artpup

Bombshell

2012-02-07T18:53:00.001-05:00

Stephen Friedman Gallery in London is showing work by Scottish artist David Shrigley.

The front of the gallery has an installation of ceramic sculptures representing missiles. They are shaped just like bombs seen in cartoons, in their iconic, simplistic form.

The bombs are made out of ceramic with a glazed surface. The material takes the bombs out of their destructive context and gives them a fragile feel. Their shiny and simple forms make these objects alluring to the viewer still mindful of their original intended purpose.

Future Map 11

2012-01-12T00:03:00.000-05:00

Future Map is the annual exhibition of artists graduating from the University of London. It is hosted by the Zabludowicsz Collection. This year presented a wide range of art, industrial design and fashion design projects. I wanted to highlight one artist whose work I found the most compelling.

Karin Soderquist, a Swedish artist exhibited 3-dimensional illustrations telling the story of two sisters taking a trip to the North Pole. From a distance, this work, with its pastel colors and cartoonish figures, looks innocent and tells a folk tale that starts innocently, but ends in a tragic scene.

In the first scene you see the girls leaving their home and their parents.

In the second scene, the sisters are on a boat on top of wild waves.

In the final scene the viewer encounters a camp site with a polar bear and a tent. Upon close inspection the viewer notices what's inside the bear. The sisters have met their tragic end. This dark ending gives the piece tension and emotional weight.

Black Mirror

2011-10-20T18:47:00.000-04:00

Doug Aitken has a filminstallation called Black Mirror, at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. Thefilm stars Chloë Sevigny, travelling across the desert, on a beach and whatlooks like Mexico, in constant motion and engaged in short snippets ofcommunication, representative of the fast pace of contemporary life. Inthis video, Aitken tries to create a landscape where despite the hectic pace of life the viewer tries to find a connection through the familiar imagesof the airport terminal, the hotel lobby and the car rental kiosk.

The multi-channel film projection itself is viewed inside a small structure with its walls covered with tinted mirrors. They create multiple reflections which magnify the impact.

I recorded scenes from the video in 2 parts as below.

The exhibition also has a series oflight boxes and wall-based text works featuring iconic words, numbers or dates- One, Utopia, Riot, 1968, 1980 - referencing historical moments through the use ofcommercial signage as a medium.

Eyeball Massage

2011-09-30T13:44:00.000-04:00

Hayward Gallery in London currently has an exhibition by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. The show presents an immersive experience with video projected on walls, layers of sheer screens draped from ceilings and on the floor, accompanied by ambient music.

At the entrance there is a light installation with video projected on pieces of underwear which were given to Rist by her family and friends.

The entrance gallery features an installation where a model of a suburban home is set against a wall covered with a collage of packaging material in white. On this wall images of buildings and trees are projected. On the window of the suburban home (not pictured) another projection reveals what is going on inside in somewhat unexpected ways, in conflict with the calm and bland impression of the setting itself.

The next set of images arefrom the same looping video that is projected onto 3 adjacent walls surroundingthe viewer. Viewers lie back on cushions on the floor to experience this videothat takes them into Rist's imagination. Her work often features the femalebody which she seeks to liberate through her work.

The section below showsbright, saturated colors to create a visual environment that envelopes theviewer. Rist's camera gets very close to its subjects as if its researching each subject down to its finest detail.

Curtain Call

2011-08-18T08:59:00.000-04:00

Ron Arad, the artist, architect and industrial designer has a new installation at the Roundhouse, a concert/performance space in London. For this installation he created a curtain made of silicon rods, suspended from a large ring on the ceiling. The curtain is used as a 360 degree screen for projecting videos by artists and designers he collaborated with for this project. The audience experiences the projection inside the curtain surrounded by and immersed in video, sound and light. Below are excerpts from 3 of the 12 pieces shown in this installation.

Animation by Babis Alexiadis is below.

The next piece is an animation by Javier Mariscal.

The final piece is by Greenaway & Greenaway reflecting the architecture of the Roundhouse

Connecting the Dots

2011-07-10T18:10:00.000-04:00

Victoria Miro Gallery in London showed giant sculptures and paintings by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama this summer. The artwork is covered in polka dots and a mesh net pattern - as seen on the flower pot below.

Kusama suffered from a life-long struggle with mental illness. She had severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, and experienced hallucinations with visions of dots, nets and flowers that covered her and everything around her.

In her work she expresses the universe covered by these patterns. For her polka dots symbolize the sun and the moon, and hence a way to infinity.

Spider Woman

2010-12-11T19:21:00.000-05:00

I visited Hauser & Wirth in London's Saville Row to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibit. Gallery staff did not allow me to take any pictures. I managed to take a picture of the giant marble sculpture of a spider from outside the gallery. The spider stood in contrast to woven fabric works in graphical colors and patterns, some in a web pattern.

The spider provides a counterpoint to the woven artworks, is a signature theme for the artist which appeared in different sizes in different cities. It represents her mother who was an expert at spinning and weaving. The spider which creates a web to protect, provides further symbolism for her mother.

Whitney Biennial

2010-02-23T07:04:00.000-05:00

I was at the press preview for the Whitney Biennial. This post is going to highlight some of the work on display at this important show of American artists.

Co-curator of this year's biennial, Francesco Bonami, welcoming visitors.

An installation by Robert Grosvenor

Portraits by Storm Tharp

Below are James Casebere's photopgraphs of tabletop models that he constructed from Styrofoam, plaster and cardboard

An installation by Jennifer Jackson Hutchins

A painting by George Condo

Photograph by Pae White

Paper folds by Tauba Auerbach

In stark contrast to the above photographs, a fashionable visitor in a n ostrich feather coat

Damien Hirst at White Cube

2010-02-04T23:22:00.004-05:00

Crows are the subject of Damien Hirst's latest exhibit at White Cube Hoxton Square in London. I was warned by gallery staff not to take any more pics after I took the one below. So this is the only image from that show.

The tryptich shows crows in the sky with blood splattered across their bodies.

Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Art

2009-09-26T18:05:00.000-04:00

Anish Kapoor is having a retrospective at the Royal Academy in London.
A giant sculpture made up of mirrored balls greets visitors in the courtyard.

Venice Biennale

2009-08-11T21:28:00.010-04:00

The Italian pavillion was by far the best in the Biennale. A tribute to Italian Futurism it presented a stimulating and consuming experience that i did not want to leave. I could have spent hours in this pavillion.

