TKG+ (Beijing) is pleased to invite artist Yuan Goang-Ming, artist and curator Qiu Zhijie, and art critic and curator Philip Tinari to a conversation about Yuan Goang-Ming’s past and recent work during the opening reception of Disappearing Traces on April 21, 4:30-7:30pm. The exhibition will be on view from April 21 until June 3, 2012.
Disappearing Traces will be the first solo exhibition of Yuan’s work in Beijing, and will provide an overview of his past and recent works, dating from 1992 to 2011. In these photographs, videos, and new media installations Yuan delves into his life experiences, and simultaneously attends to memory and the removal, breaking down, and separation of context, to tell these stories. His works appear distanced from reality, which he transforms into an illusion, as in the uninhabited streets of the photograph City Disqualified – Ximen District at Night (2002).
A pioneer of new media art, Yuan’s works, such as Fish on Dish (1992) and The Cage (1995), show his experiments with vision and video art. In his most recent works he continues his explorations of a state of displacement, all the while, experimenting and pushing the limits of his chosen mediums. In Disappearing Landscape – Passing II (2011), for instance, the cameras dive forward and retreat back, allowing Yuan to build a virtual ”passage” of imagery, in an attempt to connect life and death, the “visible” and “invisible,” and to retrace his memories of his father. The traces of portraits, and of memory, remain on the phosphorous-covered boards of the multi-media installations, Disappearing Portrait – Mio and Disappearing Portrait – Ming (both 2011). In each of these two works, the image remains out of focus, up until the very last second, when the figure becomes clear and the projector shuts off. The cycle of appearance and disappearance, of focusing and blurring, is indicative of memory’s nature, and alludes to the inherent fear, darkness, and loneliness produced by changes in the family. From the micro-narratives he creates in his works, to his combination of cinema and video art to capture the every day, the works of Disappearing Traces provide a captivating overview of this ground-breaking artist’s practice.
Yuan Goang-Ming
Born in Taipei, in 1965, Yuan Goang-Ming is Associate Professor of New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts. He received a Diploma in Media Arts from the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany (1997) and a BFA at the National Institute of the Arts (Taipei, 1989), in addition to attending the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt (1994). Yuan’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including the Gwangju Biennale (1995 and 2002), the Taipei Biennial (1996, 1998, and 2002), Translated Acts (Berlin, New York, and Mexico City, 2001-02), 01.01.01: Art in Technological Times (San Francisco, 2001), Luna’s Flow: The 2nd Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2002), Culture Meets Culture: Busan Biennale 2002, the Venice Biennale (2003), the Liverpool Biennial (2004), the Guangzhou Triennial (2005), the Singapore Biennale (2008), Taiwan Calling (Budapest, 2010), the Asian Art Biennial (Taichung, 2011), Moving Image in China: 1988-2011 (Shanghai, 2011), and the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions (Tokyo, 2012). He has also curated several exhibitions, including SlowTech, held in 2006 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.
