Carol Yinghua Lu & Liu Ding: Little Movements

Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu will speak about their recent project Little Movements: Self Practice in Contemporary Art, which they initiated and organised together with Su Wei. The inaugural presentation took place last year at OCAT Programme for Emerging Art Practitioners, Shenzhen, China. In 2013, it will open at Museion in Bolzano (Italy).

Taking its lead from the concept of ‘global art’ as proposed by Hans Belting (ZKM, Karlsruhe), which surveys contemporary art practice worldwide and sees an art world with multiple centres, Little Movements examines and presents new modes of thinking and working in artistic and theoretical practices, both international and local, past and present. Some of the processes and forms of these practices can be described and summarised, while some are difficult to convey or sum up within the existing categories of artistic practice. They employ independent values, attitudes and working methods to rethink, resist, shake and influence universal values, standards, systemic forces and all forms of inertia. They consciously defy and actively cast doubt on the discourse of systemisation and standardisation, and remain in a perpetual state of self-doubt. It is because of this state that they gain the power and vitality to persevere in their practices.

In the views of the curators, these practices are not of immediate gain. They have no short-term goals. They refute clear political standpoints and value judgments, while maintaining the potential and power for participation and change. It could be said that Little Movements are the critical political imaginings and ideas of artistic practice.

Carol Yinghua Lu is a young Chinese curator and writer. She studied English Literature (BA) at the Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou and graduated in Critical Studies at the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. From 2005-2007, she was the China researcher for Asia Art Archive. Carol Yinghua Lu is one of China’s most active and dynamic curators and critics. She is a contributing editor for Frieze and writes frequently for international art journals and magazines including e-flux journal, The Exhibitionist, Yishu, and Tate. Her texts on contemporary art have also appeared in art catalogues, books, publications, and critical readers. In 2011 she was on the selection panel for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale. She has recently been appointed one of the Co-Artistic Directors of the 2012 Gwangju Biennale.

Liu Ding’s Store is an ongoing project begun by the artist in 2008, a platform on which issues around the role of artist, the relationship between the value of artwork and consumption, the ethical limits of art institutions and art systems are investigated. Liu Ding has participated in a number of major exhibitions such as the Second Guangzhou Triennial, the Fourth Seoul International Biennale of Media Art, and the Chinese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. His works have also featured in many museums and galleries in China and abroad.

www.liudingstore.com

Justin Bennett: Cricket Orchestra

British sound artist Justin Bennett developed the soundscape for The Residence (a wager for the afterlife). Part of it originated from what he calls his Cricket Orchestra. Consisting of numerous clicks and glitches the ‘orchestra’ uses single sound bites to create a life-like environment of crickets and insects, although sometimes they really go berserk.

Justin Bennett is an artist working with sound and visual media. The everyday sound of our urban surroundings at every level of detail is the focus of his work wherein he develops the reciprocity of music and architecture, and sound and image. Bennett often works with artists from other disciplines. These include the performance group B M B con, theatre maker Renate Zentschnig, and choreographer Eva-Cecilie Richardsen. His recent solo work has focused on urban development and public space, resulting in sound, video, animation and graphic works. His recent projects include the videos Raw Materials and Brunelleschi’s Mirror (2011), Chipka, a 12" vinyl release (2011), Production Line, a solo exhibition at Barbara Seiler Galerie, Zürich (2010), The City Amplified, a solo exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag (2009), Zuidas Symphony, an audiowalk for a new business district in Amsterdam (2009), Drawing Typologies, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2008), The Well, CD and installations for the 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007).

Website Justin Bennett

Language English