Category: Archive

SYDNEY

4A HAYMARKET

9 JUL – 29 OCT 2020

PART 1 KIEN SITU: 9 JULY – 2 AUG

PART 2 CROSSING THREADS®: 6 – 30 AUG

PART 3 SHIREEN TAWEEL: 3 – 25 SEPT

PART 4 SOFIYAH RUQAYAH: 1 – 29 OCT

In a period of uncertainty and stasis, artists have demonstrated the capacity of human creativity through artistic innovation, lateral thought, and inspired action. In our current period of changes and shifts, 4A is pleased to invite you to engage with Holding Patterns, a series of four solo exhibitions on view from July to October. These exhibitions highlight and support the works of Sydney-based artists Kien Situ, Crossing Threads®, Shireen Taweel and Sofiyah Ruqayah, utilising our ground-floor gallery space and windows out onto Haymarket’s streets.

Referring to the aeronautical manoeuvre of an airplane forced to delay its landing procedure to avoid potential disaster, a holding pattern suggests divergence from an established routine and the suspension of normalcy. Crucially, it is an action of adaptability: a pilot executing specific turns whilst accounting for wind speed and direction to establish its course. The pattern achieves seemingly limitless flight, looping until given permission to commence its landing operations, once again returning to earth and reality. It is in this moment of suspension that we find ourselves undertaking our own rituals of contemplation, addressing our own pathways forward in a time of stillness.

For the exhibiting artists COVID-19 has been an unexpected intervention, a force majeure. Forced out of their routines, artists have now been given opportunities to reflect on what it means to be creatively-engaged during a time of crisis. Contemplating artistic practice with the arts industry shut down, Holding Patterns demonstrates the resilience and ingenuity of artists during this time.. Some have taken time to rest and recharge, quietly laying projects to rest to make way for new ideas, while others have pivoted to hone their craft. 

Through textiles, sculptures, metallurgy, drawing and painting, the artists of Holding Patterns deftly navigate cultural histories, identities, object permanence and transmutation through process-based practice. As the first exhibiting artist, Kien Situ creates architecturally-informed sculptures of domestic and sacred objects and furniture rendered with obscurity in form, function and material. The complex ‘interknot’ technique of Crossing Threads® embraces compositional tension and release in the contrasting tones and textures of their lyrical, abstracted pieces. Shireen Taweel modernises the traditional art of copper-smithing to create pieces that blur the line between jewellery and sculpture, opening dialogues of shared histories and relationships between communities of fluid identities. Sofiyah Ruqayah’s indeterminate forms draw upon mutations of human and non-human realities, generating connections between tangible bodies and aetheric dreams and spirit worlds informed by cultural myths of embodiment.

Fusing together their own creative impulses within traditional methods, these artists make mass departures from ‘normal’ culturally-concerned art making. It is within these strays from tradition and the ‘expected’ that new cultural dialogues can begin to emerge, representing the hybridity of Asian-Australian contemporary art practice. By merging traditional Asian techniques and labour-intensive processes, Holding Patterns relishes in craftsmanship and provides opportunities to glimpse the artists’ material worlds of contemplation and stillness, offering momentary suspension from our own holding patterns.

Artist Biographies:

Kien Situ (b. 1990, Sydney) is a sculpture and installation artist meditating on memory, cultural amnesia and identity in relation to the aesthetics of constructed objects and environments. Drawing upon familiar spatial, formal, textural, tectonic and material experience of his East Asian upbringing, Kien utilises and dissects his Eurocentric architectural education to create objects which reinterpret formative aesthetic and sensory experiences obfuscated by a diasporic childhood. His works are a physical melding of this experience, casting industrial gypsum cement with the regional, “artistic” material of Chinese Mò ink, a material central to the artist’s practice as part of the investigation into the symbiotic relationship between geography, place and identity.

