Monica Bonvicini’s artworks have a distinctly martial character. This applies not only to the materials used in her installations and text pieces – steel chains, metal bars, leather and broken glass – but also to aspects of her videos, such as a naked actress rubbing her crotch along a wall. In 2005, Bonvcini von an award, the “Preis der Nationalgalerie der jungen Kunst”, with the installation Never Again, where leather mats on steel chains hung down from a metal scaffold installed in the exhibition space, unmistakably evoking S&M practices. This is not the only work by Bonvincini …
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
Cosima von Bonin is a “prominent representative of conceptual art who works with textiles, films, installations and social relations, among other media”, according to Wikipedia.de. This may sound ather vague and arbitrary, but in its very openness it hits the nail on the head. Von Bonin combines different genres, materials and social networks to produce striking imagery dominated by recurring motifs, such as dogs or mushrooms. Throughout her career she has used collaboration with other artists as a creative process, even going so fars as to cede exhibitions to them (Ingeborg Gabriel, 1992) – but still, it must be noted as her own work. Social coding is thus and integral part ……
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
There is hardly a name so closely linked with the transition of street art into a high-art context that that of Jean-Michel Basquiat. And the term shooting star applied to hardly any other artist as it did to him, especially concerning the speed of his public recognition and the brevity of this artistic career. His style – expressive, spontaneous and raw – injected art at the beginning of the 1080s with a freshness that even rejuvenated the older Andy Warhol.
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Interesting connection to the ArtCollectorsClub
ArtCollectorsClub staged an event around Urban Street Art in May 2011. Exhibitors of the STROKE.Urban Art Fair will present their artists and offer the artworks of this scene to the members of ArtCollectorsClub
“From 1994 to 2002 Matthew Barney worked on the Cremaster Cycle, an epic project of five movies, and subsequently a travelling exhibition of the same title. Instead of resting on his laurels, however, he came up with another intricately crafted feature-length film soon afterwards. Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) takes up the themes of resistance, physicality and mark-making that Barney has been exploring in his Drawing Restraint series of performances and works since 1998 …“
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video. Between 1994 and 2002 he created the Cremaster Cycle, a series of five films described by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian as “one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema.
Awards:
Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum, 1996
Skowhegan Medal for Combined Media, 1999.
James D. Phelan Art Award in Video, Bay Area Video Coalition, 2000.
Europa 2000 Prize.
Glen Dimplex Artists Award, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2001.
Kaiser Ring Award. Mönchehaus Museum für moderne Kunst, Goslar, Germany, 2007.
source: Wikipedia
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Selection of Artworks
Please find here some links to the main projects of Matthew Barney:
At the page www.cremaster.net you can find interesting backgroudn information with a Trailer, Synopsis, images of the charactes for the Cremaster Cycle 1-5.
Analouge you will find the information about Drawing Restraint on the page www.drawingrestraint.net
Please find here a commented version of the Trailer for Drawing Restraint 9, which gives a very good impression on how he thinks.
“While Banksy’s identity remeins a mystery, hi irreverent interventions in the public sphere are anything but anonymous and have been vigorously embraced by the contemporary art world, media and general publich alike. Following a trajectory previeously carved out by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring in the 1980’s, Banksy brings the lanugages of traditional graffit writing into the rarefied environs of art sicourse and the auction house where his works have sold for staggerings sums. …“
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Banksy is an anonymous English graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksy’s work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco, Banksy “was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s.” Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Known for his contempt for the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls and even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy’s first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as “the world’s first street art disaster movie”, made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010.”
source: Wikipedia
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Selection of Artworks
On the official website http://www.banksy.co.uk there is a smal selection of Banksy artworks from his typical street art works and some of his “inside” works.
But find here some links where to see more artworks:
ArtCollectorsClub will stage an event around Urban Street Art in May 2011. Exhibitors of the STROKE.Urban Art Fair will present their artists and offer the artworks of this scene to the members of ArtCollectorsClub
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Did you know …
… Banksy’s movie Exit Through the giftshop was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film in January 2011“
… that there is something like the “Banksy Effect”? After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000, on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby’s London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy’s work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.
