NAOMI SAVAGE

Naomi Savage

Naomi Savage, photographer, born June 25, 1927 and died at her home in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 22, 2005.  While still in high school, she took a class in photography at the New School for Social Research with Berenice Abbott.  Some twenty years earlier, Abbott had studied photography in Paris with Man Ray, who was Naomi Savage’s uncle.  In 1946, Savage enrolled in Bennington College, where she studied art and music, but before graduating, left to be an apprentice for Man Ray in Hollywood.  He taught her that photography was above all a creative process, one of many tools that could be used for the purpose of visual expression.  When she returned to New York in 1948, she combined her love of music with her skill in photography by taking portraits of the best known composers of day:  Aaron Copland, John Cage, Virgil Thomson, etc. (over 30 in all).  Throughout her career, she experimented with the medium of photography, continuously inventing new and highly original techniques.  Perhaps her best known work is a series of metal photo engravings (1972) dominating the walls of the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.  In her later years, she became attracted to the enormous potential of digital imagery, experimenting with various methods to manipulate and enhance color, even using new and unconventional materials for laser printing.  She exhibited widely, most recently at the Montclair Art Museum, and her photographs are included in major institutional collections throughout the United States……………..provided by Francis M. Naumann.

 

Francis M. Naumann is an art historian, who specializes in art of the Dada and Surrealist period.  He has written extensively on the art of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray.  His New York Dada 1915-23 (1994) is considered the definitive history of the movement, and his “Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York” (1996) is the most comprehensive exhibition on the subject ever assembled.  His doctoral dissertation was on Man Ray’s early years in New York, later published as Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray (2003).  Throughout his years of his research on Man Ray, he met Naomi Savage and, over the years, they became good friends. 

 

Related:

Naomi Savage, Artists All [Duchamp/Man Ray/David Savage]

NAOMI SAVAGE

Unexplored Limits
April - June, 2020

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MAN RAY

Man Ray

Painter, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, draftsman…Man Ray has never limited himself to a single medium of artistic expression, tirelessly seeking new possibilities of creation or diversion of existing techniques.  Considering art essentially as a game, he refused to attach himself to a determined style.  Man Ray was born in 1980 in Philadelphia.  In 1913, he discovered at the exhibition The Armory Show in New York European artists like Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia.  With Marcel Duchamp he created and experimented with optical devices to study motion.  He participated in the Dada movement in New york until 1921, when he left for France.  As he arrived in Paris, Marcel Duchamp introduced him to the Parisian artistic scene.  It was the beginning of an intense period of creation: photographs (fashion, portraits, art), exhibitions, films…In the interwar period Paris, Man Ray frequents all the greatest actors of creation, Dadaists, Surrealists, writers, filmmakers, fashion designers…In 1940, Man Ray had to leave France for the United States, where he realized major works like the Shakespearian paintings, etc.  Man Ray returned to Paris in 1951, moved to rue Ferou where he painted, drew, wrote his memoirs and continued to use photographic processes.  Thus begins the edition of his objects “Objects of my affection” first with Marcel Zerbib, then with Arturo Schwarz.  Man Ray died on November 18, 1976 in Paris.  He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.   

………………………………………….   excerpt from Man Ray International Association

 

 

Mathematical Object (Anthony) is one of some twenty photographs taken by Man Ray in 1934-35 of mathematical models located in the Institut Poincaré in Paris.  Twelve of the photographs were featured in a 1936 issue of the journal Cahiers d’Art devoted to the “object” and four were exhibited in MoMA’s exhibition the same year, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism.  The models were drawn to his attention by Max Ernst, who had discovered them and thought them exceptionally provocative, surreal shapes.  The models were used to render complex mathematical formulae into three-dimensional form, but it was not their origin in mathematics that attracted the interests of Man Ray.  “The formulas accompanying them meant nothing to me,” he later explained, “the forms themselves were as varied and authentic as any in nature” (Self-Portrait, 1963, p. 368).  While living in Hollywood, California, in the 1940s, Man Ray used the photographs he had taken in the Institut Poincaré as the basis of a series of pictures that he grouped under the title “The Shakespearean Equations,” which, in true Dada and Surrealist fashion, had as little to do with Shakespeare as they did with equations.  Man Ray retrieved the photographs he had printed in the 1930s on a trip back to Paris in 1947, and this example is believed to be among them.  This particular print is often titled Antony, as we know that it was used as the basis for the figure of Anthony in his painting Antony and Cleopatra, 1948.

Related:

Man Ray, A l’Heure de l’observatoire—les amoureux,

MAN RAY

A l’Heure de l’observatoire—les amoureux
April - June, 2020
Man Ray

MAN RAY

April - June 2020

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SOPHIE MATISSE

Sophie Matisse was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 1965.  She began her studies at the Massachusetts Collage of Art in Boston and later, continued her studies at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Shortly after settling in New York City, in 1996, she began her first series of paintings, Be back in 5 minutes and has participated in many national and international exhibitions ever since. Now, she is working on a new series of paintings accompanied by a collection of short films reflecting on her memories of playing chess with her family while growing up. Her work is included in the public collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Flint Institute of Art, The Montclair Art Museum and The Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum.  

BORN

1965 in Massachusetts. Lives and Works in New York

EDUCATION
1985 Massachusetts College of Art, Boston
1988 – 1990 École des Beaux-Arts, Paris

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

The Whitney Museum of American Art

Montclair Art Museum

The Flint Institute of Art

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2020  BE BACK IN 5, BAAHNG GALLERY, NEW YORK,  April – May, 2020

DEPICTING MARCEL DUCHAMP, FRANCIS NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, JANUARY 10  – FEBRUARY 28, 2020

CONSTRUCTION IDENTITY IN AMERICAN ART, MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018 – JANUARY 5, 2020

BOHAIN ET MATISSE 1870-1903, LA MAISON FAMILIALE HENRI MATISSE, BOHAIN, FRANCE,  OCTOBER 12, 2019 – MARCH 1, 2020

2018  ROSE OCEAN, TANG TEACHING MUSEUM, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 17 – MAY 20, 2018

ALAIN JACQUET & SOPHIE MATISSE, SABINE WACHTERS FINE ART, KNOKKE-ZOUTE, BELGIUM, AUGUST 3 – SEPTEMBER 23, 2018

2017 MARCEL DUCHAMP FOUNTAIN, FRANCIS NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, APRIL 20 – MAY 26, 2017 

MATISSE AND AMERICAN ART, MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM, NEW JERSEY, FEBRUARY 5 – JUNE 15, 2017

2016 LADIES KNIGHT, WORLD CHESS HALL OF FAME, ST. LOUIS, MO, OCTOBER 29, 2015 – APRIL 1, 2016

2015 PARALLELS, TIM HUNT FINE ART, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 10 – 28, 2015

PAST & PRESENT, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, June 4 – April 21, 2015  

STARING BACK, FLEMING MUSEUM OF ART, VERMONT, FEBRUARY 3 – JUNE 21, 2015

2014  LE SHOW DES AMIS, SHOWROOM, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 12 – 21, 2014

2013  LUNCH WITH OLYMPIA, YALE UNIVERSITY, CONNECTICUT, SEPTEMBER 20 – NOVEMBER 21, 2013

BONJOUR MONSIEUR MATISSE! RENCONTRE(S), MAMAC DE NICE, FRANCE, JUNE 21 – NOVEMBER 24, 2013    

NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE: AN HOMAGE, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 15 – MARCH 29 ,2013

2012  SOPHIE MATISSE: IT’S TIME, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, MAY 2 – JUNE 15, 2012.

2010  SECONDE MAIN, MUSEE D’ART MODERNE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS, FRANCE, MARCH 25 – OCTOBER 24, 2010

SOPHIE MATISSE, THE NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, NY, JANUARY 22 – MAY 22, 2010

THE VISIBLE VAGINA, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, JANUARY 27 – MARCH 20, 2010

VERMEER. THE ART OF PAINTING, KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM VIENNA, VIENNA AUSTRIA, JANUARY 25 TO APRIL 25, 2010

2009 SPECIAL EDITION (GOLD) PERFUME BOTTLES, A COLLABORATION WITH KILIAN HENNESSY, DECEMBER, 2009

THE ART OF CHESS, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 10 – OCTOBER 30, 2009

THE ART OF THE GAME, SPECIAL EDITION CHESS SETS. BEYOND THE BORDER INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR, SAN DIEGO, CA , SEPTEMBER 2 – 4, 2009

BLACK MADONNA, HP GARCIA GALLERY, NEW YORK,(CURATOR: LISA PAUL STREITFELD)

2008  SPECIAL EDITION PERFUME BOTTLES, A COLLABORATION WITH KILIAN HENNESSY

PENTIMENTI, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, MARCH 14 – APRIL 30, 2008

2007 THE DEMOISELLES REVISITED, GROUP EXHIBITION, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 16 – DECEMBER 21, 2007

FRENCH KISSES, JGM GALERIE. PPARIS, MAY 24th – JUNE 30th

2006 SOPHIE MATISSE: BE BACK IN 5 MINUTES AND ZEBRA STRIPE PAINTINGS,  SALT LAKE ART CENTER, SALT LAKE CITY, JANUARY – MARCH 2006 (CURATOR: JIM EDWARDS)

2005 SOPHIE MATISSE: THE ZEBRA STRIPE PAINTINGS, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK, NOV 18 – DEC 30, 2005

SOPHIE MATISSE’S GUERNICA, FLINT INSTITUTE OF ARTS, FLINT, MICHIGAN,  SEPTEMBER 24, 2005

SOPHIE MATISSE DRAWINGS, ORGANIZED BY THE BLUE HERON PRESS,PAUL KASMIN GALLERY, NEW YORK, (CURATOR: JUDITH GOLDMAN)

SOPHIE MATISSE, nKATONAH MUSEUM OF ART, KATONAH, NEW YORK, JULY- AUGUST (CURATOR: MIMI THOMPSON)

2004  SELF-PORTRIATS,  DEITCH PROJECTS, NEW YORK (CURATOR: DODIE KAZANJIAN)

ON LINE, FEIGEN CONTEMPORARY, NEW YORK

2003  AFTERSHOCK: THE LEGACY OF THE READYMADE IN AMERICAN POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART,  DICKINSON GALLERY, NEW YORK.

