Travel: Taipei

This was my second trip to Taipei and it was real honor to be invited by Patrick Sun to experience the historic opening of “Spectrosynthesis” at Taipei MOCA. The exhibition was three years in the making and features a diverse group of Asian contemporary artists around LGBT themes in Asia. Sun’s passion as a collector has included becoming an advocate for the gay community in Asia by supporting many gay artists through his Sunpride Foundation, which in many regions still face systemic oppression and discrimination. MOCA Taipei is the first institution in Asia to acknowledge the contributions of the LGBT community in the art world and how significant they are. Many works in the exhibition were loaned by the Sunpride Foundation Collection. The event included lots of great food, opportunities to connect with artists and collectors from around Asia and a dazzling performance (literally) by Ming Wong and Cheng-Ta Yu. Patrick Sun is an amazing host and generous patron! The beautiful exhibition was curated by Sean C.S. Hu. 

The Marciano Art Foundatio

The Marciano Art Foundation opened this spring. The collection is composed of 1,500 works from 200 plus international contemporary artists and is shown in the newly renovated, monumentous former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, designed Millard Sheets, in Beverly Hills. The first show “Unpacking” was organized by Philipp Kaiser and will be on view for the next year. There are two underlying themes to the show, one that relates to showcase how artists process their creation and the other to emphasize the artists archaeological impulses. 

The most impressive work in mind in the commissioned, large scale installation by Jim Shaw, titled “The Wig.” The installation highlights the artists engagement with social, political and spiritual histories of a diverse America. 

Travel: Brussels

To cap off my month long art adventure in Europe, I went to Brussels primarily to interview art collector Alain Servais for PARNASS art journal. This was only my second trip to Brussels and really enjoyed it. The interview with Servais was a tremendous experience, it is so invigorating to be around someone who is so passionate about art and has an internal drive to keep pushing their own boundaries as a collector. 

In particular I love the fact that he is very present in the public sphere and contributes by giving lots of talks and interviews, as well as writing articles, such as “Art in the Shadow of the Art Market Industrialization.” 

In addition, Servais makes parts of his collection available at the Loft in the northern corner of Brussels. The current exhibition was curated by Dragos Olea from Apparatus 22.

Among many galleries like Clearing that I find impressive, my favorite experience was going to the Wiels Center for Contemporary Art. 

Travel: Venice

I remember attending the Venice Biennale for the first time in 1993. Although I had been there as a tourist in my youth, it was a transformative experience to see so much high caliber art from around the world. This may have subconsciously been what triggered my interest in contemporary art beyond Berlin and NYC. I traveled there with my then grad school professor Arnulf Rainer.  

This year’s biennial in many ways was not particularly revolutionary, however there was so much powerful work to see, particularly walking through the international pavilions is so rewarding even in hot, humid weather! One of the standouts this year was the performance in German pavilion by Faust, Jr., the Austrian pavilion presenting Erwin Wurm (interactive sculpture) and Brigitte Kowanz, as well as the American pavilion artist Mark Bradford. The installation I was most captivated by was the work of Carlos Amorales in the Mexican pavilion.

In addition to the main show of the Biennale and the Arsenale, there were fantastic installations around the city tucked away in various mansions and palaces; Truly breathtaking. And just being in Venice feels like you are in an important place. 

Travel: Vienna

It was really meaningful to spend a long weekend in Vienna with Karlheinz and Agnes Essl, and re-visit the city where I spent much of my childhood. They have known me since I was born and I went on my very first studio visit with them in 1986. They have been mentors, friends and clients, and have really accompanied my life in the art world at every stage. For this I am grateful and so admire how they have dedicated their life to support art in Austria and around the world! This spring they announced that their collection will be on loan to the Albertina for 25 years. The collection will open at the newly renovated Künstlerhaus in 2019. 

Travel: Münster

The Münster Sculpture Projects began in 1977 and is presented every 10 years. It has created as an amazing forum for public sculpture and brings an exciting group of artists together to challenge our notion of art in the public space. The project has been offering a special exhibition experiences throughout its 30 year tenure: Artists develop site-specific works for Münster—sculptures, but also video installations or performances. These projects inscribe themselves in the city’s structural, historical and social contexts, while simultaneously transgressing its boundaries. The artistic explorations are as much concerned with global issues as they are a reflections on the concept of sculpture in relationship to public and private space. The curatorial team consists of free-lance curator Britta Peters of Hamburg, the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur curator of contemporary art, Marianne Wagner, and the exhibition’s artistic director Kasper König. 

One of my favorite works, by Gregor Schneider "N. Schmidt, Pferdegasse 19, 48143 Münster, Deutschland," definitely had the longest wait times to get in! His strange, empty apartment was created on the top floor of the museum, with access from the street only. Light, smells, lack of sound all set the viewer up for a mind altering experience. Entrance was one person at a time.

Pierre Huyghe, After ALife Ahead, dug up the floor of an indoor skating rink was an impressive immersive feet, but failed to convey his ideas with the distraction of peacocks and fish tanks that seemed way overwrought. 

Travel: Berlin

It is great to see how the Berlin art scene has continued to expand and change at an amazingly fast pace over the last two years. This recent trip confirmed that Berlin is definitely one of the most vital cultural axis of Europe, attracting great talent from all over the world, particularly in the visual arts. The Berlin art scene is unique because it attracts a wide range of artists, from emerging to more established artists. 
There are many new galleries that have popped up in various parts of Berlin, as well as many existing ones which have moved to new locations, often to take over large, cavernous spaces like the Blane/Southern gallery. In addition to the large private collections that are generously open to the public, the Boros, Hoffman and Haubrok collections, there are two new spaces that I find really dynamic and engaging, and are similarly funded by private collectors: The Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, which focuses on time based art and the Kindl Center for Contemporary Art, a Kunsthalle that will feature engaging one person and group exhibitions focused on contemporary topics. 

