We had a chance to visit Lisson’s studio in London and totally drawn by Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie’s works. It was a mess in there but the works are very impressive. The first image reminds me of a Comme des Garcons perfume bottle which was quickly snapped up right after we asked for the price.
Only in London you can find a gallery that is part art installation, part pop-up store and part makeover service. We met with the owner Josef Valentino (only 19 years old) briefly and explained to us that Worthless may have evolved into a critique of the art market, but it began life as a homage to Woolworths. Already making noises in the art scene, but whether this is going to survive or not will be up to anyone wanting to capitalise on their junk. Take your junk in and once its transformation is complete, you pay what you think it’s worth. Just don’t let on if you’re there to make a quick buck.
We went to the art fair last weekend. Of course there are a lot of hits and misses. Lisson Gallery from the UK is the most successful amongst all the galleries that are exhibiting. There’s a Richard Prince piece emblazoned with Hong Kong which we think is criminal. License to print money perhaps?
The second image is from Julian Opie which is probably our favorite work but already sold as soon as the fair opened.
Richard Prince
Julian Opie
Takashi Murakami
We came across this work by Iranian artist Afshin Pirhashemi. This is from a triptych and probably the strongest among the three. You can feel the intensity of the work by looking at her eyes. There is feeling of being lost, being heart-broken and abandoned. This is definitely one of the artists to watch for in the future.
We had a chance to visit Charles Saatchi’s new exhibition called New Art from the Middle East. What caught our eye was this particular installation by a French-Algerian artist Kader Attia called Ghost. It is a large installation of a group of Muslim women in prayer in which Attia renders their bodies as vacant shells, empty hoods devoid of personhood or spirit. Made from tin foil – a domestic, throwaway material – Attia’s figures become alien and futuristic, synthesizing the abject and divine. Bowing in shimmering meditation, their ritual is equally seductive and hollow, questioning modern ideologies – from religion to nationalism, consumerism – in relation to individual identity, social perception, devotion and exclusion. Attia’s ghosts evokes contemplation of the human condition as vulnerable and mortal; his impoverished materials suggest alternative histories or understandings of the world, manifest in individual and temporal experience.
Other noteworthy artists in the exhibition are Iraqi artist Halim Al-Karim (3rd and 4th photos), Lebanese artist Marwan Rechmaoui with Beirut’s current map in engraved rubber (5th) and Iranian artist Shirin Fakhim with her Sara Lucas-esque Tehran Prostitute installations.
The last two photos are not exactly from a Middle Eastern artist but from two of China’s most controversial artists renowned for working with extreme material such as human fat tissue, live animals, and baby cadavers to deal with issues of perception, death, and human condition. Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Old Persons Home hilariously wicked, their satirical models of decrepit OAPS look suspiciously familiar to world leaders, long crippled and impotent, left to battle it out in true geriatric style. Placed in electric wheelchairs, the withered toothless, senile and drooling, are set on a collision course for international conflict as they roll about the gallery at snail’s pace, crashing into each other at random in a grizzly parody of the U.N. dead.
We went to check out a graffiti artist who’s based in Queens. Some photos along the way…
We love the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum in LACMA. The Hirst collection is just insane with fullon butterflies and a sheep in vitrine! The Jeff Koons collection is very impressive too. Taking photos are not allowed inside so we ended up taking Chris Burden’s installation outside -> he’s basically famous for shooting himself with a gun as his performance art.
Looking forward to Terence Koh’s works by Peres Projects.
The tremendous response we had from our collaboration with Schoeni Art Gallery and Helium Foundation last April at the Hong Kong Arts Centre was a test ground for all things new and exciting in the next coming months. Check our website and sign up for our mailing list to keep abreast with our updates.
