Vitamin Creative Space: Contemporary Art in China

Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou, China is one of the outstanding alternative art spaces which have introduced Chinese contemporary art to the world. The director Hu Fang will show some of their exceptional projects in which many international artists have participated. The presentation will be followed by a discussion with the curators of the Kunsthaus Graz, Katrin Bucher Trantow and Adam Budak.

Specifically geared to the contemporary Chinese context, Vitamin Creative Space is exploring an alternative working mode. In order to operate independently from institutionalized funding, it is active both as an "independent" art space and as a "commercial" gallery. Vitamin Creative Space is actively challenging the preconception by merging these two, which traditionally are opposed strategies for supporting and presenting contemporary art, raising the searching of new Chinese contributions both from artistic practice level and institutional level within the new global context.

The shop is a public space produced by Vitamin Creative Space that takes a more organic view of art practices, surrounded as they are by daily processes. As a space of daily experimentation and time accumulation, the shop will eventually not only contextualize but also produce reality.

Hu Fang
Born 1970 in Zhengjiang, China. Graduated from Chinese Literature Department of Wuhan University in 1992. Lives and Works in Guangzhou and Beijing. He is a fiction writer (www.hufangwrites.com) and co-founder of Vitamin Creative Space (www.vitamincreativespace.com) as well as "the shop" in Beijing (vitamincreativespace.blogbus.com).
As a novelist and essayist, Hu Fang’s recent publication is the novel Garden of Mirrored Flowers and an anthology of fictional essays Pavilion to the Heart’s Insight, which explore how fiction could function as new art criticism. His essays have been published in art magazines such as domus, Yishu, ARTiT, Urban China, Art Asia Pacific.
His curatorial practices are widely reflected on the variety of the solo exhibitions at Vitamin Creative Space and the projects engaged in different situations within international contexts. He was coordinating editor of documenta 12 magazines, a “player” of Lyon Biennial 2007, the co-curator of Yokohama Triennale 2008, and one of the correspondents of Venice Biennale 2009.

In English; free entry!