„overseas“ the first exhibition at Island 6 Shack – Guests at Island 6 Shack
Overseas is a term that represents the
group artists I selected for the first
exhibition at Island 6 Shack. It was also
the first exhibition at Island 6 Shack to
be under the direction of a guest curator.
Coming from a very different culture, it
was important for me to find a mix of
various artists to present: artists that had
a similar cultural background alongside
artists that were unknown to me and had
a different cultural background. Above all
my intention was to create a place where
conversations about the arts could begin.
I was particularly interested in prompting
discourse relating to arts and ‚crossing
borders‘. In my opinion, innovations and
contemporary reflections develop because
of a sense of totality in dealing with
the world around us.
I am intrigued by many types of art
and this exhibition reflected my broad
interests. I felt the exhibitions should
be presented in an uncommercial and
independent way, in order to give Island
6 Shack the atmosphere of a museum.
I would like to thank Thomas Charveriat
(Island 6) and Yang Longhai, for
supporting these ideals of mine in an
open minded way and for giving me the
opportunity to work as a guest curator
in Shanghai. This first exhibition gives
an impression of what the following
presentations would look like. It also demonstrates
the possibility for new works
and different genres of work appearing
in the gallery. It was a real pleasure for
me to present the works of Freitag and
Thompson alongside the chinese artwork
of Jun Lee, to a completely new audience.
I was curious to see how the atmosphere
would transform because of the arrangement
of the artwork and the space it
was displayed in. Once you get introduced
to artists with different cultural
backgrounds, you can almost always see
it in their work, in one way or another.
For instance, there is a clear difference
between the painting of a German, the
rough installation of an American and
the specially developed photographic
techniques of Chinese. But all of them are
connected in a truly, deeply creative way.
I would like to thank the artists involved
for their confidence in me, as well as the
DAAD, the Bauhaus-University Weimar
and the Tongji-University Shanghai.