Editor’s Letter
8—9
Artist
on Artist
Pages
Pio Abad
Pacita Abad
10 — 15
Au Sow Yee
Anthony McCall &
16 — 21
Hito Steyerl Chus Burés
Carmen Herrera
22 — 27
Isaac Chong Wai
Nadia Kaabi-Linke
28 — 33
Jon Cuyson
David Medalla
34 — 39
Maung Day
Mrat Lunn Htwann
40 — 43
Ho Rui An
Liu Chuang
44 — 51
Aaron Johnson
Maja Ruznic
52 — 59
Claire Lee
Greta Thunberg
60 — 65
Trong Gia Nguyen
Olu Oguibe
66 — 71
Alvin Ong
Elizabeth Price
72 — 79
Tsherin Sherpa &
Urgen Dorje
80 — 87
Bosco Sodi
Antoni Tàpies
88 — 93
Ian Tee
Jasper Johns
94 — 99
Truc-Anh
Hayao Miyazaki
100 — 107
Charwei Tsai
Ganzug Sedbazar &
108 — 115
Pooja Duwal
Davaajargal Tsaschikher Jason Wee
Lee Wen
116 — 121
Megan Whitmarsh
Jay DeFeo
122 — 127
Art is much bigger than the ancillary
me because this project is not mine alone,
businesses that support it. At its root is the
rather, it is the collective work of 18 artist-
artist—one of the oldest professions that have
authors who each gave their time and words
largely remained unchanged over the centuries.
generously. For this, I thank them from the
Shrouded in myth, the artist is a revered figure
bottom of my heart.
possessing artistic ingenuity that us mere mortals cannot fathom. It is from this thought
Reflecting on artists that have had a deep
that the idea for et al. was conceived.
influence on their practice, Bosco Sodi shares three encounters with Antoni Tàpies; Ian
The thought process of an artist always
Tee discusses the practice of Jasper Johns
fascinated me and these encounters have
whose “Target” paintings and philosophy of
been some of the richest, most rewarding and
painting inspired his own; while Alvin Ong
stimulating conversations I have engaged in.
unfurls a narrative around his former tutor
Without the artist, there is no art. Without
Elizabeth Price’s A Restoration, which has
the artists’ voices, the art world would have a
been a catalyst to his own practice. Megan
gaping hole that no critic, journalist, curator or
Whitmarsh tells the compelling story of
dealer could fill.
Jay DeFeo’s The Rose, an artwork that has lingered with the artist for over two decades;
On this premise, I invited 18 artists from Asia
meanwhile Aaron Johnson transports us
and around the world to put pen to paper, in
into the Chagallesque world of Maja Ruznic.
any format, on another artist of their choice.
Trong Gia Nguyen pays tribute to his mentor
The stories that came back have been nothing
Olu Oguibe opening with his elegy on a
short of enriching and beautiful.
modern Nigeria ensnared in sociopolitical decay; Ho Rui An brings a thought provoking
The title of this publication, “et al.” is derived
analysis of Liu Chuang’s complex artistic
from the abbreviation of the Latin et alia,
practice; and Au Sow Yee takes us on a
meaning “and others”—which resonated with
journey through time with Anthony McCall and Hito Steyerl.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Charwei Tsai sheds light on her travels to
What started as a desire to hear how an
Mongolia and the important lessons she has
artist thinks, and how they may see the work
taken from the performance art of Ganzug
of another artist through their own eyes, has
Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher;
turned into a broader project. Through these 18
Chus Burés tells the story of his jewellery
essays, we are reminded of the human side of
collaboration with Carmen Herrera; while
art—beyond the market, outside of the system
Isaac Chong Wai uses writing to explore
that keeps the beast fed. We are reminded that
artistic links between Nadia Kaabi-Linke
art is about connection between people, about
and himself.
the sharing of knowledge, about life and the experiences it has to offer.
Friendship is at the heart of Jason Wee’s reflection on the late Lee Wen; Jon Cuyson shares a deeply personal anecdote on being
Denise Tsui
a victim of a David Medalla forgery; family
Managing Editor
takes centre stage as Pio Abad recounts
CoBo Social
memories of his late aunt, Pacita Abad; and Tsherin Sherpa, with Pooja Duwal, introduces the work of his father Urgen Dorje, who taught him the discipline of Thangka painting. Lastly, broadening the term of artist, Claire Lee writes a beautifully poetic letter to Greta Thunberg, whose strength and determination inspires her; and Truc-Anh imparts wisdom from renowned Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki.
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Pio Abad on Pacita Abad by Pio Abad ↓ page 10 — 15 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Pacita Abad, L.A. Liberty, 1992, acrylic, cotton yarn, plastic buttons, mirrors, gold thread, painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas, 239 x 147 cm. Photography by Max McClure. Image courtesy of Spike Island and Pacita Abad Art Estate.
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Her iconic reimagining of the American monument as a woman of colour clad in bejewelled patchwork robes.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
I have vivid recollections of visiting my
me space to make my own work from leftover
aunt, the late artist Pacita Abad’s studio
canvases, paint and buttons. If memory serves
in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1994.
me right, this may have been the first painting
At that time, she was preparing for a solo
on canvas that I ever produced.
exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, which opened in November
25 years later, I once again found myself
that year. Her studio was filled with the
surrounded by these works; unrolling them in
elements of what would soon become her
preparation for the first ever UK exhibition of
“Immigrant Experience” series—one which
her work, which would go on to open at Spike
brought together her “trapunto” method
Island in Bristol this January. After a quarter
and her interest in social realist imagery. On
of a century in hibernation, the colours had
one wall was L.A. Liberty (1992), her iconic
not lost any of their vibrancy and the layers of
reimagining of the American monument
material and processes within each painting
as a woman of colour clad in bejewelled
continued to astound. If anything, the works
patchwork robes. Large scale painted
had gained the resonance of time, accruing the
portraits of people of colour, mostly women,
weight of witnessing their depicted histories
populated her studio walls in various stages
being repeated. Her 1994 exhibition was part of
of completion, some finished, others waiting
an effort by the museum to include local artists
to be quilted and embroidered. On the floor
of colour in their programme and came as the
were different materials organised in plastic
United States was emerging from the culture
boxes—rickrack, sequins, seashells, buttons
wars of the Reagan-Bush era and asking
and even plastic fruit that would later find
difficult questions about sexuality, race, nation
themselves embellished on the painting’s
and empire. In 2020, Abad’s kaleidoscopic
elaborately constructed surfaces. Despite the
tableaus of migrant life in the United States
frenetic pace of production and the amount
continue to insist on inclusion and complexity
of labour involved in each piece, she found
as the country goes through another state of
the time to humour the 10-year-old me, giving
cultural emergency.
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Pacita Abad, Caught at the Border, 1991, acrylic, oil, mirrors, sequins on stitched and padded canvas, 238 x 173 cm. Photography
by Max McClure. Image courtesy of Spike Island and Pacita Abad Art Estate.
Pio Abad Pio Abad, born 1983, Manila, is a
Biennial, Hawai'i (2019); Imagined
Filipino artist living and working in
Nation, the 12th Gwangju Biennial
London. He began his art studies at
(2018) and Soil and Stone, Souls and
the University of the Philippines before
Songs, Para Site, Hong Kong (2017).
receiving a BA from Glasgow School
He has also curated exhibitions at
of Art and an MA from the Royal
Museum of Contemporary Art and
Academy Schools, London. Recent
Design, Manila (2018) and Spike
exhibitions include Phantom Limb,
island, Bristol (2019). Abad is also a
Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); Kiss
lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths,
the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San
University of London.
Francisco (2019); Splendour, Oakville Galleries, Ontario (2019); To Make/ Wrong/Right Now, The 2nd Honolulu
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
The “Immigrant Experience” series began from
sensitivity of form and attention to detail, she
her own experiences as a Filipino immigrant,
provides a voice to members of society who are
but it is her depiction of the intersecting lives
claimed to be spoken for, but never listened to.
and struggles of other immigrants of colour that sets the work apart: from fellow émigré
In the time that I have been involved in bringing
artists and Korean grocers, to Bangladeshi
her work to a new audience, what has struck
restaurant workers and Cambodian refugees.
me most is how startlingly contemporary it is.