In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, “the Banksy effect”, to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy’s success
Please find here a video which can be found on YouTube under the title “1 hour in the life of a Banksy”
“In 1997, Francis Alys pushed a large block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it was reduced to a puddle of meltwater. This action, titled Paradox of Praxis, illustrated the futility of the sculptural eneavour and the conceptual double bind of artistic production, but its very absurdity guaranteed its continued existence through word-of-mouth anecdote. This was on of several “paseos” (strolls) that Alys began in 1991 with The Collector, …“
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Alÿs attended the Institute of Architecture in Tournai and the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before moving to Mexico City in 1986 where he started practicing as a visual artist. His work encompasses many media often involving the participation and presence of the artist. These performed events are documented in video, photographs, writing, painting, and animation.
In his best-known work, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), Alÿs recruited 500 volunteers outside of Lima, Peru. Each person moved a shovel full of sand one step at a time from one side of a dune to the other, and together they moved the entire geographical location of the dune by a few inches. Art critic Jean Fisher writes that “the radical event of art precipitates a crisis of meaning or, rather, it exposes the void of meaning at the core of a given social situation, which is its truth.”
source: Wikipedia
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Selection of Artworks
On the website www.francisalys.com there are many videos of the artist which portrait his art very well. My very personal favorites are Semaforo, showing different traffic lights on the world, and Walking a Painting, where a painting will be walked throught the city during the opening hours of the gallery and as soon as the gallery closes, the carrier will hang the painting on the wall again and cover it under a veil.
A nice selection of this artworks can be seen for example on the page of Daniel Zwirner.
… that there is a very interesting book about his work. Available at Phaidon - “
A close look at the Mexico City-based artist’s lyrical expansions of art into life. Survey by Cuauhtémoc Medina, Interview by Russell Ferguson, Focus by Jean Fisher, Artist’s Choice by Augusto Monterroso, Writings by Francis Alÿs”
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Selected Exhibitions
2011 Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (solo)
2010 BACA 2010 Biennial Award Contemporary Art, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands (solo) Twenty-first Century, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia Domino Canibal, PAC, Sala Veronicas, Murcia, Spain Die Nase des Michelangelo, Galerie Peter Kilchmann at Marktgasse, Zurich, Switzerland Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, Wiels, Brussels, Belgium (solo) Beyond Borders - Mexican Public Art, Museum of Sketches, Lund, Sweden There is always a cup of sea for man to sail, 29th Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil The Architecture of Tatiana Bilbao, Instituto Cultural de Mexico, San Antonio, USA Experimental Geography, The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, USA Francis Alÿs, Tate Modern, London, June 15 - Sept. 5 (solo) Francis Alÿs, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Feb. 25 (solo) Experimental Geography, The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, cur. Nato Thompson, Feb. 21 – May 30 Project Europa, Harn Museum, Gainesville, cur. Kerry Olivier-Smith, Feb. 2 – May 9 TatIrish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (solo)
2009 Fabiolas, National Portrait Gallery, organized by Dia Art Foundation, May 2 – Sept. 27, ex. cat. Opposition & Dialogues, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, May 30 – Aug. 9 InvaWaiting for Video: Works from the 1960s to Today, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, cur. Kenjin Miwa, March 31 – June 7 The Collection, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, cur. Siobhan Davies, Victoria Miro, March 23 – April 9 Acting Out, ICA, Boston, cur. Jen Mergel, Nicholas Baume, March 19 – Oct. 19 The Human Stain, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, cur. Ellen Blumenstein, March 12 – May 31 A la Limit, Galerie Michel Journiac, Paris, March 2 – March 14 Desenhos (Drawings): A-Z, Museu da Cidade, Lisboa, Feb. 6 – March 29
2008 8. Bienal de Arte Panamá 2008, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Panama, Sept. – Oct. 16th Biennnale of Sydney, Sydney, cur. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, June 18 – Sept. 7 The Vincent van Gogh Biennal Award for Contemporary Art 2008, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, June 20 – Sept. 30 Francis Alÿs, Sammlung Goetz, München, May 26 – Oct. 18 Francis Alÿs. Bolero (Shoe Shine Blues) and Politics of Rehearsal, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, Sept. 28 – Dec. 14 (solo) Fabiolas, County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, cur. Lynne Cooke, Sept. 7 – March 29, 2009 (solo)
“Darren Almond’s works are evocative explorations of temporal phenomena. Ranging from fils devoted to specific periods of time, photographs taken with unusal exposure times and clock sculptures to installations about waiting, they examine different structures and perceptions of time. For the installation Terminus (2007), Almond took fourteen socialist-era bus stops form Oswiecim (formerly Ausschwitz), which were located near the memorial and museum of Ausschwitz-Bikenau. ….“
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Darren James Almond (b. 1971 Appley Bridge, near Wigan, Lancashire, England)[1] is an artist based in London. He graduated from Winchester School of Arts in 1993, with a BA (hons) degree in Fine Arts.
