CURRENT |????: Contemporary Art from Scotland – a collaboration between Cooper Gallery and Shanghai Himalayas Museum, part of the 2015 UK-China Year of Culture Exchange.
Published On Mon 8 Jun 2015 by Grant Hill
The University of Dundee’s Cooper Gallery is to present the first major exhibition dedicated to Scottish contemporary art to be held in China in collaboration with Shanghai Himalayas Museum.
‘CURRENT: Contemporary Art from Scotland’ is a collaboration between Cooper Gallery and Shanghai Himalayas Museum. The four-phase, 18-month exhibition and forum programme will showcase for the first time in China the distinctiveness of contemporary art made in Scotland, its grass-roots spirit and its keen debates with the social and political dimensions of art and culture. CURRENT: Contemporary Art from Scotland is co-curated by Sophia Hao of Cooper Gallery and Wang Nanming of Shanghai Himalayas Museum.
It is anticipated that around 150,000 Chinese and international visitors will visit the exhibitions and events at Shanghai Himalayas Museum. Taking place over 2015/16 the project is organised in partnership with the British Council and is an Official UK-China Year of Culture Exchange Event in 2015.
Phase One of the programme will see exhibitions of work by Edgar Schmitz and Poster Club running from 28th June – 9th August. Accompanying the exhibitions will be the Hubs & Fictions Forums featuring contributions from international leading artists, practitioners and experts including in the first Forum the Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Simon Groom and What, How & for Whom/WHW.
Showcasing artworks by artists of different generations, CURRENT will provide a distinctive take on the recent histories, current conditions and, importantly, the experimental ethos that underpins contemporary art practices in Scotland. The artists brought together in CURRENT emphasise the complexity and vibrancy of artistic practices that are thriving in Scotland.
“Through showing contemporary artworks from Scotland in China, the programme brings two radically different images of ‘the contemporary’ into proximity,” said Sophia Hao. “Un-anchored from their social and cultural context, these art practices from Scotland are remediated under the hypothetical universality of the transnational. In this geographical and discursive move, CURRENT challenges how ‘the contemporary’ functions and ascribes legitimacy.
“Right now Scotland is caught up in a pivotal moment that revises and challenges its recent history. In navigating this flux, the ‘contemporary’ offers a cogent and effective means for defining a generation’s sensibility.
Including solo exhibitions by Bruce McLean, Poster Club (Anne-Marie Copestake, Charlie Hammond, Tom O'Sullivan, Nicolas Party, Ciara Phillips and Michael Stumpf), Edgar Schmitz, Ross Sinclair, Lucy Skaer and Corin Sworn, CURRENT will also present seminal British Artists’ Video works of the 1970s & 1980s from the REWIND research project at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, part of the University, and a moving image screening programme featuring emerging artists’ works from Scotland today.
The CURRENT residency programme will run concurrently with the exhibition throughout July at Himalayas’ residency venue, Zhujiajiao Art Museum. Residency artists include four members of Poster Club (Ciara Phillips, Michael Stumpf, Nicolas Party and Anne-Marie Copestake) for a week-long residency, throughout July Glasgow-based artist Anne-Marie Copestake will be in residence and developing her work with local musicians in Shanghai, then in the second two weeks of August, art writer and member of Cooper Gallery’s Group Critical Writing initiative, Frances Davis will be the Art Writer in Residence, reflecting and annotating upon CURRENT in Shanghai.
More information is available at www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk/current
Notes to Editors:
1. CURRENT |????: Contemporary Art from Scotland, is a collaborative project between Cooper Gallery DJCAD, University of Dundee in Scotland and Shanghai Himalayas Museum, in partnership with British Council.
2. CURRENT |????: Contemporary Art from Scotland is an exhibition and forum programme running over 2015-16 at Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.
3. Phase 1 presents two exhibitions: Poster Club: Wheat, Mud, Machine and Edgar Schmitz: Surplus Cameo Decor: Sindanao 2. Please see note 21 for Artists’ Biographies.
4. Phase 1 exhibitions are open from 27 June – 9 August 2015.
5. Hubs & Fictions Shanghai Forum Series is a four-part forum programme at Shanghai Himalayas Museum over 2015/16.
6. Phase 1 includes Hubs and Fictions: On Current Art and Imported Nearness Shanghai Forum Series #1 with speakers Simon Groom, Terry Smith, Wang Nanming and What How & for Whom/WHW. Please see note 23 for Speakers Biographies.
7. Hubs & Fictions Shanghai Forum Series is curated by artist Edgar Schmitz and Cooper Gallery curator Sophia Hao.
8. For more information about the CURRENT project please visit www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk/current or www.himalayasmuseum.org
9. Please see below from no.19 for biographies of artists and speakers.
10. Artists and speakers may be available for interview during or in advance of the exhibitions, installation period and events. For more information on specific availability please contact Cicely Farrer on exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk or the Press liaison at Shanghai Himalayas Museum is Xian Chen xianchennnn@163.com.
11. Shanghai Himalayas Museum opening hours are Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 6pm (UTC + 8).
12. Cooper Gallery is internationally recognized as a distinctive platform in Scotland for radical curatorial research and focus on critical discourse in contemporary art and cultures. It is associated with one of the most respected art colleges in the UK, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) established in 1892 and now part of the University of Dundee.
Through an integrated programme of new commissions, exhibitions, publications, residencies and discursive events, Cooper Gallery actively develops meaningful and effective collaborations with emerging and established artists as well as respected organizations, writers and curators on an international platform. By positively advocating the pooling of knowledge from different disciplines, the Gallery programme implements a sustained and rigorous critical engagement.