In I Thought the Streets were Paved with
I am writing this text as Britain wakes up no
Gold (1991), Filipino cannery workers in
longer part of the European Union and America
Alaska share the same pictorial space with
confronts the inevitable acquittal of Donald
Dominican house painters and New York street
Trump. When the weaponization of nationhood
vendors. Caught at the Border (1991), which
is ascendant and cultural and political borders
depicts an incarcerated asylum seeker in the
are closing down, Pacita Abad’s works are both
Tijuana border amidst a swirling frenzy of
prescient and urgent.
blue and grey paint, thread and sequins, was painted in 1991 but speaks of a vilification of the marginalised that has never truly abated.
Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was a Philippine-American
What shines through in Abad’s depictions is
contemporary painter born in Basco, Batanes, a small island
her insistence on empathy and solidarity with
in the northernmost part of the Philippines. In a career
those that have been patronised and shunned in equal measure. Through her use of colour,
spanning three decades she created over 4,500 artworks, and her paintings were exhibited in more than 200 museums and galleries around the world.
Pacita Abad, I Thought the Streets Were Paved with Gold, 1991, acrylic, oil, wood bristle, painted canvas, painted cloth on stitched and padded, 238 x 173 cm. Photography by Max McClure. Image courtesy of Gino and Denise Dizon.
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A Line, A Cone, In Free Fall by Au Sow Yee ↓ page 16 — 21
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
In 1999, at 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco,
Line Describing a Cone was first shown in 1973.
I saw a dot slowly forming a horizontal line
The experience in 1999 brings to mind a song
on a pitch-black wall in a studio. The line
by The Three Degrees, released also in 1973:
gradually evolved into a curved plane and finally into a cone, only partially visible. The
When will I see you again?
sound of the 16mm film projector and film reel
When will we share precious moments?
passing through could be heard.
Will I have to wait forever?
It was a mysterious and enigmatic night,
The song was as if a prophecy, of not being able
and left me feeling stunned, wondering
to see and to share the experiential moments of
what I had just experienced. Was it a film?
line describing a cone again since the night
Was it a beam of light? Was it a sculpture,
in 1999.
visible yet untouchable? Or was it something undefinable, something in between?
In between. Between images.
Anthony McCall, the artist who had created
Between fractions of time.
Line Describing a Cone, described it as
Between the horizontal and the vertical.
follows: “The first film to exist in real, three-
In between, and more.
dimensional space: Line Describing a Cone is what I term a solid light film. It deals with the projected light beam itself, rather than treating the light beam as a mere carrier of coded information, which is decoded when it strikes a flat surface… This film exists only in the present: the moment of projection. It refers to nothing beyond this real time. It contains no illusion. It is a primary experience, not secondary: i.e. the space is real, not referential; the time is real, not referential.”
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Anthony McCall, Line Describing a Cone, 1973. Installation view at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in 2017. Photography by Frank Sperling. Image courtesy of Julia Stoschek Foundation e. V. and SprĂźth Magers.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
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Line Describing a Cone seems like a statement
is moving image,” and I came to see that
or an explanation of a phenomenon, possessing
moving image is not restricted to a two-
an urge towards visible yet illusory solidity.
dimensional screen but exists within a space.
However, it is also a quest towards the
Line Describing a Cone for me is a work that
construction of an alternative spatial and
also questions the illusory representation
temporal form and sensory experience. It
of projected image. As time moves, 15 years
is the opposite of the linear narrative of a
later, the world has drastically changed
conventional moving image.
as we transition from the end of an analog age into an era of ever-transfiguring digital
In the words of German filmmaker and artist Hito
images. Encountering Steyerl’s How Not to be
Steyerl: “Imagine you are falling. But there is
Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV
no ground.” While constantly creating dialectical
File in 2013 further struck me to re-think the
ground for images that are visible or invisible,
very essence of moving images, of politics
Hito Steyerl's 2011 e-flux essay “In Free Fall:
hidden behind or even politics living in
A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective,”
various forms of imaging devices. The two
created a composition. The composition places
works by two artists active in different times
the horizontal view and its relation to an observer
working on different forms and thoughts on
in its historical context. It also investigates
moving images left inspiring marks in my
vertical perspective in relation to the illusory
artistic voyage.
stable ground, satellite views, Google Maps and surveillance panoramas.
From digitized image-making to the joyous When Will I See You Again, sung by The
“Imagine you are falling. But there is no
Three Degrees in 1973, Line Describing a
ground.” This is a password into a dialectical
Cone and How Not to be Seen: A Fucking
expedition in image politics, be it an argument
Didactic Educational. MOV File finally meet,
about horizontal and vertical perspectives
linked by 1973. Perhaps Anthony McCall and
or the humorous/heavy question of how
Hito Steyerl, two figures whose thoughts on
not to be seen in today's militarized world
moving images or images in general were
of contemporary surveillance. This theme
so inspirational, planted a secret code in
is investigated by Steyerl in her 2013 video
different stages of my life. Some day we all
work How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic
might cross paths, in free fall.
Educational .MOV File. At the end of Steyerl’s work in 2013, the song
Anthony McCall is a New York-based artist known for his
released in 1973 by The Three Degrees
“solid-light” installations.
emerged again. Hito Steyerl is a German filmmaker, moving image artist,
The enigmatic experience in 1999 opened up my perception to a core question on “what
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
writer and innovator of the essay documentary. Her principle topics of interest are media, technology and the global dissemination of images.
et al.
In between. Between images. Between fractions of time. Between the horizontal and the vertical. In between, and more.
Au Sow Yee Au Sow Yee was born in Kuala
Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
Lumpur, Malaysia. She now lives
(Seoul), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo),
and works in Taipei. Au’s works focus
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin),
mainly on questioning, exploring
Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai),
as well as expanding the relation
and the Singapore Film Festival
between images, image making,
among others. Au is a guest writer for
historiography, politics and power,
online magazine No Man’s Land and
through video installation and other
co-founded Kuala Lumpur’s Rumah
mediums. A finalist for the 2018
Attap Library and Collective in 2017.
Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize, Au’s works were exhibited in National Museum of
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Carmen Herrera: A Relationship Forged in Freedom and Creativity by Chus Burés ↓ page 22 — 27 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
Chus Burés, Horizontal, 2012, brooch / pendant, gold-plated matt silver, 90 x 90 mm. Signed limited edition of 6. © Jean de Loisi, Paris. Image courtesy of the artists.
Chus Burés, Horizontal, 2012, brooch / pendant, silver, satin finish, 90 x 90 mm. Signed limited edition of 6. © Jean de Loisi, Paris. Image courtesy of the artists.
22 — 23
CoBo Social
I will never forget how precise she was about the choice of colours. The notion of creating a dialogue between art
Recently I had the occasion to collaborate with
and design has always occupied an important
Carmen Herrera. I met Carmen through our
role in my work. Since my beginnings in
mutual artist friend Tony Bechara, who took me
Barcelona I have always been surrounded by
to her studio for the first time in 2012. Carmen
design, art and artists. Artists see in design a
was in a golden period, with further greatness
glamorous process of creation, viewing designers
yet to come: her retrospective at the Whitney
as floating creatures in a playful environment,
placed her among the gods of Mount Olympus,
bringing to society those products that make life
and this was followed by numerous exhibitions
more bearable, gilded with beauty, facilitating
all over the world. Her recent exhibition at the
comfort and progress. Conversely, artists
City Hall Park in New York impressed audiences
consider their own work painful, dirty and
with her monumental sculptures that she had
sometimes useless. I have always felt a great
created in the 1950s and which today remain so
curiosity to form a dialogue with artists, enter
contemporary. At 96 years old, Carmen became
their universes and establish a dialogue. As a
a great star of contemporary art; or in her
result of this dialogue, great collaborations have
words, “I had to wait quite a few years for the
emerged with masters of contemporary art:
bus to arrive.” Today, at almost 105 years old,
Louise Bourgeois, Jesús Soto, Miquel Barceló and
she is still active and preparing a scenography
Santiago Sierra, just to name a few.
for the Royal Ballet of London. Always on the go, surprising us with new projects!
