The 1st Daojiao New New Art Festival
September 28–October 27, 2016
Daojiao is a flourishing place with abundant water systems and wet lands, located within the Pearl River Delta of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau, and near the South China Sea. As a city trying to be more livable, it has put great effort on developing and preserving the natural environment. Based on local landscapes, historical buildings and the science park, and enhanced by new technologies, new media and new art, Daojiao New New Art Festival is an enterprise aimed at leading regional transformation and creating a new international fever, which is the implication of the “new” art festival.
The 1st Daojiao New New Art Festival, held between September 28 to October 27, 2016, was planned by Mingzheng Fan (initiator of the project), Zhanhao Li (project director), Zhenhua Li (artistic director), as well as Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch (founder and director of famous art institution MOMENTUM, guest lecturer of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) and Art Bureau of Investigation (ABI). The festival was organized in four units, that is, Painting and Image, Installation and Commissioned Creation, Building Projection, a New Medium and Movie Show, offering works of 79 artists from 17 countries along the Art Street of Daojiao.
The theme of this festival is Another Wave, signifying the magnificent transformation and transition of our time. As it goes in the opening song of 1980 TV series Shanghai Bund, “surging and flowing waves,” which represented the romance, metropolitanism and adventures in old Shanghai, is a perfect symbolization of the relationship between Chinese artists and cities nowadays. Besides the wave, the New Art Festival also hinged on the concept of “Light Year.” On the one hand, as demonstrated in the exhibition of Fast Train of Guangdong, the contemporary Chinese art has been marching in the speed of light. In only four decades, Chinese artists have created their own history. On the other hand, light year is a unit used to measure the distance between Earth and other celestial bodies, instilling a sense of time into distance, like pondering about time and life from the other end. Light year can be interpreted as the best moment of life, both close to daily life and furthermost in physical distance, marking the transcendent side of human courage and imagination.
Unlike other art festivals of various forms and scales, the 1st Daojiao New New Art Festival featured façade projections. In the opening ceremony on September 28, 2016, projections of 26 artists were presented, endowing buildings with vitality and novelty and offering a visual expression of regional development, ecological improvement, new technologies and new arts brought by the art festival. Another feature is Neuracle created by Yuhui Wu, an installation of 32 LED bulbs controlled by brain waves of 32 points on a brain, intended as a visualization of brain waves and a “sensational connector” between the external world and internal perception.
About the art festival that has become history, Zhenhua Li, the artistic director commented that anything that has passed will reoccur at some point, just as the history reoccurs today.
About the 1st New New Media Art Festival
Artistic Director: Li Zhenhua
Curator: Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch
Painting/image / Xi Contermpary Art Center
Chen Wenji, Chen Yujun, Chen Liang, Cui Yunfeng, Dong Dawei, Duan Jianwei, Duan Jianyu, Enrique Brinkmanng, Georg Baselitz, Huang Yuxing, Liang Quan, Liao Quohe, Liu Xiaohu, Liu Weijian, Ma Wenting, Ni Youyu, Shang Yang, Shi Chong, Sun Xun, Song Jiayi, Tu Hongtao, Tang Yong Xiang, Tang Dayao, Wang Yin, Wang Daishan, Wu Chen, Xu Tan, Yan Bing, Zhang Shujian, Zeng Hong, Zheng Guogu, Zhang Hui
Installation/commissions / Daojiao Barns
September 28, 2016
ChenChenChen, Fan Mingzheng, He An, Hu Qingyan+Cao Yu, Hu Qingtai, Liu Chuang, Li Liao, Li Jinghu, Lu Zhengyuan, Shang Dun, Thomas Eller, Wu Juehui, Xu Zhen, Yang Xinguang, Zhang Xinjun, Zhang Xiao
Media facade / Daojiao Barns
September 28, 2016
Bignia Wehrli, Chen Xiao, Chen Qiulin, Hannu Karjalainen, Janet Laurence, Kate McMillan, Liao Wenfeng, Liu Zhenchen, Ma Li, Mark Karasick, Shingo Yoshida, Patrycja German, Quhny Dong, Qiu Anxiong, Shi Jinsong, Sasha Pirogova, Stefano Cagol, Sumugan Sivanesan, Sinae Yoo, Thomas Eller, Tian Xiaolei, Tracey Moffatt, Theo Eshetu, Varvara Shavrova, Wu Juhui, Wang Zhi+Zhou Yan
Screening / YueYun Hall
September 28, 2016
Cao Dan, Ju Anqi
