Ma Qiusha @ CAC Manchester

Last week I went to Manchester with my class… we went, it snowed, we were stuck on a 5-hour long train ride (Anna, you are not forgiven and your feeble apologies just does not cut it). We visited three galleries during our trip: the Eastcastle Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery and the Chinese Art Centre. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the works shown at the Manchester Art Gallery, and was even more unimpressed by the exhibition at the Eastcastle Gallery.

After lunch at the Teapot, we headed over to the Chinese Art Centre to check out Ma Qiusha’s solo show. Initially, I was disappointed by the small scale of the show (4 works... seriously?! I thought this was supposed to be a retrospective), and when it was explained to us that the works were chosen with the theme of ‘cutting’ in mind, I became even more dubious. My opinion changed, however, after talking to the artist herself.

It seems that these works have more to do with self-reflection and not that concerned with the curator-chosen theme of cutting. I found her works to be extremely visceral, provoking quite a strong reaction. And talking to Ma Qiusha herself, it became even clearer that these works acted as a personal diary, almost like an intimate letter addressed to her family… 

Two Years Younger Than Me

The first work that leads into the retrospective is Two Years Younger Than Me. The installation comprises of bottles filled with the beard clippings of Ma Qiusha’s grandfather. As an anti-hoarder myself, the storage of the beard clippings really repulsed me, but I could understand that this was an expression of mourning.

Two Years Younger Than Me

It was interesting to see the gradation through time, with her grandfather’s beard hair going from dark salt and pepper to light grey. It seems that the work is extremely personal, and Ma’s desire for the audience to appreciate the work in an abstract, visual way seemed lost on me. The bottles to me were empty, and the alignment of them did not give them any more meaning.

From No.4 Pingyuanli to No.4 Tianqiaobeili

Watching her work From No.4 Pingyuanli to No.4 Tianqiaobeili, I felt physically sick as Ma talks through the pain of razors cutting the insides of her mouth. With specks of blood seeping onto her teeth, the image was enough to make my stomach churn and I had no desire whatsoever to even listen to the audio. The pain expressed (and prompted by the razor) is reflective of the subject that Ma addresses in the video: the pressures placed upon the only child in a Chinese family to succeed. It was most interesting when Ma told us that Chinese audiences tend to listen intently to the story and only once it is revealed that she is speaking with a razor in her mouth do they re-watch it to watch her lips move in pain. In contrast, she says, non-Chinese audiences first notice the pain in her eyes and the reluctance of her mouth to speak and it is only to hear the story that non-Chinese audiences re-watch the film.

All My Sharpness Comes From Your Hardness

I recoiled once more as I watched All My Sharpness Comes From Your Hardness. Played on a 25-minute loop, the audio of the video this time was not optional. Listening to Ma’s skates go side-to-side along the harsh terrains of Beijing, one could sense the danger. The sound, when turned up to a very high volume, apparently sounds more like an airplane propeller… but even at the level it was sounded at, the intensity still persisted. The work is highly sensual, crossing back and forth between pleasure and pain. The work is playful and fun, yet there’s an element of sharpness, of pain and potential injury. Ma created this work by strapping herself onto the back of a motorcycle with a camera hoisted above her. Instructing the driver, the audience follows Ma’s oft-travelled journey from her grandmother’s house to her own place.

 Fog

Fog was the easiest out of the four works to take in. Essentially a black painting, the work conceals a delicate layer of curtain material that was taken from her childhood home in the Hutongs of Beijing. Playing with the idea of privacy and letting the light in through the window, the work employs a decidedly domestic motif. In lieu with the retrospective’s theme of ‘cutting’, a slash is made on the painting, interrupting the blackness of the work.

 Fog (a close up)

Ma Qiusha was an interesting artist to meet. She graduated with a BA from CAFA before getting her MFA from Alfred University. Her works have been widely exhibited nationally and internationally in places such as Pace, New York, Liverpool Biennial, Loop Gallery, South Korea and numerous solo exhibitions at Beijing Commune.

The exit of the museum referencing the address of her grandparents in the Hutongs of Beijing.

Harland Miller at White Cube Hoxton Square

WHITE CUBE HOXTON SQUARE IS CLOSING! Crazy, right!? Well, I checked out the venue’s final exhibit and it was fantastic! Until the 22^nd December, when the doors of this legendary gallery shut forever, the gallery will be exhibiting the works of Harland Miller. The show, The Next Life’s On Me, features a selection of paintings that resemble old book covers.

From figurative covers featuring tongue-in-cheek titles, to Miller’s appropriation of the marbled covers of old-fashioned Penguin poetry editions, the ground floor space engulfs the viewer with these oversized book covers. The marbled paintings are painted on walnut with luxurious metallic paints, exuding luxury and standing up as beautiful art objects, as well as demonstrating Miller’s stellar talent in painting. Miller achieves this stunning marble effect by thinning paint and working on the floor in the way that Jackson Pollock does. With made-up titles gracing Miller’s book covers, the works raised a smile on my face and made me want to immediately call up the bank, acquire the works, and hang them up in my living room!

