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New additions to the site, December 14, 2022
I asked my wife what I should write to go with this post. She jokingly said that I should write about why I make such weird images. I don’t know the answer to be honest. But I think things are weird. We stay in our routines, we observe rules, ideas, myths and beliefs flooding out of big corporate entities to remain “good citizens” of “democratic countries”. But when we take one step outside and look in, we see people hurting each other for nothing, people following ridiculous rules and people being forced to play clowns in a circus only to keep up with the status quo. People pay prices to stay in these invisible cages. The cages distort the bodies, the faces, the minds and the souls. The rosy promises and slogans are conditional, propping up the hierarchy governed by money and violence. Weird to see things upside down. Weird to see people sleeping on streets when rich people have many houses. Weird to see more money spent on bombs than healthcare, housing, and food for the people. Needless to say these things aren’t just weird, they are brutal and upsetting. So there is that. But when I work, I try to empty my head to feel visual elements for what they are, and let them speak; surely weird things come out, but profoundly fascinating things happen among them too, just as in real life. Perhaps it is a practice to find potentials among elements when they can interact on their own accord. Maybe they are like how life can be. Anyway, I’m posting because I just added 6 recent paintings of mine to my site. They are under Painting. You can see multiple views and details for each piece.
Studio update:
I’ve been working on new sculptures. The next set of pieces will be sculptures. -
everything is free now
In Art, Artist, Capitalism, colonialism, Culture, digitalization, empire, Exhibition, financialization, imperialism, News, outdoor art, Painting, public art, street art onI had a great time strolling around Brooklyn with Josh and David from everythingisfreenow.org a few days ago. It’s been awhile since everythingisfreenow.org left social media platforms. But of course that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They’ve quietly placed hundreds of paintings on the streets of Brooklyn so far. If you know where to look, you see that their work has become a part of the cityscape. Their work has turned the public space into a place to appreciate and discuss art and life.
The language of art manifests as the language of life. No matter how hard the ruling class tries to digitize everything, financialize everything, commodify everything, colonize everything to mold everything into the imperial framework, life finds ways to build its social fabric on its own terms.
New York has gone through so much: Wave after wave of neoliberal restructuring have been inflicted in the name of fighting crimes, terrorisms, and the virus. The same people who define “crises” have been the ones who benefit from “the solutions”. The social hierarchy is maintained and continues to function as a machine of structural extortion. But life still persists as art on streets, community gardens, cooperative housing projects and etc. Seeing them up close and hearing about them from Josh and David warmed my heart.
Here are some photos from their website:
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Gana Art Bogwang Show 2022
I am not religious at all in a traditional sense. But being in my studio struggling to make work has taught me that there are incomprehensible mechanisms operating beyond our perceptions. The glimpses of the vastness show up as “uncanny coincidences”, “unexplainable perceptions”, “overwhelming emotions of unknown origins” and so on.
So when I felt an unexplainable familiarity in being in Korea, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and extreme sadness in leaving the country, I was not too puzzled, but still the sensation was new and palpable. All I can say is that things connect in some unknown ways and I humbly feel it as it is.
This is one of the bigger shows I have had, with 17 art works in a large venue with 2 floors.
The pieces were selected by Jung Lee the director of Gana Art and his curators. The set certainly has a cohesive theme of some sort, but I couldn’t pin point it initially. The director basically said that he thought about the taste of the Korean audience. The pieces filled up the venue like they were made for it. They certainly made selections which are cogent and very effective as a whole.
Having been in Korea looking at its art, new and old, working with people there and breathing the air in Seoul, I came to speculate on an intuitive level that the theme has something to do with some sort of faceless force of nature which grips hearts of the people in the region. And grips hearts of people in surrounding regions just as the Japanese centuries ago were so passionately fascinated by their ceramics in a narrowly defined context of “wabi sabi” sensibility. In reality, though, what I am trying to describe exists in more fundamental and ubiquitous ways, which can manifest in countless ways. It’s the resigned harmony with the unknown vastness, which I also feel as a basis of my studio practice. To me, being in studio is to be a listener, a keen observer, a channeler, who reflects dynamics surrounding us as patterns which resonate with us with visceral significance.
And this somehow relates back to my feeling about being in Seoul—my familiarity and affinity toward it. I am deeply drawn to the land, food and its people without knowing exactly how or why. My attempt in articulating it seems to remain circular as words go around the essence.
In any case, I thank the wonderful people I met there and I look forward to our future collaborations.
Here are some images from the show. Some detail images have been added, which were photographed previously in my studio.