Almond works in a variety of media including photography and film, which he uses to explore the effects of time on the individual. His art has been included in exhibitions including the Sensation show (of Charles Saatchi’s collection) and had solo shows at the Kunsthalle Zurich, Tate, and the Nicola Trussardi Foundation. He is represented by White Cube, London and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Darren Almond uses ‘sculpture, film and photography to produce work that harnesses the symbolic and emotional potential of objects, places and situations, producing works which have universal as well as personal resonances.’ His first exhibited work, A Real Time Piece (1995), was a live video link that showed his studio, empty but for an industrial flip-clock on the wall that amplified the passing of each minute. In 1996 Almond was awarded the Art & Innovation Prize by the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, followed by his solo exhibition at White Cube, London in 1997. Since 1998, Almond has taken a series of photographs on nights with a full moon, using extended exposure times of fifteen minutes or longer. The Fullmoon series began as a way of navigating the places of traditional landscape painters but has evolved over time to include other remote locations.
At the page of the Tate Britain you can find a nice selection of his art works
(image on the right: Meantime, 2000; source and copywrite: Tate Britain)
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Did you know …
… that notably, Almond was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2005, where he exhibited the four-screen video installation If I Had You (2003) about his grandmother – ‘a portrait of youthful reminiscence and the dignity of old age
Darren Almond, PKM Trinity Gallery, Seoul, Korea (solo) Max Hetzler Gallery, Effiel, Germany (solo) Climax Redux, BAC Geneva, Switzerland (group) Sometimes Still, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
2009
Edition Copenhagen - Retrospective 1959 - 2009, Den frie udstilling, Copenhagen, Denmark (group) Darren Almond, sommercontemporaryart, Tel Aviv, Israel (solo) Darren Almond, Galerie Xippas, Athens, Greece (solo) Just with your eyes I will see, FRAC, Auvergne, France (group) One Place’s Time, Centro de Arte y Naturaleza, Huesca, Spain Sometimestill, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany (solo) Accrochage, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009, Tate Britain, London, UK
2008
Unspeakable: The Artist as Witness to the Holocaust, Imperial War Museum London, UK Crossing the Arctic and the Alps from 1860 until Today, Albertina, Vienna, Austria Implant, The Horticultural Society of New York Exhibition for UBS Art Gallery, New York, NY Du Jardin au Cosmos, Espace de l’Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux, France YouPrison: Reflections on the Limitation of Freedom and Space, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Climax, LOOP ‘08 video art festival, Barcelona, Spain Night: A Time Between, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK War and Art – Terror and Simulacrum of Beauty II, Galerie Aube, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto, Japan Substitute, Galleri K, Oslo, Norway (solo) Darren Almond, SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan Art is for the Spirit: Works from the UBS Art Collection, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC God & Goods: Spirituality and Mass Confusion, Villa Manin, Codroipo, Italy Collection as Aleph, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria Darren Almond: Moons of the Iapetus Ocean, White Cube, London (solo) Darren Almond: Fire Under Snow, Parasol Unit – Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, UK (solo)
“Broken Screen Expanding the image. Breaking the Narrative is not just the title of a 2006 book by Doug Aitken, it also sums up his artistic agenda. The screen is broken because Aitken seeks to expand the image using multiple projections, effectively breaking the conventions of cinematic narration. To this end, Aitken leaves the interior of the museum, and projects onto its facades. … “
