Fan Jing Exhibition @ HdM Gallery, Beijing - "Fall to the Mortal World" Curated by Crystal Yao

Fan Jing

Fall to the Mortal World

HdM Gallery, Beijing

13 September - 25 October 2025

HdM GALLERY presents a solo exhibition by artist FAN JING. The exhibition features over ten of the artist’s paintings completed in the past two years.

 

This exhibition continues and further develops the themes of Fan Jing’s 2023 solo show: Fan Jing - As You Like It . As the title “Fall to the Mortal World”suggests, Fan Jing constructs scenes that appear to draw from mythological narratives, yet she romanticizes the most mundane, worldly “raw materials” and grafts them onto myth-inspired races. Through tensions filled with violence, conflict, and provocation, she pulls the “divine” down from its pedestal and creates a fallen paradise of the absurd.

 

Compared to her works of previous stage, Fan Jing has amplified the intentional sense of humor present in earlier stages. The conflicts and violence are now more direct; the figures take up a larger portion of the canvas, and the dynamics between them have become more complex and expansive. While female figures remain central to her work, their identities are more ambiguous than before—no longer clearly identifiable as the Young Pioneers, ballerinas, or housewives frequently seen in her earlier paintings. These monumental, sculptural "giants" heighten the visual tension with sharply pointed breasts, large and muscular limbs, and insect-like wings that seem to sprout from their bodies. The exaggerated sexual features are not eroticized but instead suggest aggression. Hybrid creatures—such as centaur-like women or butterfly ladies—appear on the scene, affirming the metamorphosis resulting from intense desires while intensifying the theatricality of the compositions.

 

Fan Jing’s strong technical foundation underpins her classical approach. She skillfully uses stage-like lighting to produce dramatic contrasts between light and shadow. In her current works, the use of highly saturated colors has been further reduced. Instead, detailed rendering and subtle transitions of light and shadow enhance the sense of volume in the painted subjects. These techniques contribute to the dramatic tension and sense of pressure within the compositions. A precarious sense of equilibrium also adds unease. In the work “Test Flight”, for example, the composition is visually balanced on both the vertical and horizontal axes, yet the entire weight of the central figure is precariously supported by only two pointed breasts—prompting the viewer to question the very nature of that stability. Similar balancing acts appear in other works as well. What is more daring is the way Fan Jing places exaggerated human poses into intense scenarios while deliberately positioning private body parts at the visual center of the composition—as seen in works like “Mother and Son” and “No-Fly Zone”. This marks an escalation from her earlier implicit provocations regarding the disciplining of the female body. Here, challenges to sexuality and identity are laid bare. Her attention to dislocation and disorder reflects a female gaze that observes and testifies to the absurdity of reality.

 

In “Fall to the Mortal World”, Fan Jing employs a subversive humor in portraying violent scenes, provoking open-ended interpretation through entanglement and confrontation.

 

Artist Fan Jing

 

Born in Beijing in 1983, Fan Jing graduated from Capital Normal University’s School of Fine Arts, majoring in oil painting. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Her work predominantly centers on the human figure and consistently explores the confrontation, conflict, and balance between opposing forces—both in content and form. Her paintings have been exhibited in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, and Singapore, and are collected by important private collectors and foundations.

 

Curator Crystal Yao

 

Dr. Crystal Yao studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (MA Art History) and Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University (PhD Modern Literature). She now lives in Beijing and works as an independent scholar and curator. She focuses on History of Material Culture and Media Studies, tends to work with artists from different intellectual backgrounds, and looks forward to fostering a new sensual experience that connects and creatively transforms classical and early modern Chinese cultural resources in a global context.

HDM GALLERY - BEIJING

798 East Road, 798 Art District, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing

hdmgallery.com

Tajammul @ XVA Gallery, Dubai - An exhibition that capture the evolving art landscape in the Middle East

Tajammul

A Summer Show

XVA Gallery, Dubai

July 1 - September 11, 2025

XVA Gallery presents 'Tajammul', a group exhibition bringing together sixteen artists that capture the aesthetics of the evolving art landscape in the contemporary Middle East.

Exhibited Artist:

Basil Alkazzi

B. 1938. Basil Alkazzi is a Kuwait-born British visual artist, of Saudi Arabian-Kuwaiti heritage. His passion for art began in early childhood, he attended the Central School of Art in London (now Central Saint Martins, a constituent college of the University of the Arts London). In 1986, he established the Basil Alkazzi Scholarship at the Royal College of Art in London; and a year later in 1987, established the Basil H. Alkazzi Award for young and emerging American painters. Through the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Alkazzi established in 2010 two biennial awards.

Hussein Al-Mohasen

B. 1971. Visual artist Hussein Al-Mohasen has been active in the art world in the Gulf region since his first appearance in 1999 at the Al-Janadriya Festival in his native Saudi Arabia, since then he has since then occupied a place alongside the pioneering Saudi artists. Behind the obvious simplicity of his works lurks a decades-long journey shaped by poetry from the Arab world and the complex intersections between modern spaces and personal freedoms. Al Mohasen’s work is visually global and overcomes regional paradigms, presenting the contemporary Arab experience after the fashion of the poetry and music that inspired him: In the end, we all speak the same language. Hussein Al Mohasen’s work has been exhibited all over the Middle East since 1999.

Charlotte de Bekker

Charlotte de Bekker is an award-winning filmmaker and artist based in the Netherlands. She spent the majority of her childhood in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, going on to study both Film and Philosophy at NYU Abu Dhabi. Charlotte uses what she has learnt from her basis of being a filmmaker in the science, education and documentary fields, and ties this in with themes of futurism, nature, and folklore.

Debjani Bhardwaj

Debjani Bhardwaj was born in Kolkata, India and completed her Masters in Business Management at Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi , India . She started her career as a financial analyst in New Delhi. She later moved into the field of art in the year 2007 and completed MA Fine Arts at the Open College of the Arts, UK. She is a multidisciplinary artist and expresses herself through sculpture (ceramics, paper), illustration, papercuts and printmaking. She has illustrated two children’ s books “World Tales “, a book of folk tales written by the students of Dubai International Academy (2009 ) and “A Magic Place” , a book of short stories used by middle school children in India (2010).

