We are still recovering from the great Cantocore Free On Board opening at Mission 17 last Friday. JD sent me a few pictures to post up. If you have some, please do post links in the comments or send to me.
We will have some lovely studio shots coming up this week to show off the work. If you are in San Francisco, the show is up for 2 months until April 18. Also, there is an artist talk at Mission 17 from 4 – 6 PM on April 18.
The installation of projects at Mission 17 is nearing completion and we want to send a big announcement across the lands. If you are in San Francisco this Friday, please do come to the opening of Cantocore: Free On Board. Also, please note that this is 1 of 2 shows. The other show at Mission 17 is imPOSSIBLE! 8 Chinese Artists Engage Absurdity, in conjunction with The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.
Both imPOSSIBLE! and Cantocore open on Friday night from 6 until 9 PM. Please come on out! If you’d like to track this on Facebook, be our guest!
Cantocore: Free On Board opens next week in SF. Here is the flier Mission 17 printed up which is inspired by the original that Asem and Pierre came up with for Cantocore in Guangzhou:
Cantocore: Free on Board (Flier)
Also, here is a static image anyone can use to help promote the show:
Guy Overfelt, one of the artists in the show, created an event on Facebook which you should join and share with others.
The shipping container has arrived from Guangzhou to San Francisco! Here is the show announcement.
Cantocore: Free On Board
This exhibition is a collaboration with The Garage Biennale, The Fabricatorz, and Ping Pong Gallery, China
Opening Reception, Friday, February 13, 6 – 9pm
www.cantocore.com
Participating Artists
JD Beltran, Fang Lu, Wang Ge, Misako Inaoka, David O. Johnson, Guy Overfelt, Jon Phillips, Lin Fang Suo, Zhou Tao, Katherine Worel, Huang Xiaopeng.
Curated by Fang Lu, Justin Hoover, Jon Phillips
PRESS RELEASE
Cantocore: Free On Board is the second installment of a collaborative project, exploring the globalized conditions of contemporary culture, through an exchange specifically between artists from the San Francisco Bay Area and Guangzhou, China.
The collaboration takes its inspiration and its name, “Cantocore,” from the rapid economic, social, and cultural changes currently taking place in Canton province. Hip Hop is thriving, heavy metal music is blasting, and the art market is booming. Over the last 20 years, cities such as Guangzhou, the capital of Canton, have changed from having a uniquely Chinese culture into global cities influenced and informed by diverse forms of representation. During the same period, Chinese artists also have exerted a growing influence on culture across the globe – and perhaps nowhere more than here on the Pacific rim of California, where Chinese Americans have played a central role since its inception. Art and culture is no longer defined by merely national boundaries – if it ever was – and yet cultural differences persist, providing productive tensions, rich with critical and creative possibilities.
Cantocore works to explore these globalized conditions of contemporary culture and the possibilities they present, by cultivating the dialogue specifically between the Bay Area and Guangzhou. Artists involved in the project include, among others, Americans with roots in China, Chinese who have come to study and work in San Francisco, and Americans who have emigrated to China. The first installment of the project, titled Cantocore: Import / Export, took place in September 2008 at the Ping Pong Space in Guangzhou. Cantocore: Free On Board provides the follow-up response.
What common concerns inform these artists work? How does their art nevertheless read differently across the globe? How do the histories and environments of each city inform the aesthetics of the work produced and presented there; and how does the work transcend its geographic origins, drawing aesthetic and conceptual influence from elsewhere?
- Clark Buckner
硬核广州：离岸
这个展览是车库双年展(The Garage Biennale)、制造者(The Fabricatorz) 和乒乓空间的合作项目。
开幕：2009年2月13日下午6点－晚上9点
地点：MISSION 17, 2111 Mission Street, Suite 401, San Francisco, CA
展期： 2009年2月13日－4月18日
参加艺术家：JD Beltran, 方璐, 王铬, 美早子, David O. Johnson, Guy Overfelt, Jon Phillips, 林芳所, 周滔, Katherine Worel, 黄小鹏.
策划：方璐，Justin Hoover, Jon Phillips
”硬核广州：离岸“ 是一个合作项目的第二部分, 通过来自美国旧金山和中国广州艺术家之间的交换，探讨全球状况下的当代文化。
这个合作计划的启发和命名:“硬核广州”，来源于广东省快速的经济、社会和文化变迁，嘻哈(HIP HOP) 盛荣，重金属摇滚充斥着空气，艺术市场发展迅猛。在过去的20年中，像广州这样的城市，其变化从有着独特的地方文化，到受全球城市的影响和各种形式（的外来文化）的再现。在相同时期中，中国艺术家已经在全球范围内发挥着日渐明显的作用；并且或许，太平洋边没有另一个地方像加州一样，美籍华裔从一开始就在那里充当着重要的角色。艺术和文化不再被国家边界所定义－如果它们曾经有过的话－然而文化差异依旧，这提供了有价值的张力，有批判性和创意可能的丰富性。
“硬核广州”意在通过引发旧金山和广州地域之间的对话，从而探讨这些全球化状况下的当代文化和它们所呈现得可能性。这个项目中的艺术家包括，有着中国根的美国人，来到旧金山工作和学习的中国人，还有移民到中国去的美国人。这个项目的第一部分展览题目为“硬核广州：进出口，已于2008年9月在广州乒乓空间举行。“硬核广州：离岸”是对第一部分的继续和回应。
这些艺术作品的共同点是什么，全球不同范围内对艺术的解读是否不同。每个城市的历史和环境是如何影响作品的美学的；这些作品又是如何超越它们的地域局限，从其它地方提取美学和观念的影响的。
- Clark Buckner
We are on the eve of announcing Cantocore in San Francisco. Until then, check out this video Justin made showing proposed artwork in a special location in San Francisco’s mission district:
Kathrine Worel, one of the artists in Cantocore Guangzhou and soon to be in the upcoming Cantocore San Francisco, has a new website. Please check out her site and latest works.
Lu wrote over on her blog about Cantocore being featured in the magazine she works for, Art Map:
《艺术地图》2008年10月刊特别报道- PDF
文章内容PDF下载
Go check out her blog posting in Chinese at her site with more writing about the subject.
Here is the document:
Thanks to Heather and Boing Boing for posting up about Guy’s cool piece. Also, thanks for the quote of my text 
Here is the post:
Transmedia artist Guy Overfelt created this massive inflatable “smoke” installation for the Cantocore Export Guangzhou show in China a couple months ago. It follows the thread of Overfelt’s previous Inflatable Trans-AM. From the description of the piece, titled “Untitled” (Up in Smoke):This time the inflatable Smoke is fabricated in Guangzhou, factory direct. Beyond Paul McCarthy-like reductive shapes coming off the assembly line or the Chinese Olympic team leaving the others’ in the dust, the simple shape raises questions about what these factories are pumping out in Guangzhou.
Guy Overfelt’s inflatable smoke (Thanks, Heather Sparks!)
Alex Yeung, the original coiner of the term Cantocore, just sent around this great video of band Smoke Town he played with in Guangzhou doing some hardcore (as in hardcore rock!):
Also, make sure to check out Alex’s other band (not Say Bok Gwai), called Conquest for Death which just played some shows in China:
This nylon material is stuff and cheap! It is very cantocore as well, but not strictly found in the south of china. I wonder why more don’t use this strong material internationally. I think it looks quite cool and interesting.
