The media installations are held in conjunction with the 4th Annual Cinema Pacific Film Festival
EUGENE, Ore. -- (March 25, 2013) – In conjunction with the fourth annual Cinema Pacific film festival (April 17-21, 2013), the JSMA and the University of Oregon in Portland’s White Box will feature media installations by noted Singaporean artist Ming Wong. The dual venue exhibition, “Emotion Pictures,” includes a live Skype performance with Wong on Sunday, April 21, at 2 p.m. in Eugene and Portland.
White Box at the University of Oregon in Portland will show “Life of Imitation,” a looped 13-minute double-channel installation. Originally commissioned for the 53rd Venice Biennale Singapore Pavilion, this work is inspired by the classic Hollywood melodrama “Imitation of Life,” in which a Black mother meets her mixed-race daughter, who has been running away from her true “identity.” This version features three male actors from the main ethnic groups in Singapore (Chinese, Malay and Indian) taking turns playing the Black mother and her “white” daughter. The identity of the actor for each role constantly changes with each shot. The installation is on view April 4 – May 4, 2013.
There will be a public reception for “Life of Imitation” and Cinema Pacific’s Portland programs on Tuesday, April 16, 5-7 p.m. at the White Box.
Ming Wong’s “Life and Death in Venice” is on view April 12 – June 2 in the Artist Project Space at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus. Wong’s three screen piece revisits Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film version of Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice.” On opposite screens the artist performs the roles of both the aging composer/writer Gustav von Aschenbach as well as Tadzio, the adolescent boy whose uncorrupted youth and beauty mirrors the older man’s state of crisis and impending death. Entirely self-directed, produced and conceived while his presentation for the Singapore Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale was still ongoing, the work was shot in several locations referenced in the book and film as well as against appropriated backdrops of artworks in the Biennale. The Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.5 – the theme music of Visconti’s film – provides the soundtrack, via a flawed performance by the artist himself on piano (shown on a third monitor).
Ming Wong is recognized internationally for his ambitious performance and video works that engage with the history of world cinema and popular forms of entertainment. Working through the visual styles and tropes of such iconic film directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wong Kar-wai, and Ingmar Bergman, Wong’s practice considers the means through which subjectivity and geographic location are constructed by motion pictures.
Born in 1971 in Singapore, Wong lives and works in Berlin and Singapore. He has enjoyed recent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Moving Image, Queens, New York, as part of Performa 11; Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China; the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and the Singapore Art Museum.
Singapore is one of the focus countries of this year’s Cinema Pacific film festival, taking place April 17-21 in venues in Eugene and Portland. In addition to the Ming Wong installations and performance, Cinema Pacific is hosting Singaporean filmmakers Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, and Portland filmmakers Steve Doughton and Brian Lindstrom. For the complete schedule, visit http//:cinemapacific.uoregon.edu.
Exhibition Programs
Cinema Pacific Special Reception
Tuesday April 16, 5-7 p.m.
Location: White Box, Portland
5:00pm – 7:00PM
Reception to celebrate Ming Wong's “Life of Imitation” at the White Box and Cinema Pacific’s programming in Portland. Immediately following will be Guillermo Arriaga's live talk at the Northwest Film Center in conjunction with Arriaga’s film “The Burning Plain.”
Ming Wong – Live Video Performance
Sunday April 21, 2-3 p.m.
Locations: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene
White Box, Portland
Artist Ming Wong will visit Eugene and Portland via live video to give an artist’s talk and live performance in conjunction with “Emotion Pictures.”
“Imitation of Life”
Sunday April 21, 4 p.m.
Location: Northwest Film Center, Portland
White Box and Cinema Pacific present the screening of Douglas Sirk's “Imitation of Life,” at Northwest Film Center.
About the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
The University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is a premier Pacific Northwest museum for exhibitions and collections of historic and contemporary art based in a major university setting. The mission of the museum is to enhance the University of Oregon’s academic mission and to further the appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts for the general public. The JSMA features significant collections galleries devoted to art from China, Japan, Korea, America and elsewhere as well as changing special exhibition galleries. The JSMA is one of six museums in Oregon accredited by the American Association of Museums.
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is located on the University of Oregon campus at 1430 Johnson Lane. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sundays. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for senior citizens. Free admission is given to ages 18 and under, JSMA members, college students with ID, and University of Oregon faculty, staff and students. For information, contact the JSMA, 541-346-3027.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Contact: Debbie Williamson Smith, 541-346-0942, debbiews@uoregon.edu
Links: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, http://jsma.uoregon.edu
Cinema Pacific, http://cinemapacific.uoregon.edu
White Box, http://whitebox.uoregon.edu
- Log in to post comments
