Art Hag

Jerry Ma: A Chinatown Odyssey | Pearl River Mart

Happy Lunar New Year! To celebrate the Year of the Rat, Pearl River Mart presents artist Jerry Ma’s modern retelling of the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West.

Jerry Ma, Lion Dance

Jerry Ma, Lion Dance

In Wu Cheng'en's original 16th-century novel, Zhu Bajie (Pigsy), Sha Wujing (Sandy), and the mischief-making Sun Wukong (the Monkey King) accompany the monk Tang Sanzang on a pilgrimage to Central Asia and India to collect Buddhist scriptures. In A Chinatown Odyssey, Ma’s reinterpretation, the characters are transported to NYC’s Chinatown in the 1980s where they don streetwear instead of monastic robes and their adventures include grabbing dim sum, having bubble tea, checking out a fish market, shopping for designer knockoffs, liberating a tic-tac-toe-playing chicken from an arcade game, and celebrating the new year with a festive lion dance.

Jerry Ma, Fish Market

Jerry Ma, Doyers Street

Jerry Ma, Dimsum

Jerry Ma, Chinatown Arcade

“A Chinatown Odyssey is both a love letter and personal journey through the Chinatown I grew up with,” the artist wrote in the show’s introduction. “Who better to take that journey than Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, and his cronies?” Ma notes that his childhood memories of Chinatown include dim sum, ginger candy, shopping for groceries, and “finally finding a place where everyone looked like me.” The Taiwanese-American artist adds that his work is influenced by the film series A Chinese Odyssey based on Wu Cheng'en's novel and starring Stephen Chow.

Hong Bao, a limited edition gold foil print, faithfully replicates a lucky red envelope and features the four characters in A Chinatown Odyssey alongside a rat—the Chinese zodiac sign for 2020.

Jerry Ma, Hong Bao

Ma’s lively prints burst with details of iconic Chinatown locales including Canal Street, Doyers Street, the Golden Unicorn Restaurant, and the Chinatown Fair video arcade. Images overflow with shoppers, diners, and tourists. Each scene vividly depicts the energy of the bustling Asian cultural hub and evokes nostalgia for anyone with memories of Chinatown who has experienced the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the neighborhood.

Born in Washington Heights, the New York-based graphic artist and illustrator founded Epic Proportions, an independent comics studio, in 2003 and created the graphic novel series Legend and co-created Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Ma also produces t-shirts featuring Asian-American celebrities including Bruce Lee, Jeremy Lin, Sandra Oh, and Constance Wu. Learn more about Jerry Ma in this interview and at epicprops.com.

Click here to see my post on Monkey: Journey To The West, a stage adaptation of the novel by musician Damon Albarn, artist Jamie Hewlett, and director Chen Shi-Zheng that was performed at Lincoln Center in 2013.

A Chinatown Odyssey 
Pearl River Mart
395 Broadway (at Walker Street), Second Floor, TriBeCa
Exhibition on view January 18 through March 8

Studio Visit: Dara Oshin | TI Art Studios

After seeing Dara Oshin's artwork in several group shows around Brooklyn including the Park Slope/Windsor Artists 2019 group exhibition at Ossam Gallery, The Constructions at Ground Floor Gallery, and the 15th Annual Small Works Show at 440 Gallery, I wanted to check out more of her nature-inspired work and was happy to find an opportunity to visit her studio last weekend.

Dara Oshin's artwork on display in her studio

Dara Oshin's 'Ascension' available at 440 Gallery as part of the 15th Annual Small Works Show

On Saturday, December 7, Oshin invited visitors to her sunny, fourth-floor space at TI Art Studios in Red Hook for a studio sale featuring artwork by her and fellow artists Robin Roi and Mahalia Stines. Originally from New Jersey, Oshin studied English at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania and minored in Studio Art. She discovered her true calling was art and continued taking various art courses, including a two-year stint studying oil painting at a Paris atelier. She painted for more than ten years but after having three kids found that she needed to switch media because of the toxic chemicals in paint. 

