Dark comic style portraits by Chinese artist
Wang Yuping – Taoist Priest No.06, 2007, oil painting and acrylic, 190x150cm
Wang Yuping (b.1962, Beijing) is known for his gritty, comic book style portraits of urban life in China. His paintings are playful, feature rough, tough or absurd Beijing characters and seem to spy on life in the inner city as a kind of Wang Shuo of the art’s world. By placing us in intimate spaces with arresting, descriptive personal images, Wang Yuping continues his exploration of urban culture and social change.
Drue Kataoka’s new perspective on art & technology (video)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vL50zvwf3Ak
Drue Kataoka, a graduate of Stanford University, is a contemporary artist, born in Tokyo and trained in Sumi-e, an East Asian type of brush painting. Her artworks have integrated these painting techniques with shattered mirrors, time dilation, gunshots, hospital beds, alpine snow water and storm and heartbeat recordings. She received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute Award for her extensive community service. Drue has been named a Cultural Leader by the World Economic Forum.
German photographer visits North and South Korea
Thomas Struth – Semi Submersible Rig, DSME Shipyard, Geoje Island, 2007
ABOUT STRUTH’S WORKS IN KOREA
In March 2007, Thomas Struth went on a first trip to South Korea. He spent time in the two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, as well as visiting religious and cultural sites, important landscapes and shipyards. At the vast DSME shipyard on Geoje Island, one of the largest in the world, he photographed tankers under construction and an immense semi-submersible drilling rig. Struth made two further visits to South Korea in 2008 and 2010, as well as visiting Pyongyang in North Korea for the first time.
Glossy, ghost-like sculptures by Yoshitomo Nara
Yoshitomo Nara, 2010, White Ghost
About Yoshitomo Nara’s sculptures
Yoshitomo Nara’s large fiberglass sculptures are usually glossy white and resemble komainu, mythical lion-like animal statues commonly placed at the entrance to shrines in Japan as guardians. The artist who often uses dogs and children as subjects in his work sometimes combines both, like in his work White Ghost.
About Yoshitomo Nara
Since the Japanese pop movement in the 1990s, Yoshitomo Nara has received international acclaim with his distinct figurative style. His drawings, paintings and sculptures can be seen in the permanent collections at MOMA, New York, CAC Malaga, Spain, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia and his largest sculpture, a 27’ high concrete dog is permanently installed at the Aomori Art Museum, Japan. His mixture of vulnerability, rebellion and hopefulness within his artworks connects intimately with people worldwide. Nara also shares a deep connection with his fans and is always finding creative ways to interact with the public.
Yoshitomo Nara, Aomori-ken (Aomori dog)
Yoshitomo Nara, 2002, 72 x 51 x 108 in. (182.88 x 129.54 x 274.32 cm)
Illegal immigrants transported to the US in this boat
Adel Abdessemed – Hope, 2011-2012, Refugee boat and resin, 81 x 96 x 228 inches
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
ABOUT HOPE
In 2012, Algerian born artist Adel Abdessemed showed Hope as part of his solo exhibition Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf at David Zwirner.
The boat was found abandoned on a beach in the Florida Keys (US). Typically used to illegally transport immigrants in pursuit of a new life to the United States, often compromising their safety in the process, the boat is presented as it was discovered, but has been filled to the brim with black bags cast in polyurethane resin from actual, stuffed garbage sacks. While a crude and provocative analogy between the trash and the boat’s former passengers appears explicit, Hope presents an art historical reference to Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich’s apocalyptic painting from 1823-1824, The Wreck of the Hope, featuring a capsized vessel in a sea of icebergs.
ABOUT ADEL ABDESSEMED
Born in 1971 in Constantine, Algeria, Adel Abdessemed studied at the École des beaux-arts de Batna and the École des beaux-arts d’Alger, Algiers (1987-1994), before traveling to France where he attended the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon (1994-1998). He was an artist-in-residence at the Cité internationale des Arts de Paris in 1999-2000, and the following year at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center’s International Studio Program in Long Island City, New York. After living in New York, the artist moved to Paris, then to Berlin, then back to New York. He now lives and works in Paris.
Adel Abdessemed – Hope, 2011-2012, Refugee boat and resin, 81 x 96 x 228 inches
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
99 life-sized replicas of animals in large installation
Cai Guo-Qiang, Wateringhole, 99 life-sized replicas of various animals, water, sand, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2013
THE EXHIBITION
Cai Guo-Qiang’s first solo exhibition in Australia will be staged at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from November, 2013 to April, 2014. Spanning the ground floor galleries of GOMA, this exhibition presents major, large scale installations by the Chinese artist. A centrepiece of the exhibition is a dramatic new commission, Heritage, 2013, which features 99 life-sized animals from around the world gathered together at a watering hole. Also featured is Head On, 2006, with its stream of 99 life-sized wolves leaping through the air and crashing into a glass wall. Other new work in the exhibition is inspired by the artist’s experiences in Australia, drawing upon local landscape, history and culture. There will also be a special project devised by the artist for children.
ABOUT CAI GUO-QIANG
Born in China and based in New York, Cai Guo-Qiang draws from Buddhist philosophy, Chinese history and mythology, and contemporary social issues to create spectacular installations and events of astonishing scale and beauty. His works reflect upon the globalised nature of our world, and appeal to broad audiences: he is best known for his awe-inspiring firework displays (featured at the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies). His recent solo exhibitions and projects have included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006, his record-attendance retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 2008 and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2009; Odyssey, a permanent gunpowder drawing installation for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2010; and his first exhibition in the Middle East at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, in 2011.
Cai Guo-Qiang, Wateringhole (detail), 99 life-sized replicas of various animals, water, sand, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2013
Cai Guo-Qiang, Wateringhole (detail), 99 life-sized replicas of various animals, water, sand, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2013
What is Ai Weiwei doing with 9000 children’s backpacks?
Ai Weiwei – Remembering, 2009, 100x1000cm, Haus der Kunst, München (Germany)
ABOUT REMEBERING
In 2009, Ai Weiwei created a large 10x100m installation, made out of 9000 children’s backpacks. Displayed on the facade of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany, each backpack represents a life lost in the earthquake that took place in the Chinese province of Sichuan in 2008.
Ai used five different colors that make up the sentence For seven years she lived happily on this earth in Chinese lettering, a sentence with which a mother of one of the earthquake victims commemorated her daughter. The bright, vibrant colors, such as blue, red, yellow and green reflect the psyche of a child, their joy and innocence. In addition, the colors have been used for the Toys R Us logo.