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Original drawing by Carmen Herrera, created in July 2012, which inspired Chus Burés’ brooch, Horizontal. Image courtesy of Carmen Herrera. Carmen Herrera and Chus Burés in Carmen Herrera’s New York studio, July 2012. Image courtesy of the artists.
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24 — 25
Artists see in design a glamorous process of creation, viewing designers as floating creatures in a playful environment.
Chus Burés, Composición con Amarillo cadmio y azul Prusia, 2012, cuff links, silver, satin finish and Prussian blue and cadmium yellow lacquer, diameter 25 mm. Signed limited edition of 6. © Jean de Loisi, Paris. Image courtesy of the artists.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
we created Estructura con Plata Dorada
previous collaborations to Carmen, including
y Diamantes.
those previously mentioned, as well as Carlos Cruz Diez and François Morellet. These were
Today these pieces are collected and
artists with very different styles, and Carmen
admired by major international art
was surprised and enthused. I remember our
collectors, and our collaboration can be
looking at the catalogue of the collection of
found in important collections across the
Mme. Clo Fleiss from Paris, a huge collection
five continents.
of jewellery created by artists including Picasso, Calder, Miró and Dali. Carmen
My relationship with Carmen evolved
was immediately excited at the thought of
into an affectionate friendship that we
a collaboration. She clearly trusted me, and
have kept alive ever since.
was ready to accept my guidance, and we decided to jump into this new adventure. Thus began a collaboration of which both of us are very proud. The first working session focused on a
Chus Burés Chus Burés, who was born in Barcelona on 25 December 1956, has dedicated
geometric drawing that she had just finished:
himself primarily to the field of jewellery.
a rhomboid entitled “Horizontal” with a kind
He currently divides his time and his
of cut in the centre, that seemed destined for
professional life between Madrid, New
metal and colour. I did a test and Carmen loved
York and Paris. After studying interior design at the Llotja school in the city of
it. From there everything flowed smoothly,
his birth, he learnt the jeweller's craft
leading to a collection of jewellery which
in various workshops in Barcelona and
combined gold, silver and some unique pieces
Madrid. He is currently preparing the
with diamonds. She was delighted and she
launch of his new brand CHUS X CHUS which aims to bring Art, Design and
became a fan of the style Encuentros para
Commerce together. It will be presented
Plata Dorada: gold-plated earrings. She
in Spain, this coming spring.
104 year-old abstract artist Carmen Herrera was born in Havana and has lived in New York City since the mid-1950s.
In our first meeting, I presented some of my
continues to wear these frequently. I will never forget how precise she was about the choice of colours, when we decided to recreate Composición con Amarillo Cadmio y Azul Prusia in the form of cufflinks or Estructura con Azul Prusia as a brooch. In some pieces I proposed the use of rubies and diamonds, and she was definitive in her choice of diamonds, as rubies would have been too bright a red. At this point,
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Impunities and Missing Space: The Forgotten Violence I first met artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke in 2018
and our expected roles. Our artworks tend
at a group show featuring works from the
to reinforce the power of ambiguity and the
Burger Collection in Hong Kong. Monique and
opacity inherent in transparency, whilst
Max Burger introduced us thinking we would
never forgetting our shared humanity.
get along well, and, since we share similar focuses in our research, we have often met up
In Kaabi-Linke’s work Impunities (2012),
since that first introduction to discuss our art
domestic violence is brought to the surface
practice. Eventually, the idea came to me to
in a glass installation where the audience
explore our links through writing. Our works
searches for the imprints of wounds and
seem often connected to historical trauma,
bruises of victims. Applying the forensic
collective pain, systematic violence and human
techniques that police officers use in their
suffering. I also see a shared characteristic
investigations, it was a form of artistic
of strength, resistance, rebellion, sensibility
inquiry into the unpunished crimes. Each
and social criticism in the way we modify and
individual glass piece shows scars, which
adapt social conventions, normative ignorance,
are barely visible. These sheets of glass
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Isaac Chong Wai, Missing Space: 52°31'13.0“N 13°23'35.6“E 2019, casted glass, laser engraving on low-iron glass, mirror, casted glass: 4 x 9 x 2.5 cm, laser engraving on low-iron glass: 30 x 30 cm, mirror: 30 x 30 cm. Photography by CHROMA. Image courtesy of the artist, Zilberman Gallery and Burger Collection.
are sorted in order, each keeping its distance while being connected by shared transparency. At the side, the wounds and texts overlap in shadow. The merged image somehow achieves the gentlest accumulation of violence, which one can perceive in ambiguous form. It is cold, yet proud and determined. It is protective, despite echoing victims who are not known to us. It is frozen with both strength and inaction. It drives you simultaneously to look for something and look at it.
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by Isaac Chong Wai ↓ page 28— 33 28 — 29
In the end, violence is not as strong as we think, it is fragile, temporal and constantly failing.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Isaac Chong Wai, Missing Space (Installation view), 2019, casted glass, laser engraving on low-iron glass, mirror. Photography by CHROMA. Image courtesy of the artist, Zilberman Gallery and Burger Collection.
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While looking at the almost invisible traces
Turning from private wounds to public scars,
of crime, the audience seems forced to
Missing Space (2019), my glass installation
investigate what it is seeing, thus creating
produced with Zilberman Gallery,
an uncanny intimacy and distance between
reverberate with the fragility of violence. The
the unknown audience and the traces on the
glass sculptures on mirrored surfaces are
bodies of anonymous victims. It is, in fact, an
the casts of bullet holes from walls in Berlin.
important first step to look at this invisible
Each piece is cast in a glass plate, resting
violence, instead of being merely ignorant and
at an angle due to the uneven surface of
indifferent. Being indifferent would only be to
the sculpture. Accompanied by a GPS
act as an accomplice in the crime; making the
number denoting the location of the specific
invisible violence absent. Indifference is more
damaged wall, the precarious instability of
violent than one might think; it becomes the
the glass becomes the only reference to the
act of participating in the erasure of a crime's
original space and its inherent dangers. The
existence. When this excessive absence is
amorphousness of the wound detached from
exhibited, the act of standing tall while being
the wall individualizes the random attack,
failed by society challenges how we should
an unseen assault where no one is injured.
confront the present and often, the violence
The transformation from randomness to a
hidden away from the exhibited space. The
specific art object proposes a memorial of
“legitimized” violence here is something to
the forgotten, the neglected wounds, the
be dealt with. It is often a taboo in society,
scars that are present for years.
which leads to its being hidden, covered up and slowly agreed to, leading to silence about
Perhaps it is best understood as an attempt
the “shameful” taboo. This is the tactic of
to recollect the scattered sand from the
an enemy, which never calls an end to the
fire, or materialize the ghost that will never
sufferings of its victims. Impunities affirms the
enter the physical world. Seeing the mirror
criminality of domestic violence by removing
reflecting the present of here and now, the
the private sphere before our eyes.
glass object creates a rupture between the
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Impunities, London, 2012, set of 26, unique, laser etching on glass, 22.8 x 15.3 x 1 cm each. Photogrphy by Vipul Sangoi. Image courtesy of the artist and Burger Collection.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
reality and temporality of the past and the
not absent and it should not be
future. The jeopardy of the transparent glass
forgotten. I think both of our works
plate points at the lie of perfection in real
struggle with the reality, where
life, whereas the wounds always guide us to
the weak is forgotten idly, and the
reality. When the gap is wider, it is because
violence concealed cunningly. The
the wound was deeper; inversely, when the
works might not change directly how
glass is thicker, it is stronger. The safety is
the political sphere operates, but the
translated weirdly from the depth of a bullet
conceptual device and imagination
hole, a new translation between violence and
that we develop continue to resist
security via the transformation of materiality.
and criticize.
