Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (UK) and ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai (China) are delighted to present an exhibition of new work by six emerging artists. 

 

A Lecture Upon The Shadow launches in Shanghai at ShanghART Gallery’s H-Space from 27 July to 27 August 2012 as part of the UK Now Festival, a major visual and performing arts festival taking place across China from April – November 2012. The exhibition then travels to the UK’s Open Eye Gallery from 7 December 2012 to 17 February 2013.

 

The exhibition is an exciting collaboration between Open Eye, a publicly funded photography gallery in Liverpool, and ShanghART, Shanghai’s leading commercial gallery.

 

It brings together new work by six rising stars from both countries working with photography – three from the UK’s North West and three from Shanghai. Using different approaches, the artists play with light, shadow and form to re-imagine familiar situations, exploring photography’s relationship to illusion and the everyday.

 

The six exhibiting artists are: David Jacques (Liverpool); Tabitha Jussa (Liverpool); David Penny (Manchester); Fan Shi San (Shanghai) ; Man Yi (Shanghai) and Liang Yue (Shanghai).

 

David Jacques’ work explores history, narrative and the interplay between fact and fiction. North Canada – English Electric (2009-10) consists of 171 stereoscopic images of post-industrial landscapes. Invented in the 1830s, stereoscopy was an early form of 3D imaging. Jacques’ stereoscopic images of industrial structures echo the photography of the highly influential 20th Century industrial photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, prompting a re-thinking of modern photographic practice through the eyes of an obsolete optical media.   

 

Tabitha Jussa’s new work Eldon Grove (2012) documents the site of an abandoned utopian social housing development in North Liverpool.Built in 1912, Eldon Grove is an imposing site consisting of three separate buildings. The community were moved out in the 1960s and despite a preservation order the building has been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair while the conservation officers and developers struggle to agree on its future. Jussa’s meticulous documentation of Eldon Grove involves 50 individual negative images, composited together digitally to create an impossible view of the buildings – a heightened realism.

 

David Penny’s new series of work Dutch Paintings (2012) has been made through a process of constructing intricate sculptures from the pages of a reproduction art book (which was found by Penny in a junk shop) and then photographing them. Presented behind coloured glass, these art-objects have undergone a number of deformations and reconstructions, highlighting photography’s transformational ability and its relationship to the history of art.  

 

Liang Yue’s new photographs taken in deteriorating lighting conditions capture frozen moments of everyday life. By subtly manipulating her images, Liang Yue enhances the effects of natural and artificial light on the camera lens and the surface of the image, creating imaginary scenes caught somewhere between twilight and darkness.

 

Fan Shi San’s project Two of Us (2009 -) explores the identity formation of people born in China since the introduction of the one child policy (a population control measure that applies to married, urban couples, in place since 1978). Constructing images of young people together with their imaginary reflections, the works are suggestive of separation and loneliness, as the two characters in the images never seem to be able to communicate.

 

Man Yi’s Memory of Water (2006 - 2010) traces details of a landscape surrounding the Yangtze River as it follows its natural course through the Yangtze region and into the East China Sea. Details are barely visible, caught in darkness, evoking a strange sense of detachment and unease. Man Yi’s experiments with light and depth of field create illusory spaces that are full of suspense and difficult to define.

 

A Lecture Upon The Shadow is curated by Patrick Henry (Director) and Karen Newman (Curator) from Open Eye Gallery, Ling Min (Director of International Projects, University of the Arts, Shanghai) and the team of ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai. The exhibition takes its title from a poem by the English Renaissance poet John Donne.

 

27 July to 27 August 2012

ShanghART H-Space

Open daily 1pm – 6pm. FREE ENTRY

Bldg 18, 50 Moganshan Rd.,

Putuo Disctrict, Shanghai, China 200060

T: +86 21-6276 3275

www.shanghartgallery.com

 

7 December 2012 to 17 February 2013

Open Eye Gallery

Open 10.30am to 5.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Closed Monday. FREE ENTRY

19 Mann Island, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool L3 1BP

Tel: +44 (0)151 236 6768

www.openeye.org.uk

 

 

(up) David Penny Dutch Painting 3, 2012

Copyright the Artist

 

(down) Liang Yue Numerous Continuation: Summer Autumn Chaos, 2011

Copyright the Artist

 

ShanghART gallery was initiated in 1996 in Shanghai. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital resource to the development of contemporary art in China with two spaces in 50 Moganshan Road (Main Space and H-Space), a public warehouse space in West of Shanghai (ShanghART Taopu), and a gallery space in Beijing and representing over 40 artists.

 

Being recognized for its importance ShanghART became the initial gallery from China participating in major international art fairs like Art Basel and Fiac, Paris. ShanghART gallery also enjoys the great respect of being among the 75 most influencial galleries selected in Thames & Hudson’s publication "International Art Galleries: Post-war to Post-millennium."

 

Open Eye Gallery has been one of the UK’s leading photography spaces since 1977, and is the only gallery dedicated to photography in the North West of England. In November 2011 Open Eye opened its brand new purpose-built home twice the size of its former incarnation, reinforcing the gallery’s position as one of the most significant exhibitors and collectors of photography in the UK.

 

Located in a development on Liverpool’s Waterfront, the new gallery is a stone’s throw from Tate Liverpool and the Albert Dock, in the heart of the city’s rich cultural quarter.

 

Funding

Open Eye Gallery receives regular funding from Arts Council England and Liverpool City Council. The new gallery Capital Project has received generous support from several major funders along with grants from trusts and foundations, corporate support and individual donations. Major funders include Liverpool Vision / Northwest Development Agency and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Support has also been received from the Foyle Foundation, Rootstein Hopkins Foundation, Granada Foundation and JSF Pollitzer Charitable Settlement.

 

UK Now is the largest festival of British arts and creative industries ever held in China. Between April and November 2012 it is bringing hundreds of events to 17 cities across China. During the festival, some of the most established and influential UK artists and artistic companies, as well as lesser-known talents from the UK’s broad creative scene will tour will tour Hong Kong and cities across Mainland China.

 

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and build trust between them worldwide. We work in over 100 countries in the arts, education and English. In 2010/11 we engaged face to face with 30 million people and reached 578 million. We have 6,800 staff worldwide.

 

In China we operate as the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Beijing and the Cultural and Education Section of the British Consulate-General in Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. In Hong Kong we are known as the British Council. Our first office in China opened in 1943.

 

China:

Helen Zhu/ Fay Yeong

ShanghART Gallery

helen@shanghartgallery.com / fay@shanghartgallery.com

T: +8602163593923

 

UK

Rhiannon Butlin / Katie Lucas

Open Eye Gallery

rhiannon@openeye.org.uk / katie@openeye.org.uk

T: +44 151 236 6768

 

A Lecture Upon the Shadow 07.27, 2012