Between Spaces – Bradford Kessler & Cong Longfei
@ DaFeng Gallery (BJ), Jan. 10-17

Dafeng Gallery brings together a show of two video installations by Bradford Kessler and Cong Longfei. "Between Spaces" shows us the displacement that one comes to experience when one lives for a time in a culture and society foreign to one’s own, whether he be an expatriate or a migrant worker, as well the sense in which one comes to belong to both, and at the same time, neither.

Bradford Kessler, born in 1982, is a native of Pratt Kansas and a BFA graduate from the University of Kansas. He is an interdisciplinary artist who prefers to see himself above all as a sculptor. Brad’s work explores our relationship with and movement through space, time, and dreams in media ranging from graphics, and video to sculpture and installation. His piece, "Closer" is a one minute looped 35mm film of a segment from the Wizard of Oz projected onto loose sand in which Dorothy repeatedly clicks her heals in a futile attempt to escape the colorful fairyland of Oz and return to the mundane familiarity of Kansas.

Cong Longfei was born in Dalian, Liaoning Province in 1985 and graduated from Qinghua University’s Information Art Design Department with a BFA in Animation and Information Arts in 2008. His work, 民工 (Migrant Workers) is a short-length amalgamation of video and animation which depicts the struggles migrant workers face when they temporarily leave their rural life behind to labor in the urban environment of China’s fast developing cities. Migrant Workers combines his own cartoons with video images of migrant workers participating in China’s industrialization, won the 1st prize for animation at the 2008 Beijing International Student Exchange as well as an invitation to travel to Japan for an exchange visit.

What's in the Box? Photography,Painting exhibition & Fashion show
@ Goncharova Gallery (BJ), Jan. 9-17

During opening and closing exhibitions on 9th & 16th Jan , the 3 young Chinese designers will show their design work in each of the 3 exhibition halls while our reception hall will be turned into an in-house catwalk stage with live music. The Box will keep you guessing…

22 International Art Plaza Open House
@ 22 International Art Plaza (BJ), Jan. 14

22 International Art Plaza Open House is a gathering for the Beijing community to explore and engage in the city's vibrant contemporary art scene. Organized by RedBox Studio within one of the city’s leading art districts, 22 International Art Plaza Open House will bring together Beijing’s young creative scene for an evening of talks, screenings and after-hours gallery viewings.

"To & From" by Shan Cheng Ju, presented by Jalent Culture communication
@ Capital Theatre (BJ), Dec. 30-Jan. 18

An original and experimental theatre inspired by "Love Letters"(A.R Gurney).

To and From (Shou Xin Kuai Le) is inspired by Love Letters (a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominated play by A. R. Gurney). The play centers on just two characters, Chen Shu Fen and Li Zheng Guo. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at a seesaw and read the correspondence - in which they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats - that has passed between them throughout their separated lives. It is only at the sad ending that they realize they were really love letters all along. To and From (Shou Xin Kuai Le) is not only about acting. It's also about listening... but in a different way.

REALISTIC ODEUM by Liu Jin
@ 140sqm Gallery (SH), Jan. 7-17

140sqm Gallery focuses on international conceptual art. It exhibits established international artists, but also aims to discover and showcase young talent. ‘Realistic Odeum’ is the exhibition highlighted for the Jue Festival by artist Liu Jin. Liu Jin tries to create anti-realistic suppositional environment, which is the force in the dialogue and confrontation in the realistic world.

Since the middle of 1990s, Liu Jin has been working on the creation of contemporary art, with the media of performance, video, sculpture, painting and installation. His works has been participated in many different exhibitions in China and abroad.

Liu Jin’s works has a conspicuous characteristic. He tried to create anti-realistic suppositional environment, which is the force in the dialogue and confrontation in the realistic world.

Supposition is the way, that artist utilizes to express his concept with the combination of artistic thought and survey about the realistic world.

The harmed youth, wounded angel, which are from the mental experience to realistic world, from self -sensibility, fragility to visual performance and photography, which leads us to reflect upon.

