Grid Versus Chaos Leaflet

Gallery VER, Bangkok Grid Versus Chaos Opening: Exhibition: Venue: Organizers:

(Friday) 8 January 2010; 5pm 9 January – 5 February, 2010 Gallery VER Bangkok-Thailand Gallery VER and Para/Site Art Space

Curator: Participating Artists:

Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya Amy Cheung, MAP OFFICE [Gutierrez+Portefaix], Wei Leng Tay

Simply enjoy the scenery © MAPOFFICE, 2009 Gallery VER (Bangkok) and Para/Site Art Space (Hong Kong) are honoured to present Grid Versus Chaos, a group exhibition including Amy Cheung, MAP OFFICE [Gutierrez+Portefaix] and Wei Leng Tay in Bangkok.

The exhibition refers to the different possibilities of communication that the idea of the grid offers, confronted by the notion of chaos in daily life in South Asian cities. The artists in the exhibition have produced new works that relate to different issues connected to the two “working concepts” that are the starting points of this project. Each artist or collective has offered different responses to this invitation for the production of a new work of art, either working with the local community, such as the project by Wei Leng Tay; researching on the imaginary of a grid-like island landscape as in MAP Office, of searching for an inner fictional space as in Amy Cheung.

Amy Cheung has contributed with a network fiber optic installation that reads into city dwelling stories in Western literature and places them metaphorically in the middle of the buzz of Bangkok. Oscar Wilde serves as a literary reference in the making process of this new work, which at the same time looks inside human nature.

MAP OFFICE contribution is based on their ongoing research project on islands, this time, 100+1 islands in a grid pattern will occupy the gallery floor, creating an installation that has its centerpiece in the island of Koh Tapu, a real place connected to fictional imagery and Southeast Asia.

Wei Leng Tay has created a photographic series for this project. Through her lens she has researched on the neighborhood of Hua Lamphong in Bangkok, creating a visual map of its inhabitants.

About the participating artists: Amy Cheung Amy Cheung lives and works in Hong Kong. She gained her BA in History of Art & Fine Art from Goldsmith's College and her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art. Since graduation, she has initiated numerous city interventions and public art projects both locally and abroad. Cheung was Beck's New Contemporaries in U.K. UNESCO-ASCHBERG Laureate, and represented Hong Kong in the 52th Venice Biennale, 2007. In the same year, she received the Outstanding Young Artist Award (Visual Arts) from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Wei Leng Tay Photographer Wei Leng Tay was born in Singapore and has been living and working in Hong Kong for the last eight years. Wei Leng began her professional career making portraits for magazines such as Time and Fortune.

She is interested in exploring how people live. Her photographs have been exhibited in U.S., Japan, Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore, and are collected by the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan. She is currently in Singapore.

MAP Office MAP OFFICE is a multidisciplinary platform based in Hong Kong, devised by Laurent Gutierrez (Casablanca, 1966) and ValĂŠrie Portefaix (Saint-Etienne, 1969). This duo of artists/architects works on real and imaginary territories through media as varied as drawing, photography, video, installation, performance and literary or theoretical texts. Offering a new take on public space, they relate an adventure mixing myths and reality; a confirmation that art can create reality. MAP OFFICE has taken part in several international exhibitions, particularly the Venice, Gwangju, Istanbul, New Orleans and Sydney Biennials. They have published various books mixing humour, game and fiction.

About Para/Site Art Space Para/Site Art Space is a non-profit art organization in the centre of Hong Kong.

We produce, exhibit and communicate local and international contemporary art. Our main activities include presenting an ambitious year programme comprising local and overseas exhibitions, art projects, seminars, publications of catalogues and a curatorial training programme supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Curatorial Training Programme. We also manage another exhibition space - Para/Site Central, the smallest exhibition venue in Hong Kong, which is generously hosted by Hanart TZ Gallery in Central.

Founded in the beginning of 1996, Para/Site Art Space was first temporarily located in Kennedy Town. In April 1997, Para/Site Art Space moved to the present location at Sheung Wan, close to the city centre of Hong Kong, right on the Western end of Hollywood Road, Hong Kong's renowned antique street. Our space is an old shop space of around 150m sqm. Para/Site Art Space was also involved in various overseas exhibitions such as the Gwangju Biennale 2002 and the 50th and 53rd Venice Biennale.

About Gallery VER VER began with the establishment of Namdee publishing station in Bangkok in 2000 by Rirkrit Tiravanija, an internationally renowned Thai artist based in Thailand, Berlin and New York . In 2004, the project was renamed PLAN.b publishing, production and design limited partnership. We aim to act as a platform for launching innovative ideas in such forms as artist's books, textbooks, magazines, music, film, video, posters, graphics and design. We are interested in ideas and objects which can be published and/or multiplied and disseminated into the cultural stream.

We also provide chances for artists, designers and other creatives abroad to realize and produce work in Thailand. In this capacity we have been working with such artists as Tobias Rehberger, Olafur Aliasson, Philippe Parreno, Superflex and many others.

Acknowledgments: This project is supported by the Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Wei Leng Tay’s project is supported by the Singapore International Foundation.