Yin Xiuzhen's Black Hole on New Plymouth's foreshore

Yin Xiuzhen's Black Hole has been installed alongside New Plymouth's waterfront walkway as an extension to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's current exhibition China in Four Seasons: Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen, which runs to 12 September 2010.  

Known for her interest in forms of globalisation (and its movements) the artist has converted a worn shipping container - heavily relied upon in the port town of New Plymouth as a mode of transport - into a round signature-cut diamond and positioned the sculpture in the local environment, adjacent to Len Lye's Wind Wand. Emanating light from within, the work is conceptually grounded in ideas about light, purity, progress, trade and desire. 

Image: Yin Xiuzhen, Black Hole (2010), installed at New Plymouth's waterfront walkway with Len Lye's Wind Wand in the background

China in Four Seasons: final installment

The final installment of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's year-long investigation of contemporary art from China sees Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen present installations of sculpture and video works that respond to the rapid rate of social change and urbanisation currently talking place in China and their impacts on family and social life.

Curated by Rhana Devenport, the exhibition unfolds in two parts: the first comprising existing works (on display to 12 September 2010), while the second part - from 21 August - will consist of new commissions produced through a residency in New Plymouth. Song Dong will collaborate with the couple's eight-year old daughter Song ErRui, while Yin Xiuzhen will work outside the gallery engaging with the street, urban development and the textures of daily life.

Image: Yin Xiuzhen, Weapons, 2007 (detail), from the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery website and courtesy of the artist and Beijing Commune.

Coming up: Jin Jiangbo's Shanghai, Ye! Shanghai

We begin our 2010 programme in the downstairs gallery with Jin Jiangbo's Shanghai, Ye! Shanghai, one of a recent series of projects that investigate the past 20 years of economic, social and cultural upheaval that has taken place in China since 1989. Leaving his familiar mode of new media technologies and taking up the historic process of analogue photography, images are shot using a medium format panoramic camera and then digitally manipulated into large format panoramas that offer a response to the socialist economic landscape of China as it negotiates within the wider frames of globalisation, integration and the recent global recession.

The exhibition is scheduled to run from 16 February to 20 March 2010.

Jin Jiangbo is one of China's new generation of media artists. He visited New Zealand last year as the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's International Artist in Residence and to exhibit his work in China in Four Seasons, a year long project at the GBAG comprising four residencies and exhibitions of selected artists working in China today.

Image:

上海呀,上海;引擎计划;浦东陆家嘴金融中心建设现场

Shanghai, Ye! Shanghai: Engine Plan; the construction of the Pudong Lujiazui Financial Centre, 2009, C-type photograph, 3000 x 750mm, edition of 8