Starting things off (in my viewing order, at least) was a video by the artist duo Masbedo, where man fights the elements with his parachute, alluding to tensions of personal aspirations, reflecting on human existence - all to the background music by Marlene Kuntz and Gianni Maroccolo.

Next up were paintings by Daniele Galliano, with natural light and vibrant colors. Human figures establish a dialogue with the landscape, where man is not the centerpiece, but an element that coexist with the broader environment.

Venice Biennale

2009-07-20T22:08:00.019-04:00

In the Arsenale, the Making Worlds exhibit continues. Swedish artist Jan Hafstrom has an installation, The Eternal Return, inspired by his own collections of newspaper clippings from America in the '60s.

In an experiential installation, Falke Pisano takes the viewer through a series of rooms, each painted with a different primary color of the rainbow. Viewers are immersed in a flood of color as they walk through the rooms. A computer screen that changes color in each room adds contrast and heightens the visual sensation.

A German Pop Art piece by Thomas Bayrle follows. A graphical pattern made out of a series of Chrysler logos makes out the silhouette of a Chrsyler car. It is pure optical stimulation.

Little blimps by Hector Zamora add whimsy to the space. His blimps of all sizes are all over the city of Venice during the biennale, adding a historical reference and an element of fantasy at the same time.

Toward the end of the warehouse space in the Arsenale, a work by Spencer Finch tries to recreate his observations of light and color.

Venice Biennale

2009-07-15T21:51:00.007-04:00

The Russian Pavillion was one of the most engaging, and certainly the boldest in the Biennale. There was no room for quiet contemplation here. An installation by Alexei Kalima, Victory Over the Future, was in a room painted with figures of an audience on all four walls, accompanied by a cheering sound that got louder by every second. And all of a sudden, Boom!
Play the video below with sound on high.

The installation made viewers feel like they were on a stage in front of a huge live audience, in a concert or a soccer game. It gave the viewer a sense of unease and excitement at the same time. When the lights came on and the audience disappeared out of vision, your 15 seconds of fame was up. The fantasy all disappeared in a second and made the viewer crave for more and want to stay for another cycle of this looping video.

Venice Biennale

2009-07-14T21:17:00.021-04:00

The Venice Biennale has international pavillions that showcase art from different countries by their own artists. The Danish and Nordic Pavillion was exceptional in that it featured international artists in two fictional domestic environments, curated and staged by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The first featured a fictional house that went on sale after a family supposedly broke up. Things were not what they seemed to be.

In the fuzzy picture above a sculpture of a house maid is cast in gold which contrasts with your traditional image of a maid. A chair seems to dissolve into the ground as a sign of decay, a theme that ran thru the entire house.

A set of stairs did not seem to be functional or leading up to anywhere as it was supposed to. A richly-set dining table (not pictured) was fractured in the middle, including the plates on it, overlooked by a collage of signs made by street bums from across the world, begging for money, in contrast to the once idyllic scene of modern family life. Read NYTimes T Magazine feature on this pavillion.

The second exhibit space in the Danish & Nordic pavillion was a well-appointed modernist house furnished with iconic scandinavian furniture and provocative art.

Visitors approached the residence from the pool where a dead body greeted them floating in the pool, either as a result of murder or suicide, leaving the visitors in suspense of a mystery unfolding.

There was a narrative developing as visitors entered the residence and started viewing the Polynesian sculpture having a dialgoue with its modern counterpart next to it, a black and white photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans, with naked men lazing down on a lawn.

While proceeding further into the residence, visitors encountered two paintings by Hernan Bas, a Miami artist known for his gay themes (Please see my April 2009 posting for more on Hernan Bas).

Next installation revealed a set of Tom of Finland drawings with depictions of men having raunchy sex, further moving the viewer into a gay subtext.

Next was a pair of sculptures of Michalengelo's David by controversial New York artist Terence Koh, adding a contemporary interpretation of a classical work (and a prominent gay icon).

Behind the minimalist living room organized around a fireplace was a set of Vibeke Slyngstad paintings that hinted at the fictional resident's sophisticated collecting taste.

As one approached the corner end of the house, a desk built by Simon Fujiwara revealed the mystery to the entire residence/installation. A manuscript on a typewriter; a collection of photographs; and clippings revealed a suspense novel in the making, in which the protagonist, a rich gay collector, ends up drowning in his own pool. The suspense was over. All the pieces of art now came together to complete a narrative and solve a puzzle for visitors who did not know what they were getting into in the first place. It was a very clever installation.

The Danish and Nordic Pavillion set itself apart from the other international pavillions by telling a story though international artists' work rather than representing national artists for self promotion.

On a parting note, i could not resist the construction of the ceiling in the pavillion.

Venice Biennale

2009-07-12T22:15:00.013-04:00

The 53rd insallment of the Venice Biennale, the international art exposition, runs until November 22 this year. It has a curated exhibit that feature art from international artists in il Giardini and Arsenale, and throughout the city of Venice. The exhibit is called Making Worlds, curated this year by Daniel Birnbaum, of art as a representation of a vision of the world, and as a way of “making a world”, in his words.

American conceptual artist John Baldessari's words "I will not make another boring art" greets visitors in the Grand Canal.

In the Giardini, Making Worlds opens with Argentine artisit Tomas Saraceno's installation. It is a renditon of an astronomical constellation based on the architectural structure of a black widow's web. It can suspend heavy weghts through the use of complex geometry. The result is visually stunning. Visitors walk through the structure, making it an interactive work.

Next up is Swedish Artist Nathalie Djurberg's vision of apocalypse. Djurberg is known for her claymation videos, animation with clay figures. In this room she built a surealistic Garden of Eden in which nature has turned into something out of hell.

As you walk through the "garden" with huge carnivoreous plants and watch her films projected on 2 screens, you are confronted with innate fear of what's not understood.

The films depict disturbing subject matter and are politically charged, exposing the underbelly of institutions and traditions that we hold sacred. It is a very emotionally charged piece. I tried to capture the installation, but the room is dark, and i could not film the whole film sequence.

The next work by Hans-Peter Feldman, Schattenspiel (Shadowwork), with the artist's collection of toys and ordinary objects rotating on platforms lit from behind, cast their shadows on the wall like magic lanterns and looked like shadow puppetry.

