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2/08/2011
Density of Silence | Frank Dituri, Elio Ciol
2/02/2011
Foam_3h presents work by Joris Jansen, winner of the 2009 Steenbergen Stipendium
Joris Jansen - Kosmos
nebula micae, 2010 © Joris Jansen
until 23 March 2011
Foam_3h presents work by Joris Jansen, winner of the 2009 Steenbergen Stipendium
Kosmos is an ode to analogue photography.
The exhibition revolves around a single old analogue photo. This picture does not actually appear in the presentation, rather Jansen uses word and image to analyse all the information conveyed by the photo. The result is on the one hand a kind of encyclopaedia of everything relating to the photo. On the other, the material of the photo itself is examined. Using microscopic images in which the chemistry and grain are magnified hundreds of times, Jansen presents an abstract world in which the structure and texture acquire an extraordinary appearance.
40 x III, 2010 c Joris Jansen
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31 (0)20 5516500
info@foam.nl
www.foam.nl
In Kosmos, Jansen approaches an analogue photo from an encyclopaedic perspective. The result is a site-specific work for the Foam library on the third floor, which doubles as an exhibition gallery. Jansen describes and photographs the picture in microscopic detail: from the literal image in the photo, to the physical elements with which it is made.
The exhibition revolves around a single old analogue photo. This picture does not actually appear in the presentation, rather Jansen uses word and image to analyze all the information conveyed by the photo. The result is on the one hand a kind of encyclopaedia of everything relating to the photo. On the other, the material of the photo itself is examined. Using microscopic images in which the chemistry and grain are magnified hundreds of times, Jansen presents an abstract world in which the structure and texture acquire an extraordinary appearance.
system8, 2010 (c) Joris Jansen
Systems and Orders
This examination of the boundaries of photography and the uses of the medium is a recurring theme in Jansen s work. In Flock, his final exam series, for example, he explored the photo s meaning and its material. Using clichι photographic images landscape, portrait and still life Jansen presented three massive photos. These were constructed from hundreds of individual photos on the same theme, all found and collected on Internet. It is the viewer s distance from the work that then determines how the picture is read. From close-by, the viewer reads only a combination of pixels, while the further back the viewer steps the clearer the picture becomes.
Another series, Pictures of Hue, comprises photos in which the pixels of the original photo are rearranged. Jansen made this new arrangement based on the place of the individual colours in the HSB colour chart. The resulting abstract forms produce entirely new images.
CV
Joris Jansen (b. 1980) graduated in 2009 at KABK in The Hague and won the Steenbergen Stipendium the same year. He has exhibited at Netherlands Photo Museum in 2009, CBK Rotterdam in 2009, CBK Den Bosch in 2010, Galerie van Kranendonk, The Hague in 2009, Ten Bosch Initiatief, Den Bosch in 2010, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), The Hague, Kulter Amsterdam in 2009 and Pulchri The Hague in 2010.
Joris Jansen lives and works in Amsterdam.
Kosmos was made possible with support from Van Bijlevelt Stichting and &Samhoud.
Kosmos, by Joris Jansen can be seen from 15 January to 23 March 2011 at Foam.
Open daily 10 am - 6 pm, Thurs/Fri 10 am 9 pm. Tickets: 8,00
nebula micae, 2010 © Joris Jansen
until 23 March 2011
Foam_3h presents work by Joris Jansen, winner of the 2009 Steenbergen Stipendium
Kosmos is an ode to analogue photography.
The exhibition revolves around a single old analogue photo. This picture does not actually appear in the presentation, rather Jansen uses word and image to analyse all the information conveyed by the photo. The result is on the one hand a kind of encyclopaedia of everything relating to the photo. On the other, the material of the photo itself is examined. Using microscopic images in which the chemistry and grain are magnified hundreds of times, Jansen presents an abstract world in which the structure and texture acquire an extraordinary appearance.
40 x III, 2010 c Joris Jansen
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31 (0)20 5516500
info@foam.nl
www.foam.nl
In Kosmos, Jansen approaches an analogue photo from an encyclopaedic perspective. The result is a site-specific work for the Foam library on the third floor, which doubles as an exhibition gallery. Jansen describes and photographs the picture in microscopic detail: from the literal image in the photo, to the physical elements with which it is made.
