Guy uploaded the video of his project fully realized in Guangzhou at Cantocore: Import/Export. For Cantocore FOB, he made a video documenting the installation of this huge structure which you can view in full at Mission 17 right now.
If you want to talk with Guy more about this project, and the process of creating it, please attend the Cantocore FOB Artists Talk this Saturday, February 28 from 4-6 PM.
Come this Saturday, February 28, 4-6pm to Mission17 and join us for drinks and conversation! This program is free and open to the public.
Artists JD Beltran, David Johnson, Guy Overfelt, Jon Phillips, and Kathrine Worel will discuss contemporary art production in the decentralized global economy, with specific emphasis on connections to the conceptual framwork, Cantocore. The discussion will be moderated by curator/artist Justin Hoover.
Please RSVP on the facebook event page.
If you aren’t in San Francisco to see Cantocore Free On Board, then you can’t see the two-channel video installation that features this piece. Below is a web upload of all segments in their entirety.
News Reenactment from Deer Fang on Vimeo.
Read more about Fang Lu’s piece, and check out her personal website while you are at it.
Katie Farrell from Art Slant reviewed Cantocore FOB. The piece starts off by stating:
The most successful work in Cantocore: Free on Board not only investigates the nuanced layers of trade and culture between Guangzhou and San Francisco, but also incorporates translation/mis-translation, authenticity/reproduction, and the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-translation spirit.
Cantocore: Import/Export (2008) was originally curated for Ping Pong Space, a large warehouse space in Guangzhou, China. Curator Jon Phillips invited six San Francisco-based artists and six Guangzhou-based artists to participate [1]. This second, more intimate edition at Mission 17 includes a few scaled down pieces, or in some cases, omits original work by the artists’ choice or by size constraint.
The exhibition opens with Huang Xiaopeng’s What Does “Globalization” Means To You? a wall text piece that stretches the entire hallway. A billboard contained indoors, the piece is too big to digest while remaining still. The viewer must walk back and forth, tracing the text with his body instead of his eye. The result of translating “globalism” from English to Chinese to English is “thanks to the expansion of the empire economic and culture exchanges become possible to the maximum extent and previously isolated civilizations become linked”. A very appropriate opening for Cantocore.
Read the rest of the write-up here.
NOTE: Curation duties for this show go to Justin Hoover and Lu Fang as well.
Cantocore: Free On Board is the second installment of a collaborative project between select artists from San Francisco and Guangzhou, China: David O. Johnson, Fang Lu 方璐, Guy Overfelt, Huang Xiaopeng 黄小鹏, JD Beltran, Jon Phillips, Justin Hoover, Kathrine Worel, Lin Fang Suo 林芳所, Misako Inaoka, Wang Ge 王铬, and Zhou Tao 周滔. The first Cantocore exhibition related import and export of culture between San Francisco and Guangzhou. For Cantocore: Free On Board, some part of each piece from the first show has been shipped from Guangzhou to San Francisco. Cantocore: Free On Board is an unveiling of the artists reactivated and reformatted works for the gallery, Mission 17, in San Francisco.
The collaboration, “Cantocore,” takes its inspiration and name from the rapid economic, social, and cultural changes taking place in Guangzhou, the third most populous city in China. Even in the midst of economic crises, factories are producing, Canto hip-hop is blasting, and the cultural industries are progressing. Over the last 30 years cities such as Guangzhou, the capital of Canton, have rapidly expanded economically and socially. From revolutionary upheavals to becoming industrialized global cities influenced and informed by diverse forms of representation, Chinese artists have exerted a growing influence on culture globally. Perhaps nowhere more than here on the Pacific rim of California have Chinese-Americans, who primarily immigrated from Southern China, played such a crucial role in the state’s inception, particularly in San Francisco. Not only does this city have the largest import of Chinese people of any US city, these immigrants also created the largest Chinatown in North America. However, understanding the conceptual framework of Cantocore is not limited to geographic divisions, nor reductive dichotomies driven by post-colonial stereotypes such as East versus West or Olympic nationalisms. Cantocore is the reality of life versus the theory set forth by jurisdictions where people live.