Dandies, Pansies and Prudes

2009-04-15T22:17:00.023-04:00

The Brooklyn Museum currently has a show of works by Hernan Bass from the Rubell Family Collection. I got to see this same body of work while visiting the Rubell Collection during Art Basel Miami in 2007. It was a truly "artpup" style of discovery. Going in to the show, I did not know who he was, and what to expect, but came out pleasantly surprised and inspired.

The Miami show was aptly named "Dandies, Pansies and Prudes", that included paintings, sculpture, installation and video, with gay themes that connected historical and literary influences to his personal experience in a contemporary context.

Some of the work had allegorical references to the sea, including tortoise shells and mermaids, most likely to be influenced by his native Miami.

I really enjoyed his work because it was very personal. I got a good glimpse into his world without knowing him. He shared his innermost feelings, his fantasies, desires, fears and his longings in a melancholic style that made it easy to relate to.

I hope to see more of his work in the future.

Surveying the Moon

2009-02-22T17:56:00.014-05:00

Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati is the current stop for the NY-based artist Tara Donovan's retrospective that got started at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. I had seen a couple of the installations shown in this exhibit back in 2007 at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London. Here are a few images from that show.

In this installation Donovan created a structure that resembled a moonscape. It looked like an outcropping of organic material that spread across the gallery floor. The material in reality was hardly organic. It was mylar.

Donovan frequently uses every day materials to create immersive environments that inspire awe in the viewer. We kept surveying these "structures" that glimmered with their reflective surfaces.

The second installation in this small exhibit was a wall-based sculpture that resembled a map.

Upon close view the materials revealed themselves as loops of metallic tape. It was unexpected to discover the material, since it defied the overall effect of the installation.

Trapped in the Urban Jungle

2008-11-30T21:59:00.010-05:00

Doug Aitken had a recent exhibition in 2 distinct gallery spaces by 303 in Chelsea. The common theme of the show was the space, or habitat, we live in and our interaction with it.

The first piece was a video installation, called Migration, projected on three billboard size screens that showed wild animals outside of their natural habitat, filmed in roadside motel rooms. The video below is an excerpt from this installation that shows a fox entering a motel room and interacting with the space. Other segments (not shown) were filmed with a buffalo, a tiger, an eagle, a sable (in the bathtub), among others.

It is interesting to watch the animals try to adapt to their surroundings. You feel their frustration and helplessness having been taken out of their natural habitat and being trapped in small quarters. The spare, non-descript furnishings add to the feeling of desolation of the animals that are used to roam the wilderness.

The gallery's other exhibit space nearby had a white circular room with Aitken's futuristic watercolor paintings. The abstract depictions of streetscapes contrasted with the minimal room for an interesting sensory effect.

In the back of the exhibit space there was an illuminated photograph of an urban landscape (LA?) that made up the word "Star". The night time city scape could also be taken for space with distant stars and planets.

The Bailout

2008-10-08T23:21:00.004-04:00

This is a mural of a rat painted on the side of a building at Broadway and Howard streets in Soho, NYC. A rat running away with cash, with blood on his hands. A reminder of Wall Street greed that is the cause of the economic collapse. The image is attributed to the famous street graffiti artist Banksy.

Black Cloud

2008-07-15T00:26:00.009-04:00

I'm reaching into "the archives" to show an exhibit from November 2007, Mexican artist Carlos Morales' show Black Cloud at Yvon Lambert Gallery in Chelsea, New York. The show had an installation of paper moths cut out from black paper covering the gallery walls and ceiling.

It was captivating. The piece plays with dark fantasy and optimism, butterflies taking over your surroundings and leaving you haunted. It is both unsettling and comforting at the same time.

A close-up of the moths is below.

There was also a spooky video, a segment of which i was able to capture on my camera.

I Want to Believe

2008-07-12T23:41:00.007-04:00

Guggenheim Museum in New York had a blockbuster show this Winter/Spring. "I Want to Believe" was a retrospective of Cai Guo-Qiang, the Chinese artist known for his gun powder paintings. The show had a lot of buzz with reports of long lines that spanned 2 blocks. Much of the hype was because of the installation in the lobby of cars suspended from the museum's ceiling.

The image below depicts Head On, an installation of a pack of wolves leaping through the air in a unified arc towards a glass wall. They collide head on to the wall, which when first exhibited at the Berlin Guggenheim, represented the Berlin Wall, built to the same height and thickness. The installation addresses the tendency of humans that blindly follow an ideology which may lead to their collective downfall.

Click on image to enlarge

If you look closely at the bottom of the image you will notice a couple of tigers that are leaping though the space in pain from an onslaght of arrows. This installation, called Inopportune, is inspired by an old Chinese folk tale in which a hero saves a village by killing a man-eating tiger. The work is more about the tragedy of the tiger, as a victim of violence than the celebration of a heroic feat by a human.

And finally, Reflection, a Gift from Iwaki, is an installation with the wreck of a fishing boat, which was pulled from the water off the coast of Iwoki, in Japan. Cai worked with volunteers to pull boat out of the water and install it. It is filled with broken pieces of white porcelain statuettes of a Buddhist deity.

The images are not as clear and focused as I would have liked them to be. I was dodging museum guards to get good shots. Click on the images for a larger view.

Tranquility of the Heart, Torment of the Flesh

2008-07-12T22:33:00.010-04:00

One of the paintings in the Takashi Murakami retrospective at the Brooklyn Art Museum (see last post) came from his exhibit in Spring 2007 at the Gagosian Gallery in uptown New York. It had a rather long name: Tranquility of the Heart, Torment of the Flesh - Open Wide the Eye of the Heart and Nothing is Invisible.

This exhibit was surprising since the art was not as light-hearted as his previous work. Murakami had several portraits of Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. According to legend, Daruma sat in meditation for nine years, without ever blinking his eyes. During the process his arms and legs lost blood, rotted and fell off. His resilience and determination is of cultural significance in Japan. Here Murakami interprets the legend of Daruma in his own style, fusing tradition with a contemporary sensibility.

The gold background gives the pieces weight and a super sleek effect at the same time. The paintings are rendered in a very refined technique. Note the signature on the upper left corner of the portrait evoking traditional Japanese paintings.

