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CLOSES SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14 SEPTEMBER 8 - OCTOBER 14, 2006 Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 6-8 pm Labyrinth: Friday, September 15-, 7-10 pm The Amber Room
guest curators: David Spalding and Pauline J. Yao
the luggage store
@1007 Market Street (nr 6th)
San Francisco, CA 94109
is proud to feature newly commissioned work inspired by
The Amber Room:
LIU DING (Beijing)
WON JU LIM (LA)
SHIRLEY TSE (LA)
WANG WEI (Beijing)
Won Ju Lim's "Orange Extension Cord"
Wang Wei's "Untitled" scaffold piece, Liu Ding's "forevermore" and
Shirley Tse's "Sink Like a Submarie" (light green sculpture at left)
See SF Station (Aimee Le Duc)
SF Weekly SF GATE EPIC
Contemporary Magazine Issue #88
Images
The Amber Room is a groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary art that
invites four leading Chinese and Asian American artists to create new
works in response to the fabled Amber Room, an exquisite chamber made
of carved golden tree resin, shimmering gold and mosaics of precious
minerals.
The original Amber Room was a masterpiece of Baroque excess.
Commissioned in 1716 by Fredrick I of Prussia as an extraordinary gift
for Peter the Great, it was once considered the eighth wonder of the
world. But it is also one of the world’s most mysterious treasures. It
decorated the Catherine Palace, near St Petersburg, until September
1941, when German troops invaded. By the time the Soviet Army
recaptured the city, all traces of the Amber Room had vanished.
In its staggering opulence and sudden disappearance, the Amber Room is
a crucible for many things: the lost paradises, mythical treasures and
secret desires that we both sublimate and seek. A full-scale recreation
of the original Amber Room, on display in St Petersburg, raises
additional questions about simulation and authenticity. The artists selected for The Amber Room have created a
dazzling array of sculptures, installations and site-specific
interventions that embody the fractured utopias, baroque manias, and
displacements of time and space that the Amber Room inspired. For his first exhibition in the United States, LIU DING will present forevermore,
an interactive installation which covers the gallery’s windows with
colored plastic panels, inset with peepholes that invite viewers to
peer onto the street below. forevermore –
a double entendre that suggests the future and also refers to the
endless desire for opulence so prevalent in China and throughout the
globe – links viewers through the simple act of looking, and evokes the
original Amber Room’s disappearance and the search and longing it
inspired.
WON JU LIM has created Orange Extension Cord,
a sculptural installation of mirrored and colored Plexiglas that, when
illuminated, uses a cool, geometric sensibility to create a dazzling
atmosphere of Baroque sensations, enveloping viewers in a magnetic haze
of amber light. Part architectural maquette, part minimalist object,
the work ultimately shirks both associations, using a modernist
vocabulary that dissolves into a play of colored shadows and
reflections that suggest the effects of the original Amber Room,
leaving viewers with one solid sculptural element – the orange
extension cord used to light the work.
Won Ju Lim is represented by Patrick Painter Gallery, Los Angeles.
SHIRLEY TSE's new sculpture, Sinks Like a Submarine,
brings together the industrial and the handmade, the ancient and the
contemporary, combining jade-colored cast resin submarine parts, brass
detailing, and a full-scale human heart carved from solid jade. The
sculpture’s title refers to rumors that the original Amber Room was
lost at the bottom of the Baltic Sea - where much of the amber was
first harvested.
Shirley Tse is represented by The Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles.
WANG WEI's
interactive, site-specific installation, comprised of enclosed walkways
leading to and from a pavilion, links the Amber Room to classical
Chinese garden architecture – with a twist. Simultaneously majestic and
temporary, the work uses decidedly non-precious materials – everyday
construction scaffolding – to create a monumental, phantom space that
echoes the disappearance of the original Amber Room, while citing the
constant cycle of demolition and construction that is ubiquitous in
China today.
LIU DING (male,
b.Changzhou, China, resides in Beijing) works between the genres
of sculpture, installation and performance to evoke the excess,
ambitions and absurdity resulting from China’s recent social mutations.
His evolving series of related installations, Samples from the
Transition, confronts viewers with artifacts that point to the
contradictions produced by China’s frenzied capitalism. Liu Ding’s work
has been featured in many group and solo exhibitions throughout China
and Europe. Recent solo shows of his work have been held at the L.A.
Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany (2006); the Long March Space, Beijing
(2005); and the Rooseum Malmö, Sweden (2004). Selected group
exhibitions include “Fiction @ Love,” MOCA, Shanghai (2005), “Beyond:
The Second Guangzhou Triennial,” Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou
(2005); and the 2nd Triennial of Chinese Art, Nanjing Museum, Nanjing
(2005). The Amber Room is the artist’s first exhibition in the United
States. WON JU LIM
(female, born Korea, resides in LA. MFA from Art Center College of
Design, Pasadena, CA, 1998) Well-known for her room-sized installations
comprised of carefully lit, interlocking geometries of colored
Plexiglas, Lim has created glittering, phantom cityscapes that seduce
and deceive the viewer. More recently, she has pursued her exploration
of baroque sensations in a series of custom light boxes, while
continuing to create stunning works with Plexi and light. Won Ju Lim is
represented by Emily Tsingou Gallery, London; Galerie Max Hetzler,
Berlin; Pilar Parra & Romero Galeria de Arte, Madrid and Patrick
Painter, Inc., Santa Monica. Her work has been featured in solo shows
at all of these venues, and included in group shows around the world,
including: the 2002 Gwangju Biennale ; the 2001 Munster Sculpture
Biennial; and Under the Bridges, Casino Luxembourg (2001).
SHIRLEY TSE (female, Hong Kong; resides in LA. MFA from Art Center College of
Design, Pasadena, CA,1996) Shirley Tse's intricately crafted sculptures
and installations—made from materials ranging from memory foam to
custom molded polymer—test the formal and conceptual limits of
plastics, using the material’s inherent multiplicity to compliment the
range of associations her works generate. Tse’s work has been exhibited
in museums worldwide, including: The Biennale of Sydney, Australia;
Bienal Ceara America, Brazil; Kaohshiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan;
Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Museum of Modern Art, Bologna, Italy;
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New
York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Institute of
Contemporary Art, Boston; Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center and
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand. One-person exhibition venues
include Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica; Murray Guy, New York;
Perugi Arte Contemporanea, Pardova, Italy; Pomoma College Museum of
Art, Claremont; and Para/Site, Hong Kong. Tse is represented by
Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, California, and Murray Guy in
New York. WANG WEI (male, born Beijing, China, resides in Beijing. MFA, Central Academy of
Fine Arts, Beijing, 1996) Often modifying existing architectural
structures with subtle, surprising additions, Wang Wei’s site-specific
interventions are aimed to disrupt human perceptions of space while
initiating dialogues about construction, labor and economic systems.
Wang Wei’s recent solo exhibitions have been held at Platform China,
Beijing (2005) and the 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing
(2003). Group exhibitions include: the 2005 Prague Biennial; “China,
The Body Everywhere,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Marseilles, France
(2004); “Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China”
International Center of Photography, New York, and the Smart Museum of
Art, Chicago, USA (2004); “The First Guangzhou Triennial,” Guangdong
Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2002); and “Revolutionary Capitals:
Beijing in London” Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1999).
ABOUT THE CURATORS
David Spalding
is an independent curator, critic and educator from San Francisco. He
is a Correspondent / Contributing Editor for Contemporary, Art Papers
and Flash Art, and the China correspondent for Artforum. He teaches
contemporary art and critical theory at the California College of the
Arts, San Francisco, and Mills College in Oakland, California. The
recipient of a 2005 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to research
experimental Chinese art, Spalding is currently based in Beijing. Pauline J. Yao
, independent curator and former Assistant Curator of Chinese Art at
the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Yao is a regular contributor to
Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, ART Asia Pacific and Art
Papers, and teaches contemporary Chinese visual culture and
experimental art at the California College of Arts in San Francisco.
Recently awarded a grant from the Fulbright Scholars Program, she will
be based in Beijing during the 2006-2007 academic year. Funding for The Amber Room has been made possible by
the generosity of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The
Herringer Family Foundation, The Asian Cultural Council, Grants for the
Arts of the Hotel Tax Fund, The SF Art Commission Cultural Equity Fund, Frederick L. Gordon and other private donations. See SF Weekly LECTURES September 25, 2006, 6pm (free)
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street, SF CA , Studio 18
"Pacific Perspectives" will present WANG WEI and LIU DING
The series is curated by Hou Hanru September 6, 2006 7pm (free)
Mills College
Danforth Lecture Hall, Oakland, CA
Inside the Amber
Room: Contemporary Sculpture and
Installation
A panel discussion with the artists moderated by the curators.
SEE IMAGES OF PAST WORK
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