I watched the red under the ice, such a strange feeling, like a star far from the earth could not be reached, had rush into my mind. I’m not sure that was the illusion from the ice, or the result from a past age, but a feeling just told me, the red has left us, had left our life, had left the unfathomable age…… All I have seen was the lack of faith, was the disappearance of trueness, was the lost and confusion of soul. How fast the time flies! The world has been more and more untraceable – someone has lost his ethic in the face of money, someone has dropped his honor in the face of fame, and also someone has abandoned his dream in the face of power – the red was leaving us.

The frozen red, which would be better to consider as the protection to the past, as the thinking to dream and faith more than just frost to that time. I have a brief, we could review the past through the ice, and we also could seek for the red we ever had through the ice, because the red remain its brightness in my heart, because the age needs red!

Lei Yan
August 22, 2006

Seeds of hope

Seeds of hope

Swedish Artists:Eta Hedman,AnnaKarin Svensson
Curator:Luo Fei
Openning:13 Oct,2007,8:00pm
Duration:13 Oct–3 Nov,2007(Sunday and Monday morning closed)

AnnaKarin Svensson and Eta Hedman

Eta Hedman
Seeds of hope “The everyday moments turn into the seed of time.” – Octavio Paz
“What seeds do we sow out in our lives?” is the question Eta Hedman, a Swedish artist born in 1953, wants to evoke through her work. Her pictures are collages where she combines photo, photoscreen and painting. “I wish to be present in life, to be awaken for the moments filled with quality and to live an overflowing life. That is what the gold in my pictures represent, to live with the curiosity of a child within you and to daily sow new seeds and harvest new golden crops.

AnnaKarin Svensson
”I am fascinated by human traces and broken surfaces. I want my pictures to be like forgotten but found treasures, a glimpse of a holy presence in the midst of the transience of time.” AnnaKarin Svensson, born in Sweden in 1963, mainly works with textile applications and broidery touched up with acrylic colour. The base is often fabric which is formed into textilereliefs or sculptural works. “My work often involves seeds or cocoons, small shapes with unknown potential. “What wasn’t became something wonderful”, as she describes it.

AnnaKarin’s works

Eta’s works

exhibition openning:

“LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project

“LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project

A cultural exchange project between female Swedish and Chinese craftsmen in different arts forms, e.g. silversmith, textile designer, designer. The craftsmen would like to express the theme “LOVE PROTECTION” (the name of the project) by using several creative methods, compare the language of love in China and in Sweden, focus on love as a positive force in a sexualized society.
Openning:20:00,11 Aug 2007

Promoter:Anneli Linder,Anna Mellergård
Sponsor:TCG Nordica gallery
Organizers:Luo Fei,Liu Jun,Liu Lifen
Artists:
China:Do You,Wang Han,Sha Sha,Shi Zhijie,Chen Lingjie
Sweden:Anneli Linder,Christina Nyström Jansson,Elisabeth Johansson,Linda Thörnblad,Else Månsson
Add:TCG Nordica No.101 Xi Ba Lu,Loft Kunming,Yunnan Kunming,China
Tel:+86-00871-4114692

1. Background
Background and reason for the exchange?
Love is often described from “the reverse” in media, culture and society by means of exploitation, utilization (both sexually and financially), superficiality, illness and destructiveness. With this in mind, the participants of this exchange project would like to focus on “the right side” of love.
During the fall of 2006, there was an exhibition about HIV/AIDS at the Sino-Scandinavian culture centre TCG Nordica in Kunming, China. “LOVE PROTECTION” is a follow-up of the HIV/AIDS project, in which the artists would like to use creative methods as a preventive measure on the theme of love.
In the project “LOVE PROTECTION”, ten female craftsmen in different ages and from two different cultural backgrounds (China and Sweden) want to express love as play, warmth, depth, pulse, persistent power of life etc.
Both China and Sweden have a long and genuine tradition of craftsmanship. These female craftsmen would like to create an exhibition where love is not degenerated by using e.g. textile design and design – an exhibition about “the good love”.

Why have this exchanges pairs been chosen? Why are they representatives for the group/organization they represent?
Several of these female craftsmen have many years of experience of craftsmanship and design in their home countries, where they are established in the area of e.g. silversmith and textile design. These women also have a common desire to describe a different kind of love contrary to the one which is often shown in media and society – the kind of love that seeks its own, grabs, exploits and which mainly is connected with youth, outward appearance and capacity.