Crossing Threads® is the collaborative work of Australian-born sisters of Filipino heritage Lauren Hernandez (b. 1988, Sydney) and Kass Hernandez (b. 1989, Sydney). These self-taught tapestry artists first explored the practice of weaving in early 2015 by attending a beginner’s workshop. Known for their large-scale and highly textural handwoven pieces, the Hernandez sisters seek to emulate the natural forms found in nature. Their carefully curated fibre selections include Australian Merino wool, plant-based fibres, up-cycled/dead-stock fabrics and other foraged items that aren’t traditionally used in fibre art. Their practice has led them to develop their recognisable ‘interknot’ technique, made up of intertwining hand-knotted chains of varying texture and thickness which graduate to a relief. The artists continually draw spiritual inspiration from their surrounding landscapes and personal experiences and are materialised through their abstract designs.

Shireen Taweel (b. 1990, Bankstown, lives and works in Sydney, Australia) is a multimedia installation artist whose work broaches issues of the construction of cultural heritage, knowledge and identity through language and the constantly shifting public space of the social, political and religious axiom. Her artistic practice draws from the personal experiences of being Lebanese Australian living between cultures, and how the physical spaces within her community reflect a complex cultural landscape of transformation expressed through hybridity and plurality. The project development of Shireen’s works are often site-specific, weaving local narratives and research with a focus on experimentation in material and sound through site. Shireen’s constant acquisition of traditional coppersmith artisan skills is a research vessel for community focused conceptual development, and through a progressive application of the collected artisan techniques and a manipulation of the traditional acts of making that leads to possibilities of cross-cultural discourse opening dialogues of shared histories and fluid community identities. 

Sofiyah Ruqayah (b. 1992, Sydney) is a Sydney-based artist working across drawing, installation, collage and painting to explore the strange territories between human and nonhuman realities. She is interested in themes of mutation, dream and spirit worlds. Drawing upon imagined and felt connections between various bodies, presences and memories, as well familial and cultural myths of embodiment, Sofiyah’s practice invites us to speculate on our nonhuman origins and intertwined fates. In 2020, Sofiyah is undertaking a 12-month studio residency at Parramatta Artists’ Studios, and will present her first solo exhibition at 4A in October, as part of the Holding Patterns exhibition series. She has exhibited both locally and internationally, including group exhibitions at Lubov Gallery (New York), Peacock Gallery (Sydney) and at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (Sydney) with Woven Kolektif, a collective of emerging Australian artists with personal ties to Indonesia.

SHEPPARTON ART MUSEUM.
June 4 – July 24 2016
Curators: Dr. Rebecca Coates, Anna Briers and Toby Chapman

Chen Qiulin: One Hundred Names is a collaborative exhibition with Gallery 4A.

25 March – 15 May 2010

Artists: Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe

Make-do Garden City examines the past histories of the Haymarket precinct and imagines its possible futures in the context of food crisis and urban sustainability. Artists Zettle and Khoe seeks to plant a new type of temporary garden on the site of 4A, where over six weeks, the Make Garden mobile workshop will grow a variety of edible plants for distribution to participants and to feed gallery staff.

8 February – 9 March 2002

Jews of Shanghai was an exhibition of photographs by Horst Eisfelder, charting his experience as a refugee in Shanghai after the Second World War. Jews are not commonly associated with China, yet by the mid-1930s, a flourishing Jewish community had emerged in the port city of Shanghai, and by 1942 the Jewish community had numbered over 18,000. Horst Eisfelder was thirteen years old when he arrived in Shanghai in 1938 with his family as Jewish refugees from Germany. The young Eisfelder took the photographs in this exhibition over a nine-year period. Now based in Melbourne, Eisfelder’s experience if diaspora and migration and its candid documentation adds to our understanding of Australia’s diverse social history.

This exhibition was part of the Sydney Jewish Museum‘s Crossroads: Shanghai and the Jews of China project.

May – June 2003

4A’s annual fundraising exhibition.

