As The Daily Sun will possibly be on sale during the Olympics in Beijing, here is some Sun art news to celebrate.
Firstly Dameon Hirst will paint David Beckham to raise money for charity, not that interesting really , but the sun loves Hirst) and secondly artist Jordan Mckenzie has hit the headlines here, with his latest series of work, carbon records of his ejaculations.
Art lover and artist David Gleeson told the paper: “Tracy Emin showed her knickers but this is a different thing entirely.”
“I am in favour of almost any form of expression but I do baulk at ejaculating over a piece of paper. Oh please!”
“Excuse the pun, but it sounds like he’s taking the p***.”
Jordan, who intends to create three drawings a week, said: “This is only the first batch of them.It is a diary of my ejaculations they are heartfelt and delicate. I hope people will come and see them - not judge them out of hand.”
|
The invite does not give a lot away, but maybe interesting…
|
Shanghai has launched a new TV channel ‘ICS.’ It goes by the catchy slogan ’see Shanghai, its better than Tokyo, Milan and Paris’ or something like that. your very own Shanghai Eye received the news by text message at midnight on new years, not knowing the self same texter had poached Shanghai Eye’s staffers to direct one of his programs. We were wondering why we didn’t get to go to the bash on M on the Bund.
Ah the media industry. Anyhow, bizarrely, and contrary to expectations, the channel seems to be doing rather well. It already has ads - from Mc Donalds, Unilever, etc… CCTV 9, China’s English language face to the world, has yet to have an ad yet. In typical Shanghai fashion the station launched saying it was not planning to be a rival to CCTV, the state broadcaster. Obviously they had been thinking about Al Jazeera and CNN as their main rivals, and were confused why anyone was questioning them about something no-one had heard of.
Anyhow, Ken, from Chinesepod, has his own talk show, but unfortunately has yet to add a few Jay Leno touches. Others joining in the fun include many of the old favourites from SMG’s stable of English presenters and commentators. But likely the wisest move the channel has made is the translation of fairly decent Chinese documentaries, and a bunch of TV shows usually shown on the sat channel ‘discovery travel and living.’ Flicking between his entirely kosher Filipino sat box and ICS Shanghai Eye found it hard to tell the difference. Hmm. Someone had a brain wave.
|
Rumour has it Shanghai’s NVR magazine, a rip off of the week, is no more. Most nodding dogs agree, this was likely to happen.
Owner Thats Shanghai is looking pretty ropey too, and now comes with a “RMB 18″ price sticker. Hmm, and SH magazine is going out too, recent rumour has it staff have been thrown out the windows at an alarming rate, even for a free English language Chinese city magazine.
So that leaves City Weekend, joyfully rubbing their hands, counting their pennies and shooting anything that looks like content. Or maybe the old dame of Shanghai’s English language city mags, Shanghai Talk, maybe the only one left. This is like watching the world’s oil suppliers fall t othe whims of happenstance. Or is it all an evil plot??
|
In China, everyone knows you can buy DVDs of the latest film releases for RMB 5 (just about 50 US cents). Prices go up a bit depending on the store or location. Chaps who sell DVDs from barrows in the street are as likely as not to sell you dud films, which is why no-one buys off them, and so their goods are really cheap. Others are real professional operators- and fill their stores with goods to suit their and their customers tastes. Also to open an illegal shop, selling illegal goods, it goes without saying that the shop operator has to pay a back hander to the local law enforcement. Some try to get around this by disguising their store as a hand bag shop, or as a tasty pancake seller, for instance. Others go the whole hog and let it all hang out in the wind, selling smuggled Wiis, pirated downloaded DS games, playstations with pirate chips embedded, alongside DVDs and other types of entertainment.
Of course Shanghai Eye would never partake of their wares, and only purchases official DVDs, such as dubbed, with no English soundtrack versions of Gone With The Wind, as can be found on sale in state sponsored ‘healthy’ DVD audio visual stores.
So imagine my surprise, stumbling through Shanghai’s dark alley’s and streets, when by chance, a gust of wind blew me through the door of a particular establishment selling fake DVDs.
Tut tutting I perused the hundreds of DVDs on offer, in nice boxed sets, all the latest hollywood releases, all the latest TV series, such a prisoner and Lost. Avoiding temptation, for research purposes only, I purchased two discs that particularly caught my eye.
Selling at RMB 30 (a whopping US$4.50) these two films had production values that would shame the original DVD creators. delux embossed covers, nice cardboard wrappers, internal envelopes full of cute film related pictures, hard palstic casings, holograms, these versions were real labours of love by the pirate DVD makers.
The pictures below should give an idea of the packaging and presentation.
|
Art critics have joined the digital age, with a podcast here with David Cohen waxing lyrical in New York.
|
|
|
