SURGE for the 798 Arts Festival 2007
Curated by Marc Hungerbuhler and Raul Zamudio
April 28 – May 12, 2007

With the generous support of:
SINOKOR MERCHANT MARINE CO.LTD
Director: CHUNG TAESOON

With special thanks to:
Antonia Henschel.SIGN Kommunikation
Ji Eun Kim
Zhao Shulin

SURGE
Is an exhibition that brings together some of the most interesting artists from diverse areas of the world. The title can refer to movement, as in the "sea surged to shore." "SURGE's" movement, however, is multi-directional; and it is "SURGE’s" malleable, amorphous quality that makes it difficult to pinpoint its center from its periphery, its inside from its outside. On the one hand, "SURGE" is an international show exhibited in China that includes artists from the host country. On the other hand, the exhibiting foreign artists will not only make site-specific work in China, but their subject matter resists association with their individual cultures and countries of origin. Likewise, Chinese artists participating in "SURGE" can also be characterized as producing work that thematically moves between inside and outside of China to the degree that it is difficult to tell its global impulse from the locality of its manufacture. In this sense, one paradoxical question that the exhibition raises is: where are the global and local located in an age of shifting cultural demographics?? But "SURGE" is more than a show that questions the nature of the global/local model, for surge also refers to a sudden charge of electricity. Thus "SURGE" is a collective energy equally generated by the individual exhibiting artists whose works are imbued with power, force and sometimes a wild abandon that situates them on the forefront of artistic practice in their individual countries including Spain, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Sweden, The United States, China, and Finland.
Raul Zamudio
Curator at large the:artist:network

Participating artists:
Zhang Tiemei, China Huang Yan, China , Li Wei, China
O Zhang, China Henry Seng, China/ Sweden Li Fei Xue, China,
Katja Loher , Switzerland ,Karin Suter, Switzerland, NatalieBewernitz and Marek Goldowski, Germany, Przemo Wojciechowski, Poland, Wolfgang Stiller, Germany Alfredo Martinez, USA, Jeff Gompertz, USA, Ferran Martin, Spain Agnieszka Kalinowska, Poland Alejandro Diaz, USA, Jeanette Doyle, Ireland, Riiko Sakkinen, Spain/Finland Arturo Elizondo, Mexico

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Huang Yan,mixed-media installation

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Performance by Li Wei

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Yoko Taketani," Don't Spit Here", performance

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Ferran Martin, sculpture

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Prezmo Wojciechowski

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Alfredo Martinez, mixed media