Artists: Marion Borgelt, Jon Cattapan, Zhong Chen, Maria Cruz, Dacchi Dang, Anne Ferran, Emil Goh, Rowena Gough, Cherry Hood, Shen Jiawei, Lindy Lee, Victoria Lobregat, Deborah Paauwe, David Serisier, Sally Smart, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Laurens Tan, My Le Thi, Blanche Tilden, Fan Dong Wan, Guan Wei, Ah Xian, Liu Xiao Xian, William Yang, John Yang, Anne Sahalka, Gang Zhao, Kate Beyton, Cherine Fahd, David Griggs, Nell, Sangeeta Sandrasegar, Aaron Seeto, Renee So, Selina Ou, Andrea Tu

2 – 24 May 2003

Artists: Owen Leong and Zara Collins

Leong presented his photograph series And the pillow ate his head… and a sculptural piece Creep, and Collins presented Takeaway, a series of multimedia objects. 

28 March – 19 April 2003

Artist: Andrew Gadow

Nightvision is a project that consists of public screenings of video art involving emerging artists and curators in a series of four exhibitions of short and silent video works. Presented outside the Gallery 4A’s exhibition hours, rear-projected in the gallery’s ground floor window, the exhibition will be screened sunset to sunrise on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays over a period of a few weeks.

The projected videos will expose people who may be unfamiliar with contemporary art to the activities of young video artists from around the country and around the world. This project aimed to engage, support and promote young artists and to develop audiences for contemporary art that uses modern technology.

Nightvision I: Airfreight Copy

February – March 2003

Artists: Go Watanabe, Renaud Bezy

Curator: Emil Goh

Nightvision II: Puncture Capital

March – April 2003

Artists: Patrick Abboud, Catriona McKenzie, The Boat People

Curator: Amanda Cacchia

Nightvision III: Really Reel

April – May 2003

Artists: Kate Just, Chloe Salvaris, DAMP, Muto Isamu, Yoshida Hikari, Sawanobori Kyoko (N-Mark Japan), Dion Sanderson

Curator: Larissa Hjorth

Nightvision IV: The Long

May – June 2003

Artists: Brad Hammond, Paula Wong, Samantha Rath, Cecelia Huynh, Luke Butterworth

Curator: Aaron Seeto

March 11- May 15 2004

Exhibition Launch

Thursday 11 March 6.00-8.00PM

Artist: Wang Jian Wei

Giantsteps is a solo exhibition of leading Chinese contemporary artist, Wang Jian Wei. To be opened by Tony Bond, Head Curator of Wester Art at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Artist Floor Talk 

Saturday 13 March 2.00PM

October – 20 November 2004

Exhibition Launch

Thursday 21 October 6.00-9.00PM

Artists: Emil Goh, Guan Wei, My Le Thi

Process is a group exhibition presenting the works of Emil Goh, Guan Wei and My Le Thi. To be opened by Councillor Phillip Black, City of Sydney at the Asia-Australia Arts Centre.

Artist Talks

Friday 22 October 2.00PM

Workshop 

Saturday 23 October 2pm

The artists Guan Wei  and My Le Thi will be conducting workshops and public interactive projects during this exhibition.

SYDNEY. 4 SEPTEMBER – 10 OCTOBER 2015.

Exit Strategies is a new exhibition by Vietnamese-Australian artist James Nguyen that reflects upon the artist’s experience of living in a factory in south-west Sydney with his family during the 1990s in a effort to save a failing textiles business. Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Nguyen’s new body of work explores the complexities of familial relationships between himself, his brother and parents as migrants in an adopted country.

Working in a semidocumentary mode of construction, whereby the artist presents a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events, Exit Strategies sees Nguyen collaborate with his family as key characters in a fragmented narrative. Adopting the roles of both the artist and his brother during moments of their upbringing within a place of work, Nguyen’s parents interpret scenes from the family’s history that saw the children passing time while they laboured to earn a living in the floundering Australian textiles industry. As a final attempt to sustain both family life and livelihood under a single roof, this act reflects the challenges experienced by many migrant families seeking stability and opportunity.

