Black Cloud

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

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

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

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.