The exhibition revolves around a single old analogue photo. This picture does not actually appear in the presentation, rather Jansen uses word and image to analyze all the information conveyed by the photo. The result is on the one hand a kind of encyclopaedia of everything relating to the photo. On the other, the material of the photo itself is examined. Using microscopic images in which the chemistry and grain are magnified hundreds of times, Jansen presents an abstract world in which the structure and texture acquire an extraordinary appearance.
system8, 2010 (c) Joris Jansen
Systems and Orders
This examination of the boundaries of photography and the uses of the medium is a recurring theme in Jansen s work. In Flock, his final exam series, for example, he explored the photo s meaning and its material. Using clichι photographic images landscape, portrait and still life Jansen presented three massive photos. These were constructed from hundreds of individual photos on the same theme, all found and collected on Internet. It is the viewer s distance from the work that then determines how the picture is read. From close-by, the viewer reads only a combination of pixels, while the further back the viewer steps the clearer the picture becomes.
Another series, Pictures of Hue, comprises photos in which the pixels of the original photo are rearranged. Jansen made this new arrangement based on the place of the individual colours in the HSB colour chart. The resulting abstract forms produce entirely new images.
CV
Joris Jansen (b. 1980) graduated in 2009 at KABK in The Hague and won the Steenbergen Stipendium the same year. He has exhibited at Netherlands Photo Museum in 2009, CBK Rotterdam in 2009, CBK Den Bosch in 2010, Galerie van Kranendonk, The Hague in 2009, Ten Bosch Initiatief, Den Bosch in 2010, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), The Hague, Kulter Amsterdam in 2009 and Pulchri The Hague in 2010.
Joris Jansen lives and works in Amsterdam.
Kosmos was made possible with support from Van Bijlevelt Stichting and &Samhoud.
Kosmos, by Joris Jansen can be seen from 15 January to 23 March 2011 at Foam.
Open daily 10 am - 6 pm, Thurs/Fri 10 am 9 pm. Tickets: 8,00
"A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE" - Liang Weizhou's New Pictorialism
e-Announcement photography-now.com
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Kite“
(2004-2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 12; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 10
Liang Weizhou | A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE
22 January 2011 - 6 March 2011
m97 Gallery
No. 97 Moganshan Road 2F
Shanghai, China 200060
Tel: (+8621) 6266.1597
info@m97gallery.com
www.m97gallery.com
Tues - Sat 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sun 12:00 - 6:00 pm
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Old Wall, Shanghai“
(2009) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm – Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 3
"A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE" - Liang Weizhou's New Pictorialism
m97 Gallery Shanghai is pleased to present LIANG WEIZHOU’s newest photographic works in this solo exhibition titled “A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE”. The Shanghainese painter, most well known over the past fifteen years for his expressionist paintings, has been gaining critical acclaim and exposure for his new body of photography-based works.
Furthering in a long tradition of pictorialist photographers and photo-realistic painters, Liang Weizhou’s photographic works illustrate new possibilities found between painting and photography. As evident in several of his surrealist and expressionist paintings from the early 1990’s, Liang Weizhou has regularly explored the visual and conceptual relationship between painting and photography in his personal life and artistic practice. Occasionally painting self-portraits featuring a camera and tripod in the background or even himself toting a camera, it is very clear that the medium of photography as a way of seeing and interacting with the world has always been present in Liang Weizhou's conceptualization and realization of his artwork.
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Still Life with Newspaper“
(2002-2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 8; 100cm x 100cm -Edition of 6
After continued exploration and experimentation of the photographic image and process, Liang Weizhou has now clearly discovered his own visual language of interweaving his painting aesthetics with the continuing theme and subject matter of the often isolated and existential ordinary and intimate still life interiors.
Liang Weizhou is a trained and accomplished expressionist painter and thus never considered or imagined himself to be a serious “photographer”. But Liang Weizhou and his relationship with photography have always been at odds: He is a photographer and he is not a photographer. His photographs are photographs and they are not just photographs at the same time. Over the course of three decades the artist has gradually drawn his impassioned photography practice closer and closer to his heart and mind as a painter. And in a way, it has been the perfect marriage: the painter’s eye and sensitivity to formal aspects of composition, shape, shadow, texture and light, all lend themselves perfectly to be captured and laid out by the photographer on monochrome black and white film (he almost never photographs in color). It then sets the challenge for the painter to introduce the more abstract nuances of painted color, texture, emotion, mood and memory, which results in painting technique augmenting and transforming the photographs.
