Artists’ Film International Screening 1
Artist: Evelyn Taocheng Wang,
Theresa Traore Dahlberg , Mwangi Hutter
2019.02.26 – 2019.04.16
KWM artcenter is pleased to present its first collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London from 26 February to 16 April 2019 and the Whitechapel’s first collaboration in mainland China. Throughout 2019, KWM artcenter will be screening a series of moving image works as part of the Artists’ Film International (AFI) project based on the theme of gender. AFl celebrates moving image work and is selected by a global partnership of arts organizations including KWM artcenter. Each nominates an outstanding work from their region which is screened across each venue during the year.
The first 3 selected films are Chinese artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s The Interview (2017) selected by KWM artcenter; Swedish artist Theresa Traore Dahlberg’s The Ambassador’s Wife (2017) selected by Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden; and the art group Mwangi Hutter’s Eastleigh Crossing (2009) selected by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin.
The Interview (2017) is based on a script in which Evelyn Taocheng Wang projects her romantic fantasies, cross-cultural and cross gender associations onto the historical context of the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. The artist talks about the differences between Western and Eastern art and is occasionally accompanied by a man with ‘ideal proportions’. The work highlights the issues faced in today’s society in accepting new understandings both of cross cultural and body identity within art from the past and from the present.
The Ambassador’s Wife (2017) follows the French ambassador’s wife in her comfortable everyday life in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. As part of her daily routine she rehearses her operatic repertoire, well aware that she will never perform for a significant audience as her residence allowance prohibits her from working, making a singer career no longer possible. The film conveys the feeling of the ambassador’s wife being trapped in her privileged life and that singing is a way to endure and to hold on to her dreams.
Since 2005, Ingrid Mwangi (*1975 in Nairobi/Kenya) and Robert Hutter (*1970 in Ludwigshafen/Germany) started signing their works as the collective individual Mwangi Hutter, thereby resolving both their identities as artists. Eastleigh Crossing, (2009) is filmed in the flooded streets of Nairobi, in a part of the town mainly inhabited by Somalian refugees. In what Mwangi Hutter calls a “Guerilla Action”, Ingrid Mwangi breaks with the conventions of social conduct and confronts the public with irrational behavior. The crowd of spectators tries its best to move out of the way and the viewer of the video is reminded of the priviledged perspective he/she assumes in keeping a safe distance from social poverty.
Special Thanks: ZAOZUO is the exclusive furniture exhibition partner.
About the Artist
Evelyn Taocheng Wang was born in Chengdu, China, in 1981. Now she lives and works in Rotterdam. She was graduated from HBK Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2012 and Nanjing Normail University, Fine Art Department, Chinese traditional art, Chinese Classical Literature & Visual Communication in 2006. Her important solo shows include Spreading Elegance, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims (2019); Friends of the SMAK, Ghent, Belgium (2019); What is he afraid of?, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018); What is he afraid of?, Company, New York (2018); Four Season of Women Tragedy, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2017); For An Embarrassed Person It is Always Very Difficult To Avoid Embarrassing Things, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2017); Heatweave Wrinkle, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles (2017); Allegory of Transience, Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem, Haarlem (2017); Nurtured Aristocratic Life Before She Flies Away With a Shining Ship, Performance, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); Action…Cut! , Jakarta Yuz Museum, Jakarta (2013); She also participated in important group shows include ”It’s Get Better V’, ICA, London, UK (2017); Public program, Documenta14, Kassel, Germany (2017); ‘Dolf Henkes Prize’, TENT Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2018). Her works were collected by Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, United States of America; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands, amongst others.
Theresa Traore Dahlberg (b. 1983) grew up on the Swedish island of Öland and in Burkina Faso. In 2017 she received a master’s degree in Fine Arts at The Royal Institute of Art in Sweden. Before that she studied film production at The New School in New York and at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Traore Dahlberg has in 2018 been exhibited at Zeller van Almsick, Austria and Uppsala Art Museum, Sweden. Her films Taxi Sister (2011) and Ouaga Girls (2017) have been screened at festivals all over the world and The Ambassador’s wife was screened at Toronto Film Festival 2018. The same film awarded Traore Dahlberg the Tempo Documentary Short Award. Most recently she is the winner of the Beckers Art Award 2019.
As a creative strategy to resist fixed notions of identity based upon gender, race, and cultural backgrounds, Mwangi Hutter strategically merged names and biographies to become one artist. They consciously use themselves as the sounding board to reflect on changing societal realities, creating an aesthetics of self-knowledge and interrelationship.
Based in Berlin and Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Nairobi, Kenya, Mwangi Hutter functions like many global artists today working across continents. They have exhibited their work in a wide range of geographic locations including the Brooklyn Museum in New York, Smithsonian Institution – National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, museum kunst palast in Düsseldorf, Palais des Beaux-arts in Brussels, Hayward Gallery in London, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, National Gallery in Prague, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Yokohama Museum of Art, Bienal de São Paulo, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Dak’Art Biennale in Dakar, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, Havana Biennial, Venice Biennale and Documenta 14 in Kassel, amongst others.
金杜艺术中心（KWM artcenter）
The KWM artcenter opened on 20th October 2016. It is located on the second floor of the WFC centre CBD in Beijing. The Art center is supported by the law firm King & Wood Mallesons. The KWM artcenter presents and promotes artists both domestically and overseas as well as building up its own collection. In particular, it acts as a rare art institution at the heart of the economic central area in Beijing. It provides high-quality art educational activities and courses aimed to cultivate art lovers and collectors. It serves to improve the international influence of Chinese Art and become a powerful communicator of Chinese Contemporary Art.
