Higher than trees: A seemingly impossible installation
Tomás Saraceno – In Orbit, 2013, permanent installation at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K21 Ständehaus, Düsseldorf
A massive installation by Tomás Saraceno titled In Orbit has to be one of the artist’s most notable and successful installations. At a height of more than 20 meters, Saraceno suspended a mesh construction within which audiences could move weightlessly on the net. The net construction, which was accessible on 3 levels, was designed to resemble a cloud setting or landscape.
Korean vases: Imperfection gives way to stunning results
Translated Vase Thousand, 2012. Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf. Dimensions variable, Korea Artist Prize, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
Yeesookyung is a South Korean artist living in Seoul. She is known for her complex and enchanting ceramic designs and sculptures. The Translated series series, like many of her works, is made up of shards and fragments of broken ceramic pieces that are carefully pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. Yeesookyung created her Translated Vase back in 2002 after she observed discarded trash from the ceramic master Lim Hang Taek glimmering in the sunlight. The reflection of light from the shards and the organic forms of the cracks inspired her craft.
To create the Translated Vase, Yeesookyung uses epoxy resin to glue together the different fragments of the broken pots. To make the fissures and the cracks more prominent, Yeesookyung uses 24-carat gold leaf for glazing. The gold acts as the perfect addition to complement the beautifully misshapen fractures of the re-constructed vase.
The biomorphic form of the vessel helps to capture the eye immediately as the repurposed pottery created manages to surpass the original beauty of the vase. The Translated Vase combines the delicate fragility of ceramic pottery with the fortified strength of the glue and the gold, the end result of which is something truly magnificent. Yeesookyung covers the cracks in gold because the Korean word for crack and gold is similar. The use of products that share the same name also helps to add an element of humor to the work.
Yeesookyung’s technique in pottery, as stunning as it may be is not new. For years, artists in Korea have been reconstructing and rebuilding discarded ceramic pieces that would typically be considered trash in other parts of the world. The waste is sometimes restored to create new Korean ceramics while others like Yeesookyung’s are used as art. This art form, known as Kinstukuroi also uses metals such as platinum and silver for the repairing process.
The Translated Vase represents the struggle that all individuals face in life. The cracks on the vase represent the wounds that are formed from the struggle while the gold represents the beauty and maturity that people experience when they overcome suffering. Aside from denoting the suffering, Yeesookyung’s attention to detail helped to break the ceramic tradition that insists on perfection.
Rather than discard a perfect piece, like a master potter would, Yeesookyung chose to create new forms from the useless pieces to emphasize that imperfection can also give way to stunning beauty. It is safe to say that the Translated Vase succeeded in channeling the imperfections and irregularities that exist in nature.
Translated Vase, 2009, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf. Dimensions variable”
Translated Vase (Detail), 2009, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf. Dimensions variable
Translated Vase, 2011, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24k gold leaf, 33 × 32 × 32 cm”
Translated Vase, 2010, Ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 k gold leaf, 34 cm diameter
Translated Vase, 2014, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24-carat gold leaf 44 x 44 x 44 cm
Translated Vase, 2010, Ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 k gold leaf, 61 x 47 x 52 cm
Translated Vase, 2010, Ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 k gold leaf, 44 x 50 x 44 cm
Translated Vase, 2010, Ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 k gold leaf, 37 x 31 x 34 cm
Translated Vase, 2007, Ceramic trash, aluminum bar, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 43 x 45 x 49cm
Translated Vase, 2008, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24k gold leaf, 89 × 52 × 49 cm
Translated Vase, 2009, Ceramic Shards, Epoxy, 24k Gold Leaf, 160 x 92 x 95 cm
Translated Vase, 2010, ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 karat gold leaf, 135 x 85 x 85 cm”
Translated Vase, 2010, ceramic trash, epoxy, 24 karat gold leaf, 158 x 90 x 90 cm
Translated Vase, 2016, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 174 x 128 x 120cm
Translated Vase, 2011, Ceramic trash, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 66 x 64 x 97cm
Translated Vase, 2009, Ceramic shards, aluminum bars, epoxy resin, 24K gold leaf, 122 x 84 x 81 cm
Translated Vase, 2014, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 220 x 110 x 100 cm”
Translated Vase, 2007, Ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 120 x 210 x 95cm, Collection of National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
Installation View of Translated Vase, 2009, Ceramic trash, aluminum bar, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 85 x 170 x 80cm
Installation View of Translated Vase, 2009, Ceramic trash, aluminum bar, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, 85 x 170 x 80cm
Hyperrealistic sculpture tells the story of love
Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013, mixed media, 300 x 400 x 500 cm (approx.)