In the work, the absence of the body becomes a symbol of life. The absent bullet is transformed into a negative space, which is continually visible in the uneven surfaces that have become many small “landscapes” in the city. The violence is frozen, it becomes pellucid and it descends in front of us. In the end, violence is not as strong as we think, it is fragile, temporal and constantly failing. It is perilous, when violence becomes private or forgotten. Once it is private, it is seen as an absence in our society. Once it is forgotten, its existence is erased. However, violence leaves traces: on our body, in physical spaces and in our mind—evidence
Nadia Kaabi-Linke is a Tunis-born, Berlin-based visual artist. Her work has explored themes of geopolitics, immigration,
of our crimes and our lives. It is
and transnational identities.
mirror and the GPS number, as well as the
Isaac Chong Wai Isaac Chong Wai is an artist based
Goethe Institut Hong Kong, Hong
in Berlin and Hong Kong. He works
Kong (2018). His work has been shown
across a range of media, including
at the Museum of Contemporary
performance, installation, public art,
Art in Taipei and Times Museum in
video, photography and multimedia.
Guangzhou (2019); M+ Museum and
Influenced by personal events and
Para Site in Hong Kong (2018).
global phenomena, he engages themes of geopolitics, migration, identity politics and the public sphere. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); Zilberman, Berlin (2019);
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32 — 33
REBEL: Jon Cuyson on David Medalla by Jon Cuyson ↓ page 34 — 39 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
David Medalla, David Magarshak, 1963, pen on yellow paper, 25.4 x 20.3 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
et al.
On the back of a framed oil painting that
I remember watching episodes like this on British
once hung in my Manila living room were the
television, where the owner of a prized painting or
words, “This painting is not my work” in black
object is caught on camera, struggling to make
marker. Turning to the collector whom I had
sense of the revelation. There was no camera in
invited into my home, I asked, “What does it
front of me but at that moment, I too struggled.
mean?” Looking disappointed, he answered,
Images of me looking at the red abstract oil
“It’s not his work.” I looked at him for a
painting flashed before my eyes, I remembered
moment before he said, “It means it’s fake.”
that moment of reflection very clearly.
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Everything was a blur. How was it possible for
As I kept looking at the fake painting, I began
me to not see that the work was not by David
to panic. What would David think? I hope he
Medalla? I’ve admired his diverse body of work
doesn’t think that I made this? I can always tell
for decades. David was and still is considered
him the name of the gallerist who sold me the
to be a pioneer of kinetic art while writing,
painting. It wasn’t my fault. In retrospect the
publishing, painting and doing performance art.
gallerist was rumored to be allegedly selling fake works, but I was just too eager to own
It was because of David I joined performances
one of David’s works. It was even published in
by my artist friends while in college in Baguio
a reputable book by a reputable critic. How
City. It was in 1987, when I was a freshman, when
could it be a fake painting? My head began
I embraced the burgeoning art scene in Session
to hurt.
Road with senior artists such as Santiago Bose, Roberto Villanueva and Rene Aquitania. Like me,
It doesn’t matter. I should have known better.
they too admired David’s work.
I should have checked. I even took pride in being able to see the connection between
David is considered the quintessential artist for
his poetry and how the words manifested in
artists, even Marcel Duchamp agreed. After all,
the paintings. How stupid I was, I thought. It
he presented David with a “medallic object”
seems I can’t even remember the words written
in the Sixties. Imagine being acknowledged by
across this red oil painting that’s staring back
Marcel Duchamp himself? I can’t even begin
at me, mocking me.
to fathom how it must have felt for David to be friends with an artist who revolutionized art. I realized, in that moment of revelation, I was trying to distract myself.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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I realized, in that moment of revelation, I was trying to distract myself.
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David Medalla, Taong kumukuha ng puhad ng balinsasayan (Man gathering the swift bird's nest), 1986-1991, oil on canvas, 190.5 x 156.2 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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collector standing in my living room waiting
criminal and rebellious.
for me to return his money which I didn’t have. I offered to trade “it” with a work by another
Part of the artist’s process requires one
artist that he also admired, to which he
to draw from one’s own experiences,
agreed, thankfully.
to shape it with everything one has in order to will it to exist in the world
After he left that morning, the painting still
without compromise. This is what makes
looked back at me, still taunting me.
Marcel and David’s work brilliant.
Who would do this? What kind of person
But what do I know? I’m an art
would pass off a work for another, let alone
forgery victim.
an artist of international renown? I heard myself answering my own questions. Actually
I began to inspect the painting again
there’s quite a list of art forgers who have
to see if there was some hope for
succeeded in passing off masters works as
redemption. And then I thought, as I
original. I recall reading an article by The
stared at the red blobs of oil paint; what
Independent in 2010, saying that 20% of all
would David do?
artworks in museums around the world could be counterfeit masterpieces. There are even
I looked at what he wrote at the back of
a few documentaries about such works and
the painting again and with a rebellious
yes, there is also one convicted art criminal
urge, I grabbed the nearest tube of
who has his own television show on how to
paint, and using David’s own words; I
create fake masters paintings.
squeezed the grey paint over the red blobs on the canvas, and letter after
I suppose being able to copy a master’s work is
letter, I angrily spelled, “This work is not
a testament to one’s skill. In fact, I even ask my
mine.” And it felt good.
art students to copy works by famous artists as part of learning the process of painting.
Without anyone’s permission, I turned the fake painting into a “real”
Obviously this does not make one equal to the
one. I made it mine.
original, no matter how skilled, but copying
David Medalla, born 1942, is a Filipino international artist. His work ranges from sculpture and kinetic art to painting, installation and performance.
a masterpiece with intent to fraud is
He lives and works in London and Berlin.
The only other person not laughing is the
Jon Cuyson Jon Cuyson was born and educated in
international exhibitions, including
the Philippines and began exhibiting his
Motions Of This Kind in London,
paintings in Manila in 1998. He received
England and South by Southeast,
a MFA from Columbia University in 2010.
Times Museum in Guangzhou. He
His works employ different techniques
currently lives and works in Manila
and media where he investigates the
where he continues to work on
complex intersections of art, history,
his diverse artistic practice while
culture, and Filipino diaspora. His
serving as Dean of the School and
work has been shown in local and
Design and the Arts at iACADEMY.
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Mrat, The Sun Eater
by Maung Day ↓ page 40 — 43 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
In the early 2000s, the air above Yangon was
Merman/Fishizen was touching on issues of
persistently oppressive and the streets could
identity. Mrat was born and raised in Rakhine
not take you anywhere but to the same point
State, and had Chinese forefathers. He went to
again and again. Everyone had the same
school in a Rakhine community, spoke Rakhine,
constant, pervasive feeling of nervousness and
and hung out with Rakhine friends. Here we have
hopelessness. Positive political changes were
to note that in those days, ethnic and religious
yet to come, and would not come until 2011. On
minorities were faced with structural violence
one summer day, performance artist Mrat Lunn
and oppression from the military government.
Htwann left his home cradling an eviscerated
It was very difficult for them to get a National
fish, with a fishing net resting on his shoulder.