CC (Alireza Asbahi)

Born in 1969 in Tehran, CC’s artistic journey is a fascinating blend of personal experiences and cultural influences. At a young age, CC had to take the responsibility of being the head of his family, which shaped his outlook on life and his creative pursuits. It was during his time working at a clothing manufacturing company that he discovered his passion for art. Drawing inspiration from his father, who was a tailor, CC began experimenting with collaging and layering techniques, using an old sewing machine as his tool to craft intricate pieces. CC’s art is a reflection of his deep connection to Iranian history and culture, with a particular focus on exploring the aesthetics and symbolism of traditional iconography, such as the Lion and the Sun. His works exude a raw and powerful energy, blending patterns and colors in a way that is both understated and impactful. With a distinct and recognizable style, CC has established himself in the art world. His ability to breathe new life into ancient forms while preserving their timeless beauty is a testament to his skill and unwavering dedication to his craft.

Imran Channa

B. 1981. Imran Channa is a Pakistani visual artist. Channa’s primary interest is in historical documentation and how that documentation creates narratives, information and misinformation. He finds that historical narratives and the documents that create or support them are limited in scope and complexity. He uses drawing, moving image, installation and digital technology as means to re-examine historical documents and their influence, so inviting audiences to contemplate the contradictions of how we record and understand history.

Elizabeth Dorazio

The artist was born and raised in Araguari, deep in the Brazilian hinterland. Currently residing in Dubai, she works between Brazil and the UAE. Her practice draws on the visual cultures and popular techniques of both “homes”. Dorazio studied Visual Arts at the Guignard University of Art (Fundação Escola Guignard) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, later specializing in Ancient Italian Art Techniques at the Institute for Art and Restoration (Istituto per L’Arte e il Ristauro), Florence, Italy, and finally, in Germany at the Abendschule, Staedelschule. She studied art history under Rodrigo Naves, one of Brazil’s foremost art critics and scholars. Dorazio’s practice centers on mixed-media works and installations. To skim through her myriad bodies of works is to glimpse a fascination with instability, shifting surfaces, the cosmic, the organic, the cellular, and skin. While she remains faithful to a certain technical classicism (drawing, etching, the use of egg tempera), she also disrupts through material (x-ray fragments, chair caning) and scale. Upstream, her works are process-driven; on reception, they seem urgent and interactive. The artist has exercised her skills as a curator in the exhibitions Existenzielle Korrespondenzen (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo, 2016), Blue Connection (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo/Sorocaba, 2010-11) and Schweizer 9 (Frankfurt am Main, 2008).

Oussama Garti

Born in Rabat, he is a Moroccan architectural designer and artist trained at the Architectural Association in London. Fascinated by the infinite amount of similarities between macro and micro elements around him, Garti explores the idea of perception and works with an extensive research to produce his work. His environment and observations fuel his creative process. He also uses numerous tools to explore remote locations and builds a digital library of natural textures in different scales. He magnifies “moments” and celebrates their complexity on his canvas. With his immersive work, Oussama Garti takes us on a journey full of poetry and lyricism. Oussama is also the co-founder of INTERVAL, a non-profit cultural initiative that aims to widen access to art, invite different actors to debate around a range of topics, and support projects with high social impact in the MENA region.

Mahmoud Hamadani

B. 1958 Iran, lives in New York. Mahmoud Hamadani’s works have been shown at The British Museum, The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, as well as numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, London, Dubai, Lausanne, Beirut and Hong Kong. He is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The British Museum. He is a recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. Hamadani earned a BA in Mathematics from State University of New York and a Masters degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

David Howarth

Associate Dean and Associate Professor in Graphic Design at the College of Arts & Creative Enterprises – Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. David earned an MA in Communication Design from the University of Salford, England. David is currently working on a Typography project connected to Land Art, inspired by the ecology of Sir Banyas Island.

Richard Ketley

B. 1964, Johannesburg, South Africa. Richard has painted since a young age and held his first solo exhibition while in school at Hyde Park High School, Johannesburg. During his early years he exhibited at Artist in the Sun, at the Sandton Gallery, Johannesburg, and also participated in an exhibition at the National Galley in Kampala, Uganda. Today Richard works principally in charcoal, acrylic and oil, and seeks to develop images that are drawn from life but extend the viewer’s imagination.

Behdad Lahooti

B.1976. Behdad Lahooti is an Iranian sculptor and an active member of the association of Iranian sculptors. He has years of experiences as director and general secretary of Tehran Sculpture Biennial, national Sculpture Expositions, and other sculpture-related events under his belt while cooperating with various Iranian art galleries, such as Aaran Art gallery and Hedayat Art Gallery as an artist and has had several solo and group exhibitions so far. He has experienced with a wide variety of materials over his long years of activity as a sculptor. Although his skill in working with varying kinds of metals has been particularly appreciated, he frequently uses wood, plaster, resin, ceramic, fabric, and many others in his creative process. New materials and techniques are always welcomed in Lahooti’s pieces and his art is characterized by implementing modern techs and processes. Distinctive and varied periods can be seen in the works of this prolific artist, distinguishable for one another in terms of forms and manners of dealing with subject matters. Nonetheless, social issues remain the key theme in his works and events in the world and Middle-East, wars, and news exert a big impact on him. Lahooti’s work has been well received by art enthusiasts dues their aesthetic qualities, both formal and visual, as well as their skillful construction. Although his works fascinate viewers by their sheer beauty at first sight, they provoke thought in all of them too.

Colleen Quigley

Colleen Quigley is a Japanese-American visual artist based in Tucson, Arizona. Her practice encompasses a broad range of media including sculpture, installation, painting, encaustic, and digital fabrication. Colleen Quigley’s research interests include postmodern strategies of making in relation to themes of materiality, perception, memory and place, and the transcultural flow of objects. Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Japan, Singapore, the United States, and the U.A.E.

Tor Seidel

Tor Seidel is a German artist, curator, and lecturer with extensive experience teaching art at universities, as well as in the gallery and exhibition sectors.