Liang Weizhou, born in Shanghai, China, lives and works in the city. His painting and photography works in addition to being widely exhibited in China have also been shown in galleries and museums across Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. His photography works are also in the permanent collection of the Shanghai Art Museum where they were exhibited in a solo exhibition in 2007.
A full-color catalogue accompanies the exhibition and is available for purchase in the gallery.
New Publication
LIANG WEIZHOU:
"Scenery and Still Life: A Painted Perspective"
Product Details:
Softcover: 60 pages, 45 color and black & white photographs
Dimensions: 22.50cm x 19cm Language: English, Chinese
Publisher: m97 Gallery Print Date: January 2011
To order please contact m97 Gallery at info@m97gallery.com
Exhibition URL: www.m97gallery.com/exhibitions/
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Fishing Boat on Dianshan Lake“
(2004 – 2010) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm - Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm -Edition of 3
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Lugu Lake Memory“
(1989 – 2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm – Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 3
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Jacket“
(2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 8; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 6
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Kite“
(2004-2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 12; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 10
Liang Weizhou | A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE
22 January 2011 - 6 March 2011
m97 Gallery
No. 97 Moganshan Road 2F
Shanghai, China 200060
Tel: (+8621) 6266.1597
info@m97gallery.com
www.m97gallery.com
Tues - Sat 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sun 12:00 - 6:00 pm
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Old Wall, Shanghai“
(2009) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm – Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 3
"A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE" - Liang Weizhou's New Pictorialism
m97 Gallery Shanghai is pleased to present LIANG WEIZHOU’s newest photographic works in this solo exhibition titled “A PAINTED PERSPECTIVE”. The Shanghainese painter, most well known over the past fifteen years for his expressionist paintings, has been gaining critical acclaim and exposure for his new body of photography-based works.
Furthering in a long tradition of pictorialist photographers and photo-realistic painters, Liang Weizhou’s photographic works illustrate new possibilities found between painting and photography. As evident in several of his surrealist and expressionist paintings from the early 1990’s, Liang Weizhou has regularly explored the visual and conceptual relationship between painting and photography in his personal life and artistic practice. Occasionally painting self-portraits featuring a camera and tripod in the background or even himself toting a camera, it is very clear that the medium of photography as a way of seeing and interacting with the world has always been present in Liang Weizhou's conceptualization and realization of his artwork.
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Still Life with Newspaper“
(2002-2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 8; 100cm x 100cm -Edition of 6
After continued exploration and experimentation of the photographic image and process, Liang Weizhou has now clearly discovered his own visual language of interweaving his painting aesthetics with the continuing theme and subject matter of the often isolated and existential ordinary and intimate still life interiors.
Liang Weizhou is a trained and accomplished expressionist painter and thus never considered or imagined himself to be a serious “photographer”. But Liang Weizhou and his relationship with photography have always been at odds: He is a photographer and he is not a photographer. His photographs are photographs and they are not just photographs at the same time. Over the course of three decades the artist has gradually drawn his impassioned photography practice closer and closer to his heart and mind as a painter. And in a way, it has been the perfect marriage: the painter’s eye and sensitivity to formal aspects of composition, shape, shadow, texture and light, all lend themselves perfectly to be captured and laid out by the photographer on monochrome black and white film (he almost never photographs in color). It then sets the challenge for the painter to introduce the more abstract nuances of painted color, texture, emotion, mood and memory, which results in painting technique augmenting and transforming the photographs.
Liang Weizhou, born in Shanghai, China, lives and works in the city. His painting and photography works in addition to being widely exhibited in China have also been shown in galleries and museums across Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. His photography works are also in the permanent collection of the Shanghai Art Museum where they were exhibited in a solo exhibition in 2007.
A full-color catalogue accompanies the exhibition and is available for purchase in the gallery.