Registration Card. Their ethnic or religious
Unclad except for a pair of boxers, he walked
origins and affiliations were used against them
along Strand Road towards Botahtaung
by the state. Therefore, their very identities were
Township. His entire body was covered like
challenged and under threat. Mrat also suffered
fish scales in passport photos of numerous
his share of racism, and I assume Merman/
strangers. In those days, Mrat was collecting
Fishizen stemmed from this experience. This work
these photos every way he could, and most of
might have also been inspired by the Beatles’
them he found on the streets or in the garbage
Octopus’s Garden, one of Mrat’s favourite songs.
cans of photo studios. As he walked, people
He wanted to imagine a place where people of
gathered around him; they were both intrigued
different ethnic roots and religious origins could
and bemused by the fish, the naked body and
live together without needing to feel superior to
the photos. Soon, the Special Branch came to
each other, like the utopian octopus' kingdom the
him and asked him a number of questions. Mrat
Beatles imagined.
was forced to stop his performance midway. Carrying a gutted fish is simply a normal human action, but in this context, it was no longer normal, as the passers-by and the police tried to interpret the action in different ways. The police interpreted it as a subversive act. At the time, Mrat was in the midst of a series of performances entitled O! Picnic, and this performance, which he called Merman/ Fishizen, was a part of the series. From the 1990s to 2000s, performance art was big in Myanmar. Most artists were using it to attack or express their discontent with censorship and military rule. However, the materials, the ideas, and the imagery they adopted for their performances were frequently repeated and too lacking in nuance for my taste. By contrast, Mrat was exploring other issues largely forgotten by his fellow artists, and working with new ideas. In my own reading,
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Mrat Lunn Htwann, Beyond Pleasure, Yangon, Myanmar, 2009. Image courtesy of Beyond Pressure.
Maung Day Maung Day is a Myanmar-born artist,
Beyond Pressure International
poet, translator and development
Performance Art Festival. His first
worker living and working in
solo exhibition debuted in Bangkok
Yangon. He has published eight
at H Project Space in 2011, curated
poetry books in Burmese and one
by Brian Curtin, a renowned art
chapbook in English. His poems
curator. In 2017, he took part in
have appeared in international
Sunshower: Contemporary Art from
journals such as Guernica, the
South East Asia 1980s to Now at
Awl, the Wolf, International Poetry
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Maung
Review, Asymptote and Shampoo.
Day has also shown his artworks in
In the 2000s, he edited several art
Germany, Australia, New Zealand,
and literary magazines including
the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Vietnam
Pan, a now defunct art magazine
and Myanmar. His art encompasses
focusing on the local art scene and
drawing, installation, photography,
introducing international artists and
and video.
movements. In 2008, with artist Moe Satt, he co-founded the celebrated
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With the appearance of a communal ritual, it probably functioned as a form of therapy. In the early 2000s, many people moved to
direction the country had been taking and the
Yangon to work. But Yangon was not kind
general conditions of life. With the appearance
to them. They had to endure hardships and
of a communal ritual, it probably functioned as a
bureaucratic intransigence. At midnight, police
form of therapy.
would barge into houses and arrest “visitors” who had failed to register that they were
In another work he did in Seoul, Mrat stood in the
staying. They would also arrest vendors who
street and tried to swallow the sun. One of the
slept at the markets with their products, waiting
consistent features of his performance pieces
for dawn. Most of these people were migrants
was resisting the authority and power exercised
from remote towns. Because they were always
on him. I think this work addressed that. But it
between places, they became easy targets.
also emphasized the futility of such resistance.
Mrat also migrated to Yangon about the same
Mrat was a unique artist throughout the 2000s
time, and I can only imagine he must have felt
and I have been lucky to be one of his close
like a fish out of water, just like other migrants.
friends for many years. To this day, we continue to inspire each other.
I met Mrat around this time, and we met more often when Moe Satt and I started the Beyond
Mrat Lunn Htwann, originally from west Burma’s Arakan
Pressure Performance Art Festival. Being of
State, is a poet and performance artist who is a leading
mixed blood myself, I was able to identify with
figure in Myanmar's art scene.
Mrat’s work and opinions. Another work of his that I liked is called Beyond Pleasure. If I am not mistaken, he did this performance piece during the 2009 edition of Beyond Pressure. The title was obviously a play on the name of the festival. In this work, he asked the audience to stand in line like a company of soldiers and instructed them to laugh with him. The laughing would go on for some time. This work was very relatable to the audience who were as unhappy as the artist himself with the
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Liu Chuang: Atmospheric Investigations by Ho Rui An ↓ page 44 — 51 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
It’s hard to think of another work I’ve
With a narrative that passes through
encountered in the past year which has
telegraphy in 19th century China, hydropower
displayed more ambition in its atmospheric
dams, high-altitude anarchism, salvage
investigation of our times than Liu Chuang’s
anthropology and, of course, bitcoin mining,
Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic
the film marks a significant shift from the
Minorities (2018). The uncanny splicing of
artist’s earlier works that were often styled
the two subjects of the cinematic essay’s
more as performative interventions into
title already heralds its thesis: the relentless
everyday social conditions. Yet, the concern
pursuit of new capitalist frontiers has created
with speed, disjuncture and displacement as
vast contact zones in which ethnic minorities,
seen in this video has been present from the
along with other vulnerable communities, are
beginning of his practice.
forced to navigate ever-more inventive modes of extraction.
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Liu Chuang, Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities, 2018, 3-channel video installation, 4k, 5.1 sound, 40 minutes. Commissioned for Cosmopolis #1.5 : Enlarged Intelligence with the support of the Mao Jihong Arts Foundation. Installation view at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Image courtesy of the artist and Antenna Space.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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The presence of the state might not be as visible as it once was, but the air remains saturated by power.
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In Buying Everything on You (2006– ), made
Those days are surely over. The controlled,
during his years living in Shenzhen, the
drawn-out camerawork that plays out across the
Hubei-born, Beijing-based artist wandered
three channels of Bitcoin Mining takes a distant,
around one of the city’s commercial districts
almost extra-terrestrial, view of the capitalist
seeking young job-seekers willing to sell him
machinery that appears to have reached its
everything they had on them, right down to
limits. After all, as the voice-over tells us, delivered
their underwear. With each bemused passer-by
in the endangered Sino-Tibetan language of
he propositions, the anxieties of living in the
Muya, much has happened since then. The
showpiece of China’s economic reforms are
global financial crisis of 2008 undermined trust
laid bare. Even in a city where we can instantly
in financial institutions and helped give rise
replace any of our belongings through a trip
to bitcoin, now one of many cryptocurrencies
to its numerous markets, the spellbinding
exchanged digitally that use blockchain
magic of instant financial gratification cannot
technology to secure their transactions. This
overcome the desire to hold onto something
process of adding a new “block” to the chain
with intangible value. This resistance, as
is randomized and is also known as mining. It
captured in the video, suggests the possibility
generates new bitcoins that are rewarded to
of another system of value, one which the
the computer that successfully completes the
artist appears to be prospecting through his
process, in turn spawning a global cottage
almost guerrilla tactics. This is ethnography as
industry of professional miners racing to expand
pneumatics, a testing of the air in those heady
their computational capacity to increase their
days of seemingly unlimited economic growth.
rates of success.
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However, computation at such a scale
hydroelectric dams in the region. But with the
demands enormous expenditures of energy,
occupation of these dams by bitcoin miners,
and this is where the vast swathe of highland
there is a sense of a return of history. Just
known as Zomia, which spans Southeast
as bitcoin miners appear to operate within a
Asia, China and the Indian subcontinent,
decentralized network, many people in these
comes into the picture. Through a sequence
communities began as refugees from the early
of stunning drone imagery, the film takes
wet-rice-cultivating hydraulic states in the
us to some of the many decommissioned
surrounding region, at least according to the
hydroelectric power plants within Zomia that
provocative argument by James C. Scott (who
have been converted into bitcoin mines, where
also popularized the concept of Zomia). The
hydropower performs the dual function of
highlands offered the perfect refuge for anyone
cheap energy source and suppressor of noise
seeking to free themselves from expropriation
from the mine’s cooling fans. The scene is
by the despotic states, which maintained their
truly “post-industrial” with a new economy of
power through the control of irrigation systems.
extraction feeding off the ruins of an earlier
Are today’s bitcoin miners then the new
industrial age, revealing how the increasing
anarchists of a digital age?
virtualization of the economy still depends on the harnessing of our planetary commons.