The Gagosian exhibit had the cartoonish smiling lotus flowers, but there was another version painted in the more traditional Japanese technique. Murakami stays on course by mixing high art and popular culture, tradition and contemporary culture, Eastern philosophy with a Western interpretation.

Click to enlarge image.

(C) Murakami

2008-07-02T23:25:00.023-04:00

The Takashi Murakami retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum had tight security, so I was not able to take as many pictures as I wanted. I did manage to capture a few important pieces.

In the lobby, there is Murakami's alter ego, Mr. DOB, in an inflatable piece that greets visitors.

The rotunda had an installation of robotic female warrior sculptures, Second Mission Project Ko2, inspired by sexual fantasies of geek Japanese boys. The female figures transform into aeroplanes and take flight.

The figures have part numbers on them, just like aeroplanes and they look very cool.

Below is Mr. DOB, painted against a silver background color, to emphasize the "flatness" of the subject.

Flower Ball, is in contrast to Murakami's signature "flat" style, where smiling-face flowers are painted to create a 3D effect.

Barely visible in the back, beyond the visitors, is My Lonesome Cowboy, a life size sculpture of a boy ejaculating. I was trying to block myself from the museum guard to be able to photograph this piece.

This is Murakami's way of taking anime and porn cultures and mixing them to introduce a doze of shock to the audience. Across from it (not pictured) is a life size sculpture of a girl squirting milk from her very large breasts.

Below painting is of Time Bokan, its title derived from a famous Japanese animation. It is a mushroom cloud that is formed after the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan. The atomic bomb is ingrained in the psyche of the Japanese culture and appears often in art and animation. Here Murakami has added a face and eyes to the figure to lighten the guilt and the burden of the atomic bomb.

Smiling faces continue along the staircase.

Another painting of Time Bokan is on a wallpaper of Jellyfish Eyes, an oxymoron, because jelly fish don't have eyes.

A beautiful painting of Mr. DOB, this time rendered in a traditional style.

Below is Miss Ko, the waitress, a 3D life size sculpture. It is a typical anime character that feeds the sexual fantasies of Japanese boys.

Reversed Double Helix (Mr. Pointy) is in the lobby of the museum. It is a Buddha-like figure sitting on top of a frog, which itself is sitting on a lotus flower. It is protected by 4 pointy-head guards. The large scale and the colorful composition of the sculpture make quite an impression. This is a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese art.

And finally, KaiKai and Kiki, standing guard. This is an image I took at Miami Basel, but they were included in the Murakami exhibit in Brooklyn. They are 2 characters that Murakami created, and named after a superlative in Japanese, that means something like "incredible". KaiKaiKiki is also the name of the "factory" where Murakami and his assistants bring his conceptual art to life.

Kiki on the right is the curious, playful, and naive character, the trouble maker. KaiKai is the voice of reason.

2007-12-18T23:33:00.001-05:00

Continuing on at Art Basel...Merlin Carpenter's painting "Die Collector Scum" takes a swipe at the overheated art market. Reportedly it was sold on the first day of the show.

Jeffrey Deitch Projects showed a painting by Kurt Kauper (Bobby #3) in front of Dzine's pimped up bike. Kurt Kauper's painting is a nude portrait of Bobby Orr, the famous hockey player for the Boston Bruins in the artist's home town. It is the artist's own fantasy at work here, imagining a masculine athlete in the buff.

The gallery also showed a small sculpture by Keith Haring. It is a great example of his iconic Pop figures that are graphic abstractions.

Some visitors at the show were as interesting looking as the art itself.

Talking about interesting, the sculpture shown below was pretty nifty. A "collage" of penises cast a shadow of 2 male profiles with a spotlight illuminating the piece. Can anyone help with the name of the artist, and the gallery that showed it? I forgot to write this one down.

Out in the Dark at Art Basel Miami Beach 2007

2007-12-17T23:56:00.001-05:00

I attended Art Basel in Miami for the first time last week. Held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Art Basel Miami Beach is the sister event for the original fair that is held every summer in Basel, Switzerland.

Images from the UBS VIP lounge at the Miami Basel are above and below.

The top galleries from around the world are invited to show the art they represent for collectors and museums interested in acquiring art. It is a commercial fair that features some of the world's most expensive pieces by contemporary artists and their predecessors. At one gallery you're looking at a large scale photograph by Andreas Gursky, at another gallery you get to view an early Picasso. The vast selection of art that encompasses multiple media, periods and styles makes the fair an overwhelming experience.

Terence Koh is an artist whose work I saw for the first time here. Based in New York, he does provocative work. Shown at the stand for Peres Projects his photographs depict the artist himself in sexual situations with other men. The photos are taken outdoors in the dark. They look both raw and sleek at the same time. What makes his work interesting is the fact hat he has no inhibitions. He is not afraid to depict himself in compromising situations with difficult subject matter. He is completely naked, engaging in sex or acting out violent and lewd acts with no reservations. Some of the most interesting work comes from artists with the least reservations to express themselves. Kara Walker is another example that comes to mind.

In these photographs Koh and friends frolick in the darkness, seemingly under the influence of drugs or alcohol (or both), adding a freakish feel to the whole set.

Compare Koh's work with the Picasso at a another gallery nearby. Picasso's Male Bathers is another depiction of men frolicking outdoors, this time on a beach. The difference between the two works are like night and day, literally. Koh's works show today's post-modern angst and chaos. Picasso's painting is relatively calmer. It is hard to imagine that his work was considered provocative at the time.

Is Modernity our Antiquity

2007-11-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

Modernity as antiquity was one of the leitmotifs at documenta 12. It explored the influence of the modernist movement and the response to it by artists in the past and the present. A piece by Tanaka Atsuko from Japan, Electric Dress, lit up with painted bulbs sporadically. This was a piece in which Tanaka Atsuko performed in the 6os to make an anti-modernist statement. She used electricity and light to make a moving painting, not meant to be hung on a wall, but as a piece of art that is worn and that changes color and light with the wearer's movement. The material also punctuated Japan's post-war technological aspirations. Putting the piece in the context of 60s Japan in the hands of a woman responding to modernism gave a historic perspective of the movement.

Another performance piece that was documented was Graciela Carnevale's experiment in the 60s. This Argentinian artist invited guests to her gallery opening and then locked them all inside the gallery. She watched their reactions as the guests grew uncomfortable, anxious, and finally violent, breaking the front window to release themselves. Police shut down the gallery in response. She experimented with performance art where the viewer became the subject for the artist. A photograph documented her experiment which gave insight to the history and evolution of contemporary performance art.

