Fwd: 大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志-- 林一林艺术方案 Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades-- A project by Lin Yilin

hello friends!

we are having a small gathering at the arrow factory this sunday (2009.06.14) from 4-6pm as part of a new project by Lin Yilin. If you are in the area, please stop by and visit us. it would be great to see you.

best-
rania

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arrow factory <arrowfactory@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Subject: 大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志-- 林一林艺术方案 Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades-- A project by Lin Yilin

6月14日星期天下午四时至六时请光临本次展 览的特别活动！ Please join us for a special event on Sunday, June 14, 4-6pm

大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志 林一林艺术计划，蔡青、蔡伟和方璐作品共同展出 2009年6月15日-2009年 8月9日 6月14日星期天下午四时至六时请光临本次展览的特别活动！   《大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志》，是一个从看似无关紧要的立场出发来讲述所谓重大事件，进而探讨集体与个人经历之间动态变化的项 目。林一林一改"历史"作为重大事件、地点和个体编年史的标准叙事手法，《大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志》这件新作呈现了与平凡、随意和个人密切相关的纪录。 作品试图将附带事件置于核心舞台，进而削弱书面历史的主导方针，把玩我们用以将重要事件从不相干事件中区分出来的方式。 由于采用了宏大的历史年表的风格特征，《大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志》运用录像、摄影和文本，来标记海外华人艺术家这一特定群体中的活动和事件——可以说， 这是一个分布在不同国家和大陆的家庭—他们通过1990年代走出国门这一共同经历而联系起来。其中一些艺术家非常有名，另一些名不见经传；有人横贯欧洲， 而有些则前往美国。一些人功成名就、时来运转，而另一些则贫病交加、郁郁而终。然而，从某些方面来讲，他们的生活不经意间同有意或无意地离开中国后的边缘 生活所导致的事件和经历相联系。描绘这些偶然经历如何发生，如何彼此重合，如何同毛主席、卡尔·马克思以及弗里德里希·恩格斯这些著名政治人物相重叠，重 点强调了这些个别经历和轨迹的随机性和不重要的特征。就像之前在箭厂空间的其它艺术项目一样，《大家庭：是兄弟，不是同志》也考虑到其周边环境和背景语 境，在这种情况下，微渺的个体当中所发生的一系列琐碎事件被有意呈现在一个边缘空间中，唤起我们对于为不同遭遇和经历赋予不同的"重要"程度时我们自身偏 见和判断的关注。年表一直延续至今，箭厂空间和艺术家为此将在六月十四日周日下午四时至六时举办一次特别的非正式活动，在纪念《大家庭：是兄弟，不是同 志》的同时也将这些历史经历在北京一条不起眼的胡同中进行延续。

"箭厂空间"是一个由独立策展人和艺术家组织 策划的艺术橱窗项目。空间位于 北京市中心的胡同里，原本是个小商铺，经过改造后拥有10平方米的展出面积。"箭厂空间"首先希望通过橱窗这种特殊的展示方式，为艺术家的创作方法提供一 种新的可能，空间内定期更新的艺术作品将会在这里每天面对不同的社会群体和文化情境。其次项目自身也试图探讨艺术与日常生活之间的美学关系，尝试艺术创作 与公共空间的有机对话，促进当代艺术的试验，交流与研究。"箭厂空间"将会积极地邀请国内和国外的艺术家提供现场装置和项目。

Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades A project by Lin Yilin, with works by Cai Qing, Cai Wei and Fang Lu June 15 – August 9, 2009 Please join us for a special event on Sunday, June 14, 4-6pm Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades, is a project that explores the dynamic between collective and personal histories through the telling of so-called important events from the perspective of the seemingly insignificant. Inverting the standard narration of 'History' as a chronicle of major events, places and individuals, Lin Yilin's new work, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades, presents a record that relates to the mundane, arbitrary and personal. The work attempts to undermine dominant strategies of writing history by putting sidelined events into center stage, playing with the ways we distinguish the important from the irrelevant. Adopting the stylistic hallmarks of a grand historical timeline, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades uses video, photographs and text to chart the events and episodes amongst a specific group of overseas Chinese artists—a family so to speak, spread across different countries and continents—that are united by their joint experiences in migrating from China during the 1990s. Some of the artists mentioned are famous, some are lesser known; some traversed Europe and some went to America, some encountered fame and fortune while others fell ill and died. Yet their lives are all in some way linked by chance episodes and experiences that result from a life in the margins after voluntary or involuntary exile from China. Tracing how these random histories coincide and overlap with one another and with preeminent political figures such as Chairman Mao, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, underscores the random and nonessential roles of these individual histories and locations. As in previous Arrow Factory projects, Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades is ever mindful of its surrounding environment and context. In this case a set of trivial events occurring amongst minor individuals are purposely presented in a marginal space, calling attention to our own bias and judgment in attaching scales of 'importance' to various encounters and experiences. Continuing the timeline up to the present, Arrow Factory and the artist will hold a special informal event on Sunday, June 14 from 4-6pm to commemorate Big Family: Brothers, Not Comrades and to realize the ability for these histories to leave their mark on such far-flung places as an inconsequential hutong alley in Beijing.

