fang lijun

this week, fang lijun's angsty pieces in the midst of overwhelming ocean waves seemed to fit my mood best. there's a meditative quality that keeps it all balanced and totally appeals to me.

1996.No.17

1999.6.1

Untitled (Swimmers) 2004

ai wei wei (II)

i'm not done with ai wei wei, and frankly, i don't think the art world will be either for many years to come. he is, to say the least, prolific. here are a few of my favorites:

Oil Spills (2006)

i think i was as struck by the atmospheric quality of this more than anything else (but i always do love a floor piece). the title says oil, but i think ink.

Map of China (2003)

the wood in this piece is reprocessed from qing dynasty furniture.

Lijiang Guesthouse (completed 2007)

ai wei wei has been working with architects on many projects recently--the most famous being the beijing olympic stadium. the lijiang guesthouse is a little severe, but i enjoy the combo of strict modernity with organically patterned doors, random angles and the inclusion of the tree.

new artist crush

I first got excited about Lee Ufan's work when I saw it in the Korean MoCA this summer -



This piece, entitled Correspondence, has such an appealing interconnection between its positive and negative spaces, as if we're watching or listening in on a conversation unfolding in words, or in body language, or in gestures. (I also love that my mother and sister are unconsciously mimicking these spaces in this photo.)

It was a delight, then, to see Lee's name again in the most recent Artkrush issue and read about his contribution to the Mono-ha (School of Things) movement (which aims to "simply bring things together, as far as possible in an unaltered state, allowing the juxtaposed materials to speak for themselves... and draw attention to the interdependent relationship between these things and the space surrounding them", according to the Tokyo Art Beat). And then, of course, his philosophical connection to artists like Robert Ryman and Richard Serra, according to Berswordt-Wallrabe's "Encounter with the Other," only futher elucidates his appeal to me.



I'm sort of in love.

an initiation

i'm sort of feverishly excited about the art21 website in general, but this documentary and these images are a breathtaking look into the work of chinese contemporary artist cai quo-qiang.

on chaos as a material in art:

With time you start to get to know the material. You actually develop a way to know how it will behave, to a certain degree. First, you have to accept that it’s uncontrollable and that there is an accidental element. You have to accept it and then work with it. I’ve worked with the material for so long that I’ve gained an understanding of how it works. Sometimes I can control it better than I realize, better than I expect. Then at that point it becomes stagnant. So it’s very important that there is always this uncontrollability that’s a part of the work. My way of doing it is just to flow with the material, go with the material and let it take me where it wants me to go. So I continuously want it to give me problems and obstacles to overcome.

categorical ambiguity

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995)

this ai weiwei （艾未未）piece seemed particularly relevant to a recent conversation. he drops a han dynasty (206 bc - 220 ad) urn, providing three images of the cringe-inducing fall. never mind that i find the images aesthetically compelling in themselves, the visuals are secondary. he has destroyed art for the sake of art. meet the chinese duchamp.