Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China

At left:
Cao Fei
Title , YEAR
Photograph
size
Courtesy of...

Representing the only California venue, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), is host to the groundbreaking exhibition Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, the first comprehensive look at the innovative photo and video art produced since the mid-1990s from China.  A portion of the exhibition will be presented simultaneously at the Contemporary Arts Forum from July 1 through August 26, 2006. 

Featuring 130 works by 60 Chinese artists, many of whom are exhibiting for the first time in the United States, the exhibition reflects the enthusiastic adoption of media-based art by younger Chinese artists.  Their works, often ambitious in scale and experimental in nature, reflect a range of highly individual responses to the unprecedented changes now taking place in China’s economy, society and culture.  In addition to introducing a remarkable body of work to American audiences, the exhibition will also provide insights into the dynamics of Chinese culture at the start of the 21st century.

The significance of the subject matter is only matched by the considerable scope of the exhibition which includes not only photographs, but also video and installation pieces that amplify the exhibition’s four main themes of History and Memory, People and Place, Performing the Self, and Reimagining the Body.  The space required to house such an exhibition presents the opportunity for SBMA to share a portion of this exhibition with Contemporary Arts Forum. 

Exhibition sections

Performing the Self
Arising from a culture that has traditionally been marked by the subordination of the individual to the collective, these works all reflect the emergence of hybrid new conceptions of selfhood and personal identity in contemporary China. This portion of the exhibition will be held at the Contemporary Arts Forum.

History and Memory
The works in this section explore the contemporary legacy of China’s past.  Some artists, for example, update motifs drawn from the rich heritage of Chinese art.  Still others examine the consequences of such recent historical moments as the Cultural Revolution, a period of traumatic upheaval that many of the artists experienced in their childhood.

Reimagining the Body
In this section, many works document performances that use the human body to fashion sometimes disturbing metaphors for the violent changes that have swept through every corner of Chinese life in recent decades.

People and Place
In the past two decades, China’s urban life has been completely transformed.  A massive building program has created sprawling skyscraper cities, and at the same time tens of thousands of city dwellers have been displaced from the inner city to the outskirts.  These conditions have brought about a growing alienation between the city and its residents – they no longer belong to each other.  The works in this section both reflect and respond to the new textures of China’s metropolitan culture.

Opening Reception: Saturday July 1, 2006 6-8PM

From July 7- July 17, 2006, Santa Barbara’s historic State Street, will be transformed into a public art display with artist-designed flags in lively pink and purple hues.   This elegant public gesture is one part of artist Amy Gartrell’s Bloom Projects exhibition entitled Growing Flowers By Candlelight (Pt. II) at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum(CAF).  Organized under the aegis of Santa Barbara Downtown Organization, which coordinates the successful flag program year-round, Gartrell’s display of over 100 banners marks the first time that flags on State Street have been conceived and presented as public art.
These outdoor banners will be accompanied by paintings, large-scale drawings, and an artist designed rug at CAF in the Paseo Nuevo’s cultural arts complex.  An artist with a romantic-gothic sensibility, Gartrell's work is inspired by friends, rock stars, dragon slayers, and other bittersweet iconography augmented with floral assemblage, lace patterning, and Day-glo colors.  Gartrell’s representations of American girlhood are at once disquieting and sentimental, reflecting the complexities, confusion, and drama of adolescence.

Amy Gartrell
Proposal for Pink Clock Flag, 2006
Mixed media
Dimensions Variable
Courtesy Daniel Reich Gallery, New York