International Project/// This week marks the launch of CURRENT|不合时宜: Contemporary Art from Scotland at Shanghai Himalayas Museum

Installation is now underway for Cooper Gallery’s major international project CURRENT |不合时宜: Contemporary Art from Scotland, a four-phase eighteen-month exhibition and forum programme taking place at Shanghai Himalayas Museum that will showcase for the first time in China the distinctiveness of contemporary art made in Scotland.

Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai

Opening on Saturday 27^th June, Phase One of CURRENT will present exhibitions by Edgar Schmitz and Poster Club, and the first instalment of On Current Art And Imported Nearness, the latest incarnation of the Hubs and Fictions series that first took place at Cooper Gallery in 2012. Speakers participating in the inaugural Shanghai forum, Settings – Nearness as A Utopian Proposition, are distinguished figures in the art world, Simon Groom, Terry Smith, Wang Nanming and What, How & for Whom/ WHW.

Installation photo: Edgar Schmitz, Suplus Cameo Decor: Sindanao 2

In addition to the CURRENT Phase One exhibitions, three residencies will take place during the exhibition period in June/July 2015 at Shanghai Himalayas Museum’s Residency Venue Zhujiajiao Art Museum located at Zhujiajiao town, a picturesque watertown in the southeast of Shanghai. 

Zhujiajiao town, Shanghai

From 28 June – 5 July, Poster Club members Ciara Phillips, Michael Stumpf, Nicolas Party and Anne-Marie Copestake will undertake a week-long residency to recalibrate the group’s ideals “to make posters and to collaborate”, throughout July Glasgow-based artist Anne-Marie Copestake will be in residence and developing her work with local musicians in Shanghai, then from 15 – 31 July, art writer and member of Cooper Gallery’s Group Critical Writing initiative, Frances Davis will be the Art Writer in Residence, reflecting and annotating upon CURRENT. 

View from inside Zhujiajiao Art Museum

The origins of CURRENT go back to 2012 when Shanghai-based curator and critic Wang Nanming was invited to participate in Edgar Schmitz' Cooper Gallery exhibition Surplus Cameo Decor as a 'cameo appearance' and to present a keynote talk at the exhibition's satellite strand Hubs and Fictions: A Touring Forum on Current Art and Imported Remoteness. Wang Nanming's enthusiasm for the exhibition and support of the curatorial vision of Cooper Gallery led him to invite Cooper Gallery to curate CURRENT for Shanghai Himalayas Museum where he holds the post of Head of Research.

Continue reading about the origins of CURRENT here.