charwei tsai
Lovely Daze is a curatorial journal of artists’ writings and artworks published biannually in limited editions. Under Influence - collaboratively envisaged with Talents, a collection of short films and videos curated by Joanna Chevalier - is a special edition adaption of the publication. The cooperative synergy of two unique visual mediums attempts to draw readers into a universe of nostalgia and unexpected spells.
publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer muses ~ angelita garcia, federico herrero, catalina leon, su-mei tse, and grigoris tsolakis contributors ~ john armleder, cai guo-qiang, andrea galvani, butt johnson, liliane phung, nicolas pol, cristina rodriguez, virginie yassef cover ~ andrea galvani, intelligenza del male #5, 2007 copyright ~ lovely daze, fall 2008 printed in my beloved formosa
CONTRIBUTORS (for lovely daze edition)
JOHN ARMLEDER was born in Geneva in 1948. He currently works and lives between Geneva and New York. He is a performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, curator and expeditionary, is consistent only in his willingness to take creative risks. A member of the Geneva-based Groupe Luc Bois, he was heavily involved with Fluxus during the 1960s and 1970s and was a founder member of the Groupe Ecart in 1969, known primarily for their performances and publications. His work continues to demonstrate the preoccupations of these groups by abandoning hierarchies of different artistic genres and objects.
CAI GUO-QIANG was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, China and lives and works in New York. In addition to his well-known explosion works, Cai (surname) draws on a wide variety of materials, symbols, narratives, and traditions—elements of feng shui, Chinese medicine and philosophy, images of dragons and tigers, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, and gunpowder. The artist has received a number of awards including the 48th Venice Biennale International Golden Lion Prize, the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, and most recently, The 7th Hiroshima Prize. Among his recent solo exhibitions is a traveling retrospective, Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe at Solomon. R. Guggenheim Museum, National Art Museum in Beijing, and Guggenheim Bilbao. His participation in group exhibitions included the São Paulo Bienal (2004); Whitney Biennial (2000); and five Venice Biennales (1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, and as a curator for the first China Pavilion in 2005). In addition to his practice as an artist and curator, Cai was appointed the Director of Visual and Special Effects for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and he also established a series of contemporary art museums entitled Everything Is Museum including one designed by architect Sir Norman Foster in the artist’s hometown in Quanzhou opening in 2009. Our publisher is proud of to have had Cai as her boss and contributor of this special edition where she is again under his spells.
www.caiguoqiang.com
KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.
ANDREA GALVANI was born in Verona in 1973. He lives and works in New York and Milan. Since 2006 he has been professor of Photographic Language and History of Contemporary Photography at the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti di Bergamo and is currently an artist-in-residence at Location One, New York. He is fascinated by science and its models of representation as well as in the multiplicity of languages, signs, and in their relationship in history; in tables and graphics as synthesis of philosophical, political, and economical concepts. Andrea has a predilection for the photographic medium but avails often to other mediums, most of all video, drawing and wall painting. His works has been widely exhibited including Babylon, BAC! Barcelona International Contemporary Art Festival, Spain, 2007; Andrea Galvani 2003-2006, Museum of Contemporary Art, Monfalcone, Gorizia, Italy; Decostruzione di una Montagna e la Morte di un’Immagine, Artopia, Milan, Italy, 2006.
www.andreagalvani.com
BUTT JOHNSON is a stupid made up name.
www.buttjohnson.com
LESLEY MA is wrapping up her 3.5 year tenure at Cai Studio after working on more than a dozen exhibitions and projects. She is glad to help present one of her favorite texts by Cai in this issue of Lovely Daze. She will be findings ways to challenge herself in the academia (hopefully) and trotting the world with a non-art driven agenda for a little while. Though a hard decision to make, she is determined to make the leap and can soon afford to love and daze all day.
www.tastingsalon.com
LILIANE PHUNG was born in 1348 and that is why her breath smells quite a bit. What she can say about the Frontierland is that it is not what we believe. She loves hotdogs though. Especially cheating hotdogs with wings. Her solo exhibitions include Dairy Queen et Declin, Fat Galerie, Paris (2008); The Lickin’ that Doesn’t Hurt, Allsopp Contemporary, London (2007) and group exhibitions include J’en Rêve, Fondation Cartier, Paris (2005); Lil’ Kings, L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris (2005); Les Beaux Arts Prennes Le Metro Station Pyramide, Paris (2005); Carpenter’s Workshop, Galerie Alain le Gaillard, London (2005); and Downtown to Downtown, L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Geneva (2005).