Still connected to the concept of modernity, but expressed in a more natural form, were photographs of Nigerian hairstyles documented by J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere. In Africa a woman's hairstyle signifies her status in society. They express themselves artistically through their hair, for everyday life and for special occasions. This is not art done for art's sake, but art that is incidental to cultural expression.

Other pieces that connected to the modernist theme were sculptures that explored spatial forms. Three computer monitors that displayed a continuous video loop of an orange surface made a stark impression. I got to think that this piece explored the same relationships between form and space like the early pieces of geometric forms, this time using a more contemporary material, namely technology, showing how the expression of same ideas can evolve with new materials.

Documenting documenta 12

2007-08-21T22:18:00.000-04:00

For the next few posts I will be covering the 12th installation of documenta, the art fair that is held every five years (cinquentennial?) in Kassel, Germany. This is the first time I visited documenta. As far as art fairs go, documenta has a different purpose than, say, the Venice biennale. Venice is mostly about blue-chip, established artists presenting work in pavillions set up for participating countries. The Basel fairs are purely commercial. documenta is more academic, political, and features more artists (may be more so this year) from the non-Western world. The Americans staying in our hotel were complaining that American artists were scarcely represented. Go figure!

The image that you see above was the image that accompanied the press stories all over the world. So I will start my documenta coverage with this work from German artist Peter Friedl. Called The Zoo Story, the installation is of a stuffed giraffe, named Brownie, that died in the only zoo in the West Bank. When the Israeli army started shooting in the city, Brownie started running in a panic, bumped his head to an iron bar and died. His heart could not pump enough blood upwards his long neck to keep him alive.

After his death Brownie was stuffed by a veterinarian, along with other animals that died in the same zoo and placed in a museum adjacent to it. Here in documenta Halle, Brownie stands among stuffed toy animals, by Cosima von Bonin, a Mombasa-born, Cologne-based artist.

Brownie looks almost like a stuffed plush toy himself, but his sad story offers a stark contrast to its surroundings, and a very different perspective to the conflict in the West Bank. Contrary to the usual media images from that occupation zone, we are faced with a de-politicized view of the conflict, realizing it's universal impact, not only on humans, but on the greater eco-system.

Within the next few posts I will cover the art that left a lasting impression at documenta. I will try to explain the works within the context of the main theme and the leitmotifs that the curators addressed.

Look Closer

2007-07-23T23:31:00.000-04:00

Tim Hawkinson likes to surprise. Sometimes what you see is not really what you get. The work pictured above is one such example. At his spring exhibit How Man is Knit at Pace Wildenstein Gallery in New York, he showed a Totem pole. Look closer, and you will see that it is made up of plastic oil containers covered in papier mache. You can make out the faces in the containers.

There is a metaphor here. We have become so dependent on oil that we may as well worship it. Innocent people are sacrificed for it. This is as political as Tim Hawkinson is going to get.

In Veil, below, you feel like you are looking at an audience at a theater - or may be tombstones at a cemetery. Get closer and you will see that the photograph is made up of multiple images...

...of a box of Kleenex.

In Scout below, he uses cardboard to imitate buckskin. The figure is a native Indian that has oversized hands, feet and balls. The way he plays with the material here is amazing.

Sunset below is a time-lapse photograph of a sunset made with a digital photo-scanner.

Finally, Egg, a mixed media piece pictured below, reminds the viewer of blood cells under a microscope, connecting the piece to the show's theme, or title, How Man is Knit, part of which is a survey of the human anatomy.

The Mad Scientist

2007-07-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

I try to be objective about the art and the artists that I cover in this blog. When it comes to Tim Hawkinson though, I cannot hide my excitement. It's because his work really helped me make sense of contemporary art when I first viewed his retrospective at the Whitney a couple of years ago. Since then, I had been craving to see his newer work. Last may in New York, I got the chance.

His latest exhibit, How Man is Knit, was shown at the Pace Wildenstein Gallery in Chelsea. Tim Hawkinson is like a mad scientist. He tinkers with materials and objects to create either banal objects or complex structures that are automated and mechanized. He will motorize a string of hair on a brush to tell time, create a musical instrument out of found objects, weave an extension cord into a pair of shorts, and so on. He is also obsessed with his body. He will photograph his body from different angles, and collage them into octopus-like figures; he will create a miniature skeleton of a bird out of his nail clippings.

This exhibit, with a very fitting name, extends his obsessions and painstakingly labor-intensive work into great display.

First work that greets visitors is Foot Print. According to the catalog, Hawkinson put white pigment powder on the bottom of his foot and scanned it. He then projected the scanned image onto a very large piece of silver polyester material with a cotton lining, and traced the network of ridges, crests and folds on the image of his sole. He then used a quilter's sewing machine to sew on the tracing to create this map of his own foot on a large scale.

You can make out his foot from afar, and as you get close (as below), you get to appreciate the long and detailed manual work that went into it.

Hawkinson is a great conceptual thinker; he is not afraid of working with any material to execute his vision. And the method by which he executes his vision inspires awe in the viewer. He does not repeat himself; he keeps exploring new materials and processes to realize his vision.

In Deposition, as I captured in the video below, he motorized a large tree branch with a beaded chain moving up and down, setting off a whistle. The beads look like an army of ants crawling up and down the branch in unison.

In Gimbled Klein Basket, below, Tim Hawkinson weaves bamboo into a three-dimensional basket that rotates. It is conceived after German mathematician Felix Klein's model exploring the fourth dimension as he described it in 1882. This form has an outside that turns back on the inside and back out again, exploring infinity. Here the artist surprises the viewer with a metaphysical model conceived with a most natural material, bamboo.

This piece follows a set of photographs (not pictured) that were hanging in the room next door. They were images of his nostrils and ear canals that were collaged together to form entirely different images. The depths of the ear canal may have led him to Klein's bottle to conceive this piece.

Experiencing art, math, physics, photography, sewing, all in one exhibit? Now that's a good show!

