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Sat, Jun 21, 2008 | 3:00 PM

New Museum theater (directions)

Night School Public Seminar 6: Keywords School
Hu Fang, Zhang Wei, and Xu Tan

Part of Museum as Hub, Night School
 
Discussions

The “Searching for Keywords” project was initialled from a series of interviews of active people in Chinese society. By analyzing the content of these conversations, artist Xu Tan identified certain “keywords,” terms that shed light on values and motivations of contemporary Chinese culture. “Keywords” measure the pulse of the current social climate and present an insight into the collective social consciousness of China. “Keywords” look at connections between the individual speakers, words, and mental tendencies of the society.

In this seminar, Zhang Wei and Hu Fang will invite Xu Tan to discuss his “Keywords” project and introduce the idea of opening a “Keywords School,” as well as considering his conceptual approach, method, and the larger social landscape made visible by the “Keywords”—a landscape of “collective consciousness” that actually frames our daily process.

Night School is an artist's project by Anton Vidokle in the form of a temporary school. A yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops, Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program.

*This event is free with Museum admission but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum prior to the seminar's start.

Sponsors TOP

This discussion is made possible by the Charlotte and Bill Ford Artist Talks Fund.

Night School is a program of the Museum as Hub, which is made possible by the Third Millennium Foundation.

With additional generous support from Metlife Foundation

Additional support is provided by the Asian Cultural Council, National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund, and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.

Profiles TOP

Hu Fang

Hu Fang is the artistic director and co-founder of Vitamin Creative Space, a project and gallery space dedicated to contemporary art exchange and to analyzing and combining different forms of contemporary cultures. As a novelist and writer, Hu has published a series of novels including Shopping Utopia, Sense Training: Theory and Practise, and A Spectator. His recent publication is a collection of fictional essays called New Arcades (Survival Club, Sensation Fair, and Shansui.) His writing has appeared in Chinese and international art/culture magazines since 1996. His curatorial projects include “Through Popular Expression” (2006); “Xu Tan: Loose" (1996); “Zheng Guogu: My Home is Your Museum" (2005); and "Object System: Doing Nothing" (2004). He has been a coordinating editor of documenta 12 magazines since 2006. Hu graduated from the Chinese Literature Department of Wuhan University in 1992. He lives and works in Beijing and Guangzhou.


Xu Tan

Xu Tan was born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1957 and currently lives in Shanghai and Guangzhou. In the early 1990s he joined the Big Tail Elephant Group in Guangzhou with Lin Yinlin, Chen Shaoxiong, and Liang Juhui. The aim of this group is to develop critical strategies for negotiating the rapidly changing economic and cultural life in China. His work has been shown around the world including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the Venice Biennial, the Berlin Biennial, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia, the Guangzhou Triennial, the Taipei Biennial, and De Appel in Amsterdam. Recent solo shows were held at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin, at the Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou, and at BizArt is Shanghai.


Zhang Wei

Zhang Wei is director and co-founder of Vitamin Creative Space, established in 2002. She graduated with a MA in Creative Curating at Goldsmiths University in London, and has organized numerous exhibitions internationally. Zhang is particularly interested in the exploration of an alternative space for contemporary art in the context of mainland China. She has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and international magazines including Parkett. Vitamin Creative Space’s most recent projects include: “Playing at Home/Playing Away: the Maze of Reality” at the Venice Biennial (2003); “Small Universe” at the Liste Art Fair, Basel (2006); and “Through Popular Expression” at the Singapore Biennial (2006).