The Sickle and the Cell Phone
A 48-page catalogue published by the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON.
The sculpture The Sickle and the Cell Phone by Vancouver-based multi-disciplinary artist Gu Xiong addresses the dramatic changes occurring in china from the Maoist period to present day. China is a country at the forefront of globalization. Xiong has repurposed the communist symbol by replacing the hammer with a giant model of a cell phone, perched atop the sickle. During the Maoist period, Xiong spent his teenage years working as a farm labourer, deep int he mountains of Sichaun, China. When he returned to the region twenty-five years later in 2001, former peasants had become wealthy businessmen, brandishing cell phones, as they made international deals. He witnessed the demise of modest centuries-old family enterprises, such as foundries, that could not compete with the international market.
For more information: http://guxiong.ca/en/solo-exhibition/the-sickle-and-the-cellphone/
Science, Magic and Religion: The Ritual Processes of Museum Magic
Mary Bouquet and Nuno Porto. Science, Magic and Religion: The Ritual Processes of Museum Magic. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2006
Book information:
For some time now, museums have been recognized as important institutions of western cultural and social life. The idea of the museum as a ritual site is fairly new and has been applied to the art museums in Europe and the United States so far. This volume expands it by exploring a range of contemporary museums in Europe and Africa. The case studies examine the different ways in which various actors involved in cultural production dramatize and ritualize such sites. It turns out that not only museum specialists, but visitors themselves are engaged in complex performances and experiences that make use of museums in often unexpected ways.
For more information: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BouquetScience
Germaine Koh: Shell
Shell was a situation in which part of an existing windowed storefront is physically opened to the public, for use 24 hours a day. An enclosure resembling a transit shelter was built on the inside of the space, attached to the existing glass frontage, a pane of which was removed in order to create free access to the new structure from the street. Now given over to the public sphere, the area inside the shelter became an in-between, layered space. It offered shelter, but uneasily, remaining part of the interior space while serving as a recognizable public form (bus shelter). It also exposes the vulnerability of the private space — not so much for the physical breach (which is only a matter of square metres lent), but more through our recognizing the fragility of our notions of safety, property, and propriety.
For more information: https://germainekoh.com/works/shell/
Germaine Koh: Works
Transference, Tradition, Technology: Native New Media Exploring Visual and Digital Culture
Dana Claxton, Steven Loft, and Melanie Townsend. Transference, Tradition, Technology: Native New Media Exploring Visual and Digital Culture. Banff, Alta.: Walter Phillips Gallery Editions, 2005
Book information:
Transference, Tradition, Technology explores Indigenous new media and references the work of artists within a political, cultural and aesthetic milieu. The book constructs a Native art history relating to these disciplines, one that is grounded in the philosophical and cosmological foundations of Indigenous concepts of community and identity within the rigour of contemporary arts discourse. Approachable in nature but scholarly in content, this book is the first of its kind. A text book for students and teachers of Indigenous history and visual and media art, and a source for writers, scholars and historians, Transference, Tradition, Technology is co-produced with the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton; and Indigenous Media Arts Group, Vancouver.
For more information: https://artmetropole.com/shop/14334