Contemporary Ceramics II - The Armory Week

Ceramic sculpture is not a usual suspect at many galleries. However, more than a dozen were spotted at
both art fairs Scope and the Armory Show currently open til this Sunday March 6th. This is the random
collection of them. Takashi Hinoda's figurative work and Michael Lucero in the back at Dean Project, Scope.


SunKoo Yuh, one of my most favorite artists working in clay!! At Mindy Solomon, Scope.


Li Lihong's McDonald's golden arch with a Wesselman painting on the wall.


Veteran... Betty Woodman.


Rebecca Warren. Ok..


Huge Oreo cookie by Robert Arneson. If you are a collector of ceramic art, Arneson is a must piece. This gallery
had a GREAT piece (not pictured here sorry).


Elif Uras vase at Galerist from Turkey, Armory.


Arlene Shechet paired with a painting by Kerry James Marshall at Jack Shainman, Armory.


Jonathan Meese!! At Bortolami New York, the Armory.


By the way, these are not ceramics but a bronze sculpture and a painting by Jonathan Meese at another gallery in the Armory. They are priced $200,000 for the sculpture and $105,000 for the painting. His sculpture is simply a die over no mater
what the medium is..

Trip of Sloth - Rotterdam

My friends kindly invited me over to their home in Rotterdam during the holidays. It was a wonderul trip
not to do too much, just browsing around locally. The town of Rotterdam looks interesting, full of Dutch bikes, some snow piled up, more modern architecture.. In the middle of the shopping area, the Paul McCarthy's Santa Claus with a Buttplug was welcoming the holiday hangouts. It was a pleasant surprise for me to see it again after my last EU trip. He had been standing in front of the Basel art fair buliding 3 years ago.


The temporary? bakery behind the black santa was selling donuts and pastries. I tried both, the donut was kinda chewy.



Boijmans van Beuningen was a pretty cool museum. The museum collection goes from the Middle Age to contemporary,
featuring lots of design stuff (furtniture, decorative arts, etc.) The self-coat check at the entrance was stunning,
it's like a forest of hundreds of clothes hangers hovering over the ceiling. We pull the string when we pick up our own coats.
Leaving your $$$$$ far coat wouldn't be highly recommended though..





They had a special exhibit of the Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius. Again, I had another unexpected re-encouter
with something I had seen in the the last EU trip: Adorable porcelain animals on the dish from Munich! I had only noted it was by Nymphenburg back then but it was actually the collaboration with Jongerius.




Rotterdam must be A CALL from above I felt..when I found out a solo show of Cosima von Bonin going on at Witte de With.
She is one of my favorite artists since Documenta 12 (see my past blog). The exhibition "Far Niente" literally addressed the
sweetness of Doing Nothing featuring her signature human size stuffed doll sculptures and played subtle music that was mixture of different sounds, from techno to voodoo all at once. Underneath the sound system, the big white chick on the pink bomb vomits. I loved it. There will be another solo show of hers at NY's Friedrich Petzel from March 31st.



Witte de With had a little reading floor with their publications all installed on the wall. They somehow made the back covers
magnetic so they can stick to another magnet behind the wall. Neat.


The day time in Rotterdam was extremely short in December-January. The sun was out only from 10am to 4pm as max so nothing much I could do. I rather enjoyed the lazy itinerary by visiting other cities Delft, Amsterdam and Brussels after Rotterdam..

Paul McCarthy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCarthy
Boijmans van Beuningen www.boijmans.nl/en/
Hella Jongerius http://www.jongeriuslab.com/
Witte de With www.wdw.nl/
Cosima von Bonin at Documenta 12 http://www.documenta.de/uebersichtsdetails.html?L=1&gk=C&level=&knr=2
Cosima von Bonin at Friedrich Petzel www.petzel.com/artists/cosima-von-bonin/

Contemporary Ceramics I

Ceramic is interesting stuff. It is usually considered as craft, something utilitarian (hey it's true that it was invented & develped as containers of water, food and crops since the stone age) or decorative object but actually many ancient-period figurines are made of clay/dirt - that are also the origin of sculpture. Fastforwarding all the directions how ceramic came along through its long history around the globe, here are some very limited examples I've seen here New York. This is a vase by Yoshitomo Nara, made in this year 2010, "Born to Lose".. Very Nara-san taste, cute yet rebellious. Does it also look like some musical instument?
It is on view at his retrospective at Asia Society through January 2 2011:
http://sites.asiasociety.org/yoshitomonara/

As of today, Ken Price is the biggest, living ceramic artist in terms of the market value and popularity, perhaps. This is from his recent solo show at Matthew Marks this spring. The surface of his sculpture is just magical, absolutely stunning under
natural sunlight. No doubt, he is a LA artist:
http://www.matthewmarks.com/exhibitions/2010-02-06_ken-price/

One of the rookie ceramic artists is Klara Kristalova, I believe! Yes her work is eerie and in fact we won't forget once we see it.
This masked, seated girl sculpture (+ drawings on the wall too) was exhibited at a booth of the gallery Magnus Karlsson from her native country Sweden. Lehmann Maupin will hold her solo exhibition in Winter 2011.
Here is the artist's website: http://www.kristalova.se/

French conceptual artist Daniel Buren also does something in ceramic, with his signature stripes. The show is just open
at Friedman & Vallois in UES. If you like something minimal abstract..go see it and maybe you wanna take one home with you?
http://www.artinfo.com/galleryguide/18876/5436/friedman-vallois-new-york/visit/

This is an example of coupling ceramic with something else at a contemporary art gallery.
The exhibition "Sèvres and Savage" is up in the back room of the new location of Schroeder Romero & Shredder in Chelsea.
It is a curated show with typical 19th century porcelain ware and figurines by the mega French porcelain kingdom Sèvres's craftmanship and black and white photographs of statues by the American photographer Naomi Savage. On view through Nov 13:
http://srandsgallery.tumblr.com/

20 Hours in Boston

As for me, feel like it's time to come back seeing art. Boston was a calling to me
this time so I headed out after my work. This is the soothing view of Boston bay area from Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston. Can you see a little red sculpture by Roni Horn far left?