For Cantocore: Free On Board, the project uses the shipping jargon “free,” or “freight on board.” This technically means the exporter pays for materials being loaded to ship and the rest of a shipment is paid for upon arrival by the importer. In fact, parts of all artwork for this show have been in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with other “Made in China” freight on board destined for San Francisco at some time. In transit, these objects were locked down as cultural artifacts, stored in a type of stasis until arrival. During this time, the concepts and plans for these pieces were in constant motion with the curators and artists. In shipment, cargo is stored potential energy. It is the physical manifestation of aggressive growth and development in China and the buying power of the United States in the midst of economic rebalancing. It is here in-transit, on these cargo ships that these artifacts are free from consumption and production. It is only when they arrive at their destination, Mission 17 in San Francisco, that they are reactivated as cultural objects, connecting with their planned conceptual trajectory.
Cantocore: Free On Board explores this reactivation and reformatting of works, furthering the dialogue between San Francisco and Guangzhou. Artists involved include Americans with roots in China, Chinese who have come to study and work in San Francisco, and Americans who have emigrated to China. Other artists employed Chinese products and fabrication methods to construct their projects and some Chinese artists examined American ideology. The first installment of the project, titled Cantocore: Import/Export, took place in September 2008 at the Ping Pong Space in Guangzhou. Cantocore: Free On Board is the follow-up response.
NOTE: I wrote this to explain “Cantocore” and “Free On Board for the new show context. I originally wrote this on the project wiki. If you’d like to translate this into Chinese or another language, please do on the wiki. This text is also on the about page, along with the original Cantocore: Import/Export text and Woo Jay’s “Reconsidering Daily Experience” piece about the project.
Thanks to Kathrine Worel, one of the featured artists in Cantocore FOB, we have some new shots of the show. Here is a sampling. I’m putting more on artist’s page, and you can visit my flickr page to see more.
You know you want to see more!
We are still recovering from the great Cantocore Free On Board opening at Mission 17 last Friday. JD sent me a few pictures to post up. If you have some, please do post links in the comments or send to me.
We will have some lovely studio shots coming up this week to show off the work. If you are in San Francisco, the show is up for 2 months until April 18. Also, there is an artist talk at Mission 17 from 4 – 6 PM on April 18.
The installation of projects at Mission 17 is nearing completion and we want to send a big announcement across the lands. If you are in San Francisco this Friday, please do come to the opening of Cantocore: Free On Board. Also, please note that this is 1 of 2 shows. The other show at Mission 17 is imPOSSIBLE! 8 Chinese Artists Engage Absurdity, in conjunction with The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.
Both imPOSSIBLE! and Cantocore open on Friday night from 6 until 9 PM. Please come on out! If you’d like to track this on Facebook, be our guest!
Cantocore: Free On Board opens next week in SF. Here is the flier Mission 17 printed up which is inspired by the original that Asem and Pierre came up with for Cantocore in Guangzhou:
Cantocore: Free on Board (Flier)
Also, here is a static image anyone can use to help promote the show:
Guy Overfelt, one of the artists in the show, created an event on Facebook which you should join and share with others.
The shipping container has arrived from Guangzhou to San Francisco! Here is the show announcement.
Cantocore: Free On Board
This exhibition is a collaboration with The Garage Biennale, The Fabricatorz, and Ping Pong Gallery, China
Opening Reception, Friday, February 13, 6 – 9pm
www.cantocore.com
Participating Artists
JD Beltran, Fang Lu, Wang Ge, Misako Inaoka, David O. Johnson, Guy Overfelt, Jon Phillips, Lin Fang Suo, Zhou Tao, Katherine Worel, Huang Xiaopeng.
Curated by Fang Lu, Justin Hoover, Jon Phillips
PRESS RELEASE
Cantocore: Free On Board is the second installment of a collaborative project, exploring the globalized conditions of contemporary culture, through an exchange specifically between artists from the San Francisco Bay Area and Guangzhou, China.
The collaboration takes its inspiration and its name, “Cantocore,” from the rapid economic, social, and cultural changes currently taking place in Canton province. Hip Hop is thriving, heavy metal music is blasting, and the art market is booming. Over the last 20 years, cities such as Guangzhou, the capital of Canton, have changed from having a uniquely Chinese culture into global cities influenced and informed by diverse forms of representation. During the same period, Chinese artists also have exerted a growing influence on culture across the globe – and perhaps nowhere more than here on the Pacific rim of California, where Chinese Americans have played a central role since its inception. Art and culture is no longer defined by merely national boundaries – if it ever was – and yet cultural differences persist, providing productive tensions, rich with critical and creative possibilities.
Cantocore works to explore these globalized conditions of contemporary culture and the possibilities they present, by cultivating the dialogue specifically between the Bay Area and Guangzhou. Artists involved in the project include, among others, Americans with roots in China, Chinese who have come to study and work in San Francisco, and Americans who have emigrated to China. The first installment of the project, titled Cantocore: Import / Export, took place in September 2008 at the Ping Pong Space in Guangzhou. Cantocore: Free On Board provides the follow-up response.
What common concerns inform these artists work? How does their art nevertheless read differently across the globe? How do the histories and environments of each city inform the aesthetics of the work produced and presented there; and how does the work transcend its geographic origins, drawing aesthetic and conceptual influence from elsewhere?
- Clark Buckner
硬核广州：离岸
这个展览是车库双年展(The Garage Biennale)、制造者(The Fabricatorz) 和乒乓空间的合作项目。
开幕：2009年2月13日下午6点－晚上9点
地点：MISSION 17, 2111 Mission Street, Suite 401, San Francisco, CA
展期： 2009年2月13日－4月18日
参加艺术家：JD Beltran, 方璐, 王铬, 美早子, David O. Johnson, Guy Overfelt, Jon Phillips, 林芳所, 周滔, Katherine Worel, 黄小鹏.
策划：方璐，Justin Hoover, Jon Phillips
”硬核广州：离岸“ 是一个合作项目的第二部分, 通过来自美国旧金山和中国广州艺术家之间的交换，探讨全球状况下的当代文化。
这个合作计划的启发和命名:“硬核广州”，来源于广东省快速的经济、社会和文化变迁，嘻哈(HIP HOP) 盛荣，重金属摇滚充斥着空气，艺术市场发展迅猛。在过去的20年中，像广州这样的城市，其变化从有着独特的地方文化，到受全球城市的影响和各种形式（的外来文化）的再现。在相同时期中，中国艺术家已经在全球范围内发挥着日渐明显的作用；并且或许，太平洋边没有另一个地方像加州一样，美籍华裔从一开始就在那里充当着重要的角色。艺术和文化不再被国家边界所定义－如果它们曾经有过的话－然而文化差异依旧，这提供了有价值的张力，有批判性和创意可能的丰富性。
“硬核广州”意在通过引发旧金山和广州地域之间的对话，从而探讨这些全球化状况下的当代文化和它们所呈现得可能性。这个项目中的艺术家包括，有着中国根的美国人，来到旧金山工作和学习的中国人，还有移民到中国去的美国人。这个项目的第一部分展览题目为“硬核广州：进出口，已于2008年9月在广州乒乓空间举行。“硬核广州：离岸”是对第一部分的继续和回应。
这些艺术作品的共同点是什么，全球不同范围内对艺术的解读是否不同。每个城市的历史和环境是如何影响作品的美学的；这些作品又是如何超越它们的地域局限，从其它地方提取美学和观念的影响的。
- Clark Buckner