Moussa Tiba

B. 1939 D. 2014. Moussa Tiba studied at the Beirut Fine Arts Institute and later pursued further education in London, Rome, and other regions, exploring various artistic mediums. His style transitioned from figuration to abstraction in the 1970s, with watercolor becoming central to his work. Tiba’s art reflects a fusion of Western and Eastern influences, focusing on themes of creation, peace, and the regeneration of life. Tiba’s work has been exhibited internationally in Lebanon, France, Germany, Norway, Egypt, Kuwait, and Brazil. His pieces are held in major collections, including the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and UNESCO in Beirut. His family home in Qana has been converted into a museum dedicated to his art and also displays works by other prominent artists.

Morteza Zahedi

Born in 1978, Rasht, Iran and lives in Tehran. He started his artistic career at the age of 15, working as a professional graphic designer, children’s book illustrator, painter and sculptor. As of 2011, he is also an outsider art collector, curator, and gallerist.

XVA GALLERY

Al Fahidi Neighborhood, Bur Dubai, Dubai, UAE

www.xvagallery.com

Troy Passey @ Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole - Take This Longing

Troy Passey: Take This Longing

Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole

October 27 - December 3, 2023

TROY PASSEY 

Remember, 2022 

Graphite and acrylic on Bristol Vellum, 24 x 19 inches

© Troy Passey, courtesy of Tayloe Piggott Gallery

TROY PASSEY 

Take This Longing From My Tongue - Leonard Cohen II, 2019 

Ink, ink wash, and acrylic on Neutech 25% cotton paper, 35 x 23 inches

© Troy Passey, courtesy of Tayloe Piggott Gallery

TROY PASSEY 

Beautawful

Neon, metal support, 9 ½ x 22 x 5 ½ inches

© Troy Passey, courtesy of Tayloe Piggott Gallery

TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY presents Take This Longing, an exhibition of works by Boise-based artist TROY PASSEY.

Troy Passey is an interdisciplinary artist who merges idea and image in his text-based visual art. Take This Longing borrows its title from a Leonard Cohen song of the same name, and presents a selection of works on paper and neon light sculpture. These conceptual works are created through thoughtful, minimalist, and elemental compositions that utilize words as a visual–in addition to a written–language. In Troy Passey’s art, words operate in many ways; some become figurative, emerging as horizon lines or objects themselves, while others playfully name, or intuitively explain and narrate the objects drawn by Troy Passey.

Troy Passey grew up on a farm outside of Paris, Idaho, and was avid reader never without a pen or paper in his pocket. In these early years, he religiously jotted down quotes and ideas, ever-gathering what would later become his primary medium. Troy Passey always wanted to be a writer, but “would never call [himself] a writer because it was way too precious.” While studying English in college, Troy Passey also delved into art history and, later, when writing his master’s thesis on Andy Warhol, he came across words by Warhol which shifted the course of his career. “He said something that changed my life; he said, ‘People are often better at their second love than they are at their first love because you’re way too close to your first love, but, with your second love, you have some distance,’ so I changed my paradigm and called myself an artist.” His childhood habit of collecting texts, thoughts and words, and his appreciation of poetry and prose, unintentionally had been the consummate preparation for what would become his life’s work. Even today, this habit of second nature has become an integral part of Troy Passey’s artistic practice, as he continues to record the words and phrases that he encounters on a daily basis.

Although most often based on the scholarship of past writers, Troy Passey’s works are as physical and emotional as they are cerebral. A self-proclaimed “anti-calligrapher”, Troy Passey does not expect viewers to read the entirety of words he uses to build his works (which are often repetitions marked with an intensity that approaches asemic writing); rather, he hopes the works as a whole speak to people on an intuitive, elemental level, and considers the titles of the works to be the real texts to be read, crediting writers ranging from Emily Dickinson to Leonard Cohen, from Rainer Maria Rilke to Robert Frost, to The Cure. When speaking of his own work and life, Troy Passey yet turns to the words of others. “My work is not autobiographical, rather it is more reportage of the human condition. It’s kind of weird; the neon work is some of my most personal work in a way. Like “Beautawful” is almost like a Rosetta Stone for me. Joni Mitchell said, ‘Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release,’ and I hope that my art is about that. That the world is really amazing and beautiful, but it can be awful too. You have to accept both.”

Today, Troy Passey lives, teaches, and works in Boise, Idaho. He attended Utah State University as an English major, with a minor in art history. In 1997, he graduated from Boise State University where he received master's in English. Troy Passey's art has been included in four Idaho Triennials. He was a recipient of an Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship, as well as an inaugural Artist in Residence, at the James Castle House in Boise, ID. Troy Passey has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the American West, including at the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY; Boise Contemporary Theater, Boise, ID; Herrett Center, Twin Falls, ID; Eagle Performing Arts Center, Eagle, ID; Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID; and the Ogle Gallery, Portland, OR. His work has also been shown in group shows in Jackson Hole, Los Angeles, Boise, Ketchum, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, and Miami, among other locations. In 2023, Troy Passey completed Is Where the Angels Are, four site-specific memorials to those lost during Covid-19 at St Alphonsus Medical Centers located in Boise, ID; Nampa, ID; Ontario, OR; and Baker City, OR. He also completed KITH & KIN, a collection of sculptures at the James Castle House.

TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY

62 South Glenwood Street, Jackson Hole,WY 83001

www.tayloepiggottgallery.com

Fan Jing @ HdM Gallery, Beijing - "As You Like It" Exhibition

Fan Jing - As You Like It

HdM Gallery, Beijing

23 September - 28 October 2023

The name of the exhibition is taken from Shakespeare's classic comedy "As You Like It", but the artist did not write a fairy tale with a perfect ending like the play. On the contrary, in the whole exhibition, she created countless stories that happened after the "happy ending" viewed through one "closed" space after another, each of them appropriating classic stories in traditional stage plays and classical paintings. Besides the story itself, we can't ignore the artist's solid painting foundation and tribute to classical painting. The relationship among the picture’s structure, the picture expression and the title of the work forms a stable combination, which makes the artist form his own "trinity" when facing a new kind of figurative painting.