SOPHIE MATISSE DOES GUERNICA, FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NY

2002  SOPHIE MATISSE,  FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART, NEW YORK (FIRST SOLO SHOW IN NEW YORK)

2001   SOPHIE MATISSE,  FIDELITY INVESTMENTS HEADQUARTERS, BOSTON (CURATOR: CAROL WARNER)

2000  THE 100 SMILES OF THE MONNA LISA, METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM, TOKYO; SHIZUOKA MUSEUM OF ART AND THE HIROSHIMA MUSEUM OF ART (CURATOR: JEAN-MICHEL RIBETTES)

1999  REAL TO SURREAL, MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, DENVER (CURATOR: MARC SINK)

1999  RE: DUCHAMP, ABRAHAM LUBELSKY GALLERY, NEW YORK (CURATOR: MIKE BIDLO)

1998  ACTS OF FAITH, GARRISON, NEW YORK (CURATOR: WILLOUGHBY SHARP)

Related:

SECRET GARDEN

SECRET GARDEN

Sophie Matisse
May 15 - June 30, 2021
SOPHIE MATISSE

MORE THAN ONE WAY HOME

Sophie Matisse
Janet Taylor Pickett
Zhang Hongtu
October 10 - November 24, 2020
SophieMatisse at the Art Newspaper

Sophie Matisse was interviewed by BBC TWO on “Becoming Matisse”

Broadcasted on Saturday, April 25, 2020, 9:15pm - 10:15pm.
Sophie Matisse, Nighthawks

SOPHIE MATISSE

Be Back in 5
April - June, 2020

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JANET TAYLOR PICKETT

Janet Taylor Pickett

JANET TAYLOR PICKETT

Lives and works in California

ARTIST BIO

Janet Taylor Pickett (b. 1948) received her BFA in 1970 and her MFA in 1972 and was the Penny W. Stamps Commencement 2024 keynote speaker at the University of Michigan. She taught the History of African American Art at Essex County College and Bloomfield College for over thirty years. She received grants and fellowships from the New Jersey Council of the Arts Grant, the Ford Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic States Art Council. Janet Taylor Pickett was the former African American Cultural Committee chair at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey.

Developing a groundbreaking visual vocabulary, AKIMBO EXOTICA, to probe themes of Blackness, identity, and the complexity of lived experience, Taylor Pickett is a forerunner in contemporary women painters whose work has been inspired by Romare Bearden, Bette Saar, Sam Gilliam, and Henri Matisse.  Her most celebrated, “And She Was Born” (2020), was featured on the cover of the exhibition catalog for Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century (2021) at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.    

Selected Museum exhibitions include Progressions: A Cultural Legacy at MoMA/PS1, African American Women Artists and the Power of their Gaze at the David C Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, The Matisse Series at the Montclair Art Museum, The Atlantic World-Layered Histories at the Harvard Art Museums, Hagar’s Dress at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, African Friends of Museums in Israel, Western Washington University Museum, State University of New York, The Studio Museum of Harlem in New York, Howard University, Telfair Museums, The Morris Museum, Denver Art Museum, Oceanside Museum of Art, Fairfield University Art Museum, Hammonds House Museum, Northern Illinois University Museum, Brandywine Workshop & Archive.  

SPOTLIGHT

Play Video

CREDIT: Ben Zink, Videographer, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan

Janet Taylor Pickett
The Stamps Commencement 2024 Keynote Speaker
December 19, 2024, at the University Of Michigan

Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan, presented the life and career of the Stamps Commencement 2024 speaker, Janet Taylor Pickett, on December 19, 2024.  In this video, Taylor Pickett discusses her initial interest in making art, her time as a student at U-M, and the challenges and successes she’s had as an artist throughout her career.

Play Video

Necessary Memories

A Conversation with Marion K. Maneker and Janet Taylor Pickett

Tuesday, September 14, at 5PM at Jennifer Baahng Gallery

On September 14th, 2021, ARTnews President and Editorial Director Marion K. Maneker joined artist Janet Taylor Pickett for a discussion of “Necessary Memories” (Sept 14 – Nov 20, 2021),      her solo exhibition at JENNIFER BAAHNG. The show chronicles Taylor Pickett’s journey as an artist, showcasing selected works from the 1980’s through 2021. In their conversation, Maneker and Taylor Pickett discuss how Blackness functions as what Taylor Pickett calls a “declarative statement” in her work, and the role that history and narrative play in her practice. Born in Ann Arbor Michigan, Taylor Pickett is a mixed media artist whose work is inspired by her life experience as an African American woman.

 

Related:

Sue McNally Jaye Moon Janet Taylor Pickett

PARADE

June 2025
Janet Taylor Pickett Memory of Water II, 2021 Acrylic and collage on canvas 40 x 40 inches

JANET TAYLOR PICKETT

The Selma Burke Invitational African American Art Show
May 30 - June 29, 2025
Janet Taylor Pickett Entering the Gee’s Bend, 2013 Acrylic, gouache, watercolor, graphite, photos on Arches paper 30 x 22 in.

JANET TAYLOR PICKETT

April – May, 2025
TRANSPACIFIC: LOVE DIFFERENCE September 3 – November 2, 2024 HANNAM, SEOUL

TRANSPACIFIC: LOVE DIFFERENCE

Sept 3 - Nov 2, 2024
GANGNAM, SEOUL PERFECT LOVERS August 16 - October 19, 2024

TRANSPACIFIC: PERFECT LOVERS

Sept 5 - Oct 19, 2024
The Muse, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 48x48 in.

PRIDE AND INSOUCIANCE

February - April 2024

Categories: artists

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MICHAEL MCCLARD

Michael McClard, Candide

Michael McClard arrived in New York in 1973 with a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he also won a Peabody Award in Sculpture. He soon made his mark on the art scene as a member of a highly original group of young artists who helped to revive an interest in painting and visual performance. He was a founding member of the noted artists’support group Colab and its first president.

 

Sidestepping the confines of abstract conceptual art, McClard’s work seethes with figurative content; yet it has nevertheless retained a conceptual element and mines a strong vein of humor.

 

During the 70s he staged provocative performances such as “Foes v. Foes” at the Kitchen and surreal, carnivalesque installations at venues such as the Clocktower (“There’s Meat on these Bones”); PS 1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, De Appel, Amersterdam and N.A.M.E Gallery, Chicago. For these presentations, he constructed all sets and props and performed, often as sole actor. His one-act play, “Mumbo Jumbo,” was published in Avalanche 12, Winter 1975.

 

In October 1981, his first large-scale one-man show of paintings and frescoes took place at Mary Boone, occupying both galleries on either side of West Broadway. Drawing on sources from mythology, history and everyday life, he created a pantheon of imaginary characters, notable for their tactile raw energy, range of facial expressiveness and astute power of observation. Also featured were inventive depictions of historical scenes, acclaimed by critics such as Grace Glueck of the New York Times for their verve and by Hal Foster of
Art in America for their metaphysical insights. Many of these works were acquired by New York and Los Angeles public and private collectors. During this period McClard was also awarded two fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts, in Visual Arts and Mixed Media.

 

In the 90s McClard took a temporary hiatus from painting to explore new media. He embraced the digital revolution and applied his draughtsmanship skills to the creation of original software with his brother Peter McClard through their enterprise, Hologramophone Research. The computer installation “DNA Characters” extended his interest in human physiognomy by generating an unlimited sequence of drawings of faces and was exhibited in “A visage découvert,” Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Jouy-en Josas, France.

 

Among the many group shows in which his paintings and objets d’art have been featured are “Figures of Mystery”, Queens Museum, NY; “The Pressure to Paint”, Marlborough Gallery, NY; “TV’s IN”, Max Fish, New York, and The Barry Lowen Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.

 

More recently, McClard’s experimental short films Alien Portrait (1978) and Contortions (1978) were given their world premiere at “No Wave Cinema, 1978-87” at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

 

Education:

BFA, San Francisco Art Institute in 1971, moved to New York 1973


Two National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships, one in Multi Media, the other, as a Visual Artist.

REVIEW QUOTES FOR MICHAEL McCLARD

 

“. . .An oddball but wonderful choice, for example, is Michael McClard’s ‘’Mise en Scene (circa 1500),’’ a painting based on the life of Michelangelo. Built out from the picture plane with thick plaster slabs and painted frescolike in rich colors that bring an old-master palette into the 20th century, it depicts Michelangelo in his cathedral workroom, wearing a funnel hat with a candle in it, leaning intently over a scabrous cadaver. At once affecting and funny in its comment on the profession of artist, it’s brought off with great verve.”

 

Grace Glueck, “Figures of Mystery,” The New York Times, Jan 7 1983 Participating artists included Susan Rothenberg and Eric Fischl.

 

 

“. . . All in all the show was a bizarre delight. . .Post-minimalist artists often used materials that were somehow tabooed, but McClard’s art is funnier than theirs. It is also more ambitious in content: the show ranged from shit to Saturn, from grotesques to Christs. Here was an art with a cosmology—the universe as delusion of grandeur. . .But the delusion seemed to know itself as such . . .

 

“. . .The clown, the circus, are also part of the iconography of painting . . . Artists like Schnabel and Clemente pretend to paint the great carnival of time, only to fall back on an old clown act. McClard, at least, shows signs that he knows his act for what it is . . .”

 

Hal Foster, “Michael McClard at Mary Boone,” Art in America, December 1981

Solo Exhibitions:

1988 “Things”, Willoughby Sharp Gallery, N.Y. NY

1987 Suzan Cooper Gallery, N.Y. NY
86 Simon Cerigo Gallery, N.Y. NY

1985 Curated by Atanasio Di Felice, Harm Bouckaert Gallery, N.Y. NY

1982 American Graffiti Gallery, Amsterdam NE
81 Mary Boone Gallery, N.Y. NY

1977 Konrad Fischer Tunnel Space, Dusseldorf, W. Germany

“Trial by T.V.”, Hallwalls, Buffalo, N.Y. NY 1975

1975 “There’s Meat on These Bones”, The Clocktower, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, N.Y. NY

Group Exhibitions:

2007 The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984 (Broken Stories), curated by Carlo

McCormick, New York, NY

1997 “Last Party,” Serge Sorokko Gallery, New York, NY

1996 “No Wave Cinema 1978–81,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1993 “A visage découvert” Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Jouy-en Josas, France

1990 “Aquarian Artists,” Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI.

“TV’s IN” Max Fish, N.Y. NY

1989 “Prisoners of Art,” Police Building, N.Y. NY

1988 “Micro sculpture” Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, R.I.

