Organized by the Macao Museum of Art (MAM), under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, the exhibition “Ballade – Animamix Contemporary Art” features a total of 46 pieces (sets), including anime, videos, installations, sculptures, oil paintings and large-scale live paintings created by 17 artists and art groups from Mainland China, Korea, Japan and Macao, presenting animamix as an emerging field of contemporary art which develops towards cultural diversity, text visualisation, surreal virtualisation and cross-national regionalisation. The opening ceremony of the exhibition will be held on Thursday, 13 July, at 6:30pm, on the 1st floor of the MAM.
Inaugurated in 2007, the Animamix Biennale aims to show, through cooperation and exchange projects, the unique aesthetics and cultural characteristics of contemporary art developed under the influence of animations and comics. In 2014, MAM participated in this prestigious Asian artistic event with a project themed “Macao Scenario”. One of the characteristics of the anime aesthetics is a narrative text filled with amazement and variety, turning the images into an expressible visual language. This year MAM participates in the “Animamix Biennale 2017-18” with a project themed “Ballade”, with other participating institutions, namely the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, MoA Museum of Art in Korea and the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, among others.
Twelve artists and groups from Mainland China were invited to participate in the exhibition “Ballade – Animamix Contemporary Art”, including Ding Shiwei, Tian Xiaolei, Zhu Xi, Wu Junyong, Qiu Anxiong, Sun Xun, Geng Xue, Lou Shenyi, Lu Yang, Tong Kunniao, Liu Yi, and Inkman Studio; Korean and Japanese artists Kim Jun Sik and Toru Harada, who reside in Mainland China, and local young artists Lei Ieng Wai, Leong Man Teng and Sanchia Lau.
The exhibition features a rich variety of works, including celadon puppet animation, immersive aerial image, glow-in-the-dark animation and uncanny scenes assembled with mechanical sound installations and ready-made items. The works reflect the artists’ thinking and recreation on the space-time narration or the world view from a contemporary perspective. Under the influence of anime aesthetics, they have jointly composed “Ballade” with imagination, combining reality and virtuality. These giant works in innovate forms will be exhibited on the ground floor, first and second floors of the MAM, covering a total area of over 1,100 square metres.
The exhibition “Ballade –Contemporary Art Animamix” is open from 14 July to 15 October. A “Ballade” preview session will be held on Wednesday, 12 July, in which curators Ng Fong Chao and Wang Weiwei as well as several participating artists will present the creative concepts of the works to the Friends of MAM and any interested parties in a guided tour.
Simultaneously, the exhibition “The Art of Zhang Daqian” is open to the public at MAM, featuring the activity “Zhang Daqian Colouring Sheets” in the same location. The Macao Museum of Art, located at Av. Xian Xing Hai, NAPE, is open daily from 10am to 7pm, including public holidays (no admission after 6:30pm) and closes on Mondays. For more information, please contact MAM through tel. no. 8791 9814 during the opening hours, or visit the MAM website at www.MAM.gov.mo