 

The strong contrast between light and shade in the picture has not only become a way to interpret Fan Jing's recent works but also helped the works to deepen their symbolic meaning, creating a very tense dramatic atmosphere and a strong emotional tension. The picture structure is crossed by "marked diagonal lines" that seem to be dynamic, but which in fact lend the pictures a balance and a quivering stability. The highly participative and dramatic composition arrangement not only constitutes a closed and stable space but also enhances the evocative power of the characters. Subtle tone changes also highlight very subtle texture differences between objects; an "image" with a sense of volume appears in the rigorous framework in the center of the stage as a combination filled with antagonism, giving a dramatic interpretation of a busy life full of spiritualism. In “Happy Ending”, a fuzzy space and soft light fill the whole picture, and the boundary between light and shadow becomes blurred until both blend. The wrestling fairies in “The Battle of the Fairies” are in the center of the whole drama, and they are also the focus of the picture. The chiaroscuro method makes the audience as close as possible to the space where the event takes place, and the reduction of apparent horizon strengthens this sense of participation again, making people immerse themselves in the image. However, in “Young Hero”, the characters are suddenly focused by light rising from a dark background, suggesting that a fierce drama has just ended and this naturally forms a set of intertextualities with “The Battle of the Fairies”. In “Death of the Swan” and “The Battle of the Fairies”, a very real sense of strength emerges from the tight and elastic muscles of the characters, and this tension is not only reflected in their bodies but also in their emotions. In “Death of the Swan”, a harsh light is shined from the top down, and the diagonal line from top to bottom cuts through the initially calm picture, which reminds people of the secret visual experience brought by “The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa”. The plump and round body with the strong light source directly caters to most men's imagination and stereotype of the female image, and the ballerina performs within narrow confines and in an atmosphere of passive submission, which is full of aggression and provocation. The expression of "aggression" of the body also appears in works such as “Appropriate Education”, “Young Hero”, “Group Exercise”, “Psalm”, “Housewife”, etc. Women's bodies are no longer soft, and the inverted clothing structure also loses the proper function of clothing. The hard chest and the human body distorted by strenuous exercise make different social roles (female students, ballerinas, maids, and housewives) in the picture have a profound and implicit relationship between art and human identity. This misplaced identity image also implies a tangled relationship between visual control and power structure. In this exhibition, Fan Jing's works combine dramatic plots with her exploration of fiction and fantasy, which is full of infinite possibilities for interpretation.

 

FAN JING, born in Beijing in 1983, graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts of Capital Normal University. She studied under Duan Jianwei and now lives and works in Beijing. Fan Jing's works often focus on depicting characters, and her works always focus on the confrontation, conflict, and balance between "force" and "tension" in terms of picture content and picture form. Her works have been exhibited in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, Singapore, and other places, and have been collected by important private collectors and foundations.

HDM GALLERY - BEIJING

798 East Road, 798 Art District, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing

hdmgallery.com

Updated Post 05.10.2025

Mika Taanila @ Galerie Anhava, Helsinki - Film without Film

Mika Taanila: Film without Film 

Galerie Anhava, Helsinki 

25 November - 19 December 2021 

Film without Film is Mika Taanila’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Anhava. Using the moving image in versatile ways, Taanila’s work often focuses on the complex relationship between technology and the human mind. It asks: What is cinema?

Mika Taanila’s art is characterised by the kind of thought experiments typical of conceptual art, subtle humour, and a longing for aesthetics that eschews rigid proceduralism.

The conceptual premises and manner of production of the works in the exhibition create a kind of narrative in which the object of humour is hard to define unambiguously. A case in point are the videos “Failed Emptiness. Time” and “Failed Emptiness. Place”. Co-created with author Harry Salmenniemi, the works arise from speculations about how to depict as little as possible on film or, preferably, nothing. Dispensing with camera footage altogether, the first video consists exclusively of elements such as “scene transition effects” produced with video editing software, although the film dispenses with scenes as well. The other work does contain film footage, but it is recorded with a heat camera that, instead of light, distinguishes the temperatures of objects in the shot. Reality takes on a new cast, becoming an eerie surface on which objects shine and glow in unexpected ways.

In “Interiors” and “Exteriors”, Mika Taanila abandons camera and computer technology entirely. The “Interior” series consists of black and white photograms created in a darkroom by moving various filmmaking equipment (film camera, projector parts, DVD player, digital set-top box, film cutter) over photographic paper. The shadow images can be seen as portraits of impossibilities in which the subjects – moving image equipment – appear to move within their frozen portraits, which were created without any such equipment at all. The “Exterior” series consist of lumen prints made by placing movie camera lenses on photographic paper which was then left outdoors for hours to be exposed. During the exposure, the image appears slowly on the paper in colour, without any need of development. Earth’s rotation and changes in weather leave their mark on the images.

The exhibition also includes prepared film books from the “Film Reader” collage series, as well as a new kinetic installation based on found film stills, “A Reflection of Fear.”

Mika Taanila (b. 1965) works with documentary film, experimental film and visual art. He has held solo exhibitions at Padiglione de l’Esprit Nouveau in Bologna (2020), STUK House for Dance, Image and Sound in Leuven (2018), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (2013–14), Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2013) and TENT Rotterdam (2013). Taanila’s works have been presented at numerous international film festivals and major exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (Nordic Pavilion, 2017), Aichi Triennale (2013), documenta (2012), Shanghai Biennale (2006), Berlin Biennale (2004), Manifesta (2002) and Istanbul Biennale (2001). He has received numerous awards, both in Finland and internationally. Mika Taanila was awarded the prestigious Ars Fennica prize in 2015.

GALERIE ANHAVA

Fredrikinkatu 43, 00120 Helsinki

www.anhava.com

_______________

James Welling @ David Zwirner Gallery, Hong Kong - Metamorphosis

James Welling: Metamorphosis

David Zwirner, Hong Kong

1 April – 8 May 2021

JAMES WELLING

4776, 2015

© James Welling

Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner

My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms.

—Ovid, Metamorphoses

David Zwirner presents work by the American photographer James Welling, on view across two floors of the gallery’s Hong Kong location. The exhibition will mark the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in Greater China and provides an overview of James Welling’s forty-year career in photography, with key series from the 1980s to the present that highlight his ongoing exploration of abstraction, figuration, color, and process. 