I started at 10am pretty sharp. My first stop was Museums of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston.
A nice size, neat museum with good collections, especially Asian Art.
This is the wall installation by Jim Lambie. Talking 30 minutes on the phone about my possible blood donation plan in front of it. Kinda surreal moments..
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=5382


This is my fetish..Nymphenburg porcelain. I'm in mad love with the super porcelain sculpture made in Munich since I visited their museum there. I think that Nymphenburg is the most exquiste, dynamic, sensually arousing work in porcelain clay I've ever seen & touched. MFA has the colletion of German rococo porcelains. Yum!
http://www.nymphenburg.com/us/nymphenburg/


They also have a small exhibition of Japanese prints featuring tattooed people in Edo period. Tattoo had been considered as remarks for the criminals but it became part of pop culture in the 19th century Japan. These Japanese amazones are hot.
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=9941


Moving to ICA Boston in South End waterfront, there was another exhibition of tattoo by a Mexican artist Dr. Lakra. He picks vintage photos, posters, prints, etc. and draws his tattoo designs on the surface of the original images. Politically charged yet funny. I was sucker buying his fake tattoo stickers for myself.
http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/lakra/


Boston is not like New York City...NEVER ASSUME WE CAN WALK BLOCKS. It's a small city but they are located apart. Use T, their public transportation system.
This is the partially-underground bus I took. By the way, I didn't see too many bicyclists here like NYC.



There is a bunch of contemporary art galleries at 450 Harrison Avenue.
It is about 10+ minutes walk from Back Bay station.


I liked Samson Projects.
http://www.samsonprojects.com/


Going a little up to the North, getting off at Charles/MGH, I arrived the final destination, Beacon Hill. Boston's one of historic sites, quaint. About
10 stores down on the street, there is Keiko Gallery specializing contemporary craft from Japan. Great to find one-of-kind gifts!


Beacon Hill Chocolates concluded my Boston trip. Besides of their large collection of
chocolates, their keepsake boxes really drive me nuts..just too cute and too irresistable. They handmade these boxes from vintage postcard and picture book images.


This is what I got..plus I purchased three more boxes. This overdue trip ended fairly sweet for sure.
www.beaconhillchocolates.com

Happy Holidays Happy Paws

During the Christmas week, I joined as a volunteer dog walker at animal shelters in New York.
Day 1 was at Animal Care & Control in East Harlem. There are cats and dogs in separated rooms and
they are placed in individual cages. At this location, dog walkers are paired up for one dog.
As soon as we checked in, we were given plastic bags to pick up doggies waste and some instructions(never
unleash, do not let dogs pick anything up from the street, etc.).
Most of the dogs were so anticipating to get fresh air. Chanton(above), 8 months old boy, was one of them.


He was overjoyed all around and jumping over anyone he saw! We wished we could have spent much more time for them but due to a lack of volunteers (experienced dog walkers), we only walked about 10 to 15 minutes per dog..







Day 2 I went to Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC) in Williamsburg. It was a surprise for me to know that there
is an animal shelter in such highly sought after real estate development area. They have more variety of dogs..in size & age.

They let us take one dog out per walker so it allows us to have like 45-50 minutes for each walk. It is definitely much better but the evening I joined was freezing cold so I wasn't sure every dog was actually willing to walk that long.

My first dog Lady, right,
10 months old girl was enjoying but eventually started shivering from the cold and rain.. Sorry..
She is a very good, friendly girl.



My second walk was with Tess, 7 years old Terrier and Poodle sort mix (my guess). She is fluffy cute but had an attitude.
She didn't want to walk especially in dark areas so kept barking until I held her up in my arms. She probably only
walked some blocks on Bedford Ave. She was sitting on my lap all the time otherwise..


These shelters are temporary houses until these animals find new homes. We can adapt them as our family members.
For the adaption requirements, check out their websites below. Of course, you can also join dogwalking before you make a
decision or just come out to have a good time with these fun loving hairy folks!

Animal Care & Control of New York City, E110th St between 1st & 2nd Aves.
www.nycacc.org
Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC), Wythe Ave & N1st St.
www.barcshelter.org

Upcoming Exhibit: HAPPY HOUR!!

Holiday Group Show @ISE Cultural Foundation Front Space 555 B'way 1st Flr NYC
Reception on Friday December 4th 6-8pm.
Hope to see you there..!!



Image: Takenori Fukaumi, Small Wishes, 2009, Acrylic on canvas (framed), 12.5"x11"

Another thank you note

Thanks guys for celebrating my XXth birthday...Yes, I am getting younger & smaller! (me in the center)