Foreword

The 2009 ASAP exhibition called "mifan" at Anni Art December 2009, which closed after one month, attracted more than 5,000 visitors in Beijing and then traveled to Shenzhen and was presented at Babu Art. In 2010, the next 20 artists from Austria will show their works at this year’s ASAP exhibition, which is titled "Da Bao", a term which means "takeaway" when translated into English

The main focus of ASAP is to show European / Austrian artists who live and work in China for a certain period of time, or artists who are rooted in the Western tradition and translate or analyze Chinese culture into their own semantics, and with their own methods. Not only visual artists are considered, on the contrary, ASAP is interested in a wide range of genres – music, film, science, architecture, design or literature. The ASAP exhibition is organized on an annual basis, in Beijing and it is open for cooperation with partners throughout China and South East Asia. This year we feature an exceptional Austrian who lived and worked in China for many years, from 1922 to 1949: Joseph Francis Rock, explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist. Many thanks to the Arnold Arboretum Library and Ms. Lisa E. Pearson from Harvard College for giving us the permission to show some of Joseph Francis Rock’s works in this year’s exhibition.

In " Da Bao" 20 artists are translating both for themselves or for the audience what they have understood during their stay in China. Most of the works in this year’s exhibition are based on the notion of concept art and artists involving themselves in the transition China is undergoing both as a nation and as a society. Other artists in the exhibition translate for themselves, talking to themselves in a formal language which takes in the Chinese visual world they are surrounded with. Many works are rather based on illusions and imagination, misinterpretation and subjective individual compositions than on facts and figures.

Today’s artists work within two main frameworks, one is the conceptual, which is rather based on rational or logic interplay with the world, and the other is a more intuitive and emotional approach, a private language. Both frameworks are justified; artists needn’t respect commodity dreams, political correctness, or sustainable efficiency, nor need they compete with science for justification, or with design for usability. Artists can differentiate themselves from these concepts and it is not a must that the artist’s job it is to "fix the world". If the side effects of art works touch upon the one or the other, there can't be any objections, but it is by no means a precondition for acceptance.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art and Education and to the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Beijing and the Austrian Embassy in Beijing, We are thankful to all participating artists, to Anni Ma from Anni Art and to Nikolaus Gansterer, who links up ASAP to artists in Austria. Also many thanks to Felicia Schwarz for her help in sponsoring and her pragmatic inspiration and to Ingrid Fisher Schreiber for her Sinologist consultancy and guidance.

We acknowledge that the same approach that we follow from Austria to China is possible from China to Austria. Many Chinese artists have stated their interest, ASAP is open to any approach and cooperation with Chinese officials to support Chinese artists to show their works in Austria / Europe. ASAP is more than happy to help if it stays in ASAP's framework. We do not compete with other museums, galleries or curators; at the core of ASAP's work is our interest in the transition from one into the other and vice versa, China to Austria, Chinese into Austrian. ASAP is not involved in promoting art in or from either country. ASAP likes to encourage artists to understand and respond locally in a wider international context.

Karel Dudesek
ASAP Founder