Construction Time Again

2007-06-03T22:19:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my first post on Toronto's Contact Photography Festival, some of the art here is exhibited in public spaces like subway stations, bus stops and billboards. Fashion photographer Jonathan de Villiers' "ShangHigh" series is being shown on the courtyard patio of a restaurant downtown. de Villers is a fashion photographer from London, now living in Paris. ShangHigh is a fashion spread that he shot for French Vogues Hommes and it is being shown here as part of Contact.

I attended a talk by a group of photographers where de Villiers was present. He talked about the concept for this photo shoot where he dressed Chinese laborers in designer suits and shot them on construction sites across Shanghai.

As Shanghai is going through a construction boom, workers from the countryside are moving into the city to work in low-paying construction projects. They sleep and eat on-site and spend as little as possible to be able to save and support their families back home. They all dream of one day owning apartments in the city, driving expensive cars and wearing designer clothes.

deVilliers' work documents Shanghai's impressive expansion in the background while commenting on the contrast between China's current economic reality and its future aspirations.

Inclusion of fashion photography in the festival is evidence of the increasing influence of fashion, art and design on each other.

This post concludes my coverage of the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto. Next stop: New York, and the new spring exhibits in Chelsea.

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-06-02T00:17:00.001-04:00

Finnish artist Ilkka Halso presented his Museum of Nature series at MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art) as part of Contact Photography Festival in Toronto. In his photographs he encloses nature (a lake, a waterfall, and a forest) with man-made structures. He is commenting on environmental damage. Nature is getting depleted to the point where we will one day get to only enjoy it as a rare performance. We will pay to sit around a waterfall to watch what it used to be like.

Apocalypse Now

2007-06-01T23:53:00.000-04:00

Another artist that was shown in the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto was Simen Johan, a Norwegian now based in New York. He presented his large-scale photography of animals in apocalyptic landscapes. Apparently the title references a prayer: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done..."

In the above picture you see two moose locking antlers as parakeets fly about. The animals are taxidermy forms inserted into picturesque landscapes - a constructed image, the theme of the festival this year - The background looks like a deserted land, devoid of any human life, where the last things remaining are the animals shown. Don't despair though, because it looks like there is hope. When the fight produces a victor, new life will start forming.

Present In Spirit

2007-05-16T19:34:00.000-04:00

Every spring, for the whole month of May, the city of Toronto hosts the Contact Photography Festival. Photographers from around the world exhibit their work in art galleries, cafes, restaurants and design stores. Some of the work is exhibited in unexpected public spaces like subway stations, outdoor billboards and bus stations.

This year's theme, the Constructed Image, explores the possibilities of digital photography in constructed scenes and digitally manipulated images that create visual fantasies.

One of the artists represented in this year's festival is the Spanish photographer Jose Manuel Ballester with an exhibit in the Nicholas Metivier Gallery. Ballester creates large-scale architectural photographs of large commercial spaces. The artist expertly uses perspective to highlight the scale and the structural elements of these empty spaces. He digitally manipulates light that filters through vaulted ceilings and glass walls. These effects add a mystical, almost spiritual quality to the spaces.

Click on images to enlarge

The below image is a good example of how well Ballester uses perspective to create volume and depth. It is of the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid.

Julian Opie & Henry Moore Mash-up

2007-04-25T23:02:00.002-04:00

Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada is under construction for a Frank Gehry addition. By looking at the architectural model on display, one does not get the impression that it will be a blockbuster attraction like his Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, or the Millenium Park in Chicago. It is an acknowledgement that Gehry was born and brought-up in this city. However the addition has been called Gehry-lite, due to the understated structure financed by a relatively small budget.

During the construction, a limited portion of the permanent collection is on view (mostly Impressionist paintings), including the largest collection of Henry Moore sculptures in the world. What's interesting is that the AGO invited British artist Julian Opie to draw figures on the walls of the Henry Moore sculpture center. You will remember Julian Opie from one of my MArch posts covering the Margulies Collection in Miami.

Here Julian Opie created drawings of a stripping pole dancer surrounding the walls of the Henry Moore sculpture center. Named, This is Shahnoza, the drawings were conceived from photographs and videos of a real dancer, taken in the artist's studio. Julian Opie's trademark stick-figures create a playful dialogue with the serene sculptures of Henry Moore. Whereas Henry Moore's female figures exude elegance and gravitas, Julian Opie's drawings are cheeky and light.

You will also notice that the poles are drawn under the beams of the gallery, where they seem to be supporting the ceiling. They bring to mind the caryatids used in the Greek period as columns to hold up ancient temples (example below).

The inter-generational dialogue with a master sculpture from the '60s and the historical/architectural reference make this temporary installation a unique experience.

Poles Apart

2007-04-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

In addition to its permanent exhibit, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami also presents themed, temporary shows, curated out of its own collection. Last winter they exhibited Poles Apart: Contemporary Polish Art. To be honest, I was skeptical going into the Polish exhibit: I did not know what to expect and did not want to get distracted away from the art by well-known artists. But I kept an open mind (artpup style) and proceeded through the exhibit. In the end I was pleasantly surprised. It was the discovery that made it so special - the sort of pleasure that you come upon unexpectedly.

My favorite work was the Concentration Camp series of photographs by Zbigniew Libera.

Please click to enlarge images for a better view.

Here the artist constructed scenes from Nazi-era concentration camps using customized Lego pieces. The original limited edition Lego sets were not available at the Rubell exhibit, but the photographs of the sets were on display. The value of the work comes from the material. A very disturbing period of human history is presented in a lighthearted way using popular toy pieces. The innocence associated with children's toys contrasts starkly with the uncomfortable subject matter that it depicts. It lets you in on a dark period in Polish history, the terrorizing Nazi experience during WWII.

This post concludes my report from the Rubell Family Collection this year. I will be back next year to see new acquisitions and other work that gets unearthed out of storage in this revolving exhibition space. I tried to give you a flavor of the collection, covering a few highlights. The Rubell collection is massive, representing a broad range of well-known artists, from non-living contemporaries like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring to current stars like Elizabeth Peyton and Lisa Yuskavage. If you travel to Miami between December and May, make sure you visit the Rubell Family Collection. You will enjoy the experience.

Now that the weather is getting warmer up north, I am going to head up to Toronto and review a couple of works there.