NICOLAS POL studied medecine, hoping to become an ornithologist in order to learn how to fly, but unfortunately he failed at the exam. He is in Paris now, preparing a huge quantity of food to gain more and more weight, and to be sure to get stuck in the ground forever. His solo exhibitions include Nicolas Pol (2008) and Life Goes On If You’re Lucky (2005) Allsopp Contemporary, London and group exhibitions include Parasites: Julien Berthier, Liliane Phung, Nicolas Pol, Allsopp Contemporary, London (2006); Place St. Sulpice, Paris (2005); J’en Rêve, Foundation Cartier, Paris (2005); Salon de Montrouge, Paris (2004).
CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian artist and designer living in the colorful Little Havana in Miami. She is currently spending a lot of time drawing, painting, observing, making things and collaborating on cool projects with the by_number design collective. She is still in awe that in the center of a US city she can hear roosters at dawn.
www.crwork.net
www.bynumberstudio.com
SABRINA SHAFFER is missing Little Wei.
www.otabo.com
www.thekdu.com
CHARWEI TSAI is a Taiwanese artist born in 1980. She is currently attending the post-graduate program La Seine at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. Her work has been exhibited at Traces du Sacre, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008); Museum of Hunting and Nature, Paris (2008); Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, (2007); ZKM Center of Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2007); How Far Would You Go For Love, Cartier (2007); Hydra School Project, Greece (2006); Singapore Biennale (2006); and J’en Rêve, Fondation Cartier, Paris (2005.) Upcoming solo exhibitions will take place at Federico Herrero’s space in Costa Rica and Gallery Sora, Tokyo, Japan. In 2009, she will participate in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. In addition to her art practice, Tsai publishes, edits, designs, and interns for Lovely Daze with lots of bliss!
www.charwei.com
VIRGINIE YASSEF was born in 1970 in Grasse, France and graduated from L’Ecole des Beaux Arts and Sorbonne University. She creates videos, photographs, and sculptures revealing the poetry of everyday life and emphasizing the subtle gap between perception and reality. In her universe, the strangeness, sometimes even supernatural, surface where least expected. Her solo exhibitions include La Seconde est Partie la Première, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2008); Crossing the Line, Gallerie FI:AF, New York (2008); Some Magical Clangs, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch, France (2008); Alloy, Galerie Georges-Phillippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris (2007). Her group exhibitions include: La Force de l’Art, Commissaire : Bernard Marcadé, Grand Palais, Paris (2006); Vidéo-salon, Galerija10m2, Sarajevo (2006); Speech Box, Teater 3, Stockholm (2006).
~ special thanks: (asia-pacific) family, especially takehiro + his mom + dad, lots of aunts + uncles + cousins, sarah + family, ama, irene + baby, joyce + family, yulin jie, jesse, pao-lin, ali, heather, eugene, suhanya, shilpa, taka, jeffrey, tig + sora staff, doggie. (us) sub + family, lesley, kelly m, kelly c, tina, angelita + family, cristina, ani, maria, aoi, terresa, bebe, ronnie, jason, mandy, duke, erica, eugene, chris liu, yonatan, jason, ido, leif, pat, alex, shunyi, nigel, warren, mingwei, john, vicson, naoto, linda, dunbar, arron, hisham, julien, jordan, mark, cai + family + studio, bridget, printed matter staff, max, aa, cat, james, fiona + papabubble. (europe) grigoris + family, su-mei, jean-lou, lili, nico, alba, asun, gerry, valentine, george, shing, kahn, pablo, pier, albi, alessandra, herve, jean d l, virginie, aurelie, anna, mark, jun, oliver, emily, klara, mark, joanna, gilles, claude, tony, vincent, antoine. (latin america) catalina, barbie, federico, thiago, mateo, rosario.
CONTRIBUTORS (for talents dvd compilation)
ELLI CHRYSSIDOU was born in 1956 in Thessalonika where she currently lives. She completed her studies at the Beaux Arts in Nancy and taught from 1991 to 2006 at the Beaux Arts of Saint-Etienne. She has participated in exhibitions around the world in Greece, France, Spain, among others. Intrigued by all that moves, and the metamorphoses that occur according to the invisible laws of vision, she reveals her desires and examines all that escapes our common reason. Her quest for identity leads her exploration into not how we function but why we function.
LAWRENCE ENGLISH is a media artist, composer and curator based in Brisbane, Australia. English's work is eclectic, working across a broad field of exploration. He treats various themes using audio/visual environments, subtly transforming public spaces into artworks that exist at the very edge of perception. His work is edited by prestigious labels as Cronica, Quatermass, Wind Measures and Sensori Project. Lawrence English has composed sounds that amplify sensations and create images.
www.lawrenceenglish.com
MIHAI GRECU was born in 1981 in Romania. After studying art and design in Cluj Napoca, he jas been pursuing his artistic research at the Graduate School of Decorative Art in Strasbourg. Recurring topics such as distress, cloning, hallucination, city life and war articulate the whole of his exploration of mysterious and subconscious beginnings. These visual and poetic trips, mix several techniques and styles may be seen as propositions for a new dream oriented technology.Alternating between video art, cinema, and 3D animation, his unique and disturbing vision shows parasitical objects passing through dehumanizing situations with a background of distorted architecture and symbolic characters. His work is frequently shown at expositions and festivals, and he has won acclaim internationally, such as a prize from the Rotterdam Film Festival.
www.mihaigrecu.org
JOHNNY KELLY was born in Dublin in 1980 and currently lives and works in London. He earned his diploma in graphic design at the DIT School of Art and Design in 2004. He has worked in graphic design while also freelancing in animation, before joining the Department of Animation at the Royal College of Art in London. Now that he has finished his studies, he has been working with Nexus Productions in London as a director of commercials, music videos and short features.
www.mickeyandjohnny.com
SKOLTZ KOLGEN are two artists: Dominique Skoltz and Herman W. Kolgen from Quebec and currently live and work in Montréal. These rigorous and disturbing artists focus on the relationship between sound and image. Their many-pronged work encompasses cinematic works, installations, performances, and photographic objects, using both image and sound.
www.skoltzkolgen.com
CHARLIE MARS is a video artist, video blogger, and VJ. He currently lives and works in Nantes. Clever at "do it yourself", and vividly autodidactic, his work is an invitation to create with insolence. His point of view gradually unwinds as an elegant kick in the teeth to the pervasive banality of television..
www.charlimars.com
MARYAM MOHAJER was born in 1977 in Tehran and received her BA in painting at the University of Azad. In 2000, she moved to England and has been living there since. In 2005, she earned her diploma in illustration and animation at the University of Kingston, joining the department of Animation at the Royal College of Arts in 2007.
www.rca.ac.uk/animation
LAURENT PERNOT was born in 1980 and has lived in various countries including Korea, Canada, Norway, Germany, Italy and Japan. He has been featured in both solo exhibitions at Sketch Gallery, London and the Foundation Miro, Barcelona, and group exhibitions, in France: Le Laboratoire, Paris/Art projects at the Galerie Yvon Lambert and Fabrica, and open eyes at the Centre Pompidou and abroad: Dislocate 07, Ginza Art Lab, Tokyo, Japan/Changdong Art Studio Gallery, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea.
www.laurentpernot.net
