osage
CONTEMPORARY ART AND IDEAS
HONG KONG BEIJING SINGAPORE SHANGHAI
osage shanghai
93 Duolun Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai, China
T: 021 56713605
E: info@osagegallery.com
W: www.osagegallery.com


Art Economies beyond Pattern Recognition
Curated by Biljana Ciric
Artists Participating: Bird Head, Gao Mingyan, Jin Feng, Lu Jiawei, Li Mu, Hu Yun, Lu Pingyuan, Tang Dixin, Zhao Zhao, Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, Zhang Lehua，Yu Tianzhu
Exhibition venue: Osage Gallery, Shanghai
Address: 93 Duolun Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai 200081 (close to Duolun Museum of Modern Art)
Exhibition date: May 30th to July 20th 2009
Opening Party: 18:00, 30th May, 2009
Telephone: 86-021-56713605

Art Economies beyond Pattern Recognition

This exhibition intends to discuss new possibilities within and for the art economy. The art market system—defined by the relationships between galleries, collectors, and auction houses—has provided a relatively stable system for centuries, as well as providing artists with clear instructions for the production of artworks and their place within the market chain. This system was, for a long time, based on the materialism of the art object and the possibility of bodily involvement. In our current situation, however, everything is produced and reproduced through technological means, pushing the commoditization of art to new heights. This sense of ownership and the material presence of the work itself are quite different from the past, as preservation and authenticity assured the stability of art market channels.

This exhibition of artists and their works attempts to introduce new possibilities and proposals for the changing roles of artists in the art economy as their activities blend into those of collectors, conservators, and entrepreneurs. Through their individual strategies, and in their conceptualization of their work, artists must take into consideration how the works will circulate through the art market, or how a project that strategically includes other artists and works might extend beyond the existing scale of art market activity.

The exhibition will address the following issues:
• Notions of collectability and new ways of collecting
• Material preservation and conservation, and other possibilities for such
• New channels within the art market that go beyond existing gallery services
• New proposals for gallery and institutional systems

Book project introduction:

The publication should present the breadth of the curatorial framework that negotiates and explores new models for the economy of art. This book will involve not only artists but also people who perform different roles in field of the arts, from gallery owners, museum directors, curators, investors, artists, writers, theatre workers, critics, and any other practitioner that is engaged in the further creation of platforms to support different forms of art economies, specifically those projects that could be taken up as an experiment in the future.

The publication will not contain documentation of the exhibition but a separate and interrelated project itself on the same topic, focusing on people from different backgrounds that together could be taken as an additional project.

It is an attempt to build upon our knowledge and to compile useful data on the topic of art within the economy that extends beyond art itself. At the same time it is an expanded notion of curating that is not involved with the framing of artistic practices but moves closer to the idea of a laboratory where different ideas are gathered and tested.

The idea is to ask different individuals from the field to provide new formulas, ideas, and to suggest new models for an economy of art through written descriptions, drawings, instructions or any other form that could be included in the book.

The art market has been a hot topic over the years in China but one that is rarely actually questioned in the form that it presently exists. This collection of creative ideas could provide new resources for the approach to art making and it’s resultant economies.

Some of the individuals to be included thus far are: Uli Sigg, Lorenz Helbling, Shen Qibin, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Steven Rand, Xu Zhen, Eugene Tan, Zhao Chuan, Susanne Winterling, Zhao Bandi, Yang Zhenzhong, Liu Jianhua,, Lin Yilin, Hu Fang, Sean Raspet, Zheng Guogu, Dinh Q.Le, Zhang O, Davide Quadrio, Liu Ding, Jin Shan, Meg Maggio, Noritoshi Hirakawa…

Artists projects in exhibition (selection)
Birdhead’s project: Birdhead Affordable Game project
In April 2009, Birdhead initiated a project with artists from Shanghart Gallery, sensing the current downfall of Chinese contemporary art after a peak in the global economic crisis. The artists’ representative works would be printed on cheap 24 inch printing paper with their permit with Birdhead designing a series of frame patterns. The product would conclude a paper with the works attached on a wall and frames sprayed around the piece with the moulds. The Birdhead would start to accept orders from public and supply inexpensive, at site services, including attaching and spraying. The program aims to extend the piece with low cost.
The whole project is titled as Birdhead Affordable Game, a.k.a. B A G in English.
The Bird Head would offers the service pack at 480 Yuan, and the piece, once pasted on the wall, can’t be removed, the 480 Yuan pack would include attaching printings on wall according to the buyer and spraying frame pattern and a certificate would be signed by all three parties, Birdhead, cooperating artist and the buyer.

Li Mu’s project: Selling his 2020 year
Artist Li Mu’s project involves him selling all the work that he will produce in 2020 (in 10 years time)
No one knows what his work will look like in 10 years. The artist will propose to a collector that he collects all the work that he, the artist, will produce in 2020, even though it’s hard to tell what his work will be like in 10 years. Price of his 2020 works is ---- 300000RMB. Through a legal agreement artist guarantees to the collector that he will produce no less then 6 works in 2020 (and all editions will belong to collector), the artist also guarantees that, after 10 years, the value of his work will be at least double the price of what the collector would pay today.

Zhao Zhao’s project: 456 3510100886 76 1026
This is a Bank of China’s debit card，the beneficiary card holder’s name is
Zhao Zhao. Every person can collect this art work by transferring unlimited amount of money to this account, the collector will receive a certificate of remittance issued from the Bank of China, the certificate receipt is the art work itself. One year from the date of receiving the art work, the collector may apply for a refund and the return of the work. One year after each money transfer, the artist will withdraw the amount of expenditure by himself and announce all consumer records on http://www.woyaoshoucang.cn .

About Osage
Osage is Asia’s largest international gallery group with major exhibition spaces in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore. Osage represents some of the most outstanding artists in Asia and works closely with a variety of internationally respected curators, critics and art historians to present and promote exhibitions that address fundamental global issues.

Please visit www.osagegallery.com for more information.

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Telephone: 56713605
Email: reikali@osagegallery.com

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Email: emilycheng@osagegallery.com