Press |
August 17, 2012
News
NEW YORK TIMES — Détournement
Jason deCaires Taylor in NYTimes
To read the rest of the story online, please visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/world/americas/in-cancun-trying-to-protect-reef-with-underwater-statues.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Olek installation at Smithsonian
OLEK‘s entire studio apartment installation will be included in 40 under 40: Craft Futures, a group exhibition curated by Nicholas Bell at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC
40 under 40: Craft Futures
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW) Washington, DC
July 20, 2012—February 3, 2013
40 under 40: Craft Futures features forty artists born since 1972, the year the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s contemporary craft and decorative arts program was established at its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery. The exhibition investigates evolving notions of craft within traditional media such as ceramics and metalwork, as well as in fields as varied as sculpture, industrial design, installation art, fashion design, sustainable manufacturing, and mathematics. The range of disciplines represented illustrates new avenues for the handmade in contemporary culture.
All of the artworks selected for display in the exhibition were created since September 11, 2001. This new work reflects the changed world that exists today, which poses new challenges and considerations for artists. These 40 artists are united by philosophies for living differently in modern society with an emphasis on sustainability, a return to valuing the hand-made and what it means to live in a state of persistent conflict and unease.
Nicholas R. Bell, The Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator of American Craft and Decorative Art at the Renwick Gallery, organized the exhibition. The museum hopes to acquire works by every artist featured in the exhibition to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Renwick Gallery.
Jason deCaires Taylor Video
This film of works by Jason deCaires Taylor was screened in the project room of Jonathan LeVine Gallery during the artist’s 2012 solo exhibition, Human Nature. The filming spans underwater installations in three countries; Grenada, Bahamas and Mexico. Works featured include: Vicissitudes, Inertia, Holy Man, The Phoenix, The Musician, The last Supper, The Listener, and Collector.
Jason deCaires Taylor studio visit
Jonathan LeVine recently traveled down to Mexico for one of the most unique studio visits he’s ever had, with Cancun-based sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, whose debut solo exhibition runs from June 30—July 28, 2012.
Taylor casts cement into full-scale figures and objects before submerging them under water.
After a tour of the studio, the artist took Jonathan on a snorkeling and scuba diving excursion to see a few of his underwater installations.
Taylor infuses his sculptures with specialized pH neutral materials to encourage the formation of artificial reefs. The installations have a conservational aspect, drawing tourists away from natural reef formations, helping to replenish this endangered natural resource.
Human Nature opens on Saturday, June 30th, from 7—9pm at Jonathan LeVine Gallery.
HAROSHI – new works + videos
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Jonathan LeVine Gallery is very pleased to announce a series of incredible new sculptures by Tokyo-based artist Haroshi, which will be part of our program at SCOPE-Basel from June 12—17, 2012. Foot with Invisible Shoe (1-6) is a series of six sculptures created with used skateboard decks. Each foot is unique, created in pairs of two, there are three different styles wearing three different types of transparent sneakers.
To check out videos of Haroshi on theberrics.com, featuring the artist’s process and recent projects, click below:
JLG @ SCOPE-Basel 2012
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce its program for SCOPE-Basel 2012, a group presentation featuring selected works by 18 artists including:
Alex Gross, Brett Amory, Dylan Egon, Faile, Haroshi, Henrik Uldalen, How & Nosm, Jim Houser, Jordan Nickel (Pose), Marco Mazzoni, Natalia Fabia, Nicoletta Ceccoli, REVOK, Sit, Souther Salazar, Tara McPherson, Victor Castillo and Shepard Fairey.
This video features some of the works we’lll be exhibiting at the fair, which runs from June 12—17th, 2012.
SCOPE-Basel 2012
International Contemporary Art Fair
KASERNE, Klybeckstrasse 1b
CH-4057 Basel, Switzerland
Jonathan LeVine Gallery : BOOTH G08
Doze Green video by Colin Day
Check out this brand new video by Colin Day of Doze Green filmed while the artist was working in his studio on the series of paintings in his current exhibition, Luminosity in the Dark Rift.
Adam Wallacavage’s T for T Mag
CNN article on Louie Cordero
Cultural mix gives Philippines art edge
After paying five homeless people outside his studio in Manila to help chew 700 pieces of bubble gum, Louie Cordero began to wonder what he had undertaken in the name of art.
“Well, it certainly took longer than I imagined it would, and they thought it would, too” he recalls.
After two days of aching jaws, the potent mix of gum, spittle and resin went to create one of Cordero’s larger-than-life sculptures; a bright green figure that is part tribal warrior, part horror flick monster, but all Cordero’s imagination.
It is now starting to turn brown as the sugar in the gum oxidizes, but Cordero is still turning his wild machinations of surreal, twisted biomorphic figures into sculptures and paintings, and is one of a group of contemporary artists from the Philippines turning heads with a vibrancy and unique Filipino vision.
Awash with tubes of bright acrylic paint, Cordero’s studio in the Cubao area of Manila has been his main base for around 10 years and is situated just a few minutes away from the stadium where Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had their “Thriller in Manila” bout in 1975.
“Things have changed a lot in terms of financial gain and artistic gain. For new artists, they have a thing about doing it in the international scene or being represented. Now it’s a career that has to be strategized,” he says.
“In Manila there used to be more artist run galleries. Now big galleries are here and looking for the new artist that wants to sell for big money. Every week now there’s like three openings, before it used to be one show per month.”
It’s a long way from the 34-year-old’s life when he graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts.
