‘Here Was Elsewhere: A Memorandum of a Summer in Shanghai' – Wednesday 13th April

Published On Fri 8 Apr 2016 by Grant Hill

Artists, critics and curators from the UK and China will next week convene at the University of Dundee’s Cooper Gallery to reflect on the first phase of a major international exhibition of Scottish art in Shanghai.

The University’s Cooper Gallery and the British Council will host the forum, ‘Here Was Elsewhere: A Memorandum of a Summer in Shanghai’ on Wednesday, 13th April. The event is being held to share the experiences gained from the successful realisation of the first phase of Cooper Gallery’s major project ‘CURRENT | ????: Contemporary Art from Scotland’.

Curated by Cooper Gallery in collaboration with curators and art organisations in China and organised in partnership with the British Council, ‘CURRENT’ is a two-year contemporary art exhibition and programme taking place in four phases. It showcases 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.

‘Here Was Elsewhere’ will feature artists Poster Club, Anne-Marie Copestake, Edgar Schmitz, Ross Sinclair and Corin Sworn, who are involved in the programme, as well as specially invited speakers from both China and UK including JJ Charlesworth (art critic and publisher of Art Review), Wang Nanming (independent curator and critic), Weng Yunpeng (Director, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai). The panel discussion will be chaired by Professor Chris Breward (Principal, Edinburgh College of Art).

Cooper Gallery Curator Sophia Hao said, “The forum will share the experience gained and further expand the thoughts and discussions developed along the journey from Scotland to China.  The forum will problematise the fictionality of the ‘contemporary’ that revokes the multiplicity of history in favour of a single all-encompassing image; now.

“The critical focus of CURRENT is to instigate what it means to create a transnational exhibition/cultural exchange programme in a world of shifting geo-political and social realities and how art can distinctively re-negotiate the similar yet different relationships that two locations have with a ‘globalised’ world.”

The first phase of the CURRENT | ???? project was widely praised by audiences who viewed it at Shanghai’s Himalayas Museum and was covered by major newspapers, art magazines and leading broadcasters in China.

‘Here Was Elsewhere: A Memorandum of a Summer in Shanghai’ takes place at the Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, from 6-8.30pm on Wednesday, 13th April.

More information is available at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/exhibitions/events/here-was-elsewhere/.  

The forum is part of the public programme for the exhibition ‘NEW Wheat, NEW Mud, NEW Machine’ by artists’ group Poster Club. The exhibition is open until 23rd April.

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