Welling’s first major body of work, Aluminum Foil (1980–1981), is made up of black-and-white close-ups of crumpled aluminum foil. This early work signaled a break with traditional ideas of the medium by shifting attention to constructing images for the camera rather than finding them in the world. The Aluminum Foils initially read as abstractions, but upon further viewing other readings emerge: starry skies, rippling water, summer foliage, geological strata. This tightrope act in which the work hovers between abstraction and representation became one of the hallmarks of Welling’s practice.

Thirty years after Aluminum Foil, Welling began Chemical (2010–), his ongoing series of chemigrams (photographs made in room light with photographic chemicals on black-and-white photo paper). Using different tools to spread liquid and powdered developer across photosensitive material, Welling creates abstractions resembling miniature action paintings. As with the Aluminum Foils, the viewer is presented with an abstraction that lends itself to figurative readings—abstraction on the edge of representation.

James Welling began using color in 2004 for Flowers, a series of photograms (cameraless photographs) that he created until 2017. The first Flowers were made in a color darkroom by layering brightly colored gels above a black-and-white negative of a flower to produce irregular fields of vibrant color. In 2014, James Welling started working with flower imagery on the computer using the red, green, and blue color channels of Photoshop. The work became increasingly psychedelic and several examples of Flowers in the show are among his most intense and vibrant.

As James Welling worked on Flowers, he developed a parallel project, Glass House (2006–2010), photographs of the architect Philip Johnson’s Connecticut home built in 1949. Again, Welling turned to the color filters from the early Flowers, this time holding them up in front of the camera lens. Glass House evolved over four years of visits and encompasses multiple views of The Glass House and the surrounding landscape in all seasons.

In Choreograph (2014–2020), James Welling applied the intense colors of the recent Flowers to superimpose images of landscape, architecture, and modern dance. (Welling studied dance briefly in his early 20s.) For the dance images, he photographed rehearsals and performances of a dozen dance companies, including the LA Dance Project and the Lucinda Childs Dance Company. By compositing these images, Welling produces what could be called “digital collages” where layers of figuration obscure and compete with each other. Bodies, begun in 2018, uses a similar layering technique but emphasizes the body over landscape and architecture. However, in these photographs, we no longer see a modern dancer but rather a god or a mortal from antiquity.  

James Welling continues to picture Greek and Roman sculptures for his most recent series Cento, begun in 2019. After photographing sculptures and objects in dozens of museums around the world, the Cento photographs use a process the artist invented in which he applies oil paint to photographic prints. A cento is a poem made up of lines from other poems. In titling his series Cento, James Welling draws these fragments from antiquity into a new pictorial whole.

JAMES WELLING was born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut. He studied at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh before receiving his BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. The artist has been represented by David Zwirner since 2005, and Metamorphosis marks his ninth solo presentation with the gallery. 

Welling’s work has been the subject of a number of significant survey exhibitions. Most recently, in 2017, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent and the Kunstforum Wien in Vienna co-organized Metamorphosis, a traveling solo show encompassing the artist’s work from over four decades. A major survey, Monograph, was organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio and accompanied by a catalogue published by Aperture in 2013. The exhibition traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. In 2000, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, organized a major survey of his work, which traveled to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Welling’s work was also featured in documenta IX in 1992.

In 2020, Choreograph, a solo exhibition of Welling’s work, was on view at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. Things Beyond Resemblance: James Welling Photographs was hosted in 2015 by the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and presented fifty works from the artist’s Wyeth project. The museum also commissioned the artist to create eight site-specific installations, Gradients, which explore the intersection of photography and sculpture. In 2012, The Mind on Fire at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, England, explored the origin and development of Welling’s abstract photographs from the 1980s. The show traveled to the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver.

Additional solo exhibitions have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago (2014); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2013); Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (2012); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota (2010); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2002); Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2002); Sprengel Museum Hannover (1999); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (1998); and the Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland (1998). In 1990, the artist’s first museum exhibition was presented by Kunsthalle Bern.

In 2014, James Welling was a recipient of the Infinity Award given by the International Center of Photography, New York, and in 2016, he received the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award from Woodbury University, California. From 1995 to 2016, Welling was Professor in the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and since 2012 he has been a Lecturer with the rank of Professor in Visual Arts and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

The artist’s work is held in major museum collections internationally, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; Vancouver Art Gallery; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.

DAVID ZWIRNER

5–6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong

www.davidzwirner.com

Hugo McCloud @ Sean Kelly Gallery, New York - Burdened

Hugo McCloud: Burdened

Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

January 22 – February 27, 2021

HUGO McCLOUD 

Pineapple Express, 2020

Single use plastic mounted on panel 

71 x 61 inches (180.3 x 154.9 cm) 

© Hugo McCloud, Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York

Sean Kelly Gallery presents Burdened, HUGO McCLOUD’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. The works in the exhibition—created over the last nine months whilst Hugo McCloud quarantined at his studio in Mexico—are composed entirely of the ubiquitous, but overlooked material, single use plastic bags. Another distinguishing element of this new body of work is that it marks Hugo McCloud’s first foray into figuration. Occupying all three galleries, this exhibition addresses the human and economic cost of labor worldwide, geopolitics, the environmental impact of single use plastic and Hugo McCloud’s preoccupation with finding beauty in the everyday.

Hugo McCloud is well known for his abstract paintings which utilize materials often omitted from fine art practices – tar paper, scrap metal, solder, and industrial materials – things the artist refers to as “discarded, disregarded and devalued.” Continuing his interest in working with overlooked materials, this new series is meticulously composed using hundreds, even thousands, of small cut-out pieces of single use plastic, collaged to create the compositions. Using plastic bags as the “paint” that comprises his palette, Hugo McCloud carefully constructs the images building layers from varied hues of plastic to achieve the desired result.

Hugo McCloud uses plastic as a metaphor to understand our similarities and differences as human beings; to connect to our environment; and to highlight the negative impact on our shared planet of our carbon footprint. He addresses the economics of labor through the medium of plastic and how it passes through the hands of individuals at every level of society. Through his process of recycling materials in these works, Hugo McCloud questions the politics of down-cycling and its impact upon inequality, migration and the resources available to each of us. Originally drawing inspiration from photographs of people he encountered during his travels, when Covid-19 travel restrictions were put in place Hugo McCloud was forced to pivot and source images from the internet.

