As a prologue to UCCA’s upcoming 2013 exhibition “ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice,” SEE / SAW presents many of the individual artists to be included in ON | OFF within the context of Chinese contemporary art’s most recent collaborative efforts. For this iterative project, which examines the production processes and decisions involved in creative collaborations, fourteen invited artist groups will rotate in and out of a shared space. Selectively juxtaposed, the collectives each independently conceive week-long exhibitions, many of which occur outside of their allotted space. In focusing on the concept of the “group,” SEE / SAW explores notions of co-dependence and reaction, and viewers are encouraged to observe how the exhibition’s weekly reincarnations may or may not play off one another.

Participating collectives include Double Fly Art Center, A Diaodui, Museum of the Unknown, Zuzhi, North Village Independent Workshop, Irrelevant Commission, 8mg, TOF, Art Praxis Space, LVXIAO, Nanshan Painting Group, GUEST, Hexie Baroque, and Cell Art Group.

Throughout the ON | OFF exhibition period, UCCA will hold a series of public programs in which different artists and collectives are invited to join dialogues themed around ideas of self-organization and self-expression.

On November 27^th we will invite young artists from the Museum of the Unknown, ZUZHI, and North Village Independent Workshop to our join our dialogue, hosted by curator Sun Dongdong.

This series is sponsored by Mercedes smart

Museum of the Unknown

Museum of the Unknown was founded in Shanghai in 2007 and includes Liao Fei, Qiu Anxiong, Zheng Huang, and Wu Ding. In this exhibition, the collective asks “what do we talk about when we talk about art?” in an inquiry of role reversals and money flow within the art world, as they assume the identity of a collector and purchase a work of art from a gallery or artist with funds provided by a museum. By putting the work up for sale, museum visitors become potential collectors, UCCA (a non-profit organization) is temporarily reframed as a gallery, and the roles played in today's art system become difficult to distinguish as the influence of critical artistic value and capital operations is revealed.

North Village Independent Workshop

In 2007, Wei Yan established the North Village Independent Workshop in Chengdu’s North Village Art District in order to create a space for artists to create individual projects in a collaborative environment. Here, the works of ten individual artists—Chen Qiang, Chen Weicai, Chen Xianhui, Feng Dekui, Li Yongzheng, Luo Li, Wei Yan, Wen Hao, Zhang Yu, and Zhao Mi—are displayed, expressing the group’s reconciliation of collective mentality and independent practice.

Qiu Anxiong (Museum of the Unknown)

Liao Fei (Museum of the Unknown)

Wei Yan (North Village Independent Workshop)

Shao Yi (Independent Artist)

Moderator

Sun Dongdong (curator)

Project Manager

Pandi