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Doug Aitken was born in Redondo Beach, California in 1968 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles and New York. Aitken’s body of work ranges from photography, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, and installations. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Since the mid-1990s, Aitken has created installations by employing multiple screens. Diamond Sea was presented at the 1997 Whitney Biennial and his Electric Earth installation drew international attention and earned him the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999. The following year, Glass Horizon, an installation comprising a projection of a pair of eyes onto the facade of the Vienna Secession building after it had closed for the night, showcased an interest in architectural structures and in art that interacts with urban environments. In 2001, Aitken’s exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery used the entire building for the complex installation New Ocean. In 2006, Aitken produced Broken Screen: 26 Conversations with Doug Aitken (Distributed Art Publishers, 2006), a book of interviews with twenty-six artists who aim to explore and challenge the conventions of linear narrative. Interviews included Robert Altman, Claire Denis, Werner Herzog, Rem Koolhaas, Kenneth Anger and others. In the winter of 2007, Aitken’s Sleepwalkers was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The project included actors such as Donald Sutherland and Tilda Swinton, as well as musicians Seu Jorge and Cat Power. Five interlocking vignettes shown through eight projections were displayed upon the exterior walls of the museum so as to be visible from the street. Concurrent with the exhibition, Aitken also presented a “happening” inside the museum that featured live drummers and auctioneers, and a performance by Cat Power. In 2008, Aitken produced another large scale outdoor film installation, titled Migration for the 55th Carnegie International show titled “Life on Mars” in Pittsburgh, PA. The work features wild animals of North America curiously inhabiting empty and desolate hotel rooms filmed across America. He also produced a collection of photographs, 99 Cent Dreams, which captures “moments between interaction” to create a 21st century nomadic travelogue. Aitken has directed many live “happenings” including his Broken Screen happening in Los Angeles and 99 cent dreams happening and Sonic happening in New York. Most recently, Aitken orchestrated a real-time opera that assembled auctioneers performing against the rhythms of his Sonic Table, at Il Tempo del Postino, at Theatre Basel. Most recently, he presented a performance during the opening of his multichannel video installation frontier in Rome. In October 2009, Aitken’s Sonic Pavilion opened to the public. The pavilion is located in the forested hills of Brazil, at Inhotim, a new cultural foundation. The Sonic Pavilion provides a communal space to listen to the sounds of the earth as they are recorded through highly sensitive microphones buried close to a mile deep into the ground and carried back into the pavilion through a number of speakers. The sound heard inside the pavilion is the amplified sound of the moving interior of the earth.[14] Continuing his work in innovative outdoor projects, Aitken presented his latest large-scale installation, Frontier, on the Tiber river’s Isola Tiberina in the heart of Rome in November 2009. The film featured a protagonist played by the iconic American artist Ed Ruscha, as he’s seen caught in a landscape between fiction and non-fiction. The work creates a futuristic journey from day to night in a world where reality is put into question. Doug Aitken has participated in over 150 art exhibitions throughout the world.
source: Wikipedia
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Selection of Artworks
Please find here a very nice documentation of the exhibition “sleepwalkers” at The Museum of Modern Art, January 16-February 12, 2007. A joint project of MoMA and Creative Time.
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Interesting connection to the ArtCollectorsClub
Doug Aitken is a multitalent and his works range from photography, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, and installations.But his best known works are his videos.
Yet those two artists come from a different generation, William Kentridge has been featured by ArtCollectorsClub in the beginning of 2011 and he is also best known for his films.
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Did you know …
… that Doug Aitken created the Sonic Pavilion in the midst of the Brazilian rain forest, where visitors listen to “primal, geologic sounds.”