Dara Oshin's studio at TI Arts Studios

Line Drawings by Dara Oshin

A line drawing by Dara Oshin (courtesy of the artist)

A line drawing by Dara Oshin (courtesy of the artist)

In 2016 she began a series of line drawings. "There was a point in time when there was so much bad news...and I was feeling distressed about it and I wanted to do something to bring love into the world and that showed people connecting and loving one another," Oshin said. "This whole project was about spreading love and good feelings and showing what emotional connections are all about." The uplifting, stark drawings unite the figures by blending their body parts "so it becomes kind of ambiguous where one person ends and the other person begins," she explained. "I try to minimize the amount of lines that you actually need."

Works from Oshin's 'Not A Toy' series

Another earlier series, Not A Toy, consists of small interactive boxes filled with a variety of beads and moving objects that viewers can shake, rattle, and roll inside the wooden containers. "I don’t think I ever would have moved into this mixed media world if I didn’t have to move away from [oil painting] and I’m just loving it. I’m loving having no restraints on what I do," Oshin said. The boxes include everyday objects from Oshin's Windsor Terrace home, such as dryer lint lining the edges of the works, and abstract photos of kitchen items such as plates and pans. "I incorporate a lot of stuff from my domestic life into my work," she explained. One image, which suggests a woman's nether regions, is actually a close up shot of the corner of a baking pan. "I was just playing with the idea of women in the kitchen and, it being a toy, women as objects," she noted.

Dara Oshin, Rising and Falling, 2019 (image courtesy of the artist)

Her photographic Eggs series was conceived in her kitchen. "I was boiling eggs for my son’s lunch every single day, and they would burst, and I started realizing how cool they were. Most of the work is really inspired by my life with my family." she recalled. "You can’t fight trying to separate it, I had to just incorporate it into my work."

"They’re just abstract forms. They don’t have to be an egg," she said of the photos. "They’re just these cool forms that everyone can see in them whatever they want to see." Oshin began photographing the misshapen eggs—many of which could be mistaken for sculpture or otherworldly beings—and soon started incorporating the images into mixed media sculptural works. 

Artwork by Dara Oshin

Works by Dara Oshin

Artwork by Dara Oshin

These rustic yet elegant Icons feature images of the distorted eggs on a gilded background embellished with beads and surrounded by twigs, feathers, seed pods, and other natural materials she collects from Prospect Park. Oshin said she gilds the works as a way to "raise nature to a religious level," presenting them "like little altars or reliquaries." She also sews glittering beads onto the images to create a sense of movement and sparkle and to symbolize seeds or Mother Nature.

L-R: Robin Roi and Dara Oshin pose with an elaborate nest they created for a duo show at Ground Floor Gallery in March

"I was feeling really disconnected from nature...and when I started making these I felt very nourished by getting out and constructing them and bringing these pieces of nature into my space and then living with it," she said. Oshin soon discovered that she wanted viewers to interact with the works. "I want people to connect with stuff…pick flowers and stick them in and just continue adding on to them and swapping them out," she insists. "One of the things I like about this series is that it really can be interpreted on a lot of different levels. Some people see completely different things than me and I love that."

To learn more about Dara Oshin, and to see more of her artwork, visit daraoshin.com.

Field Trip: The Andy Warhol Museum | Pittsburgh, PA

During my quick jaunt to Pittsburgh over the summer, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough time to visit The Andy Warhol Museum—I’ve seen so much of his work over the years, I wasn’t entirely sure it would be worth the effort. I am happy to say I was convinced to make the effort and check out the museum because it is terrific! Warhol’s signature, bold Pop Art gems are well represented—the soup cans, celebrity portraits, flowers, electric chairs, skulls, cows… but there is so much more to see with 7 floors dedicated to showcasing his massive oeuvre.

Opened in 1994 in Pittsburgh, the city where Andrew Warhola was born, the Warhol museum is the “global keeper of Andy Warhol’s legacy.” The museum maintains 900 of the artists’ paintings, about 100 sculptures, approximately 2,000 works on paper, 1,000 prints, 4,000 photographs, 60 films, over 4,000 videos, and 200 of his Screen Tests.

The vast archives of Warhol’s personal belongings contain approximately half a million objects! The collection includes his library, art supplies, scrapbooks, correspondence, books, diaries, clothing, tchotchkes, approximately 4,000 audio tapes, over 30 of his shocking-white wigs, and more. The archives also contain an almost complete collection of Interview magazine, launched by Warhol in 1969, as well as 610 of the artist’s Time Capsules, a project started in 1974 in which he collected items from his daily life (newspapers, maps, fanzines, letters, pictures, trinkets, food…) and packed and sealed them away into cardboard boxes to be opened at a later time (the museum is cataloguing each Time Capsules’ contents and regularly exhibits items from one box.)