Hugo McCloud’s paintings in the main gallery focus on workers performing their daily tasks. His subjects, their gaze concealed or averted, are engaged in labor critical to their survival, whether it be collecting refuse, transporting fruit and other goods, or recycling oil. He states that this new body of work is “about the idea of the person that is burdened in life, trying to survive, or make ends meet. I think in some regards, everybody is burdened in their own way in life.” In the front gallery, Hugo McCloud depicts images referencing the Mediterranean refugee crisis, migrants adrift at sea, attempting to make the perilous journey to another country to escape the unbearable conditions in their homeland—risking their lives in the hope of a better future for them and their families. In the lower gallery, Hugo McCloud exhibits a series of intimate, elegiac images of plants and flowers that he refers to as his “quarantine drawings.” He notes that as the lockdown continued, we were all bombarded with negative news and as our movements were increasingly restricted, it was important for him to “find a moment in each day for something that was in a sense still beautiful and still light.”

In June 2021 Hugo McCloud’s work will be the subject of a major exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Within the past year, his work has been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina. His work is in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.; the North Carolina Museum of Art; the Detroit Institute of the Arts; and The Margulies Collection, Miami. Hugo McCloud has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Arts Club, London and Fondazione 107, in Turin, Italy. He has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York and The Drawing Center, New York, amongst others.

SEAN KELLY GALLERY

475 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

www.skny.com

Frank Stella @ Marianne Boesky Gallery, NYC

Frank Stella: Recent Work
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
April 25 - June 22, 2019

Marianne Boesky Gallery presents an exhibition of recent sculptures by renowned artist FRANK STELLA. Ranging from the monumental to the intimately-scaled, the featured sculptures capture Frank Stella’s ongoing exploration of the spatial relationships between abstract and geometric forms and the ways in which they behave in and engage with physical space. In these newest works, Stella combines interlocking grids with more fluid and organic lines, creating a dynamic interplay between minimalist and gestural visual vocabularies. Frank Stella: Recent Work will be on view across both of the gallery’s Chelsea locations at 509 and 507 W. 24th Street.

Frank Stella’s decades-long career is synonymous with artistic innovation. From his early Black Paintings, which dramatically shifted the dialogues on abstract art, to his use of both the formal qualities of painting and sculpture to produce his Polish Village series in the 1970s, and through to his use of computer modeling and 3D printing, from the 1990s and into the present, Stella has continued to push compositional boundaries. His experimentation with and use of line, color, and form have resulted in strikingly different effects—on the canvas and in three dimensions. Stella’s boundless vision has resulted in a new body of work that freshly engages the grid as well as the star and ribbon motifs that have appeared throughout his oeuvre.

In some works, like Atalanta and Hippomenes (2017), the rigid structure of the grid is broken by the application of large, billowing white forms that seem to weave and expand across the vertical and horizontal planes. Inspired by the ethereal quality of smoke rings—which have long captivated Stella— the abstract form appears weightless despite its grand scale. This sensation is further accentuated by the way the grid is affixed to the wall, giving it a contrasting feel of solidity. In others, such as Leeuwarden II (2017), the fiberglass grid is suspended within a metal frame, with brightly-colored, almost neon, ribbons dramatically swooping in and out of it, imbuing the work with a vivid sense of motion. The juxtaposition of materials, from colored fiberglass to bare steel to PU-foam, adds further texture and depth to the sculptures and contributes to the shifting experience of the work as one changes position and perspective.

The star, which first entered Frank Stella’s visual lexicon in the early 1960s with his Dartmouth Paintings and became increasingly prominent in his work in the 2000s, continues to serve as an important source of inspiration and point of departure. In Jasper's Split Star (2017), Stella produces the form in monumental scale—the sculpture measuring approximately 18 by 20 by 18 feet. The star’s sides, which are in parts gridded, push in and outward, creating an unexpectedly sinuous form and disrupting our expectations of the rectilinear lines of the grid. In sculptures like Nessus and Dejanira (2017), the star becomes part of a larger constellation of grids and organic forms. Named for figures in Greek mythology, the work is a kind of microcosm of the conceptual inquiries and formal themes that have driven Frank Stella’s practice since the late 1950s.

Born in Malden, Massachusetts and based in New York City, FRANK STELLA (b. 1936) has produced an extraordinary body of work over the past six decades. Since his first solo gallery exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1960, Frank Stella has exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. Early in his career, his work was included in a number of significant exhibitions that defined the art in the postwar era, including Sixteen Americans (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1959), Geometric Abstraction (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1962) The Shaped Canvas (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1964-65), Systemic Painting (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1966), Documenta 4 (1968), and Structure of Color (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1971). In 2017, NSU Art Museum, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, organized Frank Stella: Experiment and Change, an exhibition that featured 300 works from across Stella’s 60-year career. His work is held in more than 50 public collections, including in the holdings of some of the most preeminent museums in the U.S. Stella’s most recent work uses digital modeling to explore how subtle changes in scale, texture, color, and material can affect our perception and experience of an object.

MARIANNE BOESKY GALLERY
509 and 507 W. 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
www.marianneboeskygallery.com

Firelei Báez @ James Cohan Gallery, New York

Firelei Báez: Je bâtis a roches mon langage
James Cohan Gallery, New York
April 20 - June 16, 2019

FIRELEI BAEZ

Je bâtis a roches mon langage, 2019

Perforated tarp, printed mesh, artificial

and real plants; two paintings

© Firelei Báez, Courtesy James Cohan, New York

James Cohan presents Je bâtis a roches mon langage, an exhibition of new work by Firelei Báez, at the gallery’s Lower East Side location. This is the artist’s debut solo exhibition at James Cohan.