“Rebop”, curated by Glen O’brien, Paula Allan Gallery, N.Y. NY

1986 “The Bary Lowen Collection”, MOCA’s Temporary Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA

Simon Cerigo Gallery, N.Y. NY
Benefit for the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, N.Y. NY

1984 “Hundreds of Drawings”, Artists Space Benefit, N.Y. NY
“Bomb Magazine Benefit”, Blum-Helman Warehouse, N.Y. NY Art Palace, N.Y. NY

“Sex Show”, Cable Gallery, N.Y. NY

1983 “Prints and Drawings for Collectors”, New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH

1983 “Terminal New York,” AAA Art, N.Y. NY

“Intoxication,” Monique Knowlton Gallery, N.Y. NY “Sweet Art”, Ronald Feldman Gallery, N.Y. NY

“The Pressure to Paint” Marlborough Gallery, N.Y. NY
“Figures of Mystery”, Queens Museum, Queens, N.Y.
“Beast: Animal Imagery in Recent Painting”, PS1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, L I C, NY “New Figuration in America”, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wis.

1982 “Critic’s Choice”, PS 1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Long Island City, NY

1981 “New York: New Wave,” PS 1, Institute for Art an Urban Resources, Long Island City, NY

“Gallery Artists” Mary Boone Gallery, N.Y. NY

1979 “Bat Man Show”, 591 Broadway, N.Y. NY
“The Doctors and Dentists Show, 591 Broadway, N.Y. NY “Income and Wealth Show”, 5 Bleeker Street, N.Y. NY

1978 “Exhibit A”, 93 Grand Street, N.Y. NY 1977
“New Art Auction and Exhibition”, Artists Space, N.Y. NY

1976 “Ten in Situ”, Colgate College, Hamilton, N.Y.

1975 “Continuing Work in Various Media” 597 Broadway, N.Y. NY

1970 “Young Bay Area Sculptors”, Emanuel Walter Gallery, San Francisco, CA

 

Glueck, Grace, ”Art: One Man’s Biennial Assembles 102 Artists,“ The New York Times, 15 April 1983

Mouferage, Nicolas, ”Intoxication, 9 April 1983,“ arts Magazine, April 1983 Preston, ”Art Review: Mystery in Queens,“ Newsday, 7 January 1983

Glueck, Grace, ”Art: ’Figures of Mystery‘ Shows New Work By 10,“ The New York Times, 7 January 1983

Sussler, Betsy, ”Michael McClard Interview“ Bomb Magazine, No.4, January 1983

Glueck, Grace, ”Of Beasts and Humans: Some Contemporary Views,“ The New York Times, 14 November 1982

Wolf, Deborah, ”Mary Boone“ Avenue, October 1982

Price, Katherine, ”Arte USA,“ Nouvi Argomenti, August-September 1982

Silverthorne, Jeannie, ”The Pressure to Paint,“ Artforum, October 1982

Wolfert-Wihlborg, Lee, ”Manhattan’s Avant-Garde Art Dealers,“

Town and Country, September 1982 (photo of ”Los Alomos,” p. 250)

Foster, Hal, ”Between Modernism and the Media,“ Art in America, Summer 1982

Smith, Roberta, ”Group Flex,“ The Village Voice, 22 June 1982

De Ak, Edit and Cortez, Diego ”Baby Talk,“ Flash Art, May 1982

Haden-Guest, Anthony, ”The New Queen of the Art Scene,“ New York Magazine, 19 April 1982

Castle, Ted, ”Michael McClard’s Faces,“ Artforum, January 1982

Yoskowitz, Robert, ”Michael McClard,“ Arts Magazime, December 1981

Acker,Kathy, ”Motive: Interview with Michael McClard“ Bomb Magazine, No.1, January 1981

Rose, Frank, ”Exploring the Art-Rock Nexus, (Part III)“ Artexpress, November 1981 (photo of ”Someone“ and ”Somebody“)

Foster, Hal, ”Michael McClard at Mary Boone,“ Art in America, December 1981 (photo of ”The Devil Goes to the Circus“)

Larson, Kay, ”Fear of Style,“ New York Magazine, 9 November 1981 Smith, Roberta, ”Space Walk,“ The Village Voice, 21 October 1981 Goldberg, Rosalee, Studio International, January 1977
Perron, Wendy, The SOHO News, 15 May 1976

Frank, Peter, The SOHO News, 15 January 1976 Moore, Alan, Artforum, Summer 1975

REVIEW QUOTES FOR MICHAEL McCLARD

“. . .An oddball but wonderful choice, for example, is Michael McClard’s ‘’Mise en Scene (circa 1500),’’ a painting based on the life of Michelangelo. Built out from the picture plane with thick plaster slabs and painted frescolike in rich colors that bring an old-master palette into the 20th century, it depicts Michelangelo in his cathedral workroom, wearing a funnel hat with a candle in it, leaning intently over a scabrous cadaver. At once affecting and funny in its comment on the profession of artist, it’s brought off with great verve.”

Grace Glueck, “Figures of Mystery,” The New York Times, Jan 7 1983 Participating artists included Susan Rothenberg and Eric Fischl.

“. . . All in all the show was a bizarre delight. . .Post-minimalist artists often used materials that were somehow tabooed, but McClard’s art is funnier than theirs. It is also more ambitious in content: the show ranged from shit to Saturn, from grotesques to Christs. Here was an art with a cosmology—the universe as delusion of grandeur. . .But the delusion seemed to know itself as such . . .

“. . .The clown, the circus, are also part of the iconography of painting . . . Artists like Schnabel and Clemente pretend to paint the great carnival of time, only to fall back on an old clown act. McClard, at least, shows signs that he knows his act for what it is . . .”

Hal Foster, “Michael McClard at Mary Boone,” Art in America, December 1981

 

1979 ”Axel Radius,“Corpes de Garde, Gronigen; De Appel, Amsterdam, Holland

1977 ”Plan K,“N.A.M.E. Gallery,Chicago Illinois
”Comedy of Pain (The Telephone Rings),“ SUNY at Buffalo, Ny

1976 ”Clamor Clobber Comb,“ Artists Space, N.Y. NY ”Temperate Tantrum,“ 17 White Street, N.Y. NY ”Merely Hearsay,“17 White Street, N.Y. NY

1975 ”Foes v. Foes (A Christmas spectacle),“ The Kitchen, N.Y. NY ”There’s Meat on These Bones,“ The Clocktower, N.Y. NY

1972 ”Moth, Flame, Phoenix (Airplane with television),“ 3675 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA

1983-7 School of Visual Arts, N.Y. NY, foundation drawing

1987 San Francisco Art Institute, SF, California, advanced painting

1986 Parsons School of Design, N.Y. NY, advertising design

 

Categories: exhibitions

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ZHANG HONGTU

Zhang Hongtu

ZHANG HONGTU

Zhang Hongtu (b.1943) was born in Pingliang, China, moved to New York City in 1982. He works in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, collage, ceramics, digital imaging, and installations. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Zhang created paintings, sculpture and mixed media installations using the image of Mao Zedong to express his ideas about Communist China and the Culture Revolution (1966-1976). In the past decade, his works began to question the complex relationships between the traditions of old China and the West today, as seen in his large-format Shan Shui paintings, among other works. More recently, his works have focused on the relationship between nature and the human condition.

Zhang has exhibited extensively across the U.S. and abroad. Recent shows include Princeton University Art Museum; Museu Picasso in Barcelona, Spain; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Guggenheim Museum New York and a retrospective at Queens Museum in New York.

 

Education           

1982-1986         Art Students League, New York, NY, USA

1964-1969         Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, Beijing, China

1960-1964         High School Attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

2018 Culture Mixmaster Zhang Hongtu, The Mariana Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

2015 Zhang Hongtu, Queens Museum, New York, USA

The Journey Begins: Zhang Hongtu 1985‐2004, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2013 On the Road — Zhang Hongtu’s Artistic Journey, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

2011 Zhang Hongtu: Shan Shui Today, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2007 Zhang Hongtu Recent Paintings, Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2006 Four Seasons: Earth Above and Heaven Below, Lehigh University, PA, USA

2005 Recent Paintings by Zhang Hongtu, Goedhuis Contemporary, New York City, USA

2004 Zhang Hongtu: Selected Works — Visiting Artist Program at Marlboro College, William Holland & Drury Jr. Gallery, Marlboro College, VT, USA

Zhang Hongtu: Dialogue with the Taipei Palace Museum, Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2003 Icon & Innovations: The Cross-Cultural Art of Zhang Hongtu, The Gibson Gallery, State University of New York at Potsdam, New York City, USA

2000 New Paintings, Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, New York City, USA

1999 Repaint Chinese Shan Shui Painting, Yale-China Association, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

1998 Zhang Hongtu, New Works, Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, New York City, USA

1996 Reflections Abroad: the Journey of Zhang Hongtu 1982-1996, Anthony Giordano Gallery, Oakdale, NY, USA

Soy Sauce, Lipstick, Charcoal, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

Chairmen Mao, Groton School, Groton, MA, USA

1995 Zhang Hongtu: Material Mao, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City, USA

1993 Material Mao, Gallery 456, Chinese American Arts Council, New York City, USA

1992 The Angel’s Ghost, Webster Hall, New York City, USA

1985 In the Spirit of Dunhuang, Adams House, Harvard University, MA, USA

1984 In the Spirit of Dunhuang, Asian Arts Institute, New York City, USA

Zhang Hongtu — Recent New York Works, Hammerquist Gallery, New York City, USA

2018 Nobuo Sekine, Zhang Hongtu: Two Rocks, Baahng Gallery, New York, NY

2017 Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA

Self-Reimagined, Visual Arts Gallery, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, USA

Embrace or Rebel? Traditional Asian Art Techniques in Contemporary Practice, 

Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury, NY, USA

2016 A Brief History of Humankind, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany

2015 China: Through the Looking Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA

After Picasso: 80 Contemporary Artists, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Wild Noise: Artwork from the Bronx Museum, El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba

A Brief History of Humankind, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

Picasso in Contemporary Art, The Hall for Contemporary Art, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

2014 Oil and Water: Reinterpreting Ink, Museum of Chinese in America, New York City, USA

Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain

2013 Inspired by Dunhuang: Re-Creation in Contemporary Chinese Art, China Institute, New York City, USA

Abu Dhabi Art 2013, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2012 Abu Dhabi Art 2012, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2011 ShContemporary, Shanghai Exhibition Center, Shanghai, China