Highlights of the museum's incredibly comprehensive collection include Warhol’s student work from the 1940s, his early drawings [including 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (sic), a sweet, illustrated book he collaborated on with his mother, Julia], and his commercial illustrations. These works, along with a series of childhood and family photographs, show another side of the artist—a simpler side that preceded his glamorous Factory/Studio 54 superstardom.

During my visit in August, the museum presented a special exhibition, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei which  explored Warhol’s influence on Ai as well as the influence both artists have made on modern life. Juxtaposing several pieces of Ai’s artwork alongside Warhol’s throughout the museum, the exhibit compared the two artists’ works (i. e. how both documented their lives, created readymades a la Marcel Duchamp, and employed flowers to make provocative points) and how they address politics, capitalism, communism, and social issues.

If you happen to be in Pittsburgh, be sure to visit the Andy Warhol Museum—I’m definitely glad I did! Learn more about it at warhol.org. To see more on Warhol, see my post from 2010 here on Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Brooklyn Museum. To see more on Ai Weiwei click here for my post on his 2013 exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and here for my post on his 2014 exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

Self-Portrait, ca. 1943

Seated Girl Looking at Bird Cage, ca. 1940s

Nosepicker I: Why Pick on Me (originally titled The Lord Gave Me My Face but I Can Pick My Own Nose), 1948

So Happy, 1950s

Cat in Front of Church, ca. 1959

Magazine Advertisement ("It's a Real Genuine Fake!") for Fleming-Joffe, Ltd., 1963

Female Head and Hands Applying Eyeliner, no date

Female Fashion Figure, no date

Make Him Want You, 1961

Campbell's Soup Can, 1962; Neolithic Pottery with Coco-Cola Logo, Ai Weiwei, 2007; Coca-Cola [2], 1961

Colored Vases, Ai Weiwei, 2011; Elvis 11 Times [Studio Type], 1963

Self-Portrait, 1963-64; Three Marilyns, 1962; Red Jackie, 1964

Exploding Plastic Inevitable room

Silver Clouds, 1966

Debbie Harry, 1980

Dolly Parton, 1985

Helene Rochas, 1973-74; Mick Jagger, 1975

Blossom, Ai Weiwei, 2015 (front); With Flowers, Ai Weiwei, 2012-15 (rear)

Self-Portrait, 1966-67; At the Museum of Modern Art, Ai Weiwei, 1987

African Lion, a gift to Warhol from John Reinhold in the early 80s

Champion Ador Tipp Topp (Cecil), 1921-30 (purchased by Warhol from a Third Avenue antique shop and kept in his office until his death in 1986.)

 

 

 

Fall/Winter 2010 Fashion Ads

Fashion and art often mix, and as the Fall 2010 ad campaigns begin to trickle onto the web, we see Stella McCartney, Bottega Venetta, and Missoni collaborating with some high profile artists.  First up, McCartney has teamed up with British artist Barry Reigate who illustrated some whimsical flowers, eyes, and bubble letters over Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott's photos of model Natalia Vodianova.  The playful results remind me a bit of the adorable unicorns, bunnies, bears, and ice cream cones floating around on Love Magazine's homepage.  Bottega Venetta recreated New York artist Robert Longo's famous Men in the Cities drawings with live models posed in the twisty, jerky, contorted stances of his angsty, 80's corporate business men and women.  And in what is the most surprising pairing for me, stripey knitwear brand Missoni commissioned experimental director Kenneth Anger  (Scorpio Rising) to produce a two-and-a-half minute film featuring several members of the Missoni family shot in dreamy, lava lamp-like imagery.  See the hypnotic clip below and read more at models.com.

In related news, WWD reported this morning that British designer Hussein Chalayan is working on a film and installation that will explore "the overlap between clothing and art," finding inspiration in "disciplines such as anthropology, music, design and art."  The project will be exhibited at Lisson Gallery in London from September 8-October 2nd.  Read more at wwd.com.