Thankfully, the film emphatically cautions against such easy romanticizing. In one
The question of who exactly holds the right of
sequence, framed photographic portraits
extraction is broached as the film turns to the
of ethnic minorities digitally morph into
ethnic minority communities who have been
each other against field recordings of their
displaced in numbers grossly disproportionate to
traditional songs, as if performing the fluid
their respective national ratios by the incursion of
modes of self-identification through which such
Liu Chuang, Buying Everything on You, 2006–ongoing. Installation view at Atlantic Project. Image courtesy of the artist and Antenna Space.
Liu Chuang, Buying Everything on You (Liu Ailan), 2013, bra, long-sleeved shirt, underwear, trousers, a pair of leather shoes, hairpin, eraser, cleanser, powder, phone, necklace, phone rope, comb, watch, sculpture toy, plastic grid bag, id card, train ticket, seven photos, wallet, two bank cards, handbag, seven business cards, two photos, two notebooks, greeting card bag, golden shield magazine, job application form, Walmart tickets, four accommodation receipts, three shopping receipts, 120 x 240 x 25 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Antenna Space.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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by the state bureaucratic apparatus. But as much as the portraits here are literally animated, the blank stares of the subjects make them look petrified, suggesting that the eulogizing of such vanishing communities might itself contribute to their “museumification.” By this token, it would serve us better to contemplate how bitcoin miners are likewise interpellated within new structures of power, which might very well be the same ones from which they sought to extricate themselves. Between bitcoin mining and ethnic minorities, the presence of the state might not be as visible as it once was, but the air remains saturated by power.
Liu Chuang is a multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Shanghai.
communities are thought to have evaded capture
Ho Rui An Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. His work probes into the shifting relations between image and power, focusing on the ways by which images are produced, circulate and disappear within contexts of globalism and governance. He has presented projects at the Gwangju Biennale (2018), Jakarta Biennale (2017), Sharjah Biennial (2017), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014), Haus de Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017), NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2017) and Para Site, Hong Kong (2015). In 2018, he was a fellow of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm.
Liu Chuang, Buying everything on you (Liu Haifa), 2013, t-shirt, underwear, jeans, a pair of socks, a pair of leather shoes, two keys, necklace, keychain, key ring, phone, mobile phone charger, wallet, four coins, nine banknotes, six business cards, id card, eight big shots, two telecommunications cards, two photos, ball pen, two photo bags, fruit knife, wrapped knife, tissue bag, shopping receipt, delivery note, leaflets, service card, flyer with business card, plastic folder, four banks into the bill, two delivery notes, registration form, customer contact list, manuscripts, envelope, notebook, express single, invoice, handwritten receipt, tax registration certificate, five test orders, two bank information sheets, cooperation agreement, handwritten list, product safety instructions, five product price list, four customer data sheets, reminder list, policy, tax documents, customer interview record sheet, two quotations, newspaper, 19 illegible papers, 120 x 504 x 20 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Antenna Space.
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A Net For Catching Ghosts: The Paintings of Maja Ruznic by Aaron Johnson ↓ page 52 — 59 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
The Three Women coalesce into each other
Undoer of Knots emits a warm glow. The canvas
with the temperamentality of weather. The
has inhaled pigments as puffs of colored smoke:
first breathes onto the pane of the canvas
hues of moss, rust, flour, bruise, yolk, sour, and
like condensation. She is hunched, spent,
sand. It’s a sun-drenched, impressionist forest
half vanished. Her head is absorbed like a
scene, a soft and sensual space. The painting
violent blow by the second whose pose is as
opens a gentle forum for contemplation, a
a pillar of salt, her shaft-like form seemingly
state of mind which represents merely half of
sandblasted rather than painted. A third
its split personality. Unexpectedly, the pleasure
is in attendance, a spirit whose trunk is a
morphs into terror: a tormented ghost is held
shimmering contrast to her soggy torso,
captive. The canvas senses its presence: those
inclining with the drenched force of lake-
tormented, suffering eyes which long to deliver
blue gravity. There is a feeling of barometric
some unknown message. Undoer of Knots emits
pressures shifting, a warm softness against
a visceral horror.
hot sand, a moody blue torrent inbound. The paint is not so much brushed on (there is barely a visible brush stroke) but rather mysteriously orchestrated in an alchemy of atmospheres. There is an unsettling grit that sporadically crawls forward from the weave of the canvas: an urgent, itchy surface of prickling stubble, and a sprinkling of spores. When I return to this painting in a few days, will I find it has sprouted hair, lichen and moss? In this terrain of rust, pollen, mold, wind, blood and stone, we meet our Three Women. The entangled trio seems to come to us from the past and the future, to confront us in a slippery present.
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Maja Ruznic, Love Letter to Tomorrow's Ghosts, 2018, oil on canvas, 124.5 x 104.1 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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And Undoer’s antidote: the one that offers solace from the terror: Love Letter to Tomorrow’s Ghosts allures us into a hedonic cove. CoBo Social
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Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Maja Ruznic, Three Women, 2019, oil on canvas, 152.4 x 121.9 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
Maja Ruznic, Reshuffling For Tomorrow's Ghosts, II, 2018, oil on canvas, 140 x 102 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
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Undoer has an antidote, one that offers solace
Maja Ruznic’s paintings harness the magic
from the terror. Love Letter to Tomorrow’s
minerality of paint as a psychic potion, and
Ghosts lures us into a hedonic cove. Time is
the metaphysical potential of the canvas as a
thickened, slowed in the liminal gelatine of
portal for summoning spirits. The figures are
the heart’s rhythm. The surrounding hum is a
seemingly not premeditated,
resonant, baritone blue. Velvet tones describe
but are manifested through the process of
hands that melt as they reach and grasp.
painting. In her own words, Ruznic describes
Refugees from the pain of the world: two violet-
the canvas as “a net that catches the
tinged, nebulous lovers are easing into oneness,
ghosts.” The works dwell not only in the
before embarking on a graceful dissolution. An
spirit realm, but evoke a sacred connection
emotionally evocative abstraction materializes
with the earth. These paintings speak to
and dematerializes, loosens and tightens,
today when the earth is literally burning and
integrates and diffuses.
spiritual reconnection to natural rhythms is critical. Ruznic is an artist who moved
Delightfully Chagallesque characters enact
recently from downtown Los Angeles, leaving
a Stone Soup-like folk tale: Reshuffling for
behind the neon pinks and feverish palette of
Tomorrow’s Ghosts. A dream creature, with
her earlier paintings, to the desert of Roswell,
the face of a cat or owl, stands guard, tall
New Mexico. We feel the sand, the sun,
on its peculiar body, supported by a single
and the scorch, through a painterly hand
booted leg. A shiny, pink-headed man limbos
that projects a psychological and tactile
in the foreground, with a lean back and a belly
landscape into her mystical paintings.
roundly stuffed. The disembodied torso of a woman with a sweet-sour cloud of citrus-green hair floats above him. Her fingers are busy casting a spell, or perhaps weaving an invisible
Maja Ruznic is based in Roswell, New Mexico, and is represented by Karma in New York, Conduit in Dallas, and Hales in London.
thread. Or holding the face of a disappeared loved one? She gazes into eyes that we cannot see. It’s midnight on the beach, and the sound of waves is softened by the full moon’s light warming the sand.