TINA KENG GALLERY BEIJING, Tina Keng Gallery, Beijing, China

East Meets West, Foster Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, WI, USA

2010 Urban Archives: Happy Together, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City, USA

East/West: Visual Speaking, Paul and Hillard University Art Museum, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, USA

2009 Here & Now: Chapter II Crossing Boundaries, Museum of Chinese in America, New York City

R/evolution, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

Tear down this Wall, National Art Club, New York City, USA

Mythologies of Contemporary Art by Three Artists: Yang Mao-Lin, Zhang Hongtu and Tu Wei-Cheng, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

Outside In: Chinese + American + Contemporary + Art, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, NJ, USA

Art, Archive, and Activism: Martin Wong’s Downtown Crossing, 7th Floor Gallery, Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, New York City, USA

2008 Reason’s Clue, Lin & Keng Gallery, Beijing; Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, USA

  Back to the Garden: Daily Life to Spiritual Vision, Crossing Art Gallery, Queens, NY, USA

   New Year Exhibition Opening Ceremony – Space B, Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2007 Grand Opening Exhibition, Lin & Keng Gallery, Beijing, China

  Made in China, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

2006 On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley, MA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN, USA

  Dragon Veins, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, FL, USA

   Travelers Between Cultures, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ, USA

  Antiquity Modernity: Breaking Traditions, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York City, USA

New Chinese Occidentalism, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York City, USA

2005 The Way to China is the Way to America, Ji Dachun/Zhang Hongtu, Plum Blossoms Gallery, New York City, USA

   Trading Place, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

On the Edge, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, CA, USA

2004 Reinventing Tradition in a New World: The Arts of Gu Wenda, Wang Mansheng, Xu Bing, and Zhang Hongtu, Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg, PA, USA

Out of Time, Out of Place, Out of China: Reinventing Chinese Tradition in a New Century, University of Pittsburgh Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

2003 BQE, White Box, New York City, USA

A Brush With History: Contemporary Artists and Chinese Tradition,Newark Museum, NJ, USA

  Shuffling the Deck: The Collection Reconsidered, Princeton University Art Museum, NJ, USA

2002 Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China

All Access, CPC Gallery, New York City, USA

   Paris-Pékin, Espace Cardin, Paris, France

AJITA-Unconquerable, the Station, Houston, TX, USA

   ConversASIAN, National Gallery, Cayman Islands

   In Memory, the Art of Afterward, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, New York City, USA

   Queens International, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, USA

2001 Cross+Overs, Market Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

   Unknow-Infinity, Taipei Gallery, New York City, USA

   China Without Borders, Sotheby’s Gallery, New York City, USA

2000 Lineage, d.u.m.b.o. Arts Center, New York City, USA

  Crossing the Line, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

   Word and Meaning, University at Buffalo Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA

   Conceptual Ink, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York City, USA

1999 TRANSIENCE, Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, IL; University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene, OR; the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

1998 Global Roots: Chinese Artists Working in New York, Purdue University, IN, USA

   Kunming, New York, Montréal, OBSERVATOIRE 4, Quebec, Canada

1997 Kimchi Xtravaganza!, Korean American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA

1996 Icons of Power, Eighth Floor Gallery, New York City, USA

1995 Body Language, Jamaica Arts Center, NY, USA

   Other Choices/Other Voices, Islip Museum, Long Island, NY, USA

Between East and West, The Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, CT, USA

1994 Small World-Small Works, Galerie + Edition Caoc, Berlin, Germany

The Fifth Biennial of Havana, Havana, Cuba

Ad-Vance, Pfizer Corp. N.Y., curated by the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA

   Beyond the Borders: Art by Recent Immigrants, Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY, USA

  China June 4th 1989, Buckham Gallery, Flint, MI, USA

1993 Teddy Bear, Potato, Lipstick and Mao, Art in General, New York City, USA

Word!, Jamaica Arts Center, NY, USA

Reflections for Peace, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX, USA

   The Curio Shop, Artists Space, New York City, USA

1992 Four Artists from China, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, USA

   China June 4th 1989, Cleveland Institute of Art, OH, USA

China June 4th 1989, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX, USA

1991 From ‘Star Star’ to Avant Garde-Nine Artists from China, Asian American Art Center, New York City, USA

   Changing Cultures, Hamilton College and Baruch College, New York City, USA

   Dismantling Invisibility, Art in General, New York City, USA

   Syncretism, Alternative Museum, New York City, USA

1990 Selection, Artists Space, New York City, USA

  Harvest 2001, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, NJ, USA

   The Decade Show (with the Epoxy Group), New Museum, New York, NY, USA

   China June 4th 1989, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York City, USA

1989 China June 4th 1989, Blum Helman Warehouse, NY, USA

   Uptown/Downtown, City Gallery, New York City, USA

Fusion Art, Ludwig Museum, Köln, Germany

1988 Thirty-Six Tactics, Alternative Museum, New York City, USA

   Eight Artists from China, The Palladium, New York City, USA

1987 Epoxy Slide Exhibition, Red Dot Outdoor Theater, New York City, USA

   Artists from China — New Expressions, Sarah Lawrence College, NY, USA

1986 Roots to Reality II, Henry Street Settlement, New York City, USA

1985 Roots to Reality I, Henry Street Settlement, New York City, USA

1984 The New Generation, Hammerquist Gallery, New York City, USA

1983 Eye to Eye, Asian Arts Institute, New York City, USA

Kaminokawa Modern Art Exhibition, Yokohama, Japan

   Painting the Chinese Dream, Brooklyn Museum, NY and City Hall, Boston, MA, USA

1982 Faces of China, American International College, Springfield, MA, USA

1980 Contemporary Artists, Beijing, China

Books

Lee and Silbergeld, ZHANG HONGTU, Expanding Visions of Shrinking World

DUKE University Press and Queens Museum

Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. On the Road: Zhang Hongtu’s Artistic Journey. Kaohsiung: Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2013.

The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures: Chan Master Kuo-an Shih-yuan, Song Dynasty, Reproduced by Zhang Hongtu. Taipei: TKG Foundation for Arts & Culture, 2014.

Zhang, Hongtu, and Jerome Silbergeld. Zhang Hongtu: An On-going Painting Project. New York: On-going Publications, 2000.

Zhang Hongtu: The Art Of Straddling Boundaries. Taipei: Lin & Keng Gallery, Inc., 2007.

 

Chapters or Sections of Books

Andrews, Julia F., and Kuiyi Shen. “No U-turn: Chinese Art after 1989.” In The Art Of Modern China, 257–77. Los Angeles: The Regent of the University of California, 2012.

Barmé, Geremie R. Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader, 46, 215. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1996.

Barmé, Geremie R., and Linda Jaivin. Introduction to New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, xxvi. New York: Times Books, 1992.

Callahan, William A. “Gender, Democracy and Representation: Asian Revolutionary Images.” In Gendering the International, edited by Louiza Odysseos and Hakan Seckinelgin, 167–68. New York: Millennium, 2002.

Clarke, David. “Reframing Mao: Aspects of Recent Chinese Art, Popular Culture and Politics.” In Art & Place: Essays on Art from a Hong Kong Perspective, 236–49. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1996.

Chang, Alexandra. “Once More: Is There An Asian American Aesthetic?” In Envisioning Diaspora: Asian American Visual Arts Collectives, 98–109. Beijing: Timezone 8 Limited, 2009.

Chang, Arnold. “From Fengshui to Fractals: A User’s Guide to Chinese Landscape Painting.” In ARTiculations: Undefining Chinese Contemporary Art, 33–61. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Chiu, Melissa. “An Expanded Chinese Art History: Internationalization of the Chinese Art World.” In Asian Art History: In the Twenty-First Century, edited by Vishakha N. Desai, 224. Williamstown: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007.

———. “Theories of Being Outside.” In Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China, 8, 18, 39–72, 113, 212. Milan: Charta, 2006.

Clarke, David. “Revolutions in Vision: Chinese Art and the Experience of Modernity.” In The Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture, 292–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Cohen, Joan Lebold. “Groups: Contemporaries.” In The New Chinese Painting: 1949–1986, 77. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.

Delue, Rachael Z. “Neither Here Nor There: China, Global Culture, and the End of American Art.” In ARTiculations: Undefining Chinese Contemporary Art, 257. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Dutton, Michael. Streetlife China, 162–63, 172, 174, 241, 262–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Hallmark, Kara Kelly. “Zhang Hongtu.” In Encyclopedia of Asian American Artists: Artists of the American Mosaic, 261–65. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007.

Hay, Jonathan. “Zhang Hongtu / Hongtu Zhang: An Interview.” In Boundaries in China, 280–98. London: Reaktion Books, 1994.

He, Xin. “Wheels: What’s New?” In New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, 409. New York: Times Books, 1992.

Huot, Claire. “China’s Avant-Garde Art: Differences in the Family.” In China’s New Cultural Scene: A Handbook of Changes, 126–41. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.

Kwon, Sowon. “Potatoes, Teddy Bears, Lipsticks, and Mao.” In Art in General Manual 1993–1994. New York: Art In General, Inc., 1994.

Lao, She. “Wheels: A Big Confucius and Little Emiles.” In New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, 404. New York: Times Books, 1992.

Lim, Michelle. “Cultural Iconography as Style.” In Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art, 270–81. New Jersey: Princeton University Art Museum, 2009.

Lin, Xiaoping. “Globalism or Nationalism?” In Children of Marx and Coca-Cola: Chinese Avant-Garde Art and Independent Cinema, 72. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.

———. “Globalism or Nationalism?” In Global Visual Cultures: An Anthology, 9–26. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Liu, Changhan. The Chinese Overseas Art Icons of The 100 Years, 150–51. Taipei: Artist Publication, 2000.

Liu, Xiaobo. “Wheels: On Solitude.” In New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, 384. New York: Times Books, 1992. 

McCausland, Shane. Introduction and Epilogue in Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai’s China, 3, 333–37. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011.

Mittler, Barbara. “Mao Wherever You Go: The Art of Repetition in Revolutionary China.” In A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture, 298, 299, 300–1, 311, 326–27, 306, 315. London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012.

Ngai, Jimmy S. Y., “The Cry: Tiananmen Days.” In New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices, 76, 93. New York: Times Books, 1992.

Purtle, Jennifer. “Whose Hobbyhorse?: Loading the Deck.” In Chinese Landscape Painting as Western Art History, 5–8. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.

