Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz
February 13th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
An exhibition of new work by Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz has opened at P.P.O.W. Gallery in Chelsea. I have long been a fan of this pair, and was thrilled to be able to see these newest items.
Martin & Munoz hover between photography and sculpture. Their work surrounds the idea of the snow-globe. What is traditionally viewed as a cheap vacation tchotchke has been transformed into a storybook world full of dark deed and misadventures. What has always caught my eye are the actual snow-globes that they create. Small in scale, and usually keeping with the snow theme and actual snow, they are small self-contained stories. Murder, accidents, war, animal attacks, the narratives are full of terrible things that belay the almost pure and innocent nature of the chosen sculptural medium. Someone with a more active imagination might view these sculptures as the all seeing-eye that is often used in fantasy stories (think: Wizard of Oz, or The Lord of the Rings). I tend to see them as captured memories, in this case horrible events that have been bottled and put on a shelf; in this way, they can no longer torment, but should never be forgotten.
I admit that I am more drawn to the globes than to the framed photographs that Martin & Munoz also show. The imagery in the photographs is similar to that of the globes (the works in this exhibition are based on The Night), and I enjoy investigating them, tracking the actions of all the characters. The sets are beautifully photographed. However, the large photographs lose the sense of intimacy. The flat nature of the prints removes them from the viewer a bit, they tend to become a recording of a world, as opposed to a whole world in and of itself. Interestingly, the globes in this show were installed on a wall mount, all in a row, in the back room of the gallery space, as opposed to being spread throughout the gallery on pedestals. This not only prevents viewers from walking around the globes, but also seemed to make them seem less important, whereas I think they deserved much more attention and light.
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“Night Falls” is currently on view at P.P.O.W. Gallery. You can visit the artist’s website here. All photographs were taken by me.
Yang Jiecang
August 15th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
This a limited edition by Chinese artist Yang Jiecang, published by the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in 2008. It is hand-painted porcelain and produced as an edition of 250. The work references Yang’s ‘Underground Flowers’ project, an installation of 3,000 porcelain bone fragments housed in wooden shelves reminiscent of a Natural History Museum archive.
The series is a central example of Yang’s attempt to meld traditional Chinese artistic methods with foreign and / or contemporary forms (in this case the European Momento Mori, perhaps).
I really want one.
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To purchase, or learn more, visit the Ullens Center online store.
Sheela Gowda
April 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Sheela Gowda is an artist from Bangalore, India. Her work is infused with the materials of labor and culture found in her native country, such as incense, oil drums, religious offerings, body hair, and carved timbers from razed peasant houses. She uses these materials to broach native issues, such as the current rise in political and religious violence in India, the economic inequalities that have continued with the country’s emerging market ascension, and the violence and oppression of women laborers.
The first image posted is a drawing from 2007, though much of her work is sculptural in nature. The second image is of her Collateral installation at Documenta in Kassel, where she created her own incense arrangements that are then burned. Both the pattern of the destruction of her labor and the olfactory sensibility of the material (a major export of India) creates an environment where materiality, criticism and experience are all rolled into one.
The same kind of potential for ephemeral explorations exist in other installations, such as Of All People, a recent exhibition at Inivia (London) this year, where the timbers and doors of old houses have been rearranged and carved into a maze of dismantled domesticity. Darkroom (2006) from an exhibition at Bose Pacia Gallery, does the opposite: abandoned oil drums are used to mimic a worker’s hut. The sparse nature of the dwelling, the dirty remnants of labor and the humble size of the laborer’s castle speak to the bleakness of the worker’s situation. The third world laborer is never far from his labor, and what is his (or hers) can quickly evaporate and be forgotten in the name of economic progress.
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All artwork is copyright Sheela Gowda. The images have been borrowed from both the Bose Pacia and Inivia websites.
Agus Suwage
March 14th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Major Indonesian artist Agus Suwage currently has his first (long-overdue) New York solo show at Tyler Rollins Gallery in Chelsea.
“The End is Just Beginning is The End” is an elliptical title to the exhibition that suscintly summerizes these new paintings and sculptures. Most of the works presented here are paintings on zinc panels which are also framed in metal. The metal is an imperfect and base material and its flaws lend themselves to Suwage’s theme. The panels are not prepared with an underpainted layer, Suwage paints directly on some parts and leaves others entirely exposed. The lack of a prepared surface also preserves the imperfections in the panel, with nicks and rust spots not only allowed to grow but incorporated into the image itself. In some works we see Suwage himself, amongst the skeletons on the beach as he tries to make sense of it all, or kissing a haloed skeleton in a sign that he has, perhaps, come to accept death and the beauty of its unending cycle.
For these works deal with death, and becoming comfortable with the idea of death and the natural cycle of materials, whether the materials are zinc panels or human flesh. Structure and decomposition (but surprisingly not birth) are at the center of this show, both in terms of theme and construction. The process that is documented in the paintings is then turned around with Happiness Is A Warm Gun, a sculpture of copulating skeletons made of the same zinc and metal materials. In this work life and death co-exist in the animated skeletons (a visual oxymoron), and evolution is paused, as the forms are part human, part monkey (they still have their tails), and their struggle of domination and submission goes on in the midst of the death and destruction on the surrounding walls.