Our contemporary world has been changing, the common mental experience of human being has been rebuilt, the urban structure has been suspected, everyone is in the big realistic odium.

Daily Prosperity by Chen Hang Feng
@ Art Labor Gallery (SH), Jan. 7-17

Chen Hang Feng arranges the logos of the world's largest companies into traditional Chinese patterns with a modern twist, without soaking it in cynical irony. As an ancient woodcarver might have used the bird he observed in his daily life and place this in his work, Chen Hang Feng takes the symbols in front of our eyes and puts them into his work as motifs, creating very attractive works of art composed of rather more normally mundane corporate logos of our times.

Working along these lines of appropriation and reapplication, Chen Hang Feng has over some months collected various objects out of garbage collection and redistribution centers around Shanghai. Out of these he has built a glamourous "Chandelier" from discarded pieces. He intends to illustrate the complex layers behind the processes in our daily lives and also the layers inherent in our application of value to an object at various phases of use.

Painting Skin by Wang Tingting
@ FQ Projects Gallery (SH), Jan. 7-17  

FQ Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition called Painting Skin which is also a staged situation built up with interior, paintings on the wall, works on paper and oil on canvas. It leads viewers into an inner world of a girl, the artist, Wang Tingting who belongs to the post 80’s generation. She is growing up in this term which seems peaceful but is actually repressive. Each generation has its own common characteristics, so is Tingting. They want to be grown-ups but being premature knowing the pain coming along with the growing, they try to escape from them, so struggle in the city filled with thorns. They are cool as well as high spirited and full of fervent love, hatred.

Though she is a MA graduate under artist Liu Dahong, She is not like others using thick strokes or realistic portrayal academically to create works, on the contrary, her works using simple artistic lines and a flat surface reflect complicated internal emotions; "bloody, flowers, cold, sweet", the seemingly illogical use of words are representative of the juxtaposition in her works. These works are full of contradiction and reflect her metamorphosis.

Tingting loves musics by Cherry Chen, Mavis Fan and Zhang Xuan. It is better to say she has a spiritual commonality with them than to think she is a fan of these minority singers. They express themselves through music, she uses painting. There are princes and princesses stories, but there are also blood and cold blades. The child like images with long and narrow eyes, smileless and glassy features yet emotional body language is Tingting herself. Painting Skin means paint a skin ourselves, it is superficial and maybe unreal, yet ambiguously it is the realistic appearance of heart. Husk can cheat, heart can’t.

Marriage Counseling: Three Sessions
@ River South Art Center (SH), Jan. 16-17

Written, devised and performed by members of the 5th Wall ensemble, Marriage Counseling explores betrayal, deceit and love in the relationship of a modern couple, whose carefully constructed marriage devolves as each penetrates the other’s web of lies. The first therapeutic session realizes the couple as an urban, middle-class husband and wife. The second session asks an alternative question: what if the relationship were between two women? In this way, Marriage Counseling explores subtle differences in gender and gendered expectations. The last session reinterprets the scene in the context of physical theater, obviating the verbal text for a bodily text of modern dance, Thai boxing, religious ritual and other elements of movement.

The Artist Died Yesterday
@ Island6 Arts Space (SH), Jan 7-17

Curated by Zane Mellupe and artistically directed by Thomas Charvériat, "The Artist Died Yesterday" showcases the work or 26 Chinese and foreign artists.

Obituary - Death Notice

He came alone in a world of glitter
His art turned out to be just twitter
His thoughts were valued for no price…
He could not get a bowl of rice

He stood alone in a market place
And here she came – the sacred race
She bought his art – well…rather smart
For just a little more than a pound of tart

Oh... he praised her
Oh... She blinked
He thought -there is a magic link
Or mink?

He crawled behind her whining softly
She seemed to be his lifetime trophy
When stars had gone and blue was sky
He felt her thigh was kind of high

He tried to push
She whispered – shush
Oh no…
His soul was gone in ladies bush.

--Zane Mellupe, December 19th 2008, Shanghai