Paul McCarthy | Hauser & Wirth

American artist Paul McCarthy has always challenged his viewers with his work.  By incorporating sex and/or violence into his sculptures and bodily fluids into his performances, McCarthy pushes buttons and makes aggressive statements about society and its norms, pop culture and its icons.  From his frequent depictions of penises and poop (he's used excrement as a medium as well) to his chocolate Santa Claus butt plugs, McCarthy employs shock value tactics that I typically find annoying, but for some reason can't not pay attention to when McCarthy is involved.

His current show, White Snow at Upper East Side gallery Hauser & Wirth, forces viewers to see the 19th-century, German tale and 1937 Disney animated classic, Snow White, through adulterated, x-rated eyes.  McCarthy created large-scale drawings, some are 10 feet tall, featuring Snow White and Prince Charming engaged in a variety of sexual positions, collaged alongside images culled from porn magazines, Christie's auction catalogues, gossip and lad rags.  Also interspersed throughout the drawings are scribbles of Snow White's happy, forest critter friends, excited dwarves, penises, cut-outs shaped like vaginas, as well as color, computer print-outs and Calvin Klein ads or pictures of Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie torn from magazines.  Upstairs are several, well-composed pencil drawings featuring Snow White masturbating, the Dwarves with un-dwarf-like penises for noses, and a series of drawings of Snow White taking a crap in front of her shocked or amused forest animal friends.

While the exhibit is initially funny and addresses what most adults likely think regarding the virginal Snow White shacking up in the woods with seven little men, it starts to feel like an overdone joke once you reach the second floor.  According to the show's press release, the works in White Snow are "early investigations into his characters" that "will ultimately give rise to sculptures, installations, a film and other works over time," which adds to the notion that the 64-year-old McCarthy's drawings are akin to the doodles a bored, teenage boy makes along the margins in his school notebooks.  Learn more at Hauserwirth.com.  Through December 24th.

Ginger Then, 2009

Michael Jackson, 2009

Inside Her Ordeal (close up), 2009

Dwarf House (close up), 2009

  

Standing (8 from a set of 16), 2008-2009

Objets d'Art | News

~Christie's is auctioning off a terrific group of photographs on Monday, December 7th.  The list of photographers is a veritable who's who of photography history.  Included are:  Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst, Ansel Adams, Bernice Abbott, Aaron Siskind, Robert Frank, August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Wegee, Leni Riefenstahl, Man Ray, Peter Beard, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Ellen Von Unwerth, Mary Ellen Mark, Nan Goldin, Catherine Opie, Sally Mann, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, Joel Meyerowitz, Andres Serrano, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and many, many more.

Public viewing times are scheduled from December 3rd - 6th at 20 Rockefeller Plaza.  It would be fun to check out this vast, impressive collection of work. Also, there are a few Edward Weston prints up on the block featuring his muse/wife/model, Charis Wilson, who passed away recently at the age of 95.  Read her obituary at NYT.com.  See Christie's website here.

~I've always been a fan of Todd Oldham.  From his fun clothing designs to his stint as co-host on the original House of Style (I especially loved his D-I-Y segment on how to cut your own hair) to his more recent hosting/mentoring duties on Bravo's Top Design.  He seems like such a creative, crafty, affable guy.  Being a man of many talents, Oldham is now in the book biz.  Following his 2005 book Handmade Modern ("a fairly intense DIY guide to designers like George Nakashima, Charles and Ray Eames, and Isamu Noguchi... not for the clumsy.  Nakashima's bio, for example, is followed by a fourteen-step 'illuminated end table,' which involves 'drilling through conduit'" - New York Magazine), Oldham is releasing Kid Made Modern a super-cool book for tots that gives them "introductions to the mid-century’s great designers in rhyme ('Alexander Girard made it look not very hard'), plus projects to match—mobiles in the style of Alexander Calder, a Fornasetti-inspired découpage desk set. All of them were road-tested on children in his crafts room."

Oldham has also published a $200, 12-pound tome with Ammo Books about Charley Harper, an illustrator who created the artwork for many of Oldham's favorite childhood books.  From 2002 to 2007, Oldham archived and restored Harper's extensive and deteriorating collection of work for the monograph.  Ammo Books recently released a pared down version of the book for a more wallet-friendly $49.95.  The late Harper's graphic, stylized animal illustrations seem to be the predecessor and/or inspiration for many of the prints you see on hipstery t-shrits and crafts today.  Check out his work at Charleyharperartstudio.com.  And read the full New York Magazine article on Oldham here.

