SURGE Art, China’s leading platform for discovering quality up and coming contemporary art, has announced that “SURGE Art Beijing 2013” will showcase up to 1,000 works of art from up and coming artists. These works will be displayed at the art fair and all priced at under 30,000RMB. The event is free to get in and open to all.
This year’s event will be sponsored by RedBull. “We’re very pleased that we can help bring contemporary art to the masses and promote young artists to a wider audience,” said Lu Zhan, marketing director of RedBull China.
All works displayed have been selected by an expert panel made up of some of China’s most well-known artists, curators and critics who are vocal in their support of emerging talent. The panel jury includes:
-Bao Dong, curator and art critic, well known for his support of emerging artists.
-Cao Difei host of BTV and Fashion Education Consultant at Tsinghua University and patron of the arts.
-Karen Smith the director of OCAT Contemporary Art Museum in Xian and well-known art critic, curator and writer.
-Liu Xiaodong world famous artist and Professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts.
-You Yang, the Deputy Director at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.
Bao Dong recently curated the UCCA’s ‘On/Off’ show featuring 50 of the best young Chinese artists, and You Yang, deputy director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary art has also built his reputation through the discovery of young talent.
“Being invited to serve as judge on the SURGE Art Beijing panel is a great honour,” said You Yang. “I hope this platform will enable more people to share the beauty of art.”
SURGE Art and the expert judging panel have looked at over 13,000 art works and has so far selected over 800 to take part in the show.
“We are very excited to be working with some of the biggest names in contemporary art in China,” said Tom Pattinson, fair director. “These experts were chosen because of their passion and reputation for discovering new talent.”
Art works selected include many young artists who have been newly discovered from art schools around the country but also include works from established artists including Guo Jian and Sui Jianguo.
SURGE Art has spent eight years discovering and promoting creative talent in China and providing them with a platform to showcase their works to a wide audience of collectors, art lovers and art professionals.
Artist from all over China are considered for the fair and applications for entry are open until March 30th. Many well-known artists including Sheng Qi, Hei Yue and Zhou Jun have participated in the fairs and many others have launched their careers at the events. Artists including Liu Aijing, Chen Linggang, Liu Zhonghua and Li Jinguo have all risen to prominence through the support of SURGE Art.
This year SURGE Art will hold a series of educational programmes during the main fair, which will be held at the same time as the gallery fair ‘Art Beijing’ to increase awareness of quality contemporary art in Beijing and aim to draw a larger audience of people looking to discover art over the May holiday week.
"I am very pleased that SURGE Art will be held at the same time. It will be a lot more efficient,” said Mr. Dong Mengyang, Director of Art Beijing. “This will attract more art lovers and help cultivate more consumers of art who are looking to discover and buy works from talented young artists.”
During the course of the fair, there will be a photographic competition being held throughout Village North. Ten sculptures will be placed around Sanlitun Village North and the public will be invited to find each work, photograph the sculptures and upload them to Weibo with @surgeart to be in with a chance to win major prizes including limited edition fashion items, a case of wine and an original work of art.
Surge Art Beijing was known as Affordable Art Beijing until 2012, when it launched the new brand SURGE Art. Last October the company held its first fair in Shanghai under the name SURGE Art Shanghai.
Opening hours:
30 April-1 May: 10am-8pm
May 2: 10am-6pm
Image: © Pang Zhiqing, Surge Art
