Circa Art Magazine - Magazine texts - Hangzhou: 6 x 6 for Ireland at 411 Gallery

News Listings Blogs Reviews Articles Social Support Home

Share this page |

Circa Art Magazine on Facebook

Hangzhou: 6 x 6 for Ireland at 411 Gallery
Review C109 Hangzhou: 6 x 6 for Ireland at 411 Gallery Probably not many Irish people have ever heard about the city of Hangzhou in eastern China, located 180 km southwest of Shanghai. Yet is has a population of approximately five million, larger than Ireland, and is the capital of Zhejiang province with a total population of over fifty million. Hangzhou used to be the biggest and richest city in the world when it was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Today it is a famous tourist destination, a must-see for everybody travelling to China, thanks to the scenic beauty of its West Lake. Hangzhou is also one of the economic powerhouses of new capitalist China, an example of which being the world's longest bridge, which they are currently building across the sea at the Hangzhou Bay. On the other hand, many Chinese people do not know much about Ireland, some may not know its location or that it is a member of the EU. Luckily, in Hangzhou you can find a gallery, which functions as one of the world's longest cultural bridges, creating a dialogue between Western and Chinese contemporary art and culture and thus bringing the Chinese in contact also with Ireland : 411 Gallery. Founded in 2001 by Irish artist James Ryan and his Chinese wife, printmaker Chen Jiale, it held its first exhibition of Irish contemporary art in February / March 2003. Titled 6x6 - a reference to the size restriction of six-by-six inches decided upon for the convenience of transport - it was an immediate success, attracting seventy-five artists working in all media and receiving broad media coverage. Encouraged by the success, the Irish Consulate in Shanghai supported the exhibition when it moved to Shanghai, where it was then shown at the renowned Eastlink Gallery in July 2003. 6x6 for Ireland has now become a regular annual exhibition series sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland. The second 6x6 show at the 411 Gallery took place 22 May to 22 June in the new, more spacious premises in downtown Hangzhou. This time it had the theme 'Year of the Monkey' (the Chinese lunar calendar name for 2004) and works were selected by curator James Ryan and assistant curator Martin Shannon, resulting in sixty-five artists included in the exhibition. Feedback again was extremely positive, with wide media attention and besides the small foreign community in Hangzhou it received hundreds of curious Chinese visitors, among them many students and professors from China Academy of Art. Though restricted in size, works in all media were accepted, so that the exhibition featured an interesting and stimulating mix of drawing, watercolour, oil painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, installation, performance, video, sound art, photography, etc. Writer John Paul Donnelly also contributed a humorous and allegorical short story titled A monkey named sue . Unfortunately, only about half of the artists submitted work really dealing with or related to the theme 'Year of the Monkey'. The other half did not take the trouble of working on the theme. This is a pity because in consequence the exhibition lacked a common point of reference for better comparability. Another weak point of the show was the presence of some low-quality works by some unknown amateur or 'hobby' artists. There were maybe five or six such works and they did spoil the positive general impression a little, so the selection for next year's 6x6 should be a little more strict and careful, even if this results in less works exhibited. The majority of the works are of high standard but due to the large number it is impossible to mention them all here. Of those considering the monkey theme, I personally was most impressed by the following: 1. Eamon O'Kane's short video Monkey man shows Jack Nicholson repeatedly ape-like rubbing and scratching his hairy chest with his fingers while taking a break during the making of the film The Shining . 2. Gareth Pyper took the photograph Monkey god on a tour through India. It depicts an Indian boy with his face decorated like a monkey for the Shiva Festival in order to pay homage to 'Hanaman', the Monkey God.

Gareth Pyper: Monkey god , colour photograph; courtesy 411 Gallery

3. Prehensile grip by Áine Phillips is a drawing of a newborn baby gripping at a rope. This baby though looks more ape-like than human, addressing the basic instincts that have stayed with us through evolution. 4. Michael Haskett's humorous print Monkey business shows a man in a debris-filled environment referring to the confusion sometimes associated with the Year of the Monkey. 5. as mon-cii by Enda O'Donoghue most fascinated the Chinese audience. Based on the ASCII-code, it appears at first sight to be just a series of jumbled up characters and numbers. From a distance of around 8 feet though, the face of a chimpanzee can be seen.

Enda O' Donoghue: AS-MONCii ; courtesy 411 Gallery

Of those works not related to the theme, the following are definitely worth a mention: 1. Samuel Walsh's Kopf drawing derives from sketches of medieval helmets. 'Kopf' in German means 'head', and in this piece Walsh represents the human head with simple, characteristic black line starkly drawn on white paper. 2. Minutia major by Angela Darby is a sculpture of twenty-two Tarot cards folded into a popular children's game of chance that may carry many psychological meanings.

Angela Darby: Minutia major (The Crowley Deck) ; courtesy the artist

3. Fiona Bourke sent a self-made, extremely thin and fragile porcelain cup, which luckily was not broken during transit. The graceful cup, sitting on a corrugated support, might in its delicate existence be a metaphor of the transience of life. The title 1980 Year of the Monkey does not at all seem to be related to the meaning.

Fiona Bourke: 1980 Year of the monkey ; courtesy 411 Gallery

4. Catherine Hehir submitted an interesting untitled photograph of two different hands holding together a mysterious light source that could symbolize the struggle or the unity of man. 5. Curator James Ryan himself presented the 'Sean Nós'-style traditional song The cross of Spancil Hill sung in Chinese. The work, he says, is a comment on his struggles to learn Chinese and to be understood by the Chinese. Ryan has already set the date for next year's 6x6 for Ireland . It is scheduled for March 2005 and the theme will be announced three months prior to the closing date of submissions (11 March 2005). The show certainly has the potential of becoming more important in the international art scene now that it already is an established event. Arvo Bruene is lecturer in Western Art History, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China. 6 x 6 for Ireland , 411 Gallery, Hangzhou, May / June 2004

Article reproduced from CIRCA 109, Autumn 2004, pp.82-83

Make a comment

[574]

Scans