Schell, Orville. Mandate of Heaven: A New Generation of Entrepreneurs, Dissidents, Bohemians, and Technocrats Lays Claim to China’s Future, 290–91. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Silbergeld, Jerome. “An Outsider’s Outsider Comes In.” In Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art, 257–69. New Jersey: Princeton University Art Museum, 2009.

———. “Facades: The New Beijing and Unsettled Ecology of Jia Zhangke’s The World.” In Chinese Ecocinema: In the Age of Environmental Challenge, edited by Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi, 122. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009.

———. “The Space Between: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Chinese Art.” In Xu Bing and Contemporary Chinese Art: Cultural and Philosophical, edited by Hsingyuan Tsao and Roger T. Ames, 177–98. New York: State University of New York Press, 2011.

Sullivan, Michael. Art and Artists of Twentieth Century China, 232, 271. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.

Tam, Vivienne. “MAO ART: Interview with Zhang Hongtu.” In China Chic, 92–4. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Tu, Thuy Linh Nguyen. “Material Mao: Fashion Histories Out of Icons.” In The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion, 145–48, 156–64. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.

Valjakka, Minna. “Parodying Mao: Earliest Existing Caricatures of Mao.” In Many Faces of Mao Zedong, 170. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2011.

Vine, Richard. “The Scene Now: Chapter 6.” In New China New Art, 198, 199, 206. New York: Prestel, 2008.

Yang, Alice. “Review: A Group Show: We Are the Universe.” In Why Asia?: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art, 62. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Zhang, Hongtu. “Blurring the Boundary Between Yesterday and Today, for Tomorrow. In ARTiculations: Undefining Chinese Contemporary Art, edited by Jerome Silbergeld and Dora C. Y. Ching, 212–31. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010.

———. “Live to Tell: I Don’t Want to Do Anything Pure.” In Transculturalism: How the World Is Coming Together, edited by Claude Grunitzky with Trace Magazine Contributors, 236–37. New York: True Agency, 2004.

 

Journal Articles 

ART/LIFE Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Boston-Downtown 241. Ventura: ARTLIFE, 2002.

“The Black Hole Art of Zhang Hongtu.” Postcolonial Studies 2, no. 2 (1999): 121, 165–69.

Bordeleau, Erik. “Le Political Pop: Un Art Profanatoire?” Etc.: Revue de l’Art Actuel 91 (2010–11): 21–25.

Boucher, Madeleine. “Beyond Pop: Imagery and Appropriation in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Columbia East Asia Review vol. 2 (2009): 37–55.

Callahan, William A. “Vision of Gender and Democracy: Revolutionary Photo Albums in Asia.” Journal of International Studies, vol. 27, no. 4 (1998): 1031–60.

Cline, Rob. “Mao Isn’t Just for Breakfast Anymore.” Icon (June 8, 2000).

Cohn, Don J. “Cultural Imports: Sotheby’s Brings Chinese Contemporary Art to New York.” Art Asia Pacific 48 (2006): 56–7.

Cornand, Brigitte. “Around the World.” Art Press International Edition 185 (1993): 69.

Dudek, Ingrid. “Mao in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Andy Warhol’s Mao, auction catalog (New York: Christie’s, 2006). 

Erickson, Britta. “The Contemporary Artistic Deconstruction—and Reconstruction—of Brush and Ink Painting.” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art vol. 2, no. 2 (2003): 82–9.

“Face of Protest.” US News & World Report (September 18, 1989): 13.

Fang, Lizhi, and Richard Dicker. “Portraits of Oppression: A Leading Dissident Decries the Continued Atrocities in China.” The Sciences vol. 32, issue 5 (1992): 16–21.

Goodman, Jonathan. “Exhibition Review: Zhang Hongtu at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.” Asia-Pacific Sculpture News vol. 2, no. 2 (1996): 57–8.

———. “How Chinese Is It?” Architrave: A Journal of the Arts (1997): 43–6.

———. “Shuffling the Deck.” Art AsiaPacific 38 (2003): 84–5.

———. “Zhang Hongtu.”Art AsiaPacific 15 (1997): 91.

Hay, Jonathan. “Ambivalent Icons.” Orientations (July 1992).

Hollow, Michele C. “Access to Art.” Summit Magazine Holiday Issue (2006): 44–9. 

Hunter, Felicia. “Exhibit Features Works of Chinese Artist Who Mixed Western and Eastern Styles and Symbols.” Yale Bulletin and Calendar vol. 28, no. 7 (1999). 

Jacoby, Russell. “Whither Marxism?” Transition: An International Review 69 (1996): 100–15.

Kaylan, Melik. “Dealer’s Choice.” House and Garden (April 1999): 92.

Kelley, Robin D. G., and Betsy Esch. “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution.” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society vol. 1, no. 4 (1999): 8–11. 

Kumagai, Isako. “Chinese Artists in New York.” Bulletin of Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo 9 (2003): 15–16.

———. “Zhang Hongtu and Ji Yunfei, Chinese Artists in New York City.” Saitama University Review vol. 46 (2010): 79–88.

Lago, Francesca Dal. “Personal Mao: Reshaping an Icon in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Art Journal vol. 58, no. 2 (1999): 54.

Lee, Robert. “Editorial.” Artspiral vol. 6 (1992): 3.

Levin, Gail. “Changing Cultures: The Recent Immigration of Chinese Artists to the U.S.” Asian Art News vol. 4, no. 5 (1994): 70–73.

———. “Immigrant Artists from China at Baruch College Gallery.” Art Times (May 1991): 10–11.

Lin, Edward. “Censored!” Transpacific (June 1994): 58–61.

Marcus, David. “The Museum Takes on the Museum: Art Exhibition Offers New Perspectives on Familiar Works.” Princeton Alumni Weekly (March 26, 2003).

Newman, Cathy. “Culture: Mao Now.” National Geographic vol. 213, no. 5 (2008): 100–1.

Ng, Elaine W. “Artists on Spirituality.” Art Asia Pacific 51 (2007): 91.

Pappas, Ben. “Boppa um Mao Mao.” Forbes (January 26, 1998).

Pollack, Barbara. “China’s Desert Treasure.” Art News vol. 112, no. 11 (2013): 74–81.

Schell, Orville. “Once Again, Long Live Chairman Mao.” Atlantic (December 1992).

Shen, Kuiyi. “Landscape as Cultural Consciousness in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art vol. 2, no. 4 (2003): 33–40.

“Shuffling the Deck: The Collection Reconsidered.” Asian Art: The Newspaper for Collectors, Dealers, Museums and Galleries (March 2003).

Snow, Crocker. “Graphic Expressions of Protest.” The World Paper (October 1989). 

Takahashi, Corey. “Art Imitates Queens Life—Museum Exhibit Mixes Global Spirit and Local Diversity.” Newsday (September 20, 2002).

Tallmer, Jerry. “Chinese Works Bound & Unbound for Glory.” New York Post (May 10, 1991).

Weyburn, Jennifer A. “Drawing on East and West.” The Yale-China Review Centennial Issue, vol. 7, no. 3 (2002): 10–15.

Wojciechowski, Leigh Ann. “Chinese Artists: Reinventing Tradition.” Pitt Magazine (Fall 2004): 3–4.

Wu, Hung. “Afterword: ‘Hong Kong 1997’—T-shirt Designs by Zhang Hongtu.” Public Culture vol. 9, no. 3 (1997): 417–25.

Yang, Alice. “Group Show at Haenah-Kent Gallery.” Asian Art News vol. 4, no. 2 (1994): 94–5.

Zhu, Lillian. “Zhang Hongtu.” Asian Voices: Destiny vol. 7 (1994): 26–30.

 

Newspaper Articles

Alonso, Nathalie. “Back to the Garden: Daily Life to Spiritual Vision.” Queens Chronicle, April 17, 2008.

“Artist Famed for Mao’s Image Visits Hong Kong.” Hong Kong Standard, April 24, 1996.

Bischoff, Dan. “Making It Big: Summit Gallery Spotlights Massive Culture-Blending Creations by the China-born.” The Star-Ledger, September 29, 2006.

“Bridging the Cultural Gap.” The Citizen, January 15, 2001.

Cheung, Denise. “Art Meets Science in Bold Exhibition.” South China Morning Post, May 9, 1996.

Cotter, Holland. “Art in Review.” New York Times, June 22, 2001. 

Cullinan, Helen. “A Great Wall of Protest: ‘China 1989’ Exhibit Speaks Tellingly on Human Rights.” The Plain Dealer, August 27, 1992.

Dao, James. “From Shanghai to Soho: For Chinese Expatriates, It’s Art for Heart’s Sake.” Daily News, October 29, 1989.

———. “Lady in Square Reborn: Student Symbol to Stand in N.Y.” Daily News, June 8, 1989.

D’Arcy, David. “Artist’s Pointed Critique Is Barred from Beijing.” Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2008.

Dunning, Jennifer. “The Dance: ‘Silk Road,’ by Miss Yung.” New York Times, April 8, 1984.

Fisher, Harry. “East Meets West in Color.” The Morning Call, April 7, 2006.

Francia, Luis H. “Tiananmen Show Gutted.” Village Voice, July 31, 1990.

Genocchio, Benjamin. “Sampling the Diverse Output of Artists from China: An Exhibition in Summit Touches on Issues of Identity and Culture Shock.” New York Times, October 15, 2006.

Glueck, Grace. “Art in Review.” New York Times, April 29, 2005.

Harrison, Helen A. “A Painter’s Images of Mao as Reflected in a Changing China.” New York Times, November 10, 1996.

———. “ ‘This Is Long Island,’ Without Any Automobiles or People.” New York Times, April 16, 1995.

Hernandez, Barbara. “East Meets West in Baruch Art Gallery.” Ticker Perspectives, May 8, 1991.

Johnson, Ken. “A Pluralist Exhibition in the Plural Borough.” New York Times, August 23, 2002.

Johnson, Patricia C. “The Station Offers ‘Space’ for Humanistic Self-Expression.” Houston Chronicle, September 14, 2002.

Lee, Robert. “Zhang Hongtu.” Village Voice Art Issue, Spring 1989.

Lovelace, Carey. “Memories of Mao: An Emigré Focuses on the Chairman.” Newsday, November 8, 1996.

Mangaliman, Jessie. “Brushes Wielded Against Terror at Home.” New York Newsday, June 23, 1989.

