stage候台BACK

Thomas Rusch

Behind, Photographs

June 19 - July 18 2010

Thomas Rusch, Paris and Hamburg based photo artist, is showing BEHIND. It is a series of portaits - although the identities of the portrayed subjects are unrecognizable behind make-up, texture and material. By overlapping different layers Thomas Rusch evokes an irritating intensity of emotions. Masks are used to protect or hide but masks can also work as an intensifier or converter.. As an interface between inside and outside they enhance the possibility of increasing expression or emotions. And in many situations a mask is the medium to cross borders. Masks have their seeds in rituals. Since prehistoric times they are used for the rites of passage. They are the companion for an African boy who is about to become a man, for the shamen's trance as well as for the body's last journey. In ancient Greek theatre masks were used to intensify the actor's expression, in Beijing Opera the characters and attitudes of the protagonists are encoded in mask and colour. With BEHIND Thomas Rusch shows us archetypes of emotions: dissolution, fear, delight, anger, lust, grief, spirituality.

 

 

www.thomasrusch.org

 

 

For more information please read here

 

 

Franca Bartholomäi "BACKSTAGE CHILDREN"

WOODCUTS

MAY 15 - JUNE 13 2010

Franca Bartholomäi's woodcuts are unique within German contemporary art. In no other artistic oeuvre is the tradition and iconography of the woodcut combined with romantic and psychedelic motifs from the 19th and 20th centuries, forming images of such expressive power. The viewer feels himself involuntarily reminded of Albrecht Dürer, of the woodcut series of expressionism, of a German art tradition in the best sense of the word, which has been interiorized by Franca Bartholomäi. In her 'Night and dream pieces' the artist unfolds references to space and time, which were already incorporated into the style of the graphic genre by Dürer. Out of contrasts and contours, forms and episodes arise which open up far much more than the mere physically perceivable world to our observation. . Perhaps this is one of the components of the magic induced by these images made out of interlocking hemispheres and events, that they are cut out of one and the same wood block, from whose hatchings and notches alone their ethereal identity is drawn. There is also a second woodcut tradition, spanning from the late gothic right up to expressionism, to which Franca Bartholomäi sure-footedly connects. The traditions of so-called "black romanticism", which can be observed in the ramifications of Franz Kafka's or of the filmmaker David Lynch's work. To these Franca Bartholomäi's oeuvre is indebted, more than to the surrealistic and symbolic programs of the 20th century. Her pictures are illustrations of an imaginative tale, of an unwritten text. And in this dimension too her work is an avowal of faith towards the origins and the strangeness of the woodcut. Jacob Burckhardt says in his essay on narrative painting that: the picture "ought to induce through its artistic force such a mood from the outset that one would expect the Utmost ". Voilà! Here is an artist — she fulfills his criterion.

 

 

Text by Manon Bursian

 

 

For this project stage候台BACK has been official partner for the of Saxony-Anhalt´s presentation at the German Pavilion "balancity" during the WORLD EXPO 2010. Also sponsored by the "Abteilung für Kultur und Bildung" (Goethe Institut) Shanghai.

 

 

 

For more information please read here

 

 

Gordon Chandler / wear objects 着物

sculptures

March 27 - May 09 2010

Sculpting industrial cast-offs into iconic Kimono shapes, there's a great basic tension in Gordon Chandler's work that comes from the tactile differences between his materials and subjects. The contrasts are the natural outcome of his Duchampian use of found materials. "I have a very practical bent," he says, "I use things of very little value and elevate them. I study the objects that we decorate our lives with and reconfigure them in my own language." The 55-gallon drum is a container used worldwide to deliver a wide variety of materials. They are widely recognized, ubiquitous symbols of commerce. Once delivered and emptied of their original contents, they are used for a variety of different outcomes. The discarded steel drum bears a history of wear and travel on its surface. From these containers, Chandler chooses the ones with the most intriguing composition and patinas. For him, there is often some reference to the patterned silk fabric of traditional robes. The process from here is like origami. First the barrel is cleaned. Then he cuts the two ends out, cuts it the long way and flatten the hollow cylinder. Left is a rectangle. Through a series of cuts, folds, and a little welding the garment becomes apparent.

 

 

 

For more information please read here

 

Thomas Palme / madness, booze and social phobia

drawings / works on paper

October 24 - November 29 2009

Palme’s highly prolific practice encompasses the fields of drawing, video, performance, and installation. The black and white pencil drawings, which constitute the bulk of Palme’s creative output, are produced at a minimum count of four thousand works on paper annually. Palme draws simultaneously with both his right and left hand, creating images which contain a wide spectrum of marks, energies, and references, ranging from finely rendered portraiture to chaotic abstraction.

