Art beat in August

Festival of choirs

 

The August Chorus Festival is running from Aug 4 to 24, presenting nine Chinese and foreign choirs. Wiener Gumpoldkirchner Spatzen, the choir of the Wiener Kammer Orchester in Germany, will perform Beethoven, Mozart and German folk music. Kammerchor Stuttgart, one of the world's best chamber choirs, has more than 90 recordings under its belt. Vive, winner of the Voice Festival UK 2013, is a six-member vocal group that specializes in performing jazz and a cappella. The Inner Mongolian Junior Choir will sing the traditional Mongolian long song accompanied by the morin khuur, a traditional Mongolian string instrument.

7:30 pm, Aug 4-24. National Center for the Performing Arts, West of Tian'anmen Square, Xicheng district, Beijing. 010-6655-0000.

Finding Mr Right

Qian Duoduo is about to turn 30, the age by which she should be married, according to tradition. A successful businesswoman when she hits a bottleneck in her work, she fi nds she has some hard decisions to make. The play Qian Duoduo Jia Ren Ji is adapted from a novel by Ren Hai Zhong (pen name). Starring Xie Chengying and Lan Haimeng.

7:30 pm, Tue-Sun, Aug 12-24, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center-Art Theatre, 1F, 288 Anfu Road, Xuhui district, 021-6473-0123 100-280 yuan

Buzzwords in 3-D

At his solo exhibition Images of Magnetic Resonance, contemporary artist Zheng Guogu explores how human consciousness interacts with time and space. His installation Spiritual Tour of a Pure Garden includes several stone sculptures which he fashioned into "buzzwords". Viewers can sit on them, as if they are visiting a garden of text. Also on display are four paintings which four painters produced following his instructions at the opening of the show. Zheng drank tea in a room and gathered messages he "felt' from the exhibition halls outside. He told how he transformed the information into images to the painters who drew them on canvas.

11 am-6:30 pm, Tuesday to Sunday, until Aug 24. Tang Contemporary Art, 798 Art Zone, 2 Jiuxianqiao Lu (Road), Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5978-9610.

Metallic moods

Metal Matters: Reflection to Oxidation features the works of seven artists, for whom metals offer diverse ways to express their creativity. While Shen Fan has presented an interactive installation Landscape made of polished rose gold, Xu Zhen's Made In Company is an audio-visual piece on a "place made of oxidized iron".

Until Aug 25. ShanghART Gallery, Building 16, 50 Moganshan Lu (Road), Shanghai. 021-6359-3923.

Pan Xiaorong

Landing is a new project by artist Pan Xiaorong, who is regarded as a member of the second generation of experimental Chinese painters. Pan's signature style involves using tools such as knives, cardboard and ink to draw lines that may look simple but are in fact laden with complex ideas.

10 am-6 pm, until Aug 25. Mustard Seed Space, Room 101, Building 5, No 50 Moganshan Lu (Road), Shanghai. 021-6299-6610.

Burning boundaries

Landing is a new project by artist Pan Xiaorong, who employs simple tools and materials such as knives, cardboard and ink to make his point. The plain but artistic language employed by Pan eliminates the distance between the audience and the artwork, encouraging interaction. This time, he cuts across boundaries – getting rid of the graphic language and treating space itself as the medium.

10:30 am-6:30 pm, Tue-Sat, July 26 - Aug 25, Mustard Seed Space, Room.101, Building 5, 50 Moganshan Road, Putuo district 021-6299-6610 ??????????????????????????????????????????