2011 Victoria Miro Gallery, London, Great Britain (solo) Between Here and There: Dislocation and Displacement in Contemporary Photography, The MetroplolitanMuseum of Art, New York/NY, USA Pasajes, Vlajes por el híper-espacio, Laboral, Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain Let`s Dance, Musée dàrt contemporain du Val-de-Marne, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France
2010 Höhepunkte der Kölner KunstFilmBiennale, Kunst-Werke Berlin, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany México: esperad/inesperado , B.P.S22 , Espace de Création Contemporaine, Charlerol, Mexico Multiple Pleasure: Functional Objects in Contemporary Art, Tanya Bonakdar, New York City/NY, USA La trama se complica…, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey MARCO, Monterrey/NL, USA The Traveling Show, Galeria de Fundaciíon/Coleccion Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico Regen Projects, Los Angeles/CA, USA (solo) Julia Stoschek Collection – I want to see how you see, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Disquieted, Portland Art Museum, Portland/OR, USA Hard Targets, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus/OH, USA Neugierig? Kunst des 21. Jahrhunderts aus privaten Sammlungen, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany The moment, MATADERO MADRID, Madrid, Spain
2009 Land - Collaborative Exhibition, 101 Exhibit, Miami/FL, USA Twentysix Gasoline Stations ed altri libiri d`Artista, Una collezioni, Museo Regionale di Messina, Messina, Italy Mexico: Expected/Unexpected, Collection Isabel and Augustin Coppel, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam,Schiedam, The Netherlands We Are Sun-kissed and Snow-blind, Galerie Patrick Seguin invites Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Paris, France Sonic Pavallion, Brazil Regen Projects II, Los Angeles/CA, USA Electric Earth by Doug Aitken, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, USA Los Angeles Public Domain/Art on the Outside, Los Angeles/CA, USA Frontier, Rome, Italy 50 Years Guggenheim, Guggenheim Museum, New York/NY, USA Il Tempo del Postino, Basel, Switzerland Sites, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York/NY, USA PastPresentFuture, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria Private Universes: Media Work, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas/TX, USA La Kunstfilmbiennale, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Höhepunkte der Kölner KunstFilmBiennale, Kunst-Werke Berlin, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany Inhotim, Reserva de Agenda, Minas Gerais, Brazil Life Patterns, Savannah College of Art and Design, Lacoste, France Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus/OH, USA Zwischenzonen, MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig Wien, La Coleccion Jumex, Wien, Migration (empire), St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO (solo) Photography in the Abstract, Lora Reynold Gallery, Austin, TX No Sound, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO La Kunstfilmbiennale, Centre Pompidou, France Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA (solo)
2008 303 Gallery, New York, NY (solo) 55th Carnegie International: Life on Mars, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Elements and Unknowns, Museum of Modern Art, New York El Mundo del Hielo, EXPO 2008, Zaragoza, Spain Las Implicacions de la Imagen (The implication of image), MUCA Roma, Museo Universitaro de Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City, Mexico Expected/Unexpected, La Maison Rouge, Collection Agustin et Isabel Coppel, Mexico, Paris, France Rhine on the Dnipro, Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf Mouth Open Teeth Showing, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Moscow on the Move, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow Galerie Eva Presenhuber, 99¢ Dreams, Zurich (solo) Kaiser Wilhelm Museum and Museum Haus Lange, Falling into Place, Krefeld, Germany (group) Julia Stoschek Collection, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine Migration, 303 Gallery, New York (solo) La invención de Io cotidiano, Museo Nacional de Arte, Munal, Mexico City, Mexico BesArt – O presente: uma dimensão infinita, Berardo Muesum, Collection of Modern and Contempory Art, Lisbon, Portugal When It`s a Photograph, Bolsky Gallery at Otis College for Art and Design, Los Angeles/CA, USA Rock my Religion 1, DA2, Domus Artium 2002, Salamananca, Spain It`s not only Rock `n`Roll, Baby! BOZAR, Palais des Beaux-Arts/ Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels, Belgium Crossroads, Interfaces between Rock Music and Contemporary Art Festival Internacional de Fotografía de Castilla y León, DA2 Domus Artium 02, Salamanca, Spain MATRIX/REDUX, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive BAM/PFA, Berkeley/CA, USA Der grosse Wurf, Faltung in der Gegenwartskunst, Kaiser, Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Gemany St.Moritz Art Masters, St.Moritz, Switzerland (cur.Kunstfilmbiennale Köln), Switzerland Blasted Allegories. Works from the Ringier Collection, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern, Switzerland Manchester International Festival, Paris and Manchester (performance), Manchester, Great Britan