 

There are multiple forces at work with each other and at odds with one another in the images Palme creates. The technique which he has adopted to make his work, drawing with both hands at once, is integral to the content of the work itself. There is always a battle taking place between that which we can comprehend or identify as a part of our history, and that which is shrouded in mystery, perhaps supernatural, and definitely powerful if not completely in control. From Palme's citations, it is evident that he is moving between and connecting the spaces of the metaphysical, the historical, the scientific, the religious, and the philosophical. In this intersection is not only a search for answers to large questions as exhaustive and epic as Palme’s practice itself, but also a space of transition which brings the viewer to the present through depicting the implications and effects of these dynamics of power and time on our lives.

 

 

This project was sponsored by the "Abteilung für Kultur und Bildung" (Goethe Institut) Shanghai

 

For more information please read here

 

Laurent Friquet / A Trip Around

SEPTEMBER 07 – SEPTEMBER 26 2009 / 2009年9月07日至9月26日

stage後台BACK is glad to introduce Laurent Friquets A Trip Around for the first time in Shanghai, China. The film shows Friquets recent performance that was held in the Grand Palais in Paris France for “la force de l’art” 2009. This introduction acts as a teaser for the planned performance at stage後台BACK in 2010 in Shanghai.

 

Please come and join us during the Shanghai art week every day from Monday September 7 – Saturday September 12, 2009 from 12h to 18h at stage後台BACK, 696 Weihai Lu by Shanxi Lu. THE BIG CHILL right next to Shanghai contemporary.

 

 

For more information please read here

 

Five Shanghai Germans (Groupshow) Alexander Brandt, Roland Geissel, Susanne Junker, Rolf A. Kluenter and Lothar Spree

May 16 – June 26 2009 / 2009年5月16日至6月26日

The exhibition offers a look through the eyes of 5 German artists who have been living and working in Shanghai during the past 3 – 10 years. Shanghai, the trend-setting metropolis with a capitalistically characterized dynamic, has been challenging their artistic practices and exploration into new or different ways of expression.

 

 

For more information please read here

 

Kristian von Hornsleth / Deep storage Project

May 6 2009 / 2009年5月6日

GIVE YOUR BLOOD AND LIVE FOREVER WITH HORNSLETH!

 

1. Give a drop-sample of one’s blood to be saved in the Deep Storage Project.
2. Sign and put another drop of your blood on a Deep Storage declaration.
3. The Declarations are signed and numbered by Hornsleth
4. The declarations are art pieces for the donor.
5. Each declaration can either be a paper certificate for free or a painting at various prices.

For more information please read here

 

696 open studios / Stop with your limited mind / Videos

April 18 2009 / 2009年4月18日

Qing Qing Yang "Make Up Shanghai", "Eat fire and spit water"

Laurent Friquet "Indoubleside"

Louis Pratt "Faust"

 

For more information please read here

 

Sylvie Tillmann / Candyfloss overboard

February 28 – April 6 2009 / 2009年2月28日至4月6日

Sylvie Tillmann whose interests are both in the understanding of the body as a projection surface as well as the meaning of the expression of her thoughts while using the bodies as the conveyor of the soul.

 

 

For more information please read here

 

Rolf A. Kluenter / "Limbo Grid"过渡状态 / Installation

A Limbo is a space that is between two places. It is a place or state of oblivion to which persons or things are regarded as being relegated when cast aside, forgotten, past, or out of date. Spiritually and in scholastic theology, limbo is an extramundane region where certain classes of souls were supposed to await their judgment.

 

 

For more information please read here

 

Susanne Junker / Geiles Globales Gesicht

In the traditions of Chinese Opera, female characters were exclusively portrayed by male performers, the masks and painted visage irrefutably linked to dramatic personae, and narrative discourse predictable and unwavering. With “Geiles Globales Gesicht” (Grand Global Masks), a seductive counterpoint is given: the perfomer is one female, the symbolic reference of the masks sabotaged, rendered “perverse”, and visual reference one of auto-portraiture.

 

 

For more information please read here

 

ANDY GUHL

Since 2002 Andy Guhl has branched out on his own with ever more innovative installations using audio-visual feedback in analogue electronic systems which he calls “The Instrument”, the expanded cracked everyday electronics. “For me physics is a musical building block,” says Andy Guhl, “to allow you to also see what you’re hearing.”

 

 

CHRIS GILL

Born in the UK he grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa and came to China originally to study the Chinese language.

The main theme of his current work is creating a visual diary of changing societies, using predominately painting, sculpture, and photography.

 

 

SUSANNE JUNKER

STRAFRAUM may be interpreted as an attempt to address the act of self-sabotage & loss of individuality in our mass-consumeris era. Corporal puppets branded with multiple prints are strewn in a circle beneath an intimidating framed “Kagemusha” figure, an omniscient sentinel of a forbearing presence.

 

For more information please read here