Camptown Ladies

2007-04-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

LA artist Kara Walker's work, named Camptown Ladies, is another controversial piece in the Rubell Collection. It is made up of silhouettes cut out of black paper and pasted on the wall. It is one of the best-known examples of her body of work that explore stereotypes about blacks and women with narratives from the old south and the time of slavery. The above piece is only a partial view of the installation that covers an entire wall. It finds inspiration in an old folk song from the mid-19th century, about workers racing horses for entertainment in make-shift towns during railroad construction. In Walker's work though, rather than racing a horse, the jockey is riding a black woman while dangling a carrot in front of her face. At the end of the piece (not pictured), the carrot ends up in the woman's derriere. Click on the image to see detail.

The use of black material on white punctuates her racial agenda. It's a thought-provoking piece that engages you with flowing imagery that looks simple but makes reference to very complex cultural issues.

The Elephant in the Room

2007-03-27T11:14:00.000-04:00

Not Afraid of Love is the name of the sculpture from Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. He is well-represented with multiple pieces in the Rubell Collection. This piece is the size of a young elephant shrouded in white fabric. It is the "elephant in the room", something major that is on everyone's mind and impossible to ignore. But nobody talks about the "elephant" because nobody knows what to do about it. The name suggests that while we all want to fall in love, we are afraid to commit. We get in to relationships while hiding behind a facade, not exposing our true selves. The unbearable lightness of being is impossible to ignore.

Cultural Gothic

2007-03-21T23:55:00.000-04:00

If you thought the last post was challenging, try this. Cultural Gothic, by Paul McCarthy, an LA artist, is another provocative piece in the Rubell Collection. It is a motorized sculpture of a father and a son sodomizing a goat. The mechanics of the sculpture was not working when i saw this piece, but the son is supposed to move back and forth, then look back at his dad, and the dad is to nod his head as if he is approving. There is a reference to the famous painting American Gothic by Grant Wood. But here, the artist is giving a post-modern treatment to a common rural practice. The twist is that the father and son seem to come from an urban setting (ok, may be suburban), seen in their conservative clothing. This contrast makes you think about how the physical appearance may fool you about a person or an object. You don't know the dirty secrets behind the veneer.

Keep an Open Mind

2007-03-17T22:52:00.000-04:00

Upon seeing the piece pictured above, my dad, who was visiting the Rubell Family Collection with me, decided to wait for me at the Phaidon bookstore downstairs.

I did not know anything about the artist Charles Ray until I saw this piece titled Oh! Charley Charley Charley. Life-sized, anatomically correct mannequins, which are replicas of the artist himself, are having sex with each other in different positions. It is a shocking and unsettling piece. It may be making a reference to Pygmalion, a sculptor in Greek mythology, who falls in love with Galatea, the statue he made. In this case the sculpture is one of the artist himself, (Narcissus?) and the mythological, innocent love has been replaced by explicit sexuality in a post-modern twist.

This piece gives you clear insight into the Rubell family's philosophy in collecting. They are not buying art to affirm their status, or to turn a profit. They are pushing the boundaries of their own imagination, offering different and unconventional points of view to provoke thought and initiate a dialogue with the publikum.

A bit of kitsch at the Rubell Collection

2007-03-13T21:48:00.000-04:00

The Rubell Family Collection has many Jeff Koons sculptures, one of which is Serpents. The serpents here look like stuffed toys rendered in porcelain. The serpent is a common theme in Koons' work that appeared in the context of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Here he is taking the serpent out of its biblical context and representing it as a kitschy consumer product. The figures are marked all over with Agrodolce logos. Not sure if this is a logo he made up, or if it exists in reality.

One of his more familiar pieces, Three ball 50-50 tank, is also here. Three basketballs floating in a water tank, immersed exactly at mid-level below water, seem to defy the laws of physics. It gives you insight into the mind of the artist, the conceptualist, trying to figure out a way to defy nature.

There is also a Hoover vacuum cleaner and an inflatable flower, other examples of kitschy objects for which he is well-known. He is trying to deceive the viewer's perception of an everyday object, like a vacuum cleaner, by presenting it as a piece of art. He is influenced by marketing and advertising. You can see how when you look at these pieces.

Dance Naked through the Rubell Collection

2007-03-11T21:49:00.000-04:00

I first visited the Rubell Family Collection in 2005. It is the largest private collection in North America, located in the Wynwood Art District of Miami. It is inside a former warehouse for the US Drug Enforcement Agency where they used to keep confiscated goods. Now a museum, it includes art by some of the most influential and established contemporary artists of our time. The collection is vast and constantly growing, so the exhibit is refreshed every 6 months to showcase new art.

In my first visit, i picked up the book written on the collection at the bookstore inside: Not Afraid - Rubell Family Collection, published by Phaidon. After reading it I learned a lot about the Rubell family, and got to see other pieces in the collection that were not featured in the exhibit. I was as fascinated about the Rubells as I was with the art they collect. They started collecting when they were students in the '60s with very little money they saved to buy art. They have a great passion for art that is reflected in the very carefully curated collection. They also have a great appreciation of the artists with whom they have formed personal relationships. They discovered unknown talent who later became huge stars, and boosted the careers of many other artists. In the next few posts I will feature the art from the collection that i have personally seen over two years. Unfortunately I did not get to photograph everything i saw, so i will use stock imagery for those i was not able to capture with my camera.

First off, there is one of Damien Hirst's cabinet sculpures called Dance Naked. Damien Hirst is one of the Young British Artists that shocked the art world with animals that he sliced and stored in tanks with formaldehyde. Naked Dance is a relatively tamer sculpture where he displays a collection of surgical tools in a glass cabinet. As a viewer you get absorbed by the way these tools are so meticulously assembled on glass shelves. You end up examining each and every one of the tools, captivated by their sterilized, shiny surfaces, and pondering what they are exactly used for. And then you realize their purpose, which is to cut up, incise, stitch the human body during medical procedures. In the outset you are thinking about life and death; feeling both curious and uncomfortable at the same time.

Parting Images from the Margulies Warehouse

2007-03-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

When you enter the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse the first piece of art that you encounter is the installation by Zilvinas Kempinas, a Lithuanian artist based in New York. The installation is a series of columns with video tape strung vertically. As you enter the space and walk around these columns the width of the tape changes to create an optical illusion; the columns seem like they are rotating.

This installation is also the parting image from the Warehouse. The Margulies Collection has a vast collection of art, of which I covered a very small portion. I will return to visit again when the exhibit rotates through its large collection in storage.