Arrow Factory is an independently run alternative storefront space that seeks to advance artistic collaboration, exploration and experimentation across different cultural contexts and viewing publics. Located in a small hutong in Beijing's city center, Arrow Factory reclaims existing commercial space to present artworks that stimulate dialogue between art and contemporary urban space. Aimed at reaching a diverse public made up of local residents, as well as local and international art audiences, our modestly sized space (approx 10 square meters or 100 square feet) is intended to create new avenues for artistic production in China and further aesthetic relationships between contemporary art and everyday life. Arrow Factory will invite artists living inside and outside of China to create site-specific installations and projects that will be available for view in its storefront location 7 days a week.

箭厂空间 箭厂胡同38号 (国子监街内) 北京 100007 中国   Arrow Factory 38 Jianchang Hutong (off Guozijian Jie) Beijing, 100007 China www.arrowfactory.org.cn arrowfactory@gmail.com

jumping the wall

now that kan xuan's work is up, i had a free moment to tweak the kupa studios website. okok, actually what happened was that our original domain name got blocked in china. so given flickr's spotty accessibility (also firewall related), we decided to acquire a new name and a new server (inside china this time - yeah, try to block me now suckas!), and *hot damn* we found some leftover tech-no-lo-gee to make us a website. nothing better for motivating action than trying to circumvent authority. haven't the slightest idea why we were blocked. maybe because we were linking to flickr? anyway, here tis:

www.kupastudios.com.cn
kupa studios is a design collective based in LA and Beijing. we're designers, architects and artists. we make stuff.

light

now playing at the arrow factory:

Kan Xuan – Light

April 15 – May 7, 2009

Beginning April 15, Arrow Factory will present a series of temporary projects by Beijing-based artist Kan Xuan. Gathered under the collective title “Light”, Kan Xuan will use the space of Arrow Factory as a testing ground for a variety of ideas and concepts, showing only semi-finished work or works-in-process that are continually modified over a fixed period of time. Over a period of six weeks, Kan Xuan will present four to five different projects, each on view for a period of ten days or less. Instead of exhibiting a finished work at the beginning, the work will only reach completion at the end, representing an inverse model of the conventional static and unchanging exhibition format. Working with artists under these provisional conditions, Arrow Factory hopes to open new modes of exhibition-making by diverting attention away from a finished artwork towards something that evolves within the space and that gives the viewing public a deeper look into the artistic process.

Kan Xuan (b.1972) is a graduate of the China Academy of Art specializing in video and video installation. Her work has been exhibited widely in China and internationally, notably in the Chinese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2007), 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007), NONO at the Long March Space, Beijing (2007) and China Power Station I, II, III in various locations (2006-2008). She completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende in Amsterdam and was the winner of the De Prix de Rome Prize in Holland in 2005. She lives between Beijing and the Netherlands.

阚萱展览－《轻》

展出时间：2009年4月15日－2009年6月7日

箭 厂空间从本月15日开始，将展出艺术家阚萱的新作品系列。在“轻”这样一个主题框架之下，阚萱将箭厂空间作为实践她近期概念与想法的一个“试验场”，在其 中只呈现一些尚处于未完成状态的以及正在进行中的作品。在大约6周的时间里，将陆续展出四到五件作品，每件作品只有十天左右的时间面对公众。与箭厂空间之 前的项目从一开始就呈现已完成的作品不同，这个项目中的作品都是被艺术家称之为接近于完成的，它呈现出异于通常展览模式的另一种相反模式。箭厂空间在此不 再关注于“完成”的概念，而是趋向通过持续不断的变化从而使得观者得以更加深层地关注于艺术的创作过程。

阚萱毕业于中国美术学院，从90年代后期开始主要致力于影像艺术的创作与实践。她的作品广泛地展出于国内外的各种展览当中，其中包括2007年威尼斯双年 展中国馆的展览，伊斯坦布尔双年展（2007），长征空间NONO展（2007），中国发电站展（2006－2008）。她参加了位于阿姆斯特丹的 Rijksakademie van Beeldende艺术家驻扎计划并在2005年赢取了荷兰的艺术奖项 the De Prix de Rome Prize。阚萱目前工作生活在中国北京与荷兰的阿姆斯特丹。

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please feel free to stop by if you're in the area.

document

getting settled back into beijing time/space/mindset. things that felt huge upon re-entry 5 days ago are starting to feel normal again. the sun is out, the sky is relatively clear and actually kind of blue (!). food is getting less salty (although there will always be too much salt), and the dust less noticeable. all the STUFF that we have to deal with here in beijing is slowly encroaching over the lingering images of yokohama. but before we get swept up into the whilrwind, and before flickr gets blocked in china again, here are the photos from our Open Apartment Event. much takoyaki was consumed, as well as beer, wine, a lovely nikujaga- beef and potates, hainan chicken and rice, nice red bean sweets from gifu, doburoku- homemade rice wine, an amazing fish head stew, gorgeous chicken wings, oh and we had some art here and there, AND even a performance. you'll have to wait to see the video of the performance as youtube is blocked in china at the moment too. annoying, for me and for you.

once we are connected to the world again, videos and other amusements will follow...

live photos and maybe some blogging

ok sports fans, here are some pics from yesterday's Open Apartment event in Yokohama. we had about 20 visitors come through and the last one left at 11pm. thanks to Natsuko Kido for amazing takoyaki using a family heirloom cast iron plate that her parents had custom made in osaka. thanks to Hitome Hasegawa for delicious hainan chicken rice and nikujaga which we devoured.

more today. already Yamane arrived with a bag of t-shirts that he and Yuka made of his drawings. he's managed to sell both t-shirts and a copy of the live publication. today's "chaos" is off to a pretty good start.