2. Common planning
Initiative, discussions about purpose and contents etc. – who have planned and how?
The planning of the project “LOVE PROTECTION” is mutual, where the Chinese participants are in charge of the program in China (part 1) and the Swedish group is in charge of the program in Sweden (part 2).
One of the participants in the Swedish group, Anneli Linder, is leaving for Kunming in November 2006, to meet with the Chinese group and plan the common work with the exhibitions which will be presented both at TCG Nordica, China and in Sweden (at Örebro konsthall and at Svensk Form on Skeppsholmen, Stockholm).
Since it takes a lot of time to produce craftsmanship, the two groups will start working separately in their home countries. During this time they will keep in touch by using e-mail.
Thereafter, the participants will meet for two weeks in China (spring 2007) and two weeks in Sweden (autumn 2007), when they will continue the creative process, which will result in two exhibitions and some workshops both in China and in Sweden.
When the participants of the project will meet in China, the first days will be used to make a more detailed program with a common schedule, which will come out of the suggestions that the two groups have presented.

3. Purpose of the exchange
The purpose of the “LOVE PROTECTION” exchange project is that the participants would try to find a common creative language that would describe how it will be possible to “protect love”.
When women from two different cultural backgrounds meet, different experiences, conceptions and images about love will emerge in an exciting way, where the big variation of ages also will contribute to a variety of expressions in different stages of life. The common desire of the female craftsmen is to describe a different kind of love than the one which we are often exposed to in society, culture and media.

click picture for bigger size.

Artists are prepareing exhibition and exchanging together.9 Aug 2007.

exhibition:

Chen Lingjie // WE // oil on canvas // 24*30cm //2007
one flower,one world,one grass ,one mood .all humans belong to one part of this ordinary world,we respect life,love nature,listening wind,raining,frog use our heart this is instinct of human only ths way,we can feel this fantastic world,only this way everything can make harmony WE ,it’s just a form of life style,but ,actually,it’s a summon,it’s a dialogue,past ,present,and future,it’s everything……

Weddingjewellery Silver&enamel,Christina Nystrom Jansson 2005,Photo by Luo Fei

“Love Dust” The silver product,handicraft, Christina Nystrom Jansson
Love is without form, amorf.Love is impossible to analyse.
Material: Silver, acrylic.
Technique: Driving the silverplate with a hammer (old technique). Thereafter the surface is grinded by a seastone and polished very properly.Christina wants a bright (shining) surface to reflect everyone who regards it

We borrow the soil from our children. // Elisabeth Johansson Danielsson

Shi Zhijie // Gesture of happiness// In love we can get free reckon on,weakness,meanwhile,we will hurt,tears,lonely,trouserse,love or loved by someone in both sides.Materials: cotton,weave

“Does love need to be protected?” Else Mansson

“Yes!” Linda Thornblad 2007
“Entrance. Do you dare? ” Linda Thornblad 2007

(from left to right)Anneli,Dou Yu and Sha Sha’s works

The light pillar : Anneli Linder
The humble love is a terrible power.There is not anything like that. Fjodor Dostojevskij

(the right 3 pieces)Dou Yu,Look! this family:Mom/Dad and Baby
family love is most purify,directly,and warming.

Sha Sha,”The Honest”,honest is a basis of love ,is sense of love ,I always make a serious of works”China attitude”,want to impressed Chinese attitude in our daily life.I want to show China female attitude about love in my works.I choose clothse that my family used long time ago,and printed in the ris paper,although we don’t wear that anymore,but they recorded our love procesure,let clothes talk with you!

The lamp,Anneli Linder
The love is not happy with injistice, but enjoy the truth.

Wang Han,”Journey of seeking love”, Installation, Mixed materials ,180cm*70cm
It’s a Journey of seeking love,maybe danger in from of them, maybe have ture love treasure that you dreaming.We have to go,otherwise,we’ll missed senery on the road.But anyway, we have no choice,we provement love use our life.

Homo rosa
The weaved quilt（Elisabeth Johansson Danielsson）:In Sweden there is a strong weaving tradition.This quilt is made of re-used cottonsheet.For the old fabrics they used a narrow loom, and put two parts together.They signed it with their initials,and year, or a family mark. The tufts were usually made of colourful pieces of cloths, laces, bands and strings.
The Swedish group have chosen to work in only black - grey- white colour and some red.The Swedes thought of the rose as a worldwide symbol of love.
The sowed quilt(Anneli Linder): Sidetext: This quilt is made in a faster tecnique, (molar tecnique).It is made of wool and linen (traditional Swedish materials).

openning:

photo by Tian Yao

photo by Tian Yao

photo by Tian Yao

Zhang Yu is playing Guzheng

“Freedom” The ceilingcloth Elisabeth Johansson Danielsson
The ceilingcloth is an old textile in Sweden, which was used as a decoration during great celebrations and weddings.This newly made one, is in linen.Elisabeth, a weaver and a farmer , got her inspiration from these seagulls, a day in springtime when ploughing.

all photos by Luo Fei

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