2007 Uneasy Angel – Imagining Los Angeles, Sprüth Magers Galerie, Munich, Germany Jubilee Exhibition, Vnà, House Eva Presenhuber, Switzerland Il Tempo del Postino, Manchester International Festival/ Opera House, Manchester, Great Britain, The Shadow, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy The Shadow, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, Great Britain Henry Art Museum, University of Washington, Seattle/CO, USA Her(His)tory, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greek Brave New Year, 303 Gallery, New York/NY, USA Museum of Modern Art, Sleepwalkers, New York (solo) 303 Gallery, New York (solo) Ensemble, ICA, Institute of Cotemporary Art, Philadelphia/PA, USA Window/Interface, Kemper Art Museum, Washington DC, USA Silence, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy Mapping the City, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Disorder in the House, Vanhaerents Art Collection, , Brussels, Belgium
“Ai Weiwei is best descreibed as the creator fo his environment, as this term encompasses both his architectural activities - which have include advising Herzog & De Meruon on he desing of the national stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - and his art projects. The conceptual artist’s contribution to Documenta 2007 consisted of a huge sculptural structure and an equally large-scale social endeavor. ……”
(source: 100 Contemporary Artists, Hans Werner Holzwarth)
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Summary:
Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is a Chinese artist, activist, and philosopher, who is also active in architecture, curating, photography, film, and social and cultural criticism. Besides showing his art he has been investigating in the corruption and cover-ups under the power of the government. He was particularly focused at exposing an alleged corruption scandal in the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. He intensively uses the internet to communicate with people all over China, especially the young generation
source: Wikipedia
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We would like to recommend a video of a personal statement of AI Weiwei where he describes his personal circumstance of living and working in China.
Thanks to artinfo24.com to make us aware of this video
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Selection of Artworks
A selection of Art works can be seen on artinfo or at artzine China (embeded in a great story)
(on the left: Map of China, 2004, source: artinfo)
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Interesting connection to the ArtCollectorsClub
There is an interesting discussion if he is a conceptual artist or not. He is - for sure - a political artist.
… that Ai Weiwei collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics
2010 Acconci Studio + Ai Weiwei, Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong, China AI Weiwei: Dropping the Urn, Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, USA (solo) Radical conceptual. Positionen aus der Sammlung des MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany AAA Talk: Vito Acconci + Ai Weiwei: Artist in Conversation, Agnès b. Cinema, Wanchai, Hong Kong The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei - Tate Modern, London, UK (solo) A Few Works From Ai Weiwei, ALEXANDER OCHS GALLERIES BERLIN | BEIJING, Berlin, Germany (solo) Ai Weiwei. Barely something, Museum DKM, Galerie DKM, Duisburg, Germany, March 19 - September 20, 2010 Beg Borrow and Steal, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA
2009 Is there going to be a title?, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (solo) Ai Weiwei: According to What?, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (solo) Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993, Three Shadows Photography Art Center, Beijing, China (solo) Art Summer Hellerau, Festspielhaus Hellerau/Dresden, Germany The China Project. Queensland Art Gallery, Australia So Sorry, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (solo) Photography Art Center, Beijing, China (solo) Ai Weiwei. Friedman Benda, New York, NY (solo) Ai Weiwei: Four Movements, Phillips de Pury & Company, London, UK (solo) The Big World. Recent Art from China, Hall and Yates Gallery, Chicago, USA Garbage, group exhibition with Anatoly Shuravlev and Ai Weiwei, AFTERGALLERY, projectroom, Moscow, Russia
2008 OUT THERE: Architecture Beyond Building, Biennale Architecture, 11th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy Half-Life of a Dream, Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA Super Fengshui: UCCA Site Commissions, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China Beijing Map Games. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Birmingham, England abc art berlin contemporary, Postbahnhof, Berlin, Germany Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA Map Games: Dynamics of Change, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA Reconstruction # 3. The Artists Playground, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, UK China. The City exp(l)osed, Institut Francais d’Architecture & du Patrimoine, Paris, France Under Construction, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Cambelltown Arts Center, Sydney, Australia (solo) Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA (solo) Go China! Ai Weiwei, Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands (solo) Delirious Beijing, PKM Gallery, Beijing, China Community of Tastes - The Inaugural Exhibition Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China RED Aside: Chinese Contemporary Art of the Sigg Collection, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain The Real Thing. Contemporary Art from China, Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain
2007 EI – Entity Identity – Beijing Series. Western Concepts – Chinese Drafts, Stedelijk Museum s’ Hertogenbosch, MB ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Fortunate Objects: Selections from the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, CIFO – Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA Inspired by China – Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions, Museum of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, USA Branded and on Display, Ulrich Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Wichita, USA China Now, Cobra Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Get It Louder, SOHO Shangdu, Beijing, China Something New Pussycat, Klara Wallner Galerie, Berlin, Germany Energies – Synergy, Foundation DE 11 LIJNEN, Oudenburg, Belgium Chinese Video: Chord Chances in the Megalopolis, Morono Kiang Gallery, Los Angeles, USA Mahjong - Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria documenta 12, Kassel, Germany Contemporary Art Exhibitions of Kogo Art Space, Kogo Art Space, Hangzhou, China Metamorphosis: The Generation of Transformation in Chinese Contemporary Art, Tampere Art Museum, Tampere, Finland Thermocline of Art. New Asian Waves, ZKM - Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany Art from China – Collection Uli Sigg, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil China Welcomes you… Desires, Struggles, New Identities, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria The Year of the Golden Pig – Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork University College, Cork, Ireland Money, Beijing Today Gallery, Beijing, China Forged Realities, UniversalStudios, Beijing, China The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK Project ‘We are the future’, 2nd Moskow Biennial of Contemporary Art, Art Centre Winzavod, Moskow, Russia Branded and on Display, Kannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, USA A Continuous Dialogue, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland (solo) Traveling Landscapes, AedesLand, Berlin, Germany (solo) Fragments, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China (solo)
2006 Antique Modernity – Breaking Traditions, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York, USA 2006 Beaufort Outside, Museum of Modern Art, Oostende, Belgium China zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft / Between Past and Future – New Photography and Video from China, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany Regeneration. Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, USA China Power Station I, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, USA Herzog & de Meuron. No 250. Eine Ausstellung, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany Busan Biennial 2006, Busan Museum of Modern Art, Busan, Korea Misleading Trails, Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg; Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs; Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, USA Cityscapes ‘Beijing Welcomes You’. Ein Stadtmodell von Lu Hao sowie Fotografien von Ai Weiwei, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany A Continuous Dialogue, Galleria Continua, Beijing, China Inspired by China – Contemporary Furnituremakers Expolre Chinese Traditions, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA China Contemporary. Architecture, Art and Visual Culture, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Black and Blue, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA Art in Motion – Chinese Contemporary Art meets BMW Art Cars, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Shanghai, China This Is Not For You – Sculptural Discourses, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria Detours. Tactical Approaches to Urbanization in China, Eric Arthur Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada CHINA NOW. Faszination einer Weltveränderung, Sammlung Essl, Kunst der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg / Vienna, Austria Mahjong – Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany MoCA Envisage / Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Shanghai, China The 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia Zones of Contact, 15th Biennial of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Territorial. Ai Weiwei und Serge Spitzer, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Altered, Stitched and Gathered, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York, USA