Exit Strategies includes on a newly-commissioned 4-channel video work that focuses on the artist’s parents. Dressed in matching white t-shirts and shorts, the couple re-enact and narrate the experiences of their children through split scene sequences. In doing so, Nguyen re-visits a family’s personal reflections on the idiosyncrasies of parenthood. By reversing the roles of the parent, Nguyen re-imagines his childhood as a psychological reference for the responsibility that children of refugee or migrants often assume. Also included in the exhibition are a number of sculptural components, video vignettes and installations that further address the economic transformation and social implications of the decline of the textiles industry on Australian society from the 1980s onwards.

As the artist’s first significant solo exhibition, Exit Strategies marks an important contribution by a member of a younger generation of Vietnamese-Australian artist, of which a critical mass share an upbringing in western Sydney, and are likewise exploring concerns relating to the Vietnamese diaspora in Australia. Through re-staging and framing intimate familial gestures in the face of financial ruin, Exit Strategies draws human and personal connections alongside broader geopolitics of war, economic reform and nationhood.

James Nguyen (b.1982, Vietnam) is a Sydney-based artist whose output ranges from drawing, installation, video and performance. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the National Art School, Sydney, in 2012 and is currently undertaking a Masters of Fine Arts at Sydney College of Arts (SCA), University of Sydney. He has been the recipient of the Clitheroe Foundation Scholarship and the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. Since 2012 Nguyen has participated in several group exhibitions including at Articulate Project Space, Sydney; YOLK Collective, Sydney; William Wright’s Artists Projects, Sydney; and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. His first solo exhibition was at Bradfield College, North Sydney, in 2013 titled EXIT Strategy, and his recent solo exhibition, The Man With the Movie Camera, was presented at both SCA Gallery and FELTspace, Adelaide in 2014.

Produced & Presented by

ADELAIDE. 19 MAY – 22 JULY 2016.

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art’s first exhibition in Adelaide is a touring presentation of Future Archaeology hosted by our collaborative parter Nexus Arts.

Future Archaeology presents work by a group of emerging and mid-career artists who conceptually engage with notions of tradition through contemporary cultural artefacts. Through an appropriation of the discipline of archaeology, the exhibition attempts to present a complex image of the social and political movements throughout the Asia-Pacific based on narratives of migration, cultural displacement and appropriation.

Future Archaeology draws on a leading theme of multiplicity – of numerous geo-historical trajectories borne of moments of disruption, rather than continuity – as a means to consider both historical moments and contemporary developments that have shaped the cultural landscape. Attempting to draw connections between cultural traditions and contemporary experiences are works that explore, for example, the mass migration of Vietnamese to Australia, the widespread deforestation and cultural destruction of Central America, and the confluence of Western and Pakistani ideals of masculinity.

The exhibition features new works that have been commissioned by 4A complemented by existing works presented in Australia for the first time. With art forms spanning sawdust carpets through to truck art medallions, Future Archaeology reflects upon experiences of cultural dislocation and the attempts made by artists to initiate new conversations across geographical and historical distances, which together offer alternatives on aesthetic and conceptual development of contemporary Australian art.

Produced & Presented by

Nathan Beard is an interdisciplinary artist based in Western Australia whose work engages syncretistically with the myriad of influences from his Thai-Australian background. He critically deconstructs tense binary divisions between the East and West, the highbrow and low culture, and the conceptual centre and periphery relationship and explores these cultural exchanges through his playful artistic practice. Beard had participated in solo and group exhibitions including Ad Matres, Artereal Gallery, Sydney (2015); Light Locker Art Space, Perth CBD, Perth (2013); Interregna, Moana Peroject Space, Perth (2013); and the 2012 Next Wave Festival – the space between us wants to sing, NGV Studio, Melbourne (2012). He has held residencies in Speedy Grandma, Bangkok and the Perth Institude of Contemporary Arts, Perth and is part of The Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with fellow artists Abdul Abdullah and Casey Ayers.

