Fiona Tan's exploration into cultural and personal identity

Fiona Tan's complex background has continuous influence on her art which is persistingly film and video installations. Born in Indonesia and raised in Australia, she is the daughter of a Chinese-Indonesian father and a Scottish-Australian mother. Tan is now based in Amsterdam, the capital of the Dutch empire that colonized Indonesia for almost three hundred years. The complex history of her identity and the remnants of the colonial past are important factors in her work. The film "News from the Near Future" is a single-screen, 9:30 minutes film created from fragments of old footage from the archives of the Film museum in Amsterdam. In the film, there is a scene of a flooded Dutch town with people punting up the street, which easily reminds us of the horrendous tsunami hitting Sumatra and South Asia in 2004. Tan's newly commissioned work by AGYU are aged portraits of young Asian females displayed on flat LCD monitors. There is a sound element added to this work - would it be just a narrative, or a fabricated history of the artist by the artist herself?

Fiona Tan Solo exhibition
Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, Canada
January - March 2006

The new AGYU galleries open with an exhibition by Fiona Tan

The new AGYU galleries (Art Gallery of York University) opened its door to the public this Wednesday with a solo exhibition by Indonesian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Fiona Tan. The galleries are part of the Accolade Project - an expansion that includes two buildings: the West Building and the East Building. The AGYU galleries are two grand spaces located in the East Building. In Fiona Tan's exhibition, the main gallery premieres a newly commissioned work, a silkscreen print 'Lift' (2000) and two video installation, 'Rain' (2001) and 'Down Side Up' (2002). The other gallery space is showing her film "News from the Near Future" which was produced in 2003.

The bodies of the artists

It was the last day of Andy Fabo's exhibition in Mocca. It was also the last day of the year. One just couldn't get rid of some sad feelings of another year gone. Andy Fabo's work reminds me of Sunil Gupta's. Perhaps both artists deal more or less with the body. Sunil Gupta's interpretation has a reclusive, poetic aura while Andy Fabo's version is expressive and articulate. Inside of me I feel increasingly the different expressions and flavours that distinguish east and west cultures.

Sunil Gupta at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography

On view through April 23 at CMCP is a solo exhibition by Sunil Gupta. The show comprises two series: Social Security and Homelands. Sunil Gupta was born in India and immigrated to Canada with his family at the end of the 60s. Currently living in London, UK, Sunil Gupta is an internationally acclaimed artist. The series Social Security (1988) uses family photos and the words from Sunil's mother to account the depressing experience of first-generation immigrants. The work was dedicated to the memory of his father who found dead on a street in Montreal in 1986. Homelands, a series he made between 2001-2003, are colour diptychs juxtaposing places he has called home: India, Canada, the United States and England. In his statement, the artist said,"What I wanted to achieve was a sense of the landscape of these different worlds. This was the landscape that the HIV virus was travelling in." As a well-assimilated immigrate, an artist and a gay man, Sunil Gupta's diptychs carry layers of intricate, disturbing readings beyond their calm and ordinary surface.

National Gallery of Canada presents Cai Guo-Qiang at Shawinigan Space this summer

It's only the first day of 2006 and I am already looking forward to summer. Who isn't? There's another reason besides the weather issue - a summer exhibition program dedicated to showing one internationally renowned artist is coming to Quebec, at Shawinigan Space. Presented by the National Gallery of Canada, the exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang will be on display from June 10 to October 1, 2006. Cai is a Chinese artist known for his spectacular fireworks projects and large, innovative sculptures and installations. Some of the works in the Shawinigan show were presented last year (December 04 to October 05) in the exhibition "Inopportune" at MASS Moca in Massachusetts.

Body: New Art from the UK, at Ottawa Art Gallery

Showing until February 5 at the Ottawa Art Gallery is an exhibition of thirteen contemporary British artists work: Body: New Art from the UK. It is a joint project by the Vancouver Art Gallery and the British Council, initially conceived with the curator Bruce Grenville in late 2003. After debuting in Vancouver Art Gallery last fall, the show travels to Ottawa Art Gallery (November 05-February, 06), Oakville Galleries (April-June, 06), Edmonton Art Gallery (June-September, 06) and the Art Gallery Nova Scotia (October-January, 07). The participating artists are Fiona Banner, Martin Boyce, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon, Sarah Lucas, Cornelia Parker, Sam Taylor-Wood, Rebecca Warren, Gillian Wearing, Cathy Wilkes, Carey Young.