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Timezone 8 is pleased to announce the worldwide launch of 18 new book publications on contemporary art, architecture, design and photography for this year's Frankfurt Book Fair. The Hong Kong-based publisher will present the new titles at its booth in the mega bookfair, where this year the spotlight will be on books from China.
'China's artists, writers, editors, photographers and designers are forging an exciting and creative new culture in China. They are forging the future now.' says Robert Bernell, publisher and Managing Director of Timezone 8 Limited.
Case in point: China's magazine industry is undergoing grass-root changes with magazines like Urban China and +0086, privately funded and staffed by young dynamic professionals, start-ups that are shaking up the once staid industry. Timezone 8 worked carefully with both magazines editors to publish the 'best of' these outstanding magazines in lead titles: +0086 Beijing Cool and Urban China: Work in Progress .
Young artists continue to push the envelope in China, much like the YBA (Yound British Artists) of the 1990s, they are redefining art in ways that are attracting worldwide attention. Monographs like Qiu Zhijie Breaking the Ice: A History and Sun Yuan & Peng Yu: Can’t Have it All are timed to coincide with the ground-breaking survey exhibition, Breaking Forecast: 8 Key Figures of China’s New Generation Artists, scheduled for the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in November.
Curator and historian Wu Hung has been writing on this generation for years. Now for the first time his most recent writings on the subject are published in book form in Timezone 8’s Wu Hung on Contemporary Chinese Artists. Written in a lucid style, this volume should appeal to both engaged and general readers. The art forms discussed include painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video art, multimedia art performance, site specific art, television art, and body art. Rather than isolated case-studies, the eighteen chapters portray the breadth of contemporary Chinese art from multiple angles.
Caochangdi: Beijing Inside Out (aka Farmers, Floaters, Taxi Drivers and the International Art Mob Remake the City) looks at the urban village and its vital role in Beijing's development and modernization. The research behind the book won the Stirling Prize for the authors/architects, Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray. Learning from Hangzhou looks at the semiotics of a city. The importance of the book and its content is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown wrote its preface, calling it timely and important.
The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art under the direction of Jér?me Sans and a Guo Xiaoyan has taken an open-system approach to the way an art organization works with artists. The results are astounding as the UCCA sets a new standard for Chinese and global art institutions. Working with the UCCA, Timezone 8 has published China Talks: An Interview with 32 Contemporary Artists by Jerome Sans. Expertly edited by Shi Jian, the book reveals the intelligence and sophistication of artists and art practice in China.
Ink painting often gets lost in the rapid changes taking place in Chinese modern culture today. In timezone 8’s newly published monographs, Wu Yi and Wei Qingji use ink to explore issues of revolutionary history, war and violence and in the case of the later commercialism. Trained in ink, the nuance of the brushstroke, the aesthetic of scholarly painters, the artists aren't afraid to tackle subject matter that radically departs from tradition and in doing so reflect not only on the issues inherent in the subject matter,but also in the media itself and its limitations or lack thereof.
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