Aaron Johnson Aaron Johnson is a painter represented by Over The Influence, Hong Kong and LA. He works in Brooklyn, NY, and holds an MFA from Hunter College, NYC, 2005. His work is in permanent collections including The Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Weisman Foundation, LA, and Coleccion Solo, Madrid. He is the recipient of awards including The MacDowell Colony Fellowship, The Yaddo residency, and The Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program residency. Johnson’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Village Voice, Art News, and ArtForum, and Vice.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Maja Ruznic, The Undoer of Knots, 2019, oil on canvas, 111.8 x 83.8 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
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Letter To Greta: From Artist to Activist Portrait of Greta Thunberg at the European Parliament. Image courtesy of European Parliament.
by Claire Lee ↓ page 60 — 65 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
“No greta mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” — Aristotle
Dear Greta,
At a time, when the art world seems particularly vulnerable to developing a narcissistic mindset,
Please forgive my silly misspelling above as
an image of you striking from school alone on
you are my favourite typo I regularly make.
the street gave me powerful visuals of a lone flower—the creativity that is not learnt, but
Instead of reflecting states of the external
simply something you are.
world as you do on climate emergency, my art reflects the inner state of one’s mind. This, at least, for us as activist and artist respectively, we seem to share the core meaning of expression. It is not necessarily limited to feelings, but that ideas or thoughts can be expressed, as they clearly are in a speech or strike. Understanding, embracing and celebrating different ways of thinking and doing is also the true power of a creative mind. The tenacity in challenging opinions and unique thought processes; these are important qualities which make a work stand the test of time.
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Wildflower Poem by Claire Lee
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Because life isn't all about growing up, it's about growing wild flowers don’t command and don’t make you bow But there is dignity and grace in a bloom in an unexpected place. Being gentle and fragile are the shouts inside a slender stem that only few can hear. Generous father of the colossal sky She can almost touch him upside-down inside a small raindrop on her petal, less than one millimetre in size She feels sad for his power of all-knowing is the loneliest presence He loses pleasure of small ways patience for small ideas to encourage kindness and thoughtfulness A pathetically small flower experiences inner qualities She begins to create her own peace. Watching birds and bees, she learns what it means to practice the excellence of one’s kind, to be fully being Earth’s wounds and their delicate seams Mother sits alone with quiet rebellion within That is why all things break. Father sets fire at one place and outbursts of cries on the other end Life remains serene and the world is a mess. She sees silent weepers walking through the meadow Depression is thunder without a voice, and voices without a sound This little heart of a flower stumbles down without a beat because it beats too fast Daring to his ignorance she closes the petals to make a fist But it doesn’t last. The quiet ones who want to be understood always end up understanding the most and disappear. One by one all stems are bending, as if he is learning the art of flower arranging Sadly, instead of empathy he learns only in tragedies. Quiet determination of a warrior Her original intention will guide her through the dark as well as the brightest The ego thinks. The spirit knows. It knows the road before light first appears As far as my little wildflower can visualize tomorrow Land to sink but the entire meadow will float.
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Claire Lee, Seizure, 2014, print on archival paper, 48.4 x 122 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Greta, the poem is for you. Thank you for
demands of life, the advice I can give is to
being you.
guard well your alone moments. Solitude can leave you calmer and centred in the midst of
Same with you I have Asperger’s Syndrome.
all craziness. At last, let’s be inspired by this
I had a late diagnosis two years ago at the
quote which embraces the creative process:
age of 41. The struggles, isolations and all my life suddenly made sense to me. I was unaware that by masking myself constantly trying to fit into a world that isn’t the right shape for me had in fact limited my real potentials to develop. I know what it is to be undermined, as a child and as an adult. But the creative expression saved my life when I chose to become an artist. Asperger's should be identified more by observation of strengths and talents, rather than try to change it. There is no shame in having Asperger’s—if
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
anything, the reverse. I believe real power comes from kindness. And as you grow older and may struggle to balance
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— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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abilities and the inner fire within you to ignite imaginations and ideas strengthen your ways of expression for a very long way. With respect and love, I wish you a “greta” success!
Warmest, Claire Lee www.clairelee.hk January 2020, United Kingdom
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Greta Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist and was recently
to become actions. May your unique
awarded TIME’s Person of the Year 2019.
Creative thinking encourages thoughts
Claire Lee Claire Lee is a poet and visual artist working in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, poetry, photography and mixed media. She was born in Hong Kong and is living in the United Kingdom. Her works draw on subjects dealing with psychological struggles and personal strength, and she offers in her poems and artworks a vision of a world of contrasts and detail. Her works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and art fairs. She is currently working on a new series based on “miscommunication,” to stretch our imagination once again towards visual expression of language. www.clairelee.hk
64 — 65
Olu Oguibe and the Value of Candor by Trong Gia Nguyen ↓ page 66 — 71 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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My pictures are the colour of dust And I sing only of rust I have swum in the flood And I know better For I am bound to this land By blood. In this haunting final stanza from Olu
beautiful, the artist’s complex range of works
Oguibe’s poem I Am Bound to This Land by
lays bare the tragic effects of conflict and
Blood, the artist elegizes a modern Nigeria
violence, deprivation, fragmentation, removal,
enmeshed in sociopolitical decay under the
prejudice, and the starvation of dreams.
blight of corruption. Equal parts brutal and
Olu Oguibe, Game, 2003, installation. Image courtesy of the artist.
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One might observe him continuing to wrestle with that “infinite struggle to find a home in an inhospitable world.� Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Olu was one of my mentors in graduate
“the times they are a-changin’.” His most talked
school at the University of South Florida in
about project recently was the controversial
the mid 1990s. Much more than artist or poet,
15-meter tall obelisk produced in 2017 for
he is an exile and survivor of war, an equally
documenta 14. Titled Das Fremdlinge und
accomplished curator, theorist, activist,
Flüchtlinge Monument (Monument for strangers
and always, a formidable intellectual. Like
and refugees), the towering work stood in
all great teachers, I found him demanding
Kassel’s Königsplatz square, inscribed with a
and critical, but constructive, engaged, and
quote from the Book of Matthew that read in
caring. As someone who likewise never felt
four languages (Turkish, Arabic, German, and
the allure of being lassoed to one medium
English), “I was a stranger and you took me in.”
or another, it was through his example that
In times of inflating nationalism and border
I began curating while still in school—the
restriction, the humble but provocative text
same juggling of “indulgences” which he
affirms compassion while championing those
advises emerging artists against.
both brave and desperate, who seek safety from flight and persecution. After receiving
Despite numerous artistic achievements, one
Kassel’s Arnold Bold Prize, and in spite of
gets the sense that Olu is still sinfully under-
sabotage and wrangling from Germany’s
recognized when it comes to representation
conservatives, the monument was worthily
in important public and private collections.
purchased by the city and permanently
But perhaps, to quote one of his favorites,
installed. It found a home.
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For some, and especially the displaced,
to be “rediscovered” by intrepid curators
everything can feel like a street fight and
and collectors.
struggle. Olu lived through the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s; his family were forced
After two decades of frenetic activity that
to leave their Igbo home and way of life. It
included teaching, campaigning, writing,
was an indelible experience whose ashes
publishing, curating, and making art, the
still smolder and give rise to the conceptual
artist decided to retreat for the sake of his own
framework that buttresses much of Olu’s work.
health. When one does not obtain a certain
Having survived upheaval and going on to
level of media or market worship, things can
excel in academia, graduating first in class at
indirectly go rock bottom and, as it were, Olu
college in Nigeria and then earning a PhD at
found himself returning to a natural state of
the University of London, the outspoken young
reclusion over the past decade.
activist was exiled a second time and for many years could not return home for fear of arrest
These days, things are on the up and up,
and political persecution.
as an exciting 2020 lies ahead. The artist will be exhibiting two major new projects at
Many of those tribulations find preoccupation
the Sonsbeek Biennale in the Netherlands
in one of my favorite works, Game (2003), a
and Ruhrtriennale in Germany. Showing
large ceramic installation comprising a table,
with Galeria Giampaolo Abbondio at this
two chairs, and a gridded, chess-like board
spring’s Milan Art Fair, Olu will collaborate
that is crowded with 101 varying, terracotta
with Italian artist and designer Remo Buti,
pawns. These figurines are moulded to clash
a founding member of the influential 1970s
against each other in an absurdist theater,
Global Tools group. Until then, one can
lorded over by a mural of G8 colonial sentries,
readily seek him on Facebook, where Olu
who manipulate the crises they’ve created
regularly shares provocative insight into
from a safe distance. Drawing from Italian
a wide range of topics, from the mire of
ceramic traditions as well as Congolese and
depression, to country music, Rafael Nadal,
Angolan initiation panels, Game eerily depicts,
and of course international politics. And even
with grace and barbarism, the dynamics of
there, on that borderless, peripatetic forum,
exploitation. The figurines represent a universal
one might observe him continuing to wrestle
mix of migrants, refugees, travelers, and global
with that “infinite struggle to find a home in
citizens. They underscore the reality that “the
an inhospitable world.”
only free movement across territories that the present allows is the trespass of the powerful against the weak,” as Olu wrote in Exile and
Olu Oguibe is an artist living and working in Rockville,
the Creative Imagination (2005). Though
Connecticut, USA.
originally exhibited in 2003 at Lucio Fontana’s old studio in Albisola, Italy—the first artist ever invited to do so—the work now sits boxed up in the artist’s storage, waiting for its opportunity
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Olu Oguibe, Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument, 2017, public sculpture, Kassel, Germany. Image courtesy of the artist.
