Jan 20, 2018 -
May 13, 2018
Group Exhibition, How Art Museum
HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) is pleased to announce its exhibition of the year Lettres du Voyant: Joseph Beuys x Nam June Paik on view from January 20 to May 13, 2018, after a two-year preparation. The exhibition presents the representative works by German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and Korean-American artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) throughout their artistic careers, and further discusses the cooperation and close relationship between these two avant-garde artists in the 20th century. Lettres du Voyant is another major exhibition of HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) following the inaugural exhibition MANIFESTO: Julian Rosefeldt. Works 2005-2017. It is also the first institutional joint exhibition of the two artists who left a generous legacy of 20th century.
Joseph Beuys is the most radical and influential performance artist and political activist in the second half of the 20th century. He is also one of the most controversial figures in the international art field, whose complex imagination on arts, politics and social issues has made a profound impact on artists of the later generations. Nam June Paik is widely credited as one of the most important visual artists in the world in addition to the pioneer and founder of new media art and video installation art. His creative work covers the fields of arts, music, media, science and technology, as well as popular culture. Paik plays a key factor in the prosperity of new media art in the 21st century.
The exhibition title, Lettres du Voyant ("Letters of the Seer") derives from the works of the same name by Arthur Rimbaud, a famous French poet and representative of symbolism poetry in the 19th century. In Rimbaud's letter, Voyant ("Seer") elucidates a visionary figure with an eye on the present that pierces through to the unknown. A Voyant ("Seer") can predict the imperceptible future, while inherently cultivating a soul richer than others. Joseph Beuys has presented one of the most explorative artistic approaches of the Western contemporary art, while Nam June Paik is a superlative representative of the Eastern culture in the contemporary art world. Spearheading these two unexplored trends, Beuys and Paik's works can be considered as personifications of their time and experiences. Lettres ('Letters') implies the inextricable relations between the works of Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik, and hints at the profound friendship between these two significant artists during the Fluxus art movement.
2. Exhibition Contents and Works
The exhibition Lettres du Voyant: Joseph Beuys x Nam June Paik occupies the entire space of the first and second floors of HOW Art Museum (Shanghai). It consists of three parts:
The first part displays Nam June Paik's representative works since the 1960s, including his performance art, video and multimedia artworks from 1960s to 1980s, such as his performance artwork Zen for Head for the Fluxus Art Festival in 1962, the first global satellite live multimedia video work Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984); the representative works from the late 1980s to the late period of his life, such as large TV installation works Indian Gate (1996-1997), Tower (2001), Easy Rider (1995), etc.
The second part focuses on Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik's cooperation and close relationship in the avant-garde art wave of the 20th century. The key works are: Beuys Vox created by Nam June Paik for commemorating Beuys, and the performance art COYOTE III jointly produced by Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik in 1984.
The third part presents Joseph Beuys's works including the film documentation of Beuys's often radical performances, installations, multiples with artist signature, literatures, and the documentary film Beuys that reflects the controversial life of Beuys. What best demonstrates Beuys's art concept of "social sculpture" is his installation works—7 sets of vitrines produced from 1970 to 1983. The film documentation of performance art EURASIENSTAB (1967) and How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) also deeply conveys the concept of the artist. All the works at Beuys's exhibition area are provided by HOW Art Museum, the only contemporary art institution in China that has systematically collected Joseph Beuys's works and documents.
3. About the Curators
With particular emphasis on the importance of academic research and exhibition design, the Director of HOW Art Museum Mr. Yun Cheagab specially invites Dr. Gregor Jansen, Director of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and international curator, and Mr. Kim Nam Soo, Korean art critic and former academic researcher of Nam June Paik Art Center, to serve as the curators for this exhibition and to jointly complete the curatorial and research work with the curatorial team of HOW Art Museum (the chief curator CHEN Che, the assistant curators YIN Tingyan, XU Tianyi and MA Jue). The above specially invited curators and the curators of HOW Art Museum have collaboratively researched and written articles for this exhibition.
4. Special Thanks
The Korean Art Link Fine Art Gallery and its director Ms. LEE Kyung Eun have provided great support and assistance for the exhibition of Nam June Paik's works. And Mr. LEE Jung Sung, Nam June Paik's former assistant and partner, also has provided great help for the installation and display of Nam June Paik's works. Moreover, HOW Art Museum also expresses sincere thanks to the following collectors of Paik's works for their generous loan to the exhibition: Ms. KIM Soo Kyung, Mr. HONG Soung Eun, Mr. LEE Gwang Gi and DSDL Group.
Meanwhile, HOW Art Museum would like to extend sincere gratitude to our institutional partners: Cultural and Education Department of Consulate General of Germany in Shanghai and Korean Cultural Center Shanghai, for their support and coordination in this exhibition.
