State of the Arts: 8 Deutschland, An Art Take on Literary Work at UCCA, and More

State of the Arts is our regular arts column whereby we take a look at the newest moves in Beijing's creative scene and highlight art news as well as exhibitions, artists, and openings that you should seek out.

Everyone who’s been around Beijing long enough knows that October tends to be one of the busiest art seasons in town. No wonder, given the fact that Beijing Design Week – the mammoth of cultural events in the China’s capital – is just around the corner, dragging hundreds of related gigs under its comprehensive banner. That's not to mention the film fests and other parallel programs taking place as usual, if not fueled by the event-planning stamina circulating nonstop across town.

But everything in due time, amigos; for now, let’s focus on this week's showing. The first pick, as you well-informed Teutons may have taken notice of, is “Deutschland 8," a series of eight exhibitions organized by the German Foundation for Art and Culture in collaboration with the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. The exhibition focuses on a diverse array of German artistic productions, dating from the postwar era to the present, and encompassing a wide range of mediums.

Two of the segments of the series have garnered our attention so far: The first, Minsheng Museum’s photography exhibition (Sep 19-Oct 22), entitled “Language of Photography and Dusseldorf School.” 

As its name suggests, the exhibition offers a cross-sectional display of some paradigms of German contemporary photography, starting from Dusseldorf School’s founders Bernd and Hilla Becher’s highly conceptual black-and-white photographs, and going on to include some of the most renowned works of their students, such as pieces by Andreas Gursky – known for his large-scale edited images – and Thomas Struth's Paradise series, as well as other seminal artists who have left their own mark on the field, such as Katharina Sieverding and Andreas Muhe.

Over at Today Art Museum’s second gallery space, “Frozen Time – [an] exhibition of New Media Art in Germany” (Sep 19-Nov 12) includes Julius Popp’s mesmerizing piece “bit.fall,” an installation that uses drops of water to generate words or small ‘bits’ of information processed by a statistical algorithm that scans current threads on media channels. Nature is "thus manipulated to represent the transient essence of cultural information," in the artist's own words.

Other video installations rely heavily on film to address gender, class, and other contemporary social preoccupations, with standouts (in our humble opinion) including the multi-channel installations of Julian Rosefeldt and Marcel Odenbach’s solemn take on memory reshaping through societal norms in his piece “Proof of Nothing."

Heading to 798, one of the most bustling (and let’s face it, annoying) art spots in town, UCCA has opened its newest group show called “Cold Nights” (Sep 15-Dec 17). Based on the eponymous book, the curators invited Chen Zhou, Liu Shiyuan, Nabuqi, and Li Ran to interpret the story’s protagonists’ and capture them through their lenses. The result is an exhibition that encapsulates four different approaches and aesthetics, all held within a mirrored space where fragments of each video installation reflect throughout, an effect that distorts your ability to grasp the role that each artist has tried to represent and how it relates to the final piece.

Make the most of your ticket by heading to the room next door and enjoy renowned Chinese artist Zhao Bandi’s “China Party” (on viewing until Oct 22), featuring multiple video installations of the artist’s performances – in a few cases defying local authorities and the status quo – as well as several of his paintings for a well-rounded retrospective of his work.

One more show to keep in mind this week: the fugacious but strong-in-vision “Almost Art Project” at Tabula Rasa Gallery (Sep 21-24), a “guerrilla art festival” presenting and selling works created by "outsiders" – i.e. non-professional, self-motivated – and comic artists.

Photos: GJ Cabrera