Travel: Kassel

This was my third Documenta experience and by far the most engaging exhibition due to the expansiveness of the project and some great international representations. The show is created every five years and is a monumental undertaking. This year Athens was the partner city and by some accounts the more interesting site of the two locations. I personally found it difficult to find a meaningful thread or a meaningful cohesion between the individual exhibitions. The venues were well curated in terms of the placement of the work, however the juxtapositions of imagery did not make sense to me. There were individual highlights in each exhibition, as well as some interesting solo projects, but the incredible effort that was required to reach peripheral sites did not pay off. The strongest show for me was at the Bellevue, as it seemed to have the most consistent theme throughout…..Arguably the most dominant theme of the Documenta 14 was looking at art through the lens of colonialism. This is an extremely timely, yet unruly theme, and walking through the exhibits I got the sense that the curators are preaching to the choir. It would have been better to exhibit fewer works and drill down into some of the urgent themes affecting the irrational state of the world we are living in.

Travel: Dusseldorf

Julia Stoschek Collection: 

It was such an honor to view the collection in Berlin, the show there is titled “Jaguars and Electric Eels,” as well as the 10 year anniversary show “Generation Loss” at the main collection site in Düsseldorf. The Julia Stoschek Collection is an international private collection of contemporary art with a focus on time-based media art. The collection opened in 2007 and comprises installations, videos, photographs, paintings and sculptures. Each year a different exhibition presents, documents and makes different aspects of the collection available to the public. 
Key areas of focus include presenting an academic analysis of the content of the works, highlighting art-historical references within the collection, and revealing connections between individual works. Expanding the collection, restoration and conservation work are also central to the collection’s ongoing activities. At its location in Düsseldorf, there are two exhibition floors with a total of 2,500 m2 available for its public shows.

Studio Visit: Enrico Isamu Oyama

Enrico Isamu Oyama

"In graffiti culture, a name, composed of stylized letters, represents writer’s alter ego. I remove letter shapes, extract only the flowing line and repeat it to maximize its dynamism. By doing so, I create an abstract motif. Instead of having a new name for my self, I gave a name to the motif: Quick Turn Structure.

What was a name that represented one's alter ego turned into plain visual objects. Lines slash back, spin and interlock. Facet-like surfaces generate three-dimensional depth. Those visual objects create a complex shape through minimal yet spontaneous expansion. Its tightly knit structure multiplies by intrinsic order and grows without hardening up. 

The way QTS generates is not based on a mathematical algorithm nor a random improvisation. Instead, it is based on a methodology that was somatically gained through the experience of numerous practices performed on various media with different scales and materials.

QTS has its own life. Its physical manifestations are channelled into unique art pieces from one specific moment in time. The pieces are called FFIGURATI, a term referring to the word “graffiti” and the Italian expression “figùrati” (literally translated as “figure it out yourself”), numbered in the order of their creation."

Raymond Pettibon at David Zwirner

Raymond Pettibon is on view at  David Zwirner from April 29th- June 24th, 2017.

"The artist's tenth solo show at gallery TH’ EXPLOSIYV SHOYRT T follows his collaborative presentations with Marcel Dzama at the gallery in both London and New York last year.

Pettibon's work embraces a wide spectrum of American high and low culture, from the deviations of marginal youth to art history, sports, religion, politics, sexuality, and literature. Taking their point of departure in the Southern California punk-rock scene of the late 1970s and 1980s and the do-it-yourself aesthetic of album covers, comics, concert flyers, and fanzines that characterized the movement, his drawings have come to occupy their own genre of potent and dynamic artistic commentary.

The exhibition includes drawings and collages—a relatively new introduction within the artist's oeuvre—in Pettibon's characteristic bold style. The title (here rewritten using the artist's personalized spelling) refers to a 1963 book by legendary American football coach Homer Rice, which details his variation on the so-called T-formation, the precursor to most modern offensive formations in the sport. The potent and aggressive associations of the phrase are echoed throughout the works on view, which shrewdly address facets of contemporary American life.

In keeping with Pettibon's practice, most of the works pair image and text, with each informing the other in a circular fashion. Ranging from a few words to a number of paragraphs, the often rhythmic prose reflects the artist's longstanding interest in poetry and philosophy. Quoting freely from sources such as John Ruskin, Walt Whitman, Jacques Derrida, the Bible, and social media, and often adding self-coined expressions, the handwritten words complement Pettibon's bold imagery in adding humor and unexpected layers to the subject matter. Vintage cartoons by artists such as Charles Addams and Peter Arno are a new influence behind some of the works included in the exhibition, presenting an additional narrative component to his motifs. "

Pope. L at Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Pope. L on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash from May 23rd- June 30, 2017. 

"Pope.L began making Proto-Skin Sets and Communication Devices in the 1970s and 1980s while he was a student at Montclair State University in New Jersey and continued working with them throughout his teaching tenure at Bates College in Maine. Using language and writing as a starting point, these works anticipate his ongoing project “Skin Sets,” text-based works that employ language to construct pointed, absurd, and layered messages about the vagaries of color.

The Proto-Skin Sets use found materials like local newspapers, commercial poster boards, and billboard advertisements as a point of departure to examine the possibilities of language. Pope.L interpolates the methods and uses of writing, both visually and literarily. Seeing language as image and image as language, Pope.L uses texture and mark-making to make these definitions concrete. He incorporates organic materials to speak about duration—for example peanut butter, semen, and human hair—in several of the works, something he has done subsequently throughout his practice."

Wordy Advertisement, 1983-2013

Mal Content, 1992

Yet Another Excuse, 1989-2013