Mimoni, Victor G. “Flushing Art Show Makes Smiles Bloom.” Queens Courier, March 13, 2008.

Morano, Marylou. “Chinese Artists Travel Between Cultures at VACNJ.” The Westfield Leader And The Scotch Plains—Fanwood TIMES, October 5, 2006.

“Newton Display Driven by Notion of Art for All.” Sunday Independent, January 21, 2001.

Parris, Sharon. “Changing Culture: Chinese Artists.” The Reporter, May 1991.

Pellett, Gail. “Mao’s Scorched Flowers Go West: Is There Art After Liberation?” Village Voice, May 13, 1986. 

“Ping-Pong with Chairman Mao.” The Gazette, May 5, 2000. 

Raven, Arlene. “Days with Art.” Village Voice, October 5, 1993.

Sand, Olivia. “Profile: Zhang Hongtu.” Asian Art: the Newspaper for Collectors, Dealers, Museums and Galleries, January 2011.

Schwendener, Martha. “Centuries Apart, Cultures Speak to Each Other.” New York Times, August 12, 2012.

“Spirit of Tiananmen Square.” Akron Beacon Journal, August 30, 1992.

Sugarman, Raphael. “Art Across Cultures.” Daily News, April 4, 1994.

Vogel, Carol. “A New Art Capital, Finding Its Own Voice.” New York Times, December 7, 2014.

Weiss, Birti. “Alle Eksisterer for Min Skyld.” Weekendavisen Boger, June 17–23, 2005.

Zimmer, William. “Statement from the Chinese After Tiananmen Square.” New York Times, November 6, 1994.

 

Exhibition Catalogues

Solo 

Dialogue With the Taipei Palace Museum: Zhang Hongtu Solo Exhibition. Taipei: Lin & Keng Gallery, 2004.

Icons & Innovations: The Cross-Cultural Art of Zhang Hongtu. New York: The Gibson Gallery, 2003.

In the Spirit of Dunhuang: Studies by Zhang Hongtu. New York: Asian Arts Institute, 1984.

Recent Paintings by Zhang Hongtu. New York: Goedhuis Contemporary, 2005.

Zhang Hongtu: Material Mao. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1996.

Zhang Hongtu: Recent Paintings. Taipei: Lin & Keng Gallery, 2007.

Zhang Hongtu: Shan Shui Today. Taipei: Tina Keng Gallery, 2011.

Group 

AJITA. Houston: INERI Foundation, 2002.

Art and China’s Revolution. New York: Asia Society, 2008.

The Art of Justice: Part II. White Plains: Krasdale Gallery, 1995.

Artists from China—New Expressions. New York: Sarah Lawrence College Art Gallery, 1987.

Back to the Garden: Daily Life to Spiritual Vision. New York: Crossing Art, 2008.

Beyond the Borders: Art by Recent Immigrants. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1994.

Changing Cultures: Immigrant Artists from China. New York: Baruch College, City University of New York, 1992.

CHINA June 4, 1989: An Art Exhibition. Flint: Buckham Gallery, 1994.

China Onward: The Estella Collection—Chinese Contemporary Art, 1966–2006. Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2007.

China Without Borders: An Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art. New York: Goedhuis Contemporary, 2001.

Chinese Painting Collection of Guy Ullens de Schooten. Beijing: The Palace Museum, 2002.

Collection Remix. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 2005.

Contemporary Art: Travel Diary. Montreal: Galerie Observatoire 4, 1998.

Contemporary Combustion: Chinese Artists in America. New Britain: New Britain Museum of American Art, 2007.

The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s. New York: Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1990.

Dragon Veins. Tampa: Contemporary Art Museum at University of South Florida, 2006.

East/West: Visually Speaking. Lafayette: Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, 2010.

Exhibition of Chinese American Artists. Taipei: American Institute in Taiwan, 2000.

Global Roots: Artists from China Working in New York. West Lafayette: Purdue University, 1998.

Godzilla: The Asian American Arts Network. New York: Artists Space, 1993.

Here + Now: Chinese Artists in New York. New York: Museum of Chinese in America, 2009.

Hypallage: the Post-Modern Mode of Chinese Contemporary Art. Shenzhen: OCT Art & Design Gallery, 2008.

In Memory—the Art of Afterward: An International Exhibition of Works Reflecting on Loss and Remembrance. New York: The Legacy Project, 2002.

Inspired by Dunhuang: Re-creation in Contemporary Chinese Art. New York: China Institute, 2013.

Inter Mediate: Selected Contemporary Chinese American Art. New Jersey: The College of New Jersey Art Gallery, 2011.

Kimchi Xtravaganza!: A Multidisciplinary Showcase About Kimchi. Los Angeles: Korean American Museum, 1998.

Mythologies of Contemporary Art by Three Artists: Zhang Hongtu, Yang Maolin and Tu Weicheng. Taipei: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2009.

New Chinese Occidentalism: Chinese Contemporary Art in New York. New York: Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, 2005.

Oil & Water: Reinterpreting Ink. New York: Museum of Chinese in America, 2014.

On the Edge: Contemporary Art from Indonesia and China. Jakarta: The Pakubuwono Residence/Bank Mandiri PRIORITAS, 2004.

On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West. Stanford: Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, 2006.

Out of Time, Out of Place, Out of China: Reinventing Chinese Tradition in a New Century. Pittsburgh: The University Art Gallery, University of Pittsburgh, 2005.

Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art. New Jersey: Princeton University Art Museum, 2009.

Paris-Pékin. Paris: Chinese Century, Ullens and Asiart Archive, 2002.

The Pavilion of Realism. Beijing: Other Gallery, 2010.

Post-Mao Dreaming: Chinese Contemporary Art. Massachusetts: Smith College Museum of Art, 2009.

Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions. Barcelona: Museu Picasso, 2014.

Reason’s Clue. New York: Queens Museum of Art, 2008.

Reboot: The Third Chengdu Biennale. Chengdu: Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, 2007.

Re-do China. New York: Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, 2003.

Reinventing Tradition in a New World: The Arts of Gu Wenda, Wang Mansheng, Xu Bing and Zhang Hongtu. Pennsylvania: Schmucker Art Gallery, 2004.

Revolution. New York: China Square Publishing Inc., 2007.

R/evolution. Taipei: Tina Keng Gallery, 2009.

The Revolution Continues: New Art from China. London: Saatchi Gallery, 2008.

Roots to Reality II: Alternative Visions. New York: Alliance for Asian American Arts and Culture, and Henry Street Settlement, 1986.

Selections: Aljira & Artists Space. New York: Artists Space, 1990.

Shuffling the Deck: The Collection Reconsidered. Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 2003.

Syncretism: The Art of the XXI Century. New York: Alternative Museum, 1991.

Tiananmen Memorial Art Exhibit. New York: Congressional Human Rights Foundation, 1990.

Trading Place: Contemporary Art Museum. Taipei: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005.

Transcultural New Jersey: Diverse Artists Shaping Culture and Communities. New Jersey: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 2004.

Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century. Chicago: The David and Alfred Smart Museum, 1999.

Travelers Between Cultures: Contemporary Chinese Artists in New York. New Jersey: Visual Art Center of New Jersey, 2006.

Unknown/Infinity: Culture and Identity in the Digital Age. New York: Taipei Gallery, 2001.

Urban Archives: Happy Together. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 2011. 

Word and Meaning: Six Contemporary Chinese Artists. University at Buffalo Art Gallery, 2000.

Works by Zhang Hongtu. Hong Kong: The HKUST Center for the Arts, 1996.

SPOTLIGHT

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Art and Ideology: A Conversation with Artist Zhang Hongtu

A Zoom conversation between the gallery artist Zhang Hongtu and Jamie Kwan, the assistant director of the Wende Museum, on Tuesday, January 17, 2023

One of the most important contemporary Chinese artists, Zhang Hongtu, combines Chinese and Western art elements. On January 11, 2023, the Wende Museum in CA  hosted “Art and Ideology: A Conversation with Artist Zhang Hongtu,” a Zoom conversation between the artist and Jamie Kwan, the museum’s assistant curator.  Zhang discussed his experience living through the Cultural Revolution and its effect on his art, especially his iconic “Material Mao” and “Long Live Chairman Mao” series, which were exhibited at the gallery in ZHANG HONGTU: I DARE TO MATE A HORSE WITH AN OX on September 27 – November 16, 2019.

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Zhang Hongtu at Museo Picasso Málaga 

Zhang Hongtu at Museo Picasso Málaga 

October 3, 2023 - March 31, 2024
Madison Ave New York Picasso, Welcome to America June 15 – July 31, 2023

PICASSO, WELCOME TO AMERICA

June 15 – Sept 27, 2023
Pitches & Scripts

PITCHES & SCRIPTS

Group Exhibition
January 20 - March 11, 2023
(DE)CONSTRUCTING IDEOLOGY: THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND BEYOND November 13, 2022 to March 12, 2023

Zhang Hongtu lectures and exhibits at the Wende Museum

November 13, 2022 - March 12, 2023
TANGO | Summer Exhibition | July 13 - August 17, 2022

TANGO

Summer Exhibition
July 13 - August 17, 2022
Zhang Hongtu

VAN GOGH / BODHIDHARMA

Zhang Hongtu
March 25 - April 27, 2022
LOVE DIFFERENCE

LOVE DIFFERENCE

Eric Brown, Janet Taylor Pickett, Zhang Hongtu
May 15 - June 15, 2021

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Gary Hill and Nam June Paik at Art Taipei 2008

Gary Hill, Language Willing

At the Art Taipei’s invitation for their 2008 Year Project, “Art & Tech – Wandering”, ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts presented Gary Hill’s “Remembering Paralinguay” and Nam June Paik’s “Beuys Voice” for the special exhibition during Art Taipei 2008.

 

George Quasha and Gary Hill gave lecture and Q&A on August 30, 2008 titled “Language Beyond Its Own Limits”

 

Nam June Paik

Beuys Voice

1990

265 x 188 x 95 cm

 

Gary Hill

Remembering Paralinguay

2000 

Single-channel video/sound installation
Video projector and mount, four amplified speakers, DVD player and one DVD (black-and-white; sound)
Performer:  Paulina Wallenberg-Olsson
Dimensions variable
Photo: Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago

Art Taipei 2008

August 29 – September 2, 2008

Taipei World Trade Center, Taipei

 

Gary Hill, Language Willing

Gary Hill

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“Molly Davies” showcased at Digital & Video Art Paris

ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts presented Molly Davies’s Autopsy and Dressing, at Digital & Video Art Fair 2006 Paris – A Tribute to Matthew Barney.