At first glance, especially from a picture, it is easy to assume that the Couple under an Umbrella sculpture is a real life image frozen in time. In a world marred by conflict and competition, everybody appreciates the display of affection by people. The couple in question is quite elderly and the artist must have chosen to use this age because of its ability to influence multiple generations. The sculpture tells the story of love at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, France where it rests on a pavilion designed by Jean Nouvel.
46 years in the making: Artist creates visual feel of infinity
Doug Wheeler – PSAD Synthetic Desert III, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photo: David Heald
Over 40 years ago, a leading Light and Space artist called Doug Wheeler imagined an art project that resembled the tranquility you would experience if you travelled to an expansive desert such as the one in Arizona. For a long time, the idea only existed on paper due to the amount of resources it required to get going.
Luckily, a while back, the Guggenheim Museum in New York decided to take up the project and realize the Doug’s dream.
The birth of brutalism – Rick Owen’s weird furniture
Installation view of Rick Owens: Furniture at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2016-2017
Photo: Brian Forrest
When asked to speak about his art, Rick Owens appreciates designers who make hand beads or ball gowns but he loves his style more. By making use of rare materials and working with highly skilled artisans, he is able to create unique items. With an emphasis on art as opposed to lifestyle, Owens creates massive monuments with little assembly work compared to the carving involved.
“Hunger King” is artist’s fast food reply to social inequality and homelessness
Jani Leinonen – Hunger King, 2014, Hungary, Budapest
Located behind a resplendent Opera House in Budapest on the same road as Louis Vuitton, sits Hunger King, a place that seems to be just like any other burger joint, however, it is anything but. Hunger King is a regular fast food outlet that is pushed onto the masses; Hunger King is a critical sociopolitical art installation serving to highlight Hungary’s significant crises of social inequality and homelessness.
Artist covers entire museum in California with colorful tarp
Susan Silton’s exterior wrapping of the Pasadena Museum of California Art in a striped fumigation-style tent
Photo: Robert Wedemeyer
Susan Silton’s piece “Inside Out “is regarded in two parts, while it is an exploration of the duality of stripes as mutually a signifier and as a extremely utilized decorative pattern. Her installation “inside” functioned as a store chock-full with numerous striped objects for sale, exposing the innocent function of stripes to decorate (and make more appealing) average consumer objects. “Outside,” covering the entire museum, laid fumigation tents frequently seen in the Los Angeles landscape covered in bright colors, and needless to say, stripes. Such tents often serve as exterior indicators of a pest infestation beneath it and are the recognized remedy for containing such infestation, however these striped fumigation tents suggest at one of the stripe’s supposed historical functions as a symbol of otherness (long ago society’s outcasts including clowns, and prostitutes were marked to wear).
It seems that both fumigation tents and stripes are related to the function of othering those contaminated, whether socially contaminated for supposed moral reasons or for reasons of infestation – either way, these serve/served to single out people who are in one way or another deemed unclean or undesirable within mainstream society. The stripe has evolved over the years into a decorative item, as is made clear with the sale items covered in bright aesthetically pleasing stripes that are pretty enough to be a candy wrapper.
Silton’s installation, more than anything else, is a social experiment or a study, looking at the evolution of semiotics in contemporary times; the representation of beauty and othering (or singling out)- and how the means of representation are interchangeable. Silton’s experiment is pure brilliance, as she demonstrates how something that once was worn as a marker of what was thought of moral depravity (such as the scarlet letter) is now on baby’s clothes, throw pillows, and other middle class furnishings. Inside Out, if anything, will leave you thinking about the ways semiotics changes through time.
Susan Silton’s exterior wrapping of the Pasadena Museum of California Art in a striped fumigation-style tent
Susan Silton’s exterior wrapping of the Pasadena Museum of California Art in a striped fumigation-style tent
Susan Silton’s exterior wrapping of the Pasadena Museum of California Art in a striped fumigation-style tent