Trong Gia Nguyen Trong Gia Nguyen is a Vietnamese-
CA (2017); and The Foliage, Vincom
American artist living and working
Center for Contemporary Art,
between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Hanoi, Vietnam, (2017). Trong has
and Brussels, Belgium. His wide array of
received grants and residencies
works examines structures of power in
from the Museum of Arts and Design
their myriad forms, scrutinizing the soft
(New York, USA), Gate 27 (Istanbul,
foundation upon which contemporary
Turkey), Cannonball (Miami, USA),
life plays out, often behind the
Bronx Museum (New York, USA),
façade of fairness, sincerity, security,
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
tradition, and civility. He has exhibited
(New York, USA), and others. As a
internationally in numerous solo and
curator, Trong has organized over 25
group exhibitions including most recently
exhibitions, including TechNoPhobe
This House Is Falling, La Patinoire Royale
(2016), the inaugural exhibition at
/ Galerie Valerie Bach, Brussels, Belgium
Vietnam’s first contemporary art
(2019); California Pacific Triennial,
center, The Factory.
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport,
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On Elizabeth Price: A Restoration by Alvin Ong
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
↓ page 72 — 79 et al.
We are organizing a lovely, perverse refuge. A voice intones from the darkness of the room
Ancient frescoes of flora and fauna soon
like an oracle. It is the voice of a cybernetic
illuminate this dark abyss, flashing briefly
female narrator—taut, detached and
on screen in rapid succession. Gradually,
measured. We are watching Elizabeth Price’s
their elegant branches and tendrils begin to
2016 video-installation A Restoration, jointly
bloom and proliferate. This is all narrated by a
commissioned for the Ashmolean Museum and
dispassionate voice: the voice of God in a digital
Pitt Rivers Museum.
genesis, animating life on screen.
This utopian paradise begins with darkness. In the video, the voice refers to itself as “we,” the singular voice of an assembly of unnamed administrators promising full restitution as it strives to encompass everything in this act of retrieval. We are reminded of the totalizing collector, much like the biblical character of Noah; one who shows no hesitation and no restraint to possess a complete category in each and every variation.
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[ALL IMAGES] Elizabeth Price, A Restoration, 2016, two-screen video still. Image courtesy of the artist.
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In the same way that flowers bloom, feet and fingers grow.
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Images from man’s nascent beginnings give
Price behaves as an archaeologist, collector,
way to advances in human civilization. There
and a curator. We observe her as she
are no living faces here, only traces. Clubs and
mines and indulges her personal impulses,
spears soon evolve into floor plans and images
gathering, editing, and trimming a multitude of
of sophistication and accomplishment—
disparate elements into shape. We follow her
monuments, cities, temples, city squares.
through all her twists and turns, meandering
Then come the instruments of music, dance,
through museology, semiology, archaeology,
art and war, aerodynamic inventions; swords,
workflow and data-entry systems, even finding
staffs and a multitude of vessels, goblets and
myself in a celebratory bacchanal celebration
glass. Price presents them through montage
over her digital reconstruction from the ruins of
and the sequencing of thousands of images,
Knossos, an ancient Greek city on the island
all wrapped up against a multi-layered track
of Crete.
that pounds with a percussive vitality and an intoxicating mix.
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This collective is a highly vulnerable one. This
beginning of a controlled cycle, continuously
party builds up to a crescendo with much
establishing, destroying, and once
rumbling and shaking, before spiraling out of
again, rebuilding a fixed repertoire of
control into free fall. The final image we are
temporal references.
offered is a glass cup descending downwards in slow motion in surreal digital darkness, before
In some way, we have become a silent
registering the sound of its own breakage,
witness to Price’s personal obsessions, a
coming to us as a kind of welcome release.
pre-programmable journey through which we are implicated in an experience that remains
Damage is this agent of change, belonging to
intimately bound up with our own memory
moments in time that cannot be regained, actions
and imagination. As Walter Benjamin writes,
that cannot be reversed. The rhythmic clapping
“Ownership is the most intimate relationship
of hands, the clatter of weapons and the snap—
that one can have to objects. Not that they
so these objects were made to be broken.
come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.”
We are left once again with debris, death and
In Price’s hands, an assembly of dry
extinction. Eventually, we exit the dark room, and
archaeological shards can potentially become
after moments of silence, the video eventually
a palimpsest of memory, a magic encyclopedia,
restarts in a loop. Interspersed amidst walking
a series of historical constellations and a
and digesting my thoughts, I think about how
suite of associations, blurring the distinctions
every ending presents the perpetual fresh
between fact and fiction.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Maybe this explains why to be surrounded by our personal possessions is a dimension of
Alvin Ong
existence as essential to us as it is imaginary. It
Alvin Ong, born 1988, synthesizes histories,
means every bit as much as our dreams.
mythologies and folk-forms into surreal improvisations and non-linear narratives.
We will organize a lovely, perverse refuge. And it is good.
He is a graduate of the Ruskin School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. At the age of 16, he became the youngest winner of the UOB Painting of the Year award. He has exhibited at Singapore Art Museum, Asian Civilizations Museum, Peranakan Museum, NN Contemporary and National Portrait Gallery (London). He lives and works in Singapore and London.
Elizabeth Price, born 1966, is a London-based British artist and winner of the 2012 Turner Prize. She is a former member of indie pop bands Talulah Gosh and The Carousel. Reference: Benajmin, Walter, “Unpacking my library“ in Illuminations, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968, p. 67.
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Tsherin Sherpa on Urgen Dorje by Tsherin Sherpa and Pooja Duwal ↓ page 80 — 87 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Tsherin Sherpa, Untitled, 2019, gold leaf, acrylic and ink on canvas, 132.1 x 150 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Thangka art is a Himalayan art practice
Among the latter, my father Urgen Dorje is an
that has evolved over hundreds of years.
artist who has worked tirelessly to understand,
Thangka paintings are a means of making the
master and preserve this unique art.
spiritual visible, as they translate theological inquiries into intricate visual imagery. By
In this regard, I am fortunate to have had the
practicing the rich iconography of this art
opportunity to train under him. His passion
and understanding its inherent philosophy,
and discipline have been a rich resource that
a thangka painter merges their artistic and
fuels my study of this art. If not for his focus
spiritual life. Moreover, through their paintings,
on its philosophy and history, my interest in
they make these experiences available to a lay
Himalayan art would not have been so strong.
viewer. Yet, one often finds this fertile art form
It motivates me to contextualize this art form
undervalued in its potential. Its superficial
today and create a means by which stories of
features are repeated but an understanding
Himalayan communities may be retold.
of its depths neglected. There are few artists who pursue an understanding of its ideas and forms and fewer living masters who strive to understand its history and evolution as well.
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Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Tsherin Sherpa, Two Spirits, 2010, gouache, acrylic and gold leaf on paper, 66 x 109.2 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Urgen Dorje Sherpa, Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deities mandala (Traditional), 1988, mineral pