OCAT Shanghai and MAAP is proud to present LANDSEASKY, a group show bringing some of the most interesting and challenging video artworks from 17 international contemporary artists to 3 countries in a major Australia-Asia tour. The exhibition opens across multiple prestigious museums and galleries in China Australia and Korea, and will open in OCAT-Contemporary Art Terminal Shanghai on 20 April 2014.
LANDSEASKY speaks to the three elements represented by the horizon line. In its simplest form, the horizon can be represented as a single line across a plane or page. In this exhibition, some of the world’s sharpest contemporary artists use the horizon line as a starting point to explore some of the most fundamental and complex themes in both art and our perception of the world.
This is the latest touring project by award-winning Australian arts organization MAAP – Media Art Asia Pacific (MAAP). Their last touring exhibition ‘Light from Light’ was selected as the best Visual Art project in the Australian Arts in Asia Award last year.
LANDSEASKY carries the hallmarks of MAAP’s unique approach to cross-cultural exchange. Artists from Australia, Asia and Europe are brought together in a conversation around a shared theme. New artworks created for the exhibition will be in dialogue with some early 1970s video artworks by influential Dutch conceptual artist Jan Dibbets. Dibbets is one of the early pioneers to apply the camera as a tool in contemporary art. Exhibited in LANDSEASKY are his videos Horizon I (1971),Horizon II (1971), and Horizon III (1971), which manipulate the camera frame to challenge the way we perceive the horizon line while flattening an abstracted screen space.
The exhibition is presented in new configurations in each country of the tour. In OCAT Shanghai, LANDSEASKY will attract additional Chinese artists and its layout is conceived to match and at the same time contrast with Shanghai buzzing urban environment. In fact Shanghai has land, sea (and rivers) and sky just like any other city in the world: here it takes a bigger effort of imagination to see beyond the high-rises and the altered horizon line. Through artists’ intellectual approach we see different spatial problems articulated and explored in screen media and video space. This exhibition nods to the beginning of conceptual video art practice reminding us of a rich critical past that can be recalled and reframed to refresh our conversation in our contemporary urban society.
Other participating venues as part of the tour include OCT-OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai, Griffith University Art Gallery in Brisbane and the National Art School Gallery in Sydney. The exhibition is partnered with a number of Asian and Australian organisations including the Queensland University of Technology and the QUT Confucius Institute.
The exhibition is partnered with a number of Asian and Australian organisations including the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australia Korea Foundation – Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Griffith University through Griffith University Art Gallery, the Queensland University of Technology and the QUT Confucius Institute.
Sydney, Australia21 August – 11 October 2014 Venue: National Art School Gallery For more information about the Sydney iteration of LANDSEASKY visit the project page by clicking here Brisbane, Australia1 October – 13 November 2014 Venue: Griffith University Art Gallery 1 October – 28 November 2014 Venue: MAAP SPACE Gallery For more information about the Sydney iteration of LANDSEASKY visit the project page by clicking here
For more information on each artist and artwork included in LANDSEASKY, please click the names below:
