CRI听力:"Finding Friends" - Discover Young Sculpture Artists

"Finding Friends" is an art project that breaks away from the conventional model of art exhibitions where artists are recommended by a board of experts and judges.

It works in a P2P model, in which participating artists are obliged to nominate another artist and pass the obligation on. Every nominee would switch roles and become a nominator.

The exhibition is like a game that allows the artists to define their own community.

Wu Hongliang, Director of Beijing Fine Art Academy Museum, cooperates in initiating the art project.

"Finding a friend is a very Chinese approach. Chinese people highlight elevation development when it comes to art pursuit. We are actually all unaware of the result. As for me, UNMASK, the artists I recommended, is the only one I know to join the exhibition. So today like everyone else, I'm filled with curiosity about this exhibition and the joy of unexpected encounters."

On the other hand, art media are also invited to participate in the game. The participating art media would not only nominate an outstanding artist, but also invite another art media to this game. Then the recommended media would nominate another artist, and the game goes on, making up a third line of recommendation in the exhibition.

Zhu Wenyi, general manager of "artron.net", the world's leading Chinese art website, is the initiator among media participants.

"Social network is an important media to spread relevant information and promote art products. However, we fail to find an online art-related product that builds a mature social network to enable those who get fascinated about, consume and invest in art products to communicate with each other and provoke each others' thinking. The present exhibition is a good off-line example that may achieve the above-mentioned goals via a well-established relationship map."

Of the ten participating art media, magazine ARTITUDE or Yi Wai (艺外) in Chinese, is based in Taiwan.

Sun Xiaotong, chief editor with Yi Wai, recommends He Cairou, Joyce Ho.

"Her works convey a subtle tie between spectators and an actor or actress. Mask is a small stage property for a theatre, but has an unspeakable strong power. As soon as he or she puts on a mask of a rabbit, viewers may believe it is a rabbit on the stage. An actor also feels safe behind the masks and believes he or she's a rabbit they act."

Meanwhile, Sun also explains a peculiar feature of the rabbit mask, the only piece of work from Joyce Ho on display at the ongoing art exhibition in Today Art Museum.

"The entire sculpture is made of semi-transparent fiber reinforced plastics. In a general sense, sculpture artist doesn't necessarily carve out a girl's face since that face is wearing a mask of rabbit. But this sculpture is different; Joyce Ho has sculpted a girl's face behind the mask."

In this project, the museum and curators become observers, to see whether they recommend truly good artists, or simply take the chance to mend their own networks. Therefore, the project is an opportunity to explore the boundaries of the so-called "art community".

The exhibition will run till October 28th.

For Studio Plus, I'm Xu Fei.