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Drive By Art
In Art, Artist, Capitalism, creative process, Culture, Exhibition, Installation, new work, News, Sculpture onI’ve been asked to participate in an outdoor exhibition titled Drive By Art organized by Warren Neidich. It takes place on the eastern end of Long Island where I’m located. Artists come up with unorthodox ways to show art, and hopefully the event generates constructive discussions on the extraordinary situation we are in. This gives me an opportunity to try placing three of my sculptures outside, which I haven’t done before. Yesterday, my wife and I looked around the woods by our house and discussed how we go about it. We went ahead and placed one of the pieces at a spot my wife noticed. It was eye-opening to see the piece liberate itself at the spot. What a way to interact with nature. Of course, this is hardly new—countless artists prefer to show their work outside—but it’s better late than never. Oh well. We plan to place one right by the road,and we haven’t decided about the last one yet. Pretty exciting. The event takes place on May 9th and 10th, Noon to 5pm. Around 50 artists will participate. I will also make my recent essay available hoping that it will generate some discussions among us.
Please go to the website for more info:
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Images from Bookstein Projects show
Here are some images from the Bookstein Projects show. The show is up till February 15, 2020.
Bookstein Projects60 East 66th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10065Tel (212) 750-0949info@booksteinprojects.com................. -
HERE + NOW at Pablo’s Birthday
One of my pieces is in a group show at Pablo’s Birthday, NYC. Please read what the show is all about below.
#53, 2005-08, ENAMEL, OIL, PLASTER, TAR AND WAX, 96 DIAMETER X 37 CM, 38 DIAMETER X 14.5 IN
From Pablo’s Birthday and OFFICE IMPART:
“Press release
HERE + NOW
Exhibition dates: June 26th – July 3rd, 2019
Press preview: Wednesday, June 26th, 5-7pm
Opening reception: Thursday, June 27th, 6-9pm
Pablo’s Birthday and OFFICE IMPART are pleased to present “HERE+NOW”, a 7-day exhibition project which aims to raise awareness about how today’s digital age is changing the traditional art gallery model with the increase of online platforms or other examples of digital presence within the arts.
Following a conviction in the necessity to create new collaborative models, a selection of the most distinguished online art platforms currently operating in the market have been invited to showcase their artists at Pablo’s Birthday gallery space.
Participating platforms: Daily Collector, Isthisit?, This Ain’t Art School, ARTPIQ, hiato projects, AXS Art, Freud Monk Gallery will present compelling works as well as a selection of events which will revolve around this topic, “the new digital era”. We are pleased to announce ARTLAND, Daily Plinth and New Art Academy as our media partners. ARTLAND will create and provide a virtual 3D tour of the exhibition, Daily Plinth will showcase a selection of video vignettes from the project, and New Art Academy will include the digital art exhibited in their newborn marketplace for digital art.
Full list of participant platforms and artists includes: ISTHISIT?, Stine Deja (London, UK) and Joshua Citarella (New York, US); Daily Collector, Jenny Brosinski (Berlin, Germany) and Jonathan Todryk (Dallas, US); ARTPIQ, Sooyoung Chung (Seoul, South Korea) and Ant Hamlyn (Northampton, UK); hiato projects, Paul Weiner (Denver, US) and Irati Inoriza (Balmaseda, Spain), THIS AIN´T ART SCHOOL, Anna Ehrenstein (Tirana, Berlin) and Tara Wray (Kansas, US); AXSART, Tahnee Lonsdale (West Sussex, UK) and Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (The Hague, Netherlands); Freud Monk Gallery, Johan Deckmann (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Hiroyuki Hamada (New York, US); OFFICE IMPART, Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg (Berlin, Germany) and Tristan Schulze (Leipzig, Germany); and PABLO’S BIRTHDAY with Carla Gannis (Oxford, US) and Liz Naiden (New York, US).
Recently new innovative models have arisen that look on how to mediate art today. It is a reaction to the changing society due to new technologies, more possibilities, and a broader visual art market. The art scene opens up and is trying to reach a wider audience. The next generation is eager to try out new, more contemporary solutions that are fun, in demand for different formats and other means to present art.
We are interested in the diversity that new mediums present for showing art, through online galleries, pop-ups, social media based platforms exposing and gathering artists, and young emerging galleries that are vivid, hybrid and engage in this new online-based trend.
How do these different models work, what are their aims, what drives them? This is what we want to ask. How do these new models change and adapt to the art world? What happens with the reception of art? How and where to reach an audience in the digital era?
We believe in collaboration and want to group these new ways and create a vibrant exchange by opening a space for it. For one week a group show will develop with a range of diverse players and will be completed by a dynamic program of discussions, performance, and thematization of these changes in the art world.”
You can see images of the pieces in the show at Pablo’s Birthday website.
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Full Moon View at The Arts Center at Duck Creek
Friends,
My painting show at The Arts Center at Duck Creek will be open until 9pm on the next full moon night, June 17th—rain or shine. Bring your friends and family and watch as the dark blue night transforms the warm glow of the historic barn.Hot tea and sweets will be served.
11-9pm on Monday, June 17, 2019
Regular hour: 11-6pm, Thursday-Monday and by appointment through June 23rd 2019
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Images from The Arts Center at Duck Creek Show
Here are some images from my painting show at The Arts Center at Duck Creek.
The show is open Thursday-Monday, 11-6pm or by appointment, until June 23rd, 2019.