New Publication
LIANG WEIZHOU:
"Scenery and Still Life: A Painted Perspective"
Product Details:
Softcover: 60 pages, 45 color and black & white photographs
Dimensions: 22.50cm x 19cm Language: English, Chinese
Publisher: m97 Gallery Print Date: January 2011
To order please contact m97 Gallery at info@m97gallery.com
Exhibition URL: www.m97gallery.com/exhibitions/
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Fishing Boat on Dianshan Lake“
(2004 – 2010) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm - Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm -Edition of 3
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Lugu Lake Memory“
(1989 – 2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
40cm x 40cm – Edition of 5; 60cm x 60cm - Edition of 5; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 3
LIANG WEIZHOU: “Jacket“
(2006) Archival pigment print on fine art paper
60cm x 60cm - Edition of 8; 100cm x 100cm - Edition of 6
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
Existential Emptiness/CUI Xiuwen
e-Announcement photography-now.com
Existential Emptiness No. 16 (detail), 2009, C print, 78 x 200 cm, Edition of 6
CUI Xiuwen | Existential Emptiness
29 January – 5 March 2011
at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
Opening Reception: Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 6:30-8:30pm Artist will be present.
Blindspot Gallery
24-26A, Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong Opening hours: Tue - Sat, 11am - 7pm
Tel.: +852 2517 6238
info@blindspotgallery.com
www.blindspotgallery.com
“Existential Emptiness” is Cui Xiuwen’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong featuring Existential Emptiness, her latest series since she released Angel, in 2006.
Existential Emptiness No. 5, 2009, C print, 57 x 130 cm, Edition of 6
Existential Emptiness continues in a similar vein of digitally manipulated photography as her previous works, Sanjie (2003), One Day in 2004 (2004) and Angel (2006), where brilliant light and colorful palettes shine on the contradictions in cultural traditions and violence enacted against women in China. Existential Emptiness is a continuation of Cui's self-exploration and artistic expression of the female experience in today’s China. In contrast to the vibrant colours in her previous works, Existential Emptiness is a set of manipulation of digital photographic images of monochromic snow scene where the artist captured in Northern China, the images are reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink painting.
Existential Emptiness No. 7, 2009, C print, 102 x 82 cm, Edition of 6
Cui’s “girl” protagonist has always been considered as the artist’s alter ego in her works through which Cui addresses the violation of innocence under social and cultural pressure. The use of this alter ego has been extended to her new series.
In this series, Cui’s alter ego, the girl is slightly older yet still in school uniform and is accompanied by a life-size doll that looks alike her. The re-appearance of the protagonist in this series suggests a development of the artist’s alter ego in probing the question rooted in the deeper layers of the artist’s mind. The doll implicates the duality of body and soul as a burden and a shield to the girl at the same time. The relations of the girl and the doll seem to suggest the artist’s confrontation with her female identity and present the pain borne by women in Today’s China.
Existential Emptiness No. 18, 2009, C print, 96 x 200 cm, Edition of 6
In the universe of Existential Emptiness one finds both oppression and refuge, as the void offers an opening into enlightened, interior landscape. The refuge is also a meditation on the wider human condition, as silence is often the only transgression one can rage against cultural and social constraints.
Blindspot Gallery is proud to present select images from Existential Emptiness alongside an iconic piece from Cui's previous series One Day in 2004, 'One day in 2004 No. 1’.
Cui Xiuwen, One day in 2004 No. 1, 2006, C print, 120 x 120 cm, Edition of 8
About Cui Xiuwen
One of the most renowned artists in contemporary art in China, Cui Xiuwen graduated from The Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1996. Cui's artistic career began with painting and evolved to include video works in the early 2000's, and her works presented a pointed exploration of the new sexuality in China. Since 2004, Cui has turned to photographic assemblages in an intriguing mix of digital manipulation, traditional motifs in both Western and Chinese arts and her singular aesthetics.
The work of Cui Xiuwen has been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious galleries and museums including Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, International Center of Photography and Pompidou Centre. She is also one of the first Chinese artists exhibited at Tate Modern.
About Blindspot Gallery
Blindspot Gallery is set up to bring contemporary photography, an art form that has entered the blind spot of the Hong Kong art market, to a higher degree of visibility. We feature both established and emerging photographers and artists, mainly from the region but not limited to.
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
Existential Emptiness No. 16 (detail), 2009, C print, 78 x 200 cm, Edition of 6
CUI Xiuwen | Existential Emptiness
29 January – 5 March 2011
at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
Opening Reception: Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 6:30-8:30pm Artist will be present.