Dominican-born, New York-based artist Firelei Báez reconfigures visual references drawn from the past to explore new possibilities for the future. Incorporating subject matter from a breadth of diasporic narratives, the artist’s intricate works on paper and canvas, large-scale sculptures, and installations explore the ways in which personal and collective identities are shaped by inherited histories. Firelei Báez incorporates the visual languages of regionally-specific mythology and ritual alongside those of science fiction and fantasy, to envision identities as unfixed, and inherited stories as perpetually-evolving. By rendering spectacular bodies that exist on opposite sides of intersecting boundaries, Firelei Báez carries portraiture into an in-between space where subjectivity is rooted in historical narratives as much as it can likewise become untethered by them.

Acknowledging the reciprocal nature of migration as a non-linear course of movement, Firelei Báez creates sites of connectivity, where overlapping histories and modes of understanding coexist. For Je bâtis a roches mon langage, the artist has created an immersive installation in the main gallery that spreads into the reception area. The space is cocooned in hand-perforated blue tarp—often used for temporary shelter, and thus a symbol of both disaster and refuge—casting light onto material patterned with black diasporic symbols of nurturing and resistance. Overhead is a geo-specific map of the stars as they appeared in the night sky at the onset of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). A successful uprising led by self-liberated enslaved people against the French colonial government in Saint-Domingue, the Haitian Revolution was an early precursor to abolition movements internationally and had an indelible—if often unacknowledged—impact on the ideological and geopolitical landscape of the 19th century world. The installation’s oceanic quality suggests the broader history of black diaspora and the Middle Passage, in relationship to Glissant’s theory of the ocean as a connector and a repository of physical memory.

Facing each other within the tented installation are two imaginative portraits of empowered, black female protagonists. The viewer is positioned in the discursive space between their mutual gaze. The artist’s portrayals draw reference to the Haitian priestesses whose revolutionary contributions are absent from its heroic retellings, and tignons, head-coverings women of color were legally required to wear in 18th century New Orleans. Rendered in spectacular color, their bodies are in flux—always in the process of being made and unmade. For Firelei Báez, painting becomes a means of giving form to memory, evincing the idea that presence is not negated by passing.

With Je bâtis a roches mon langage, Firelei Báez has created a generative space in which the transmission of dominant historical narratives and ideologies can be reexamined, subaltern histories excavated, and new speculative possibilities explored. Throughout the run of the exhibition, the artist will organize readings and programs that break down and expand the white cube of the gallery, inviting others to enrich and activate the space with their own narratives and experiences.

FIRELEI BAEZ (b. 1981, Dominican Republic) received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union’s School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work is the subject of 2019 solo exhibitions at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the Mennello Museum of Art, Orlando, FL. The artist’s monumental outdoor sculpture, 19.604692°N 72.218596°W, is included in En Plein Air, the 2019 High Line Art exhibition. Her current commission for the Modern Window at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, is on view through November. Firelei Báez recently participated in the 2018 Berlin Biennale, and was also featured in biennials Prospect.3: Notes for Now (2014), Bronx Calling: The Second AIM Biennial (2013), and El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files (2011). Her major 2015 solo exhibition Bloodlines was organized by the Pérez Art Museum Miami and travelled to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Firelei Báez is the recipient of many awards: most recently, the United States Artists Fellowship (2019), the College Art Association Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work (2018), the Future Generation Art Prize (2017), the Chiaro Award (2016), and Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors (2011). Her work belongs to the permanent collections of institutions including of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; The Cleveland Clinic Fine Art Collection, Cleveland, OH; Phillip and Tracey Riese Foundation, New York, NY; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; Sindika Dokolo Foundation Collection, Luanda, Angola; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; and the Salomon Foundation for Contemporary Art, Annecy, France.

JAMES COHAN GALLERY
291 Grand St., New York, NY 10002
www.jamescohan.com

Jennifer Packer @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York - Quality of Life

Jennifer Packer: Quality of Life
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
November 29, 2018 - January 19, 2019

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. presents Quality of Life, a solo exhibition of new paintings by JENNIFER PACKER. This is Packer’s second solo show at Sikkema Jenkins. 

Jennifer Packer’s painted figures and still lifes are exceptional for their expressive fields of color, worked tenderly by the artist’s hand. They are images made with the utmost care–for the subject, and for the artist herself.

Jennifer Packer’s subjects are often friends and family, loved ones who serve as an emotive force in her life. Her representations critique the positionality, autonomy and power of the marginalized subject. Her work intends to address the primacy of the gaze within painting as a locus for accountability and representation. In Jennifer Packer’s work, distinct features fade against the color of their environment, creating a protective distance between the direct gaze of the viewer and the subject’s interiority.

The floral still lifes echo the same fragility and tenderness of life expressed in her portraits. Situated within the historical tradition of still life painting, Jennifer Packer’s floral images are concerned chiefly with painting as a language for the transmission of information through touch; a delicate working of the painted medium in response to loss and trauma. Jennifer Packer’s flowers serve as an act of grief, commemoration, and healing.

Born in 1984 in Philadelphia, JENNIFER PACKER received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2012. She was the 2012-2013 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, from 2014-2016. 

Jennifer Packer’s first solo museum show, Tenderheaded, was exhibited at The Renaissance Society, Chicago in September 2017 before traveling to the Rose Museum at Brandeis University in March 2018. The catalogue that accompanied the exhibition includes a conversation between Jennifer Packer and Kerry James Marshall, essays by Jessica Bell Brown and April Freely, a poem by Safiya Sinclair, and an introduction by curator Solveig Øvstebø.

SINKKEMA JENKINS & CO.
530 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
www.sikkemajenkinsco.com

Jennifer Packer @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co., NYC - Breathing Room

Jennifer Packer: Breathing Room
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
December 10, 2015 - January 23, 2016

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. presents, Breathing Room, a solo exhibition of new drawings and paintings by JENNIFER PACKER. 

Rejecting classical representation and formal composition, Jennifer Packer creates expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that suggest a casual intimacy. Jennifer Packer views her works as the result of an authentic encounter and exchange. The models for her portraits—commonly friends or family members—are relaxed and seemingly unaware of the artist’s or viewer’s gaze.

Jennifer Packer’s paintings are rendered in loose line and brush stroke using a limited color palette, often to the extent that her subject merges with or retreats into the background. Suggesting an emotional and psychological depth, her work is enigmatic, avoiding a straightforward reading. “I think about images that resist, that attempt to retain their secrets or maintain their composure, that put you to work,” she explains. “I hope to make works that suggest how dynamic and complex our lives and relationships really are.”