This is a strong show, and an excellent introduction to Suwage’s work. It is great to see Tyler Rollins continuing to focus on artists from South East Asia and giving them the New York exposure they deserve.
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The exhibition is up at Tyler Rollins until April 23rd.
The pictures are by me, and all artwork is copyright Agus Suwage. His website can be seen here.
Imhathai Suwatthanasilp
September 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Imhathai Suwatthanasilp is a Thai artist who uses her own hair as a sculptural medium. The strands of hair are carefully crocheted into various kinds of objects, some cultural and some just humorous nods. The use of this material, precious but sustainable and cheap, stems from the artist’s strong connection to her family and her own life. By weaving stories with the fibers of her own being, she is (in a sense) making the work about her family, and her love for them, as well as including them in the creation of the work itself.
The use of hair also serves as a memento mori for the artist. By using the strands of hair that her body has already discarded, she is kept keenly aware of her place in the creative process, and that things will end as surely as they began. In a subtle gesture to the inevitability of her own death, she has decided to continue to add to works over time, such as the veil in the first picture. The work will continue to grow in size and complexity, even as she herself shrinks and, eventually, withers.
The second work pictured is called Scorpion, and the third is called Sleep. Both the animal and the tired stupa add another layer to the work beyond family, in this case symbols of her Thai background. Her work will be included in the upcoming Busan Biennial.
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The images above were borrowed from Imhathai’s portfolio page on portfolios.net.
Akira Shimidu
September 8th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Akira Shimidu, from Japan, is part of what is being considered the “Post Superflat” (post Murakami) generation. This group is also considered “post 9/11″, mostly due to the two exhibitions on this theme curated by Shimidu’s Japanese dealer, Hiromi Yoshii, at the old Deitch space in New York.
The notion of those themes, in my mind, dealt with the groups moving beyond simple pop iconography, and moving past pure Japonism. These new, younger artists are working with multi-media constructions, where detritus assemblage can be combined with musical creation, video, installation, and even fashion.
I think Shimidu exemplifies this aesthetic approach better than many. The work, sometimes as sculpture, sometimes as painting, often a hybrid of the two, could come from anywhere. It deals with cultural garbage and stimulation, not necessarily Japanese stimulation.
In this sense, Shimidu and his contemporaries are pushing new ground. They are moving beyond the comfort zone of their own sense of self, while retaining a playful air.
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Most of these images came from Hiromi Yoshii Gallery’s website.
Aiko Miyanaga
August 26th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Aiko Miyanaga’s work is unusual in that it is designed to disappear. The objects in her sculptural installations are made from naphthalene, the same chemical product used to make mothballs. Miyanaga uses the material to create personal possessions (shoes, clocks, combs) that sit inside specially built cases. Over the duration of an exhibition the naphthalene material slowly disintegrates, lining the inside of the sealed cases with a haze of crystals. By the end, the object is gone, leaving only the crystals and a small, even more personal token that she sometimes hides within the original sculpture.
The process is transcendental, more clean and spiritual than other forms that incorporate destruction, such as earth art. Her goal, as hinted in her artist’s statement, is to use the fact of the sculpture’s fading reality to make the works last in the viewer’s mind, and only in this sense will the work last forever.
Recently she has moved towards the gallery scene and started to create work that leaves at least something behind. The last image is one such example, where the sculpture is encased in resin. While the naphthalene structure still is allowed to evaporate, its cavity in the resin remains as artifact, like the dogs and people in the ash in Pompei.
Miyanaga is one of those artists who has found a way to create art that can escape the confines of ownership, that must be accepted as something to be only viewed, like the best things in nature, without the tacky and maudlin dependency on theory and artspeak to validate it. The work is simply beautiful, personal, and magical.
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All works are copyright Aiko Miyanaga. The images were borrowed from her website (seen here) and from Mizuma Art Gallery photos I found on the RealTokyo blog.
Ken Price
March 1st, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Two Ken Price exhibitions recently opened, one of new work at Matthew Marks and the other at Brooke Alexander (actually, in a two-person show with Josef Albers….). The photos here are from the opening at Matthew Marks.
Ken Price is one of my favorite artists. A previously over-looked member of the Ferus Gallery stable, he is finally garnering the attention that is long overdue. He is a master with clay, bringing ceramics into the realm of high-art sculpture (as started by his former instructor Peter Voulkos). His work has evolved wonderfully over the years, from cups and bowls to the slab series, and his current amorphous mounds. His drawings, totally different from the sculpture, are equally enjoyable, in their cartoonish depictions of downtown L.A., with it’s strippers and traffic, or the colorful and desolate landscapes of New Mexico.
He has posted images of a wide range of work on his website: www.kenprice.com
Andy Goldsworthy in France
June 19th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
I found this short video on the Guardian Newspaper website. It is related to an article by Kevin Rushby on Goldsworthy and the art trail in the mountains of Provence that he has been involved with.
See the video here