5. About the Artists
Joseph Beuys
As one of the most important Western artists in the 20th century, the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) has a lasting impact and art historical value in the world and even in China. Some may say that from certain perspectives Beuys has surpassed Marcel Duchamp to become the key figure and representative of the art movement after World War II. As an avant-garde artist, Beuys's creative endeavors are diversified and his works have gone beyond the form of painting and sculpture. His works focus on installations and performance art, and "performance" is his own way of creation. Beuys emphasizes the attitude of social and cultural intervention. He has a revolutionist spirit and encourages people to participate in daily social activities. Beuys thinks that the way of making art is the most authentic way of human being so he puts forward the concept of "every human being is an artist". If every human being displays his/her nature, he/she can participate in and interpret the society with something pure and natural to develop the society in a better way.
The emergence and significance of Beuys's art life are driven by the underlying contexts of a Post-WWII Germany in the 1960s. Many Germans were just coming to terms with the traumatic events that occurred during the 1940s which later on developed into another era of social instability with the onset of the Cold War. Due to these circumstances, Beuys went on to further demonstrate and stress both social and cultural introspection while deliberating social responsibility. Beuys's artistic concepts and practice fully demonstrate the characteristics of his age. Because of this, Beuys has become a great artist in the history and has an extensive international impact, which has even spread to China and influenced many contemporary artists in China.
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is regarded as the pioneer of video art. As the most experimental and practical artist, he has represented more than half a century of video art history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Nam June Paik discovered the inherent expressiveness of the modern television. Through this new media form known as "video", he began to be actively involved in the Neo-dada movement known as "Fluxus", and became the representative figure of the movement.
He was encouraged and inspired by the daily voice and noise in the composer John Cage's music to constantly carry out avant-garde experimental performance art and exhibition. Through the collaboration with George Maciunas, Joseph Beuys, and John Cage, Nam June Paik has broken the norms of performance art and expanded the possible realms of art with contemporary art practice that have transcended the cultural differences between the East and the West. He constantly reforms the way of artistic expression: videotapes, installations, creation materials, and his draft designs have all demonstrated the harmony and unity between art and technology.
Nam June Paik is among the first group of artists who have incorporated new media into artistic creations. The video synthesizer collaboratively developed by him and the Japanese electronics engineer Shuya ABE is able to constitute and extract images in numerous exciting ways. Video falls into the category of modern art, whereas it's difficult to draw a clear demarcation line between video and other forms of visual art.
Nam June Paik's works synthesize art, media, technology, popular culture and avant-garde art. His revolutionary spectrum of art and fantasy is now still encouraging and inspiring new media artists.
6. About HOW Art Museum
HOW Art Museum (Shanghai), as a brand-new cultural institution which boasts multiple functions including contemporary art collection, exhibition, research and education located in Pudong New District of Shanghai, opened to public in September 2017. The museum spreads three floors for exhibition and cultural activities, covering about 7,000 square meters in total, that is, including nearly 5,000 square meters for the whole exhibition hall area and over 2,000 square meters for the area of official business, storage and service. Affiliated to HOW Art Museum (Shanghai), How Design Center, located on the third floor is an innovative platform where design exhibition, commercial sectors, brand integration and cross-border cooperation meet together. As HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) opens its doors, it will continue developing comprehensive communication and exchanges with artists, art institutions, and art projects at home and abroad.
HOW Art Museum was founded by the collector Zheng Hao, and Yun Cheagab was appointed as director of the museum since 2012. It enjoys two museums, namely HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) and HOW Art Museum | Wenzhou. The latter opened in early 2013, and has held nearly 20 contemporary art exhibitions of great significance as of now, including 1.62M: Lin Tianmiao Solo Exhibition, Misinterpret: Zhou Xiaohu Solo Exhibition, The Moment We Awe - Contemporary Art from Korea, Tour Exhibition in China Pavilion of China at the 55th Venice Biennale, HOW Now-Young Chinese Artists Group Exhibitions, Facebook. Meanwhile, HOW Art Museum (Wenzhou) has also conducted extensive cooperation with other cultural and arts institutions and held such important exhibitions as Chinese Expressionism and Social Sculpture -Beuys in China.
As an important art institution emphasizing systematic collection of contemporary artworks, HOW Art Museum has collected more than 2,000 artworks in both Eastern and Western artistic circles. On the basis of existing collections, the museum will collect more contemporary artworks in a continuous and systematic manner. The main collections are listed as follows: nearly 400 representative works and literatures of Joseph Beuys, representative works of Damien Hirst, as well as some significant works of Markus Lüpertz, Anish Kapoor, Darren Almond, Carsten Nicolai, Yayoi Kusama, Chun Kwang - Young, Xu Bing, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhou Chunya, Lin Tianmiao, Zhang Huan, Ai Weiwei, Zhan Wang and other artists.
The museum pioneers to create a new model of operating a "Night Art Museum" for the convenience of the public, that is to say, it opens its door from 1 p.m to 10 p.m regularly, and the opening hours are extended ranging from 10 a.m to 10 p.m on the weekends and holidays. The move is adopted to enable more audience to have opportunities for appreciating the exhibition in the museum on weekdays, so as to develop an authentic "Night Art Museum" which deserves the reputation. Meanwhile, HOW Art Museum also carries out many international exchange programs and outdoor public activities, such as the "International Curatorial Residency Program", "Outdoor Film Festival" and "Sculpture Park" to establish a brand-new art complex and cultural landmark in Pudong New District of Shanghai.