JENNIFER PACKER, born in Philadelphia in 1984, received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from the Yale University School of Art in 2012. In 2012-2013 she was Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and since 2014 has been a Visual Arts Fellow at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Jennifer Packer lives and works in New York.

SINKKEMA JENKINS & CO.
530 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
www.sikkemajenkinsco.com

Matthew Ngui at the National Museum of Singapore - Point of View

Matthew Ngui: Points of View 

National Museum of Singapore 

28 May - 29 June 2008

Matthew Ngui, one of Singapore’s most prominent contemporary visual artists, brings a life-sized cross section view of an Olympic pool right into the National Museum’s gallery. In this presentation of Matthew Ngui: Points of View, 10 of Ngui’s most important works are brought together in a major solo exhibition. With this survey exhibition of key installations and video works alongside specially commissioned pieces, Singaporeans get an overview of the breadth and significance of two decades of his artistic practice.

Organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney, Australia, Matthew Ngui: Points of View is probably the first major touring exhibition of a Singaporean artist organised by an overseas museum. It was shown at MCA from June to August 2007 and at the John Curtin Gallery in Perth from February to March 2008.

"We are proud to champion the work of one of Singapore’s major artists through this collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. We have commissioned Matthew for one of our permanent art installation in the Museum. His work often makes us think about how culture is represented and this is a rich area of exploration that the National Museum is intrigued with," says Lee Chor Lin, Director, National Museum of Singapore.

Matthew Ngui’s work questions the validity of fixed or singular meanings and truths through a signature use of anamorphosis (a fragmented image coming together at a single point). The playful, interactive environments he creates toy with perception and perspective, embracing the shifting point of view as a way of interrogating meaning and identity. Visitors to the museum will get to view seminal installations including works such as Chair (2007), in which what seems an ordinary piece of furniture breaks and scatters, or forms back into a whole depending on the angle it is viewed from.

Matthew Ngui says of the show, "We had to re-look at the whole idea of a retrospective or a survey, and do a little of both. We’ve decided to look at the context in which the previous works have been developed and worked through, but also at the same time to make new works that will cover, in a sense, new ground or make little experiments for larger projects for the future."

Curator: Russell Storer

NMS - NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAPORE

93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897

www.nationalmuseum.sg

Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing at San Jose Museum of Art - A major exhibition surveying the connection between the visual arts and surfing

Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing

San Jose Museum of Art

August 16 – November 2, 2003

Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing is a major exhibition surveying the connection between the visual arts and surfing, will fill the entire second floor of the Museum’s New Wing. Organized by the Orange-County-based Laguna Art Museum, the exhibition has been featured in The New York Times as well as numerous other national publications throughout its tour with stops in Hawaii and Virginia Beach, VA.

For many, the very notion of an “art history of surfing” suggests an oxymoron — how could such a popular past-time have anything to do with serious art? Yet this exhibition sets out to prove otherwise. The catalogue states: “The exhibit is ambitious, covering the history of surfing — in paintings, posters, photographs, film and artifacts – from ancient Peru and Polynesia to the 21st Century. It features artists who surf and surfers who make art, pop icons like Gidget and serious works that struggle with the meaning of American colonialism.”

Surf Culture offers an overview of the fine art, kitsch, myth-making, social commentary, personal expression, technology, and the mass marketing of surfing. Vintage photographs, artifacts, and more than 57 surfboards will also be included. About 20 boards from Northern California collections have been added to the San Jose show. All of the artists presented in this exhibition have achieved prominence in their respective callings: as artists who surf and surfers who make art. Among those who are represented are: Ashley Bickerton, Esteban Boroquez, John McCracken, Jeffrey Vallance, Barry McGee, Russell Crotty, Sandow Birk, Margaret Kilgallen, Raymond Pettibon, Roger Brown, Peter Alexander, Craig Kauffman, Rick Griffin, Kevin Ancell, Ken Price, Billy Al Bengston, and John Van Hamersveld.

The connection between the arts and surfing goes back 3,000 years to Peru, where some of the world’s first historians carved bas-reliefs of surfers. The intersection of surf culture and art today, however, extends far beyond art documenting life. Through more than 100 artworks, Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing explores this phenomenon through the work of a cross-disciplinary group of artists. Art today incorporates graffiti, advertisements and everyday items, and surfing is as much about clothes, attitude, and punk music, as it is about hitting the waves.

Although there have been exhibitions in the past that made the connection between contemporary art and surfing, none of them have been comprehensive, with many historical works and numerous artists — nor have they included the memorabilia associated with surfing. Works in the exhibition reference several centuries of art. Sandow Birk’s recreations of nineteenth-century paintings such as Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze (American 1816-1868) are immediately recognizable as such, though the figures are now surfers oiled in vibrant hues and blunt forms. Kevin Ancell’s hula girls recall the kitschy tiki dolls of the 50s, but they now wield M-16 assault rifles and grenades, symbols of American imperialism. Other artists illustrate the more physical impact of surf-related inventions by using materials like fiberglass — a synthetic that revolutionized the construction of utility boards. Other works suggest a more subtle correlation, such as the meditative tone of Robert Irwin’s discs that mirror the transcendence surfers often feel while immersed in the ocean.

The last 40 years have seen an explosion of surf culture as a lifestyle or commodity. Surfer Magazine, Gidget, and the Beach Boys defined a healthy chunk of pre-hippie culture, and psychedelic posters of the late 60s were heavily influenced by surf-style designer John Van Hammersveld and Zap Comix veteran Rick Griffin. The following decades saw the surfer image plastered on billboards and glossy ads, so that a kid from Kansas who had never seen the beach could cop a surfer style with some Quiksilver shorts and Oakley shades.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 240-page full color book designed by internationally recognized graphics pioneer David Carson, co-published by Gingko Press, with essays by pop writer Deanne Stillman, and anthropologist Ben Finney. Tom Wolfe’s memorable essay “The Pump House Gang” (1968) is also reprinted.

SJMA - SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART

110 South Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113

www.sjmuart.org