2005 The 2nd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China Misleading Trails, Fine Arts Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville; Charlotte and Philip Hanes Art Gallery, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem; University of North Texas Art Gallery, Denton; Altgeld Gallery, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA Regeneration. Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, USA Convergence at E116’/N40’, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, China Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK A Strange Heaven – Contemporary Chinese Photography, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland Mahjong - Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Kunstmuseum Bern, Berne, Switzerland 1st Monpellier Biennial of Chinese Contemporary Art, Montpellier, France Cina. Prospettive d’Arte Contemporanea / China: As Seen by Contemporary Chinese Artists, Provincia di Milano, Spazio Oberdan, Milan, Italy Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China”, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA Herzog & de Meuron. An Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, UK Regeneration. Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US, University Art Gallery, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA No 250. An Exhibition. Beauty and Waste in the Architecture of Herzog & de Meuron, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2004 Silknet – Emerging Chinese Artists, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland Persona3, China Art Archives & Warehouse, Beijing, China Le Printemps de Chine, CRAC ALSAC, Altkirch, France Regeneration, Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US, David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center Brown University, Providence, USA Regeneration. Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US, John Paul Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA On the Edge – Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York, USA Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA (solo) Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (solo) Caermerklooster - Provinciaal Centrum voor Kunst en Cultur, Gent, Belgium (solo) Chinese Object: Dreams & Obsessions, Salvatore Ferragamo Gallery, New York, USA Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, Museum of Contemporary Art Printemps Chicago and The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; ICP International Center of Photography, New York, USA Modern Style in East Asia, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, China Herzog & de Meuron. No 250. Eine Ausstellung, Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland
2003 Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland (solo) New Zone - Chinese Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland A Strange Heaven - Contemporary Chinese Photography, Galerie Rudolfinum, Praha, Czech Republic Junction. Chinese Contemporary Architecture of Art, Lianyang Architecture Art Museum, Shanghai, China Cement – Marginal Space in Contemporary Art, Chamber Fine Arts, New York, USA Art from a Changing World, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Hoevikodden, Norway 1st Guangzhou Triennale 2002, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2002 China - Tradition und Moderne, Museum Ludwig Galerie Oberhausen, Oberhausen, Germany
2001 TAKE PART II, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland TU MU. Young Chinese Architecture, Aedes Galerie, Berlin, Germany TAKE PART I, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland
2000 Fuck off, EastLink Gallery, Shanghai, China Portraits, Figures, Couples and Groups, BizArt, Shanghai, China Our Chinese Friends, ACC Galerie and Galerie der Bauhaus-Universität (in collaboration with Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne), Weimar, Germany
1999 “Innovations Part I”, CAAW, Beijing, China Exposition China 1999, San Francisco Limn Gallery, USA Innovations Part I, China Art Archives & Warehouse, Beijing, China d’Apertutto, La Biennale di Venezia, 48. Esposizione Internationale d’Arte, Venice, Italy Modern China Art Foundation Collection, Caermersklooster - Provinciaal Centrum voor Kunst en Cultuur, Gent, Belgium Concepts, Colors and Passions, China Art Archives & Warehouse, Beijing, China
1998 Double Kitsch: Painters from China, Max Protetch, New York, USA
1997 A Point of Contact, Korean, Chinese, Japanese Contemporary Art, Daegu Art & Culture Hall, Taegu, Korea
1996 Begegnung mit China, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
1995 Configura 2 - Dialog der Kulturen, Angermuseum, Galerie am Fischmarkt, Erfurt, Germany Change-Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Goteborg Museum, Goteborg, Sweden
1993 Chinese Contemporary Art – The Stars 15 Years, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1989 The Star: Ten Years, Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong The Stars: Ten Years, Hanart Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
1988 Old Shoes - Safe Sex, Art Waves Gallery, New York, USA (solo)
1987 The Star at Harvard: Chinese Dissident Art, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
1986 China’s New Expression, Municipal Gallery, New York, USA Avant-Garde Chinese Art, Albany University Art Museum, New York, USA
1982 Asian Foundation, San Francisco, USA (solo)
1980 The second ‘Star Exhibition’, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
1979 The first ‘Star Exhibition’, outside the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Banksy is an anonymous English graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
On the official website 
On the website 
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A selection of Art works can be seen on 
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