Blindspot Gallery
24-26A, Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong Opening hours: Tue - Sat, 11am - 7pm
Tel.: +852 2517 6238
info@blindspotgallery.com
www.blindspotgallery.com
“Existential Emptiness” is Cui Xiuwen’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong featuring Existential Emptiness, her latest series since she released Angel, in 2006.
Existential Emptiness No. 5, 2009, C print, 57 x 130 cm, Edition of 6
Existential Emptiness continues in a similar vein of digitally manipulated photography as her previous works, Sanjie (2003), One Day in 2004 (2004) and Angel (2006), where brilliant light and colorful palettes shine on the contradictions in cultural traditions and violence enacted against women in China. Existential Emptiness is a continuation of Cui's self-exploration and artistic expression of the female experience in today’s China. In contrast to the vibrant colours in her previous works, Existential Emptiness is a set of manipulation of digital photographic images of monochromic snow scene where the artist captured in Northern China, the images are reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink painting.
Existential Emptiness No. 7, 2009, C print, 102 x 82 cm, Edition of 6
Cui’s “girl” protagonist has always been considered as the artist’s alter ego in her works through which Cui addresses the violation of innocence under social and cultural pressure. The use of this alter ego has been extended to her new series.
In this series, Cui’s alter ego, the girl is slightly older yet still in school uniform and is accompanied by a life-size doll that looks alike her. The re-appearance of the protagonist in this series suggests a development of the artist’s alter ego in probing the question rooted in the deeper layers of the artist’s mind. The doll implicates the duality of body and soul as a burden and a shield to the girl at the same time. The relations of the girl and the doll seem to suggest the artist’s confrontation with her female identity and present the pain borne by women in Today’s China.
Existential Emptiness No. 18, 2009, C print, 96 x 200 cm, Edition of 6
In the universe of Existential Emptiness one finds both oppression and refuge, as the void offers an opening into enlightened, interior landscape. The refuge is also a meditation on the wider human condition, as silence is often the only transgression one can rage against cultural and social constraints.
Blindspot Gallery is proud to present select images from Existential Emptiness alongside an iconic piece from Cui's previous series One Day in 2004, 'One day in 2004 No. 1’.
Cui Xiuwen, One day in 2004 No. 1, 2006, C print, 120 x 120 cm, Edition of 8
About Cui Xiuwen
One of the most renowned artists in contemporary art in China, Cui Xiuwen graduated from The Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1996. Cui's artistic career began with painting and evolved to include video works in the early 2000's, and her works presented a pointed exploration of the new sexuality in China. Since 2004, Cui has turned to photographic assemblages in an intriguing mix of digital manipulation, traditional motifs in both Western and Chinese arts and her singular aesthetics.
The work of Cui Xiuwen has been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious galleries and museums including Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, International Center of Photography and Pompidou Centre. She is also one of the first Chinese artists exhibited at Tate Modern.
About Blindspot Gallery
Blindspot Gallery is set up to bring contemporary photography, an art form that has entered the blind spot of the Hong Kong art market, to a higher degree of visibility. We feature both established and emerging photographers and artists, mainly from the region but not limited to.
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
William Yang. Old New Borrowed Blue
e-Announcement photography-now.com
Self Portrait #2, 2007
William Yang
Old New Borrowed Blue
Stills Gallery Sydney
2 - 26 February 2011
Artist reception:Wednesday 9 February 2011 6-8pm
Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street . Paddington
NSW 2021 Sydney - Australia
Phone: +61 2 . 93317775 Fax: +61 2 . 93311648
info@stillsgallery.com.au
www.stillsgallery.com.au
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 11am-6pm
WILLIAM YANG
Old New Borrowed Blue
William Yang is one of Australia’s greatest storytellers. The fact that his stories are image based makes them all the more powerful and unique. He is a fine and prolific photographer as well as a renowned theatre performer. His very personal stories describe the experience of being Chinese in an Australia that was not always hospitable to people of different appearances or of a different sexual persuasion. He says his mother wanted desperately to fit in, wanting her children to be more Australian than Australians. As a result Yang claimed his Chinese heritage and celebrated Sydney’s gay culture of which he was part.
