Long March Space is proud to announce the China launch of “Physique of Consciousness”, the latest project by MadeIn Company at the Long March Space, Beijing. This ongoing project will continue to be exhibited and publicized both inside and outside the exhibition space through the presentation of a multi-media array of artworks and materials. The Beijing launch will feature the highly anticipated release of MadeIn’s “Physique of Consciousness” fitness exercise series.
Since being founded in 2009, MadeIn has continued to garner commercial acclaim for its installation and painting, reaching new heights at the 2010 Frieze Art Fair, London where the works from its series “Spread” sold out completely. Since then, MadeIn has continued to post strong growth, noticing a spectacular rise of interest among major local and international collectors. Collectors are drawn not only to the artistic merit of MadeIn’s installation, painting and photography works, but also the works’ stable and steady rise in value, and the room for growth.
MadeIn’s latest project, “Physique of Consciousness”, surrounds a fitness exercise that has been developed through research into how consciousness and thought relate to bodily actions. Because the movements of this exercise are derived from different traditional ideas and concepts, not only does it promote physical wellness, it also develops the relationship between body and mind by providing the user with an approach to link body, soul, emotions and spiritual history. The first international launch of “Physique of Consciousness” fitness program will be held in Switzerland at the Kunsthalle Bern on 9 April 2011. A third launch is scheduled for the third quarter of 2011 at Shanghart Gallery, Shanghai, with subsequent launches to be scheduled in the future.
The Long March Space launch of “Physique of Consciousness” will also feature a series of new paintings by MadeIn Company. The new works continue MadeIn’s investigation of the relationship between painting and media that can be found in works shown in last year’s exhibitions “Don’t Hang Your Faith on the Wall,” and “Expiration Period 2”. MadeIn’s approach towards painting explores the relationship between the deeply individualistic nature of painting as a direct expression of an individual’s perception and thought process, as well as it’s public life as an art object and an image that can be transmitted through the media. In terms of subject matter, technique, and visual effect, these paintings mark a new creative breakthrough.
In speaking about MadeIn’s creative method, attention and energy is primarily given to debates surrounding factory production, commercialization, and questions surrounding collective authorship of artwork. Is MadeIn really anti-establishment, or is it just opportunistic? When looking at artistic creation, the majority of energy is focused on identifying the motives behind the moment of materialization of the artwork, and whether or not the artist’s plan, and his every action and step is a breakthrough, as opposed to observing and comparing the changing relationships between artist and his environment, between creation and explanation, and asking about the possibilities within an artist’s direction of inquiry. For it is the scope of the inquiry that sets the stand for how pregnant with possibilities such a direction can be. We are accustomed to look at artworks separately from their explanations, their creation and their promotion. In other words, how artworks are mediated. The reading of an artwork is not just confined to the art world. Be it visual symbols or language, the textual explanations or a personal reading of the artwork, all of these constitute a level of communal participation in the reading of an artwork – a process is closely linked with the media industry.
The project “Physique of Consciousness” does not take Long March Space as a conventional art space, nor does it attempt to question the exhibition format and the use of a particular space. Rather, “Physique of Consciousness” attempts to jump out from the hidden ideologies behind the art exhibition system. MadeIn’s artistic practice takes interacting relationships between the art world and society to create specific experiments and transformations. Over the past two years, MadeIn has continually examined its condition and positioning. To this end, MadeIn remains in constant negotiation with the art world and the broader society, resisting against easy narratives that achieve a superficial consensus.