Obviously there is more art to see in Miami. So join me for a tour of the Rubell Collection in my next post.

Taking a stroll with Julian Opie

2007-03-05T21:52:00.000-05:00

The Margulies Collection has a Julian Opie video in the form of a continuous computer animation on a plasma screen. What makes this British artist unique is the way he reduces his subjects to their simplest lines with flat surfaces. His cartoonish stick figures may have been inspired by Matisse's drawings. They are iconic representations of form, similar to bathroom or traffic signs. I will cover more of his works in future posts. Stay tuned...

Detour to Berlin

2007-03-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in my inaugural post how I came to realize that an architectural piece that I saw on a trip to Berlin (in 2003), turned out to be an installation by Olafur Eliasson. At the time of my trip, I did not know who Eliasson was, or that what I saw was an art installation. I thought what I saw was an example of a modern element that Germans are so good at adding to everyday architecture, often in unexpected places. While doing research recently for my post on Olafur Eliasson (at the Margulies Collection in Miami) though, I learned that what I saw in Potzdammer Platz was in fact his work. Entitled Windspiegelwand (I think it translates as Wind Wound Mirror), it is a series of mirror plates that line the sides of a building. The mirror plates move freely with the wind, reflecting the sky at different angles. It was very pretty to look at. Above is the photograph that I took at the time. As you can see there were other art pieces there: larger than life rose sculptures that seemed to be floating on the pond and a sculpture on the other side. Are they still there? I don't know. May be my visitors from Berlin can respond?

This is a perfect example of what I love about contemporary art: The discovery. What I saw a few years ago turned out to be a piece by an artist that I later came to know and appreciate. The Berlin trip was an eye-opening experience. I borrowed a friend's amateur camera, loaded it with black & white film, and clicked away to capture modern architecture all around town. It is one of my most memorable trips.

The Devil Wears Prada

2007-03-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

The Margulies has a sizable collection of vintage and contemporary photographs. The German photographer Andreas Gursky is well represented with his large scale works. I like his photograph of a Prada shoe display (Prada I). Here he captures something that is already a piece of art on its own. The store display (as a purely commercial endeavor) is so artfully done that you wonder how much the photographer contributed to it to make it his own artistic piece. But then, that may be the exact thought that he may have wanted to provoke with the viewer: The interplay between the subject, and the photographic image of the subject as distinct pieces of art.

Another one of his photographs is an image of the altar inside the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Here, the artist's large scale photo initially makes you view the whole image from afar, and then get closer to look at the details. Gursky digitally manipulates the image to add interest. You end up observing the viewers in the photograph individually. What are the two men on the far right side (one of whom appears to be a restoration worker in a white uniform) discussing? Some of the viewers seem to be completely focused on the altar, while a few others seem to be oblivious.

Guaranteed Delivery at the Margulies Collection

2007-02-23T10:12:00.001-05:00

The Margulies Collection in Miami had a Doug Aitken sculpture. I had not seen any of his work before, but around the time i saw this, there was a lot of news coverage about his latest work, the video that he projected on to the exterior walls of MoMA NY, called Sleepwalkers. This is a very different medium where he used FedEx boxes to create the Manhattan skyline out of maquettes of buildings that never got built. Next to the work (not pictured) is a diagram that shows the story behind each building proposal in the installaton. Life size pigeons on top of some buildings add whimsy. I hope to see more of his work in the future.

Did anybody see the projections at MoMA? What did you think?

Murakami's Balloon

2007-02-23T09:21:00.000-05:00

The Margulies Collection in Miami has one of Takashi Murakami's DOB balloons. Murakami is a well-established Japanese conceptual artist. His work is cute to look at, inspired by Japanese popular culture and comics. DOB is a mascot that Murakami created as his alter ego. It resembles Mickey Mouse, and appears in the form of sculpture, little objects and as we see here, a balloon. It is called DOB, as "D" and "B" make up the ears and the letter "O" is the face. I read that the name is short for a phrase that makes references to Japanese pop culture. DOB appears thruoghout Murakami's early work in different types of settings and evolves from an angry character to a cute one. This evolution parallels Murakami's own, from expressing the male otaku culture in his earlier work to exploring the lighter and cuter aesthetic of the female culture. The male otaku culture is shaped by sexually charged young men reading comics and watching TV superheroes. Otaku also carries the guilt and shame caused by Japan's experience with WWII.

If you did not know anything about Murakami, you would think of his work as light and cute children's comics material; but it is loaded with heavy historical and cultural references. That's what makes him so important, his ease with mixing high and low culture within a popular context.

Your Now is My Surroundings

2007-02-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

That's me inside an Olafur Eliasson installation in the Margulies Collection. The work is titled Your Now is My Surroundings. A door inside the gallery leads you outside to a deep and narrow box of a space. The high walls are covered with mirrors above eye level that reflect the viewers' image infinitely. The skylight above is only covered by a drainpipe construction in a zigzag pattern that resembles water waves. It lets the air in. The sky is like a bright canopy on top of a dark box. Inside the installation you feel like you are immersed in the depths of the ocean looking up to the sky above. The day I was there it was a bright sunny day with few clouds. On a rainy day you could probably feel like you were lost deep in the dark ocean (and wet!).

Floating in Miami

2007-02-19T22:30:00.000-05:00

I was in Miami last month enjoying the art, long after Miami Basel. I imagine it' s a good time to visit the art district without the crowds, at your own pace. I went to the Margulies Collection for the first time. It is a large private collection that houses an eclectic holding of photography, video, sculpture and installation art in an old warehouse. It has pieces by some of the best known artists. The collection is huge ; I clearly did not give myself enough time. There is so much to see and digest, it is probably a better idea to break up your visit, so you're not rushing. Hey, admission is free!

In a corner, suspended in the air, was the Inverted Mirror Sphere by Olafur Eliasson, a Danish artist best known for his Weather Project at the Tate Modern a few years ago (I wish i had seen it). The sphere is a perfect example of what makes him unique: he works with light as a medium. He plays with reflective materials to diffuse light and create an immersive experience in a space that envelopes you. The light in the sphere leaves the impression of a stylized sun on the floor.

Its construction reminds you of a dandelion, floating lightly in the air. It's pretty cool.

I was visiting his website (olafureliasson.net) and discovered that i saw another one of his installations on a trip to Berlin, without knowing that it was his work. More on that on a future post.