~Speaking of books, some good holiday gift ideas might be discovered in the form of art/design books from the Phaidon pop-up store at 100 Wooster Street in Soho (open until January).  If you strike out at the Phaidon pop-up, the shop is conveniently located nearby the Taschen store at 107 Greene Street. If all else fails, Vuitton, Chanel, Miu Miu, and Prada are all in the neighborhood ;)  Read more about the Phaidon pop-up shop at racked.com and check out Taschen's website here.

~Living more simply, f-unemployment, and non-profit arts organizations showcasing artwork in vacant properties — these may be the only good things to come of the recession.  Similar to X Initiative and LentSpace, art is appearing around the city in empty and sometimes unexpected places.  Read more about the guerilla galleries at theartnewspaper.com.

~Art collector Eileen Kaminsky has set up a foundation, the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, "to connect artists, collectors, galleries and cultural institutions.  ESKFF is a collaborative effort that facilitates the exchange of ideas and expressions."  A non-profit organization, ESKFF is dedicated to "the development of exhibitions and programs that enrich our understanding of contemporary art."  The foundation will showcase art from private collections from both the U.S. as well as from around the world.  The foundation is currently seeking a permanent brick-and-mortar home base, but you can learn more about it at www.eskff.com.

~And finally, even though it felt a little balmy in NYC yesterday, it's still no Miami Beach.  Check out what is happening at Art Basel Miami here.  Now in its 8th year, the fair, the parties, and the special events continue through Sunday, December 6th.

Art Directors Club | Young Guns 7 Competition

Currently on view at the Art Directors Club Gallery on West 29th Street are this year's fifty winners of the ADC Young Guns 7 competition.  The ADC Young Guns competition is a bit like AIGA Three Sixty Five 30's bratty but talented younger sib.  The competition is open to anyone 30 and under with at least 2 years experience under his/her belt working in advertising, design, illustration, and photography.  The winning entries definitely feel younger than those at AIGA and tend to lean on the twee, hipstery side.  Moleskin awards $1,500 in grants to three top entrants and publishes a limited-edition book of the winning works.  Mario Hugo and Fx&Mat each received $250 grants while Siggi Eggertsson's cool, graphic, pop-inspired designs received the top honor of a $1,000 grant.  Congrats to all the winners!

The Art Directors Club was founded in 1920 and has served "as a barometer for the constant changes and developments in visual media and communications."  The Young Guns award was introduced in 1996.  According to the ADC's website, "ADC Young Guns honors the vanguard of creative professionals who let loose their imaginations, shattering conventions and breaking boundaries with a dash of brilliance and personal flair."  Previous Young Gunners serve as the selection jury and choose the new crop of winners.  Past Young Guns winners include Stefan Sagmeister (YG1), Mike Mills (YG1), and Ryan McGinness (YG2). 

Learn more about all the ADC Young Guns 7 winners and see samples of their work at adcyoungguns.org.  Read more about the ADC Young Guns competition here.  See pics of some of my favorite entries below.  On view at the ADC Gallery at 106 West 29th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues) through November 6th.

Siggi Eggertsson, Chelsea Girls (recreation of movie poster)

Siggi Eggertsson, Coke Side of Life posters

Keren Richter, illustration for Boost Mobile Summer Concert Series poster

Bianca Wendt, Catalogue for Maison Martin Margiela (personal work)

Ben Wiseman, Criterion Collection's Breathless DVD packaging

Jim Stoten, illustrations for Gomez album art (left) and illustration for The Fader article on White Stripes videos (top right); Will Staehle, Design and collage Hi/Bye, from his Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre Collection (bottom right)

Yoko Furusho, Health Virus (top) illustration for Lp and P and Melancholy of a Japanese Girl (bottom) illustration for Dpi Magazine

Laura Carlin, illustrations/book art for translation of Le Grand Meaulnes for Folio Society

Kitman Keung, Love Green Recycle Bin created for Dwell's Kitchen Ecology Exhibition in Los Angeles (June 2009)

Veronica Fuerte, Brands (personal work)

Sam Weber, illustrations for Toronto Soulpepper Theatre posters

Oliver Munday, Who the Hell Is Angela Davis, poster for event at Maryland Institute College of Art