Artes Mundi 4

Chen Chieh-jen - Factory - seen here

We went to The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff last night to attend the opening of Artes Mundi 4. This bi-annual competition, with its substantial prize of £40,000, is an opportunity for contemporary artists who are established in their own country but less well known in the UK to gain exposure. The broad theme of the show is 'the human condition' (although that could pretty much include any artist's work when you think of it!). The eight shortlisted artists' work is housed in a series of spaces within the National Gallery, and the winning artist will be announced on 19 May.

This year the artists were selected by Levent Çalikoğlu, Chief Curator at Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and lecturer at the Technical University, Faculty of Arts and Design, Istanbul. Viktor Misiano, both a curator and an art critic based in Moscow and Italy, a former curator at The Pushkin State Museum, and Director of the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Moscow.

The selected artist are: Yael Bartana (Israel), Fernando Bryce (Peru), Ergin Çavuşoğlu (Bulgaria), Olga Chernysheva (Russia), Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan), Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev (Kyrgyzstan), Adrian Paci (Albania).

We had such a nice time, that we didn't get enough time with the work, so I'll be going back for another visit soon. On first impressions I liked the look of Chen Chieh-jen's films but I really do think one needs a little time to mull it all over and consider the contexts of each artists work and the overall curatiorial vision...