Léuli Eshraghi is a Melbourne-based artist who uses illustration, painting, photography and installation to discuss indigeneity, language, body sovereignty and queer possibility. His works on paper retrace and reconnect to his Persian and Samoan heritages, taking inspiration from the traditional aesthetics of gabbeh carpet and siapo barkcloth in order to visualise hidden stories, concealed traumas and spirits of the past. Eshraghi is the current Gertrude Contemporary-Next Wave Emerging Curator and editor of the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival’s Oceania Now publication. He has exhibited at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne (2015); the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival (2015); and RM Gallery, Auckland (2014). Eshraghi’s curatorial projects include Total Eclipse, Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Ownership Project (2014); and the award winning So Fukin Native with Pauline Vetuna mentor Taloi Havini, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Blak Dot Gallery (2012).

Deanna Hitti is an artist specializing in printmaking, drawing from her professional experience of over 14 years in the field. Her books and prints, published through her own studio, investigate the complex relationship between Eastern and Western cultures and how this relationship is understood and constructed through the perspective of a Lebanese-Australian. Hitti’s arist books reflect on classicism in both hemispheres of the world, analysing the notions of exoticism, romanticism and the orientalist gaze to comprehend contemporary representations of the Middle East in both art and the media. She has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows including The Centre for Book Arts (New York); IMPACT8 Conference, Scotland; Langford120, Melbourne; and 45 Downstairs, Melbourne. The artist’s books and prints have been bought by The State Library of Victoria and the National Library of Australia, among other major Australian collections. 

Andy Mullens is a Canberra-based artist whose practice discusses concepts of singular and group identity, and self-representation through an exploration of cultural identity, family history and national history. Working between both film and digital photography as well as sculpture and traditional craft, she strives to reconcile her Australian and Vietnamese identity, realigning herself with her Vietnamese family, cultural heritage and her history. After completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2014, Mullens exhibited her first solo show three at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra in 2015. She has also participated in group exhibitions including Past Perfect, Leta Gallery + Project Space, Canberra (2015); and Plucked, gallery@bcs, Canberra (2015), part of the ANU School of Art Emerging Artist Support Scheme BSC Springboard Award.

Claudia Nicholson was born in Bogota, Colombia 1987. In 2011 she graduated with a Bachelor Of Fine Arts (Honours) from UNSW Art and Design (Formally COFA). In 2013 She exhibited at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art as part of their emerging artist program. In 2013 she participated in Centro Selva’s artist in residency program in the Peruvian Amazon and had her first solo show, Silly Homeland, at Gaffa gallery. In 2014 Nicholson was an artist in residence at Firstdraft gallery resulting in her second solo exhibition. She recently participated in the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art studio program in Beijing with Shen Shaomin. Nicholson is an associated artist of Gaffa gallery Sydney.  As a Colombian born artist, adopted and raised in Australia, Nicholson occupies an ambivalent position between Australian, Amerindian and Latino cultures. Her work is multidisciplinary with a focus on ceramics, video art, sculpture and painting. She works extensively with her family, using performance to comment on social attitudes pertaining to kinship and familial relationships. The tensions of cultural hybridity and dislocation resonate throughout her practice.

Abdullah M.I. Syed is an interdisciplinary artist working between Karachi and Sydney. His works utilize a variety of mediums and techniques to present a complex political commentary that tackles controversial topics such as the War on Terror, immigration and Western attitudes towards Eastern society. He participated in the Britto artists’ workshop and an artist residency at Cicada Press. He has also co-curated exhibitions, notably Michael Esson: A Survey of Drawing, Michael Kempson: A Survey of Prints, Aboriginal Dreams and Let’s Draw the Line in Karachi, Pakistan. As a designer, Syed co-coordinated the Design Department at the University of Karachi and has lectured there and at UCO in the United States. He is recently completed his Ph. D at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, Australia.

SYDNEY. 16 JANUARY – 27 FEBRUARY 2016.