Back then he couldn’t afford paint so spent days drawing comic strips (one of which has gained a cult following in the Philippines and Japan) or taking illustration jobs to pay the bills. Joining with friends and contemporaries he also ran artist spaces for impromptu exhibitions. Since then he’s moved on to feature in joint exhibitions in Hong Kong and prominent solo shows including one in New York in 2010.
Inspired by an explosive mix of comic art, pop culture and gore-fest films, Cordero also retains a strong Filipino flavor in his art, drawing on everything from jeepney art, turbulent politics and the almost inescapable impact of religion in Philippine society.
“We’ve been occupied and colonized by American and Spanish so most of the artists here contemplate on that concept or hang-ups from it, especially the Catholic influence that we get from school age upwards,” he says.
Playing with religious imagery can still cause huge controversy in the Philippines. Last year a collage by artist Mideo Cruz at the Cultural Center of the Philippines depicted Jesus with a wooden penis glued to his face. It was condemned by church groups and even attracted the ire of former first lady Imelda Marcos. The resulting furor led to the exhibition being closed.
Cordero admits to gleefully prodding the country’s cultural soft spots when he was younger with a 2001 piece that mixed in Jesus and Ronald McDonald, but thinks Cruz was just unlucky.
“He was the center of the whole nation’s tensions. When I started I was like that, now I’m not so scandalous with my work; it’s more like you’re young and full of angst, and you’re very idealistic.
“If you’re dealing with religion, it’s very sad because people, priests and politicians will condemn you if you touch on that sensibility. You can do it, but it can become a circus.
“It’s fine if you do it just for art people, but for the common people, still not that many go to art exhibition. You need that sensation for people to go.”
If the public’s tastes are not so Catholic in the Philippines, art collectors are starting to wake up to the breadth and diversity of work by contemporary Filipino artists. Last month a painting by Filipino artist Ronald Ventura entitled “Grayground” sold at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong for $1.1 million, making it the first piece by a contemporary Southeast Asian artist to fetch more than $1 million.
“If Ventura’s work is going for over $1million, and the likes of (established 19th century painter)Juan Luna couldn’t meet its reserve price, there’s something going on (in the art market),” says independent curator and Cordero’s partner Isabel Ching.
Next door to Cordero’s studio is a fabrication workshop run by Jeremy Guiab, where Cordero’s latest projects – thrones made of fiberglass bones and twisted totem polls – are being made. A gold mine of curios and industrial oddities, it’s also a hub for local artists, from those fresh out of art school to longer-serving artists like Romeo Lee.
“I’ve been around since the 1980s. Filipinos started in a struggle, now it’s the new generation’s chance, and they’re smart,” says Lee. “But for the old generation like me, I’ll keep going, and I’m happy if someone now wants to pay more for my art.”
With an increasing interest in the work of Cordero and his contemporaries like Nona Garcia and predecessors like Manuel Ocampo, has come a desire from collectors to know where they come from, says Magnus Renfrew, director of Hong Kong International Art Fair, “It’s relatively early days for the international profile of art from the Philippines,” says Renfrew. “But it is becoming more and more the case that collectors are willing to engage with artists from a wide variety of cultural and aesthetic backgrounds.”
Among the sparks of spot-welding and smell of resin in the workshop, Cordero is content to continue to mix things up in his own work regardless of the changing tastes of collectors or galleries.
“I don’t know what I’m doing; it’s the challenge. That’s the reason I do art: to keep challenging myself and saying this is what I want to do.”
Originally featured on CNN
Kevin Cyr feature in Juxtapoz
Kevin Cyr is featured in the June 2012 issue of Juxtapoz Magazine with an interview by fellow artist Dan Witz.
Shiny Monsters: An Installation by Adam Wallacavage
SHINY MONSTERS: An Installation by Adam Wallacavage
May 17—August 19, 2012
Public Opening Reception:
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 6pm
PHILADELPHIA ART ALLIANCE
251 South 18th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Tel: 215-545-4302
www.philartalliance.org
Philadelphia Art Alliance presents SHINY MONSTERS: An Installation by Adam Wallacavage, the artist’s first solo exhibition in his home town of Philadelphia.
Wallacavage will take inspiration from his lavishly decorated home by presenting several new chandeliers within each gallery of the space. Inspired by the Gothic interiors of now-closed Catholic churches he visited throughout Philadelphia, Adam Wallacavage channeled his fascination with chandeliers by creating Jules Verne-inspired lighting for the dining room in his Victorian brownstone.
To construct these octopus sculptures, Wallacavage taught himself the traditional techniques of ornamental plastering, which includes large-cast plaster work and hand-sculpted pieces from epoxy-clay. Those initial sculptures inspired Wallacavage to continue to experiment in form, color, and technique, developing his own unique glazes and application technique to give his pieces a unique vibrant shimmer.
Recently, Wallacavage has added his love of kitsch to his sculptures. Casts of cartoon bunnies and elephants, Hello Kitty heads, and vintage toys are incorporated into his pieces, which are then covered in bright shades such as bubble-gum pink and mint green. The resulting sculptures reflect his varied aesthetic interests, ranging from 16th Century Baroque opulence to 1940s Americana.
Wallacavage received a BFA in Photography at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His chandeliers and other sculptural works have been published and exhibited internationally. Co-founder of the artist collective Space 1026, Adam Wallacavage is also an accomplished photographer, documenting artists, musicians, and skateboarders. His first book Monster Size Monsters was released in 2006 through Gingko Press.