On the first floor, Miller exhibits three paintings that immediately grabbed me. Darker in style with skull motifs gracing the bottoms of the works, amber and black dominating the palette, and humorous slogans such as ‘Fetish or Die, is health and safety killing bondage?’, I immediately loved the works and the three complimentary paintings seemed to epitomize the grunge of Hoxton – the area that so many people see as being transformed by the opening of the illustrious gallery in 2000.

A fabulous show, and a fitting end to a gallery that drastically altered the face of London’s art scene…

SHOOT!

Niki de Saint Phalle, Film-still of «Daddy», 1972, Coloured reproduction, Inkjet-Print, Sprengel Museum, Hanover

Shoot! Existential Photography at the Photographer’s Gallery on Ramillies Street was one of the most original exhibitions I’ve seen. Curated by Clément Chéroux, the exhibition focuses on the photographic shooting gallery, a practice I certainly was unaware of until attending this show. There is a heavy emphasis on the vocabulary of photography. Terms such as ‘loading’, ‘taking aim’, and ‘shooting’ suggest a link between killing with a gun and taking a photograph.

One of the works that dominates the 4^th Floor is an installation of a series of amateur pictures featuring Ria van Dijk, a Dutch woman who first started shooting at the photographic shooting gallery at her local fair in 1936. Her dedication to the sport is displayed in a series of photographs that span 72 years! The audience witnesses this woman age and the times around her constantly change.

Ria van Dijk over the years

The first photograph is a black and white image and shows a very youthful looking Ria. Surrounded my young friends, Ria stands upright, eyes sprightly and her hair styled in a sleek, dark bob. The most recent photograph, dated 2008, shows a much order Ria, now with grey hair, and much smaller in stature. Her walking stick lays on the stand, and in place of her friends, her family now surround her in this colour photograph.

Ria van Dijk in 1936

Ria van Dijk in 2008

The 5^th Floor is a much more interactive space. Firstly, there is a real shooting gallery which allows for visitors to try their hand at triggering the mechanics of a camera to create a self-portrait for £5 a pop! There is also an video installation by Christian Marclay, which was my favourite part of the show. Crossfire consists of four screens that are projected with scenes from Hollywood movies. Marclay isolates clips of movie stars firing guns at the camera, creating the illusion that they are firing at us. The work is incredibly fast paced and the sensation of being shot at really is heartstopping!

Don't shoot me Sly!

Shoot! Existential Photography by Clément Chéroux. Until January 6^th.

Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes

Sugimoto's silver gelatin print side-by-side with Rothko's works. Sugimoto's photograph echoes the composition of Rothko's painting, and we can see that the Pace chooses to emphasize this by lining up the horizon line of the works. 

Three Sugimoto prints alongside each other. In real life, the prints are extremely shiny and the tonal disparities between the works are beautiful. 

The only piece in the exhibit to display any colour, Rothko's painting taking pride position at the end wall of the gallery.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mark Rothko is definitely in my top 10 of artists of all time… and as someone who loves a lot and likes a whole lot more, top 10 is a pretty sizeable accolade. The international super-gallery with spaces in New York, Beijing, and now London had a show in their Burlington Gardens space showcasing the works of Rothko and juxtaposing his paintings with the photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto. Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes is in lieu with the Pace’s long-established tradition of exploring in their exhibitions the affinities between artists working across decades and mediums.

The Rothko paintings exhibited were the lesser-known works of the American artist painted just before his death, with all eight paintings dated 1969, the year before the artist’s suicide. These grey and black colourfield paintings were juxtaposed against the seascape photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto. Sugimoto’s photographs echo the black and grey tones of Rothko’s paintings, selecting photographs where the sea is almost black and the sky fading into a dark grey. The photographs certainly echo Rothko’s exploration of abstraction, but through the medium of photography. The artist’s composition seems to capture the nuances of the waves and the subtle moonlight as opposed to the sea in all its powerful glory.

I couldn’t quite decide whether the juxtaposition between the two artists served to highlight their similarities or their differences. At first glance, there was clearly a textual difference with the shiny, polished silver gelatin photographs gleaming over the coarse, painterly works of Rothko. While Sugimoto seemed to depict very definitively through the mechanical means of photography, one could sense Rothko’s human gestures in his layers of painted clouds. However, Sugimoto’s abstract and minimalist composition makes the works of the two artists incredibly relatable. Sugimoto’s lack of true focus on object evokes the Rothko-like search for a greater, more ambiguous contemplation – perhaps metaphysical?

The Pace’s selection to exhibit the artists’ works side-by-side is an interesting one, especially considering the disparities in periods. Ultimately this teaches us about humanity and the concerns that cross generations. The contemplative works of the two artists are suggestive of cyclical eternity, of night and day, of life and death.