One Hundred Names is the first Australian solo exhibition by Chinese artist Chen Qiulin. Chen belongs to a generation of Chinese artists whose work articulates the social repercussions of China’s ongoing process of political and economic reform. Her work explores the many contradictions inherent within the conditions that frame contemporary life in a country where myriad tensions and conflicts between tradition, progress and appearances are constantly tested. Raised in Wanzhou City, located in the municipality of Chongqing in western China, Chen’s home city was partially submerged by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River since 2001 and her work responds to this lived experience of natural and urban landscapes in flux.

4A’s exhibition includes a survey of the artist’s practice from the last ten years. Included are key works such as The Garden (2007) and Farewell Poem (2007), which through performance explore and document the physical and psychological upheaval caused by the comprehensive expansion of the city and the construction of the dam, which forced more than one million people from their ancestral homes. Also exhibited are new works such as City Manager (2015), a single-channel video which focuses on three archetypal figures and their role in the urban expansion and development of a new kind of architecture and class system within China. Playful and irreverent, City Manager speaks to immense influence of a small group of people in shaping the physical and social landscapes of contemporary China.

Commissioned especially for 4A is One Hundred Names for Kwong Wah Chong (2015), the latest iteration of Chen Qiulin’s ongoing One Hundred Surnames in Tofu(2004 – ) project that presents the one hundred most common Chinese family names carved from tofu, slowly decaying over a period of weeks or months. For Chen, tofu is not only one of China’s oldest and most commonly used ingredients but also an apt artistic medium that symbolises the material transformation through intensive labour. One Hundred Names for Kwong Wah Chong has been produced to commemorate Sydney’s iconic Haymarket district and, in particular, Sydney’s first Chinese-owned and operated shopfront business, Kwong Wah Chong, whose location at 84 Dixon Street which was an economic and social cornerstone for the Chinese community in the early decades of the twentieth-century.

As one of China’s foremost artists, Chen Qiulin represents a new voice in contemporary Chinese art which is at once highly personal and universal, speaking to broader politics of migration and identification. One Hundred Names presents a dynamic platform across an exhibition, performance and public programs that showcases the conceptually and technically diverse practice of Chen Qiulin that articulates past experiences and future potentials of social and urban landscapes of our region.

《陈秋林：百家姓》是中国艺术家陈秋林在澳大利亚的首次个展。作为中国年轻一代的优秀艺术家，其作品关注中国不断推进的政治和经济改革所带来的社会影响，把现代生活不断挑战传统价值体系所产生的种种矛盾与现状进行归纳、视觉化。艺术家自幼生活的重庆市万州城在2001年始修建的长江三峡水电工程建设中被大部分淹没，这样的成长经历使其创作紧密围绕自然与都市环境巨变带来的种种不确定性。

4A当代艺术中心此次展览将呈现部分艺术家十年来的艺术探索成果。主要作品包括系列摄影 作品《花园》（2007）、《别赋》（2007 摄影）等，该作品纪录了三峡工程导致的百万居民背井离乡的现实和疯狂扩张的城市给生活带来的魔幻和迷惘，通过行为表演的艺术手段表现了这一过程造成的生活和心理的双重影响。单屏幕录像作品《城市管理者》（2015）以三类真实人群为原型，表现了他们在城市建设及扩张过程中扮演的角色，探讨了中国社会中正在形成的新型等级关系。该作品荒诞滑稽的镜头折射出中国当代生活中个别人群可能带来的巨大而深远的社会影响。

陈秋林为此次在悉尼举办的展览专门创作了新作《广和昌的豆腐百家姓》（2015），其创作构思延续了2004年起不断实践积累的《豆腐百家姓》系列作品。豆腐是中国古老而又常用的食材，艺术家借用其象征意义，通过大量亲身实践将这一素材转化为绝佳的艺术表现媒介。此次新作着眼于悉尼城市地标性地区禧市，突出了悉尼第一家华人店铺“广和昌公司”的经济及社会意义，旨在纪念二十世纪初期第一批华人移民群体所作的巨大社会贡献。

