Yangjiang Group: Actions for Tomorrow
As a part of MASS GROUP INCIDENT, a five-month program of exhibitions, artists commissions, site-specific projects, performances, film screenings and public programs.
Opening: Saturday 17 January 2015, 2–4pm
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
181 – 187 Hay St
Sydney
Australia 2000
www.4a.com.au
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In 2015 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (4A) embarks on MASS GROUP INCIDENT, a five-month program of exhibitions, artists commissions, site-specific projects, performances, film screenings and public programs. MASS GROUP INCIDENT explores social engagement and collective action through the ever-shifting and complex position of the individual in relation to the group.
4A’s MASS GROUP INCIDENT program begins on 17 January 2015 with Actions for Tomorrow, an exhibition of commissioned and existing works by internationally renowned Chinese artist collective Yangjiang Group. Featuring two large-scale installations with wax-encased sculptures, kinetic elements, video and calligraphy alongside a specially commissioned calligraphic mural, Actions for Tomorrow continues Yangjiang Group’s investigation into the impact of social change on people and communities by addressing the relationship between calligraphy as high culture and its everyday use.
MASS GROUP INCIDENT brings together work by artists from Australia, Asia and Europe to explore contemporary ideas and expressions of collective action that resonate across histories and geographies in ways that have profound implications for our present and our futures. From the nature of the dissenting drive in the struggle for a different world, through to the sober realities of expediency and complicity, the spectrum of artist-driven “incidents”—in both the physical form of the art object and in ephemeral actions and performances—trace arcs of activity and points of contact between individual and collective forces in Asia alongside the Australian context.
Actions for Tomorrow
Yangjiang Group
17 January–7 March
Actions for Tomorrow is the first solo exhibition by Yangjiang Group in Australia. Named after their home city, Yangjiang, in the southern province of Guangdong, Yangjiang Group was established in 2002 by artists Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin, and are renowned for their use of calligraphy as a conceptual springboard into a diverse range of installations and performances.
Tell Me My Truth
Simon Fujiwara, Helen Grace, Amala Groom, Shilpa Gupta, FX Harsono, He Xiangyu, James Newitt, Tony Schwensen, John von Sturmer
27 March–16 May
Tell Me My Truth is the second exhibition installment of MASS GROUP INCIDENT and looks to pertinent and often contentious questions around the mediation of history, memory, mass communication, surveillance, control and the central question of the subjectivity of the individual in relation to the group.
48HR Incident
Frances Barrett, Dadang Christanto, Blak Douglas (aka Adam Hill), Salote Tawale, Latai Taumoepeau, Tony Schwensen and more to be announced
29–31 May
MASS GROUP INCIDENT will culminate with 48HR Incident, a continuous program of live performance works and other forms of artistic actions running over 48 hours in 4A’s gallery spaces over one weekend. Featuring short works through to longer durational performances, 48HR Incident is a call to action, a test of audiences’ will and commitment to meet the challenges that artists present them, and an admission that at the irreducible core of any collective action or social movement is the latent power of the individual and of the physical presence in the public realm.
Twilight Garden Party at the Chinese Garden of Friendship
14 February
4A and Yangjiang Group will host a Twilight Garden Party at the Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour, to celebrate Chinese New Year. This one-night event presents an exclusive series of performances by Yangjiang Group, including the artists’ trademark After Dinner Calligraphy, with bar and catering by Grasshopper.
Cinema Alley at Golden Age Cinema & Bar
26 February
4A presents a selection of films by acclaimed Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the Art Deco grandeur of the Paramount Pictures building in the old “Hollywood Quarter” of Surry Hills.
For further details on MASS GROUP INCIDENT and Actions for Tomorrow, please visit 4A’s website.
For further information about 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, go here.
Press contact
Joanna Bayndrian: joanna [at] creative-asia.net / T +61 405 933 896
For further information please contact info [at] 4a.com.au.
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MASS GROUP INCIDENT is produced by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; supported by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia-China Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; supported by the City of Sydney Cultural Grants Program; supported by Chinese Garden of Friendship – Darling Harbour; assisted by the generous supporters of 4A’s Actions for Tomorrow Kickstarter campaign. Actions for Tomorrow and Cinema Alley at Golden Age Cinema & Bar are associated events of the Sydney Chinese New Year Festival.