 

Polly Motley performed during the exhibition.

 

Autopsy

1998

Video/sound installation

12 minutes continuous loop

One channel of video projected on the wall, amplified mono sound, using one speaker on the floor.

Performance and concept by Polly Motley, Video manipulation by Molly Davies

DJ by Beth Coleman/ DJ Singe

 

DRESSING

1998

Video/sound installation

Performance by Polly Motley. Sound by Beth Coleman/ DJ Singe.

6 minutes continuous loop

Three channels of color video on 21” monitors on black table, three channels of amplified mono sound, using three speakers on the floor.

 

Molly Davies started making experimental films in the late 1960’s in New York City. For multi media performance pieces she has collaborated with artists including John Cage, David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi, Lou Harrison, Michael Nyman, Alvin Curran, Fred Frith, Suzushi Hanayagi, Sage Cowles, Polly Motley, Jackie Matisse and Anne Carson. Her work has been presented at such sites as the Venice Film Festival, the Centre Pompidou, Musée de l’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée d’Art Contemporain Lyon, The Getty, Theatre Am Turm, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Arts Center, Asia Society, the Kitchen, La MaMa E.T.C., Dance Theatre Workshop, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the Indonesian Dance Festival. Her video installation work is in the collections of the Getty Research Institute, the Musée Art Contemporain Lyon and the Walker Art Center.  Her major works include “David Tudor’s Ocean” a six-channel piece documenting performances by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and “Sea Tails” a three-channel, six monitor piece integrating film footage of Jackie Matisse’s underwater kites with a score by David Tudor.

 

Polly Motley is a choreographer, performer, collaborator and teacher with more than thirty years of extensive experience in dance, video and performance making. She trained from an early age in classical and contemporary dance forms—ballet, jazz, tap, modern and post-modern styles.  She began improvising and choreographing in 1974 while dancing with experimental dance/theater companies in Houston and Austin, Texas.  She joined the faculty of Loretto Heights College in Denver in 1982.  She worked with Barbara Dilley at  Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she studied dance ethnology, contemplative dance, and creative process.  She performed, choreographed, and was a faculty member for Naropa University until she moved from Colorado in 1996.  Her work at Naropa included  dance-theater/video interactions,  multi-media performance meditations (with New York film/installation artist, Molly Davies), and composed vocal/gestural improvisations.

Motley has collaborated with a roster of dance, music, visual and literary artists that includes Steve Paxton, Dana Reitz, Simone Forti, Charles Amirkhanian, Takehisa Kosugi, Fred Frith, Anne Carson, and Jack Collom.  She was the first choreographer from the United States for the Triangle Arts Program, an exchange between the United States, Japan and Indonesia.  Her most recent participation in that program included performing at the Asia Society in New York with Indonesian dance master, Mugiyono, and Japanese performer, Kota Yamazaki. 

Motley’s newest solo, Dancing the Numbers, was recently presented at the Danspace Project in New York to critical praise. Her work is supported by state and National Endowment for the Arts awards and choreography fellowships. It has been presented by the Jack Tilton Gallery, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen,  Danspace Project , The Colorado Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Bates College Dance Festival, The New York Improvisation Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Edge Festival San Francisco, Tulane University Art Gallery, MousonTurm (Frankfurt), and the Indonesian Dance Festival, Jakarta among other venues. 

Motley received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a thesis on the interactive relationships of video and performance.

Digital & Video Art Fair 2006 Paris

A Tribute to Matthew Barney

 

October 26 – 29, 2006

 

KUBE

1 – 5 Passage Ruelle

Adjacent à l’Avenue Marx Dormoy

75018 Paris, France

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“Communion Constellation” presented during the 53rd Venice Biennale

ZONE CONTEMPORARY ART is proud to present “Communion/Constellation,” a solo exhibition by gallery artist Yooah Park, on the occasion of the 53rd Venice Biennale. ZONE’s mission of global artistic interchange reflects the main theme of the Biennale, “ Making Worlds.”

 

“Communion/Constellation” establishes an intimate gathering space, exploring the circle form in various mediums. Portraits of family and friends cluster around a communal rice bowl. A universal symbol of plenty, of physical and spiritual nourishment, of vitality and renewal, the ceramic bowel has historically been an integral part of Korean culture. While majestic in scale, Yooah’s vessel seems almost weightless because of the delicacy of its celadon glaze. The gentle irregularities of the bowl are an eloquent reminder of the casting process, in which dynamic forces are guarded by the artist’s shaping hand and eye. The large and small tondo paintings are executed in red on a translucent, skin-like fabric of liquid vinyl. The refined draftsmanship of the portraits is reminiscent of old master drawings, while the luminosity of the materials suggests grisaille stained glass.

 

Trained as a traditional brush painter Yooah extends the gestural language of calligraphy onto these evocations of people vital to her personal constellation. The red ink, or Gyong-myon-ju-sa, is a mineral pigment of cinnabar, mercury and sulfur (HgS). In alchemy, sulfur is considered to be a condensation of positiveness, and mercury is thought to be a condensation of negativeness. Combined, they create a mysterious power that wards off evil. The minerals are mixed with cinnabar and perilla-oil. Unlike many other pigments, Gyong-myon-ju-sa is highly stable: the ink will be permanent until the support disintegrates. Because Yooah used the high-tech liquid vinyl, instead of the traditional paper, her images will last even longer. Like an alchemist, the painter is adept in the art of mixing delicate and dangerous elements. Gyong-myon-ju-sa, also called Inju, is used to create Bujeok, small talismans, carried for protection or posted at certain plays in and around the house: over a door or gate or on the ceiling. The blood-red color and viscosity of Inju also allude to sealing wax and colophon signatures.  In both paintings and ceramics, the artist manipulates raw materials to liberate the spirit within.

 

Parallel Event:

On Saturday, June 6th at 10:00AM, New York based Zone Artists Jack Sal and Yooah Park will present a Dual Performance entitled “East/West” at Caffé Quadri on the historical Piazza San Marco.*  Sal, who has participated in numerous exhibitions, projects, and events for past Biennales, will continue his performances with coffee and other elements and will be joined for the first time by another artist.  In this first occasion, a collaboration has been established with Yooah Park, whose work with tea and other traditional Asian foods creates a contrast/mirror to Sal’s ongoing activities in Venice.

 

* Ristorante Gran Caffé Quadri

Piazza San Marco 121

30124 Venice

Yooah Park

Communion/Constellation

June 5 – June 19, 2009

Opening reception: 6-8pm, June 5

 

Galleria Multigraphic

D.D.S. Vio 728 Venezia, Italy

The frame of needlework, the surface of vinyl, the subtle trace of ink. Drawn from a feminine world, Yooah Park opens an external world, the private. The intimate fabric of relationships based on affection, estimate, and respect that the artist, who has lived in New York these past years, links to her family and close friends.

 

There are her children, Candy e Davis Koh; her father T. J. Park, her mother O. J. Jang and her sister Jinah; her teacher Jong Sang Lee, the celebrated author Jung Rae Cho as well as her dog City represented along with her owner.

 

A flow of reciprocal exchanges with which Yooah Park renders homage by offering of herself, using the metaphor of food (rice), represented indirectly by the large hand-thrown bowl that is then placed in the kiln for its double firing. Always experimenting with techniques and materials, the artist emphasizes here again in her first one-person exhibition in Italy, Communion/Constellation – the matrix of her artistic language: the calligraphic tradition.

 

Black ink –dominated her previous works, including the series Untitled (Small Pulp) from 2000 and, in particular, transposed into metal in Writing in the Void (2006). Here it is “illuminated” (using a term borrowed from the ancient miniaturists) with the substitution of the brilliant tonality of cinnabar, mixed with other natural elements including cooking oil: creating a dense non-toxic liquid (Inju), used for seals. With a fine-point brush, like the needles used in needlework, the artist traces with confidence the outline of the precise identity of her subjects. Memory is represented via the photographs always taken by the artist – an intermediary vehicle important to suspend real time, and to avoid the “staged.” There is not a gaze, amongst the many subjects even though intense, that directly engages the viewer. It does not make for good manners, based on modesty and reserve as used in the East, to look someone directly in the eyes. Nevertheless, the rules of the traditional portrait require that the focal point be the face, rendering as secondary importance all other information.

 

In reference to this stylistic cannon, Park concentrates on the face, leaving clothing and objects that are normally used to describe the subject as sketchy traces. If, in the past, she has created handmade paper on which she paints freely interpreted ideograms, in Communion/Constellation she chooses as a support a light and flexible material – Liquid Vinyl – used as well in the textile industry. Among its fundamental characteristics is its transparency: through its interaction with light, whose source could be from either the front or the back and is revealed in the details (the eyes, the hair, half smiles).

 

Thirteen – a known symbolic number, within both Eastern and Western cultures – is an apparent reference to “The Last Supper.” Thirteen is in fact the number of large circular portraits from this type of a family album, surrounded by a “constellation” of smaller circles as well as some ovals. Using the cinnabar, which is also used in traditional medicine as well as in the creation of amulets against the evil eye, the artist takes on the role of the shaman. Painting the faces of her family and important friends becomes a way of caring for them as well as to protect them. As in her use of the food/nutrition, which is alluded to by the presence of the bowl, and is associated psychologically to giving (or withholding) affection. A dialogue that opens new and more complex thoughts.

 

Manuela de Leonardis is a Rome, Italy based curator, critic, and journalist whose articles and exhibitions feature contemporary art and photography. 

Related:
IN THE ATRIUM Yooah Park  VOID IN WRITING September – December, 2024

VOID IN WRITING

Sept 3 – Dec 28, 2024
Yooah Park Void in Writing (detail), 2024 Stainless steel, plexiglass, piano string A site-specific installation Dimension varies

YOOAH PARK

March 7 - March 29, 2008
Yooah Park, installation view

Yooah Park: “Writing in the Void”

at The Central House of Artists Museum, Moscow & Center for Architecture and Design, Mexico City
June 28 - July 3, 2006 and August 10 - September 4, 2006

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Yooah Park: “Writing in the Void”

ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts is pleased to present “Writing in the Void,” a mobile of 280 calligraphic marks forged in black and silver aluminum by artist Yooah Park. Organized by ZONE: Chelsea, the exhibition will be held at the Central House of Artists Museum in Moscow, and travel to the Center for Architecture and Design, Mexico City (Aug. 10-Sept. 4).

