招待酒会：2009年11月8日礼拜天下午4点

Arts Space Beijing is pleased to announce the NY Arts Beijing Residency Artists

Lars Bjerre - Paintings / Alec Von Bargen - Photography

Continuing to explore and ideology and interest in the human spirit, condition and the journey we call 'life', Alec Von Bargen’s work attempt to parlay that journey into images. The photos taken here in China are concentrated on buildings, overcrowded spaces and the lack of intimacy; invasion, voyeurism and the obsession of the east with the west and vice-versa; duality, suffocation and the place we each occupy as human beings. China is a country of contrasts: The old with the new, the sparsely with the opulence, the 'in-your-face' with the hush-hush of a society still repressed by a silent and veiled regime. The world has it's eyes on China but at the same time the Chinese have had, and will always have their eyes, and ears, and hands, and feet, and soul all over the world.

Alec Von Bargen attempts to steer both the viewer and his work far from commonplace,cliché and basic knowledge. The artist does not don't wish to just chew and regurgitate. China is home to many iconic images, many familiar traps into which international artists can easily fall prey. Alec Von Bargen hopes to present an abstract dialogue of the China of today, of its' people and of their place not only overseas, but also within the realms of this ironclad society they've created, and with this dialogue he also hopes to share his place in all of this. Alec Von Bargen was a finalist at these years International Celeste Prize and exhibited at the Alte AEG Fabrik in Berlin, Germany. He has also been selected to show several pieces from his series 'EINS" during the award ceremony for the Global Orient Freedom to Create Prize at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in November. After a month in Iceland and another in China, Alec will be attending his third residency from January to April 2010 in Leipzig, Germany, with all of the work produced and his experiences documented in a new book being published for a show in late 2010 in Mexico entitled 'In Residency' (En Residencia) crated by Alfonso Villareal.

In a similar way, Lars Bjerre’s pictures provide a platform for fragility, madness, loneliness and brutality – they confront?the viewer with humans who are in search of their identity. Bjerre’s works reflect the complex and paradox world. In partly distressing, but also ironical pictures, they show the fragile individual confronted with himself. The detailed pictures make the viewer allegorically face a truth that one would like to escape from, even though it concerns everybody. His observation always focuses the psyche of the human being: The search of identity, the fear of lost time, the integration in a society, the toughness of isolation – The insanity of everyday life. When you look at Lars Bjerre’s works, it is hard not to be touched. They require all attention. His art emblematizes the tension, which is caused through political impacts and society forces, as Bjerre reflects it in a creative way. Besides the critical reflections, there is ironical elements consistently appearing, which make the viewer smile and cloud the seriousness.

Bjerre makes anonymous men in suits meet oppositional objects and creates an atmosphere of communication between them. Each work contains shocking, weird and ironical scenarios, which always leaves space open for ambiguity. Of his work Lars Bjerre states "I’m trying with my art to examine the tension, which takes place between people and the influence of political initiative and the challenges of the society. The focus point in my pictures often circles around the human foundation of existence and the human psychological condition. I often try through my art to reflect the world there is surrounding us and wants to make awareness about the human life world. My art often contains a deeper seriousness blurred with a touch of humor and irony. I’m trying to figure out about the human struggle within its self. About identity and how you look upon yourself and how to cope with the pressure from the outside world. The interaction with the inside world and the outside world and the ways you approach to for fill your state of happiness and to for fill the expectations you have put upon yourself."