This exhibition will present many of Yang’s rich and celebratory images of the gay community in Australia’s most international city from the seventies to the present. They reveal a world of personal and sexual expression. Many are black and white documentary images of cultural events such as Mardi Gras and the Sleaze Ball. Others are colour portraits of men Yang has photographed in a mutually enjoyed performance for his lens. “Photographing attractive men,” he says, “is one of the guilty pleasures of my old age, though they generally only like me for my camera.”
Alter Ego, Bondi, 2000
Yang is also a fine landscape photographer, something less known than his association with portraiture and documentation of people and their activities. Yang won second prize in the recent Plein Air Parliamentary Prize with an exquisite colour landscape of the burnt country in the Blue Mountains. He has always been interested in a sense of place and the beauty of the natural world.
A centrepiece to the exhibition will be a new series of self portraits covering the span of Yang’s life. Shown in a smaller selection at GOMA Brisbane as part of The China Project these delightful images tell us more than we already know about the nature of Yang’s bold journey embracing his identity as an Australian citizen and a contemplation of life’s milestones. All these works have a written commentary, which has become a hallmark of Yang’s later works. The tone is always gently wry with a delightful mix of humour and seriousness.
The title is taken from the saying “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” which refers to the bride’s accoutrements. It refers to the custom of wearing a particular mix of things for good luck. When showing work, Yang tends to draw on his large collection of images, so that photos range over long periods of time to illustrate life’s themes.
Yang is a delicate and unexpected presenter, offering others a reminder that life is for living in whatever way you choose as long as you accept and honour yourself.
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
Self Portrait #2, 2007
William Yang
Old New Borrowed Blue
Stills Gallery Sydney
2 - 26 February 2011
Artist reception:Wednesday 9 February 2011 6-8pm
Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street . Paddington
NSW 2021 Sydney - Australia
Phone: +61 2 . 93317775 Fax: +61 2 . 93311648
info@stillsgallery.com.au
www.stillsgallery.com.au
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 11am-6pm
WILLIAM YANG
Old New Borrowed Blue
William Yang is one of Australia’s greatest storytellers. The fact that his stories are image based makes them all the more powerful and unique. He is a fine and prolific photographer as well as a renowned theatre performer. His very personal stories describe the experience of being Chinese in an Australia that was not always hospitable to people of different appearances or of a different sexual persuasion. He says his mother wanted desperately to fit in, wanting her children to be more Australian than Australians. As a result Yang claimed his Chinese heritage and celebrated Sydney’s gay culture of which he was part.
This exhibition will present many of Yang’s rich and celebratory images of the gay community in Australia’s most international city from the seventies to the present. They reveal a world of personal and sexual expression. Many are black and white documentary images of cultural events such as Mardi Gras and the Sleaze Ball. Others are colour portraits of men Yang has photographed in a mutually enjoyed performance for his lens. “Photographing attractive men,” he says, “is one of the guilty pleasures of my old age, though they generally only like me for my camera.”
Alter Ego, Bondi, 2000
Yang is also a fine landscape photographer, something less known than his association with portraiture and documentation of people and their activities. Yang won second prize in the recent Plein Air Parliamentary Prize with an exquisite colour landscape of the burnt country in the Blue Mountains. He has always been interested in a sense of place and the beauty of the natural world.
A centrepiece to the exhibition will be a new series of self portraits covering the span of Yang’s life. Shown in a smaller selection at GOMA Brisbane as part of The China Project these delightful images tell us more than we already know about the nature of Yang’s bold journey embracing his identity as an Australian citizen and a contemplation of life’s milestones. All these works have a written commentary, which has become a hallmark of Yang’s later works. The tone is always gently wry with a delightful mix of humour and seriousness.
The title is taken from the saying “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” which refers to the bride’s accoutrements. It refers to the custom of wearing a particular mix of things for good luck. When showing work, Yang tends to draw on his large collection of images, so that photos range over long periods of time to illustrate life’s themes.
Yang is a delicate and unexpected presenter, offering others a reminder that life is for living in whatever way you choose as long as you accept and honour yourself.
photography-now.com
Torstr. 218 | 10115 Berlin | Editor: Claudia Stein
contact@photography-now.com | T +49.30.24 34 27 80
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