 

Trained as a brush painter, Yooah Park explores gestural dynamics in painting and sculpture, combining influences from traditional Korean calligraphy artists, and Western artists such as Franz Kline, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden and Alexander Calder.

 

While Western philosophies typically depict the Void as an infinite absence, the Eastern notion of the Void is frequently described as a “formless field” inexplicably acting as the source and sustenance of all creation. In ancient Korean painting, the artist asserts, negative space is more important than positive space, presumably because of its “pre-rational” shaping intelligence. Following this logic, Park has activated and magnified this dynamism by setting her marks in three-dimensional space, mirroring the guided improvisation of John Cage’s chance techniques.

 

Perpetual motion also conveys the Buddhist belief in spirits inhabiting inanimate objects. Park’s figures cluster together in groups or stand in isolation as human figures do. And since the figures resemble fragments of ideograms, their suspension suggests a primordial arena wherein a language is first coalescing. This suspension reinforces the minimalist esthetic, the slowing down of time, and the sharpening focus – “the mental suspension, not a mental diversion” – experienced in meditation, as noted by Mark Levy in The Void in Art.

 

In the past, Park’s organic minimalism has employed multiples, such as her shifting grid of 63 ceramic cubes presented at ZONE: Chelsea in 2004. Always evident are her intimate calligraphic marks, which also adorned her chamber of hand-made tiles denoting Korean funeral ritual and the shedding of esthetic identities in “Rite of Passage” at the Gana Insa art Center in 2002. In April 2006, Park’s mobile installation appeared in a group exhibition at the Dong San Bang Gallery in Seoul.

 

The Central House of Artists Museum is located at 119049 Krymski val 10 exhibition hall #6, Moscow, Russia.

 

ZONE: Chelsea would like to thank CHA Director Vasily Vladimirovich Bychkov and Senior manager of the exhibition organizing deparment Marina Milishnikova.

 

Yooah Park

Writing in the Void

 

June 28 – July 3, 2006, Moscow

The Central House of Artists Museum

119049 Krymski Val 10 exhibition hall #16, Moscow, Russia

 

 

August 10 – September 4, 2006, Mexico

Galeria Emilia Cohen

Juan Vazquez de Mella No. 481, Col. Los Morales Polanco

Mexico D.F.C.P. 11510

I am pleased to present “Writing in the Void”, a mobile of 280 calligraphic marks forged in black and silver aluminum by artist Yooah Park. Organized by ZONE SATELLITE, a division at ZONE:Chelsea, Center for the Arts, the exhibition will be held at the Central House of Artists Museum in Moscow (June 28- July 3, 2006) and will travel to the Center for Architecture and Design, Mexico City (Aug 10 – Sep 4,2006).

 

Trained as a brush painter, Yooah Park explores gestural dynamics in painting and sculpture, combining influences from traditional Korean calligraphy artists, and Western artists such as Franz Kline, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden and Alexander Calder.

 

While Western philosophies typically depict the Void as an infinite absence, the Eastern notion of the Void is frequently described as a “formless field” inexplicably acting as the source and sustenance of all creation. In ancient Korean painting, the artist asserts, negative space is more important than positive space, presumably because of its “pre-rational” shaping intelligence. Following this logic, Park has activated and magnified this dynamism by setting her marks in three-dimensional space, mirroring the guided improvisation of John Cage’s chance techniques.

 

Perpetual motion also conveys the Buddhist belief in spirits inhabiting inanimate objects. Park’s figures cluster together in groups or stand in isolation as human figures do. And since the figures resemble fragments of ideograms, their suspension suggests a primordial arena wherein a language is first coalescing. This suspension reinforces the minimalist esthetic, the slowing down of time, and the sharpening focus ‘The mental suspension, not a mental diversion” experienced in meditation, as noted by Mark Levy in The Void in Art.

 

In the past, Park’s organic minimalism has employed multiples, such as her shifting grid of 63 ceramic cubes presented at ZONE: Chelsea, Center for the Arts in 2004. Always evident are her intimate calligraphic marks, which also adorned her chamber of hand-made tiles denoting Korean funeral ritual and the shedding of esthetic identities in “Rite of Passage” at the Gana lnsa Art Center in 2002. In April 2006, Park’s mobile installation appeared in a group exhibition at the Dong San Bang Gallery in Seoul.

 

I would like to thank Director Vasily Vladimirovich Bychkov and Marina Milishnikova, Senior Manager of the Exhibition Organizing Department at Cental House of Artists in Moscow. I would also like to thank Consul General Ramon Xilolt, Karina Escamilla, Program Coordinator at Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, Emilia Cohen, Director of Emilia Cohen Collection and Center for Architecture and Design in Mexico City. Special thanks to Erika Vilfort and Beatrize Ezban for their initial efforts in facilitating Yooah Paws Mexico exhibition and Kiril Milinishikov for his translations for the Moscow exhibition.

 

Jennifer Baahng ED.D

Director

ZONE: Chelsea, Center for the Arts

“Tonight he feels the potency of every word: words are only an eye-twitch away from the things they stand for.”   —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

 

 

 

In his sprawling third novel, Pynchon grasped a tectonic shift in the modern era, as the industrial revolution yielded to the age of information. His international cast of misfits roams the shattered landscape of Europe at the close of World War II, no longer trading black-market cigarettes for weapons, machinery, or other tangible goods, but instead bartering with raw data—documents, patents, and even early computer codes, those ephemeral strings of 1’s and 0’s. One implication of this 1973 masterpiece is that humanity as a species is in danger of drifting from its moorings in the physical world, a condition that has come to pass with the alternate reality of cyberspace (a word that already sounds quaint, though it was coined only 20 years ago in William Gibson’s equally prescient novel, Neuromancer).

 

Yooah Park works in words as well, her art derived from expressive, calligraphic brushstrokes grounded in those immemorial ideograms first laid down millennia ago in ink on rice paper. Yet her newest work is disembodied; she has dispensed with any supporting surface, leaving her laser-cut steel brushstrokes hanging in midair. But like Pynchon’s “eye-twitch,” they remain beautifully corporeal, images that do double duty as “the things they stand for.”

 

How did Park arrive at this nexus of ancient symbols and (literally) cutting-edge technology?

 

One factor, no doubt, is travel, from her native Korea, where she received a degree in Oriental Painting, to graduate study in art history at Harvard and drawing at Columbia University. Another is her exploration of various surfaces as vehicles for her art, which has spanned drawing, painting, and sculpture. In the early nineties Park did a series of drawings that traversed the netherworld between figurative expression and pure abstraction, the form and subject reminiscent of Matisse’s bold dancers. Her images from this period are vibrant—leaping, pirouetting, twisting, and landing forms that spread across five-foot sheets of paper, and crouching, bending, lounging shapes compressed into smaller, one-foot squares. Quick arabesques and spatters of ink breathe life into the figures, and also work entirely as nonobjective form, both contained by and pushing at the boundaries of the paper, compositions that create exquisite tension.

 

Then came her work on clay tiles—calligraphic flourishes baked into the ash-colored mud, the litheness of her gestures mitigated somewhat by the elegiac gray surface. The stiff brushes she uses leave deeply incised ridges in the wet clay that feel, after being fired in a traditional Korean kiln, like fossils, giving both the image she has inscribed and the idea it conveys a sense of deep time, a shrouded past before the invention of writing, drawing, ink, or paper. Sometimes Park sculpts hexagons from this material: small smoky boxes in rows or scattered on the ground, her brushstrokes like weathered, mysterious inscriptions on tombstones. These shapes revisit her square drawings, retaining their coiled tension between the idea and its expression.

 

Park’s 2002 installation, Rite of Passage,went even further in this journey through idea and form, eschewing any sense of figuration or ideogram, leaving only walls of ashen tiles and hanging strips of handmade pulp paper to envelope the viewer. This tomblike enclosure returned her to art’s most basic element: a bare surface on which to project one’s imagination. In this case, the idea was writ large—the surface became an environment that at once enclosed and expressed a conscious negation of her earlier tools and techniques. A blank slate, in other words.

 

Fast-forward to the present. Other artists have hung objects from the ceiling—think of the colorful, playful geometries of Calder’s mobiles and Eva Hesse’s gloppy ropes and distended blobs suspended in mesh bags. More recently, the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa filled a New York gallery with curtains of stainless-steel letters that at a distance overlapped into a shimmering tower of Babel, an incomprehensible jumble of characters; only on closer inspection did it become apparent that the letters spelled out excerpts from the Bible’s Song of Songs.It is the curse of language that letters and words must be joined together to express thought, and that those sentences, paragraphs, and entire books remain intellectual abstractions— symbols—of what they represent.

 

Park, though, has the advantage over writers (or artists using letter forms) of translating thought and emotion into emphatic form through the bodily gestures of her brushstrokes. This is why the athletic traceries of her earlier drawings and clay pieces feel so alive; like those macho “action painters” the abstract expressionists, the movements of her arms, shoulders, torso—her entire body—come across in her energetic strokes of ink, her forceful scoring of clay. Now she has taken her gestures and removed them from any friction with a ground, be it paper or clay, to exist simply in the air. Cut from dark, shiny steel, these palpable strokes are hung in groups, and work on several layers. First, they are individual shapes, each filled with the verve of the original painted stroke (which is used as a template for the laser). But they also work as a whole, coalescing into various shapes as the viewer walks around and within this fragmented aerie. From some angles they seem a single entity that has burst apart and been frozen in time; from others it is as if they desire to gather together, like filings around a magnet. Always, though, they are physical manifestations of the artist’s search for form—idea, thought, and emotion transformed into a graceful dance.

 

 

 

R.C. Baker is a writer and artist who lives in New York City. His column, Best In Show,appears weekly in the Village Voice.

Related:
IN THE ATRIUM Yooah Park  VOID IN WRITING September – December, 2024

VOID IN WRITING

Sept 3 – Dec 28, 2024
Yooah Park Void in Writing (detail), 2024 Stainless steel, plexiglass, piano string A site-specific installation Dimension varies

YOOAH PARK

March 7 - March 29, 2008
Yooah Park, installation view

Yooah Park: “Writing in the Void”

at The Central House of Artists Museum, Moscow & Center for Architecture and Design, Mexico City
June 28 - July 3, 2006 and August 10 - September 4, 2006

Categories: spotlight

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