陈秋林代表了一批为中国当代艺术发声发力的优秀艺术家，《陈秋林：百家姓》集展览、行为表演和公众项目于一体，展现了艺术家敏锐而广泛的思考和灵活运用多种媒介的艺术实践，既传达了艺术家作为个体的独特思考，又关照了移民集体身份的社会政治环境，兼顾探讨了悉尼的华人移民的过往与未来。

Chen Qiulin (b. 1975, Yichang, Hubei Province) belongs to a generation of younger artists whose work articulates the social repercussions of China’s ever-constant push for political and economic reform. Visualising the many contradictions inherent to the condition of contemporary living in a country where the tension and conflict between tradition, custom and ritual are consistently challenged, Chen Qiulin’s carefully considered photographic and video compositions are powerful provocations of progress and ambition.

Chen Qiulin has participated in numerous exhibitions in China and abroad, recently featured in 7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea, 2008; ‘Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art’, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, USA, 2008; ‘China Power Station II’, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Olso, Norway, 2007; ‘THIS IS NOT FOR YOU – Sculptural Discourses’, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria, 2006-2007; and ‘The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art’, Millenium Art Museum, Beijing, China and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York, USA (touring), 2005 and a number of influential solo exhibitions in Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Max Protetch Gallery, Long March Space, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

Her works have been collected by many important art galleries, collections and private collectors in the United States and Europe, for example Astrup Fearnley Museum (Norway), Denver Art Museum (USA), Logan Collection (USA), T-BA21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Austria), Hammer Museum (USA), the Bohen Foundation (New York, USA), Worcester Art Museum (USA), Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (Australia), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China).

陈秋林（ 1975年生于湖北省宜昌市）作为中国年轻一代艺术家，其作品关注中国不断推进的政治和经济改革带来的社会影响。陈秋林运用摄影和摄像手段进行创作，将现代生活与传统价值观的冲突矛盾以视觉形象表现出来。

陈秋林从小生长在重庆市万州城，然而这里的大部分地区在建设三峡大坝扬子江河段时淹没。于2001年启建的三峡工程规模浩大，致使百万的居民背井离乡，陈秋林著名的作品《迁移》便着眼于这项大工程带来的生理、心理双重影响。她不断探索三峡移民无处安放的生活与情感，以及从故乡记忆中产生的文化认同感。陈秋林的创作始终处于探索推进的状态，广泛应用视频，行为表演，摄影，装置等创作媒介，始终保持其独特的社会敏感性，对社会改革进程的勃勃野心提出了有力质疑，并为热点议题引入了崭新的观点及视角。

陈秋林作品参与的国内国外展览众多，近期展出包括：2008年在韩国举办的第七届光州双年展（7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju）；同年在美国芝加哥大学David and Alfred Smart 美术馆展出的《位移－三峡大坝与中国当代艺术》（Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art）；2007年于挪威奥斯陆Astrup Fearnley现代艺术博物馆展出的《中国电站II》（China Power Station II）；2006-2007年奥地利维也纳Thyssen-Bornemisza当代艺术馆呈现的《这不是给你的－雕塑语境》（THIS IS NOT FOR YOU – Sculptural Discourses）；2005年于北京中华世纪坛美术馆和纽约诺克斯美术馆巡回展出的《墙－重构中国当代艺术》（The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art）。其个展在世界各地多家艺术机构亮相，其中包括洛杉矶翰墨博物馆、纽约Max Protetch画廊、北京长征空间、Eli and Edythe Broad艺术博物馆等。

陈秋林的作品被美国、欧洲等多地画廊、机构及个人收藏，例如Astrup Fearnley博物馆（挪威）、Denver艺术博物馆（美国）、Logan收藏（美国）、Thyssen-Bornemisza当代艺术馆T-BA21收藏（奥地利）、翰墨博物馆（洛杉矶）、Bohan基金会（纽约）、Worcester艺术博物馆（美国）、昆士兰现代艺术馆（澳大利亚）、今日美术馆（北京，中国）等。