Since 2010, Cooper Gallery’s unique new model of curating, grounded in discursive, participatory and process-led strategies has led to highly celebrated project including major exhibitions and commissions by Paul Noble, Bruce McLean, Viola Yes?iltaç, Anna Oppermann, Georgina Starr, Rose English, Kathrin Sonntag, Lynda Morris, Graham Eatough & Graham Fagen and Henry VIII’s Wives. Most recently the Gallery presented the large scale survey exhibition Studio Jamming: Artists’ Collaborations in Scotland. As part of its integrated programme the gallery hosts the yearly Cooper Summer Residency working with artists, writers and thinkers, the Group Critical Writing project championing for criticality in contemporary art and Cooper Gallery Publications, including the journal of contemporary art and visual culture & labels, which is distributed internationally.
13. Designed by Arata Isozaki and established by Shanghai Zendai Group in 2005, the Shanghai Himalayas Museum is a non-profit art institute focusing on art exhibitions, education, collection, research and academic exchanges. Other than the main space, Himalayas Museum also has two branch museums: Zendai Contemporary Art Space, consists of galleries and artist studios, it focuses on the study and exploration of experimental and avant-garde art; and Zendai Zhujiajiao Art Museum, located at Zhujiajiao town, a picturesque watertown in southeast of Shanghai suburb, it runs an artist-in-residence program and organizes a variety of public art programs targeting at local community. In recent three years, the museum has presented a series of international art projects including Kenya Hara, Tony Cragg, John Moores, Sean Scully, Kengo Kuma and Michael Craig-Martin, etc.
14. CURRENT is organised in partnership with the British Council.
15. CURRENT is a Participant in the 2015 UK-CHINA Year of Culture Exchange (YoCE). 2015 sees the first ever UK-China Year of Culture Exchange – showcasing the very best of UK culture in China and Chinese culture in the UK.
A unique opportunity to further deepen and strengthen the UK’s existing relationship with China across the arts and creative industries, the 2015 UK-China Year of Cultural Exchange will build on our long and shared rich cultural histories, and seek to inspire what this creative partnership means in the 21st Century. The Year comprises of two ‘seasons’ of culture – a UK season in China in the first half of 2015 and a China season in the UK in the second half of 2015.
The UK season in china sees a contemporary, adventurous, multi-disciplinary and innovative programme of around 30 projects across China. Through these projects, and supporting dialogues and visits between professionals, the Year showcases the diversity and excitement of the UK’s creative, cultural sector and of our many fine artists. This is supported by a significant digital offering, including on social media and a new digitals arts platform, for showcasing and for connecting all those interested in two cultures, and how the UK and China work together.
MG GC is the exclusive official car for 2015 UK-China Year of Culture Exchange UK season. The UK season of the 2015 UK-China Year of Culture Exchange is sponsored by IELTS. Its is supported by the Strategic Communications Partner, BBDO and Strategic Media Partners including China Daily, ifengart, Modern Media Group, Tencent and Youku.
For more information please visit http://uknow.org.cn | @BritishArts
16. Cooper Gallery and Shanghai Himalayas Museum would like to thank British Council and British Council China for their kind support of CURRENT.
17. Cooper Gallery would like to thank China – UK Connections through Culture for their kind support of this project in 2015.
18. This project is kindly supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
19. Cooper Gallery and Shanghai Himalayas Museum would like to thank Scottish Government for their kind support of the CURRENT project.
20. Cooper Gallery and Shanghai Himalayas Museum would like to thank Goldsmiths College for their kind support of Edgar Schmitz’s exhibition Surplus Cameo Deco: Sindanao 2 in CURRENT
21. Artist Biographies
Poster Club
Poster Club is a group of artists who collaborate on designing and printing posters. Using the poster format as an open-ended starting point for their projects, Poster Club's primary interest is in using the medium of print as a site for experimental collaborative practice.
Poster Club's ideals are succinct yet open.
- Make posters
- Collaborate
They approach the idea of what a 'poster' is, and can be, by creating works that announce their own presence without informing us as to what they might mean. Instead of 'objective' information, their posters offer elusive statements, open-ended questions and humorous conjunctions.
Poster Club are Anne-Marie Copestake, Charlie Hammond, Tom O'Sullivan, Nicolas Party, Ciara Phillips and Michael Stumpf. Poster Club have exhibited at: Martha Street Studio, Winnipeg (2014), Dundee Contemporary Arts (2013), Platform, Glasgow (2013), The Duchy, Glasgow (2013), Glasgow Print Studio (2011) and Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2011).
Edgar Schmitz
Edgar Schmitz is an artist who is interested in the relationships between contemporary art and cinematic productions. He uses images, storylines as well as soundtracks from films in order to produce installations in art gallery spaces that are over-saturated with the promises of the multiple invoked elsewhere. His works operate as backdrops which turn the gallery into a film set for movies always yet to be made, and investigate how to best withdraw from the here and now of the present.
Recent exhibitions include Surplus Cameo Decor, Cooper Gallery, (2012), British Art Show 7 – In The Days of the Comet, Hayward Gallery and touring (2010/11), extra added bonus material, FormContent (2010), Dictionary of War, Steirischer Herbst Graz (2006); A-C-A-D-E-M-Y, Vanabbemuseum Eindhoven (2006); and Liam Gillick: ‘Edgar Schmitz’, ICA London (2005). Schmitz is the co-director of A Conversation in Many Parts, an international discursive platform for contemporary art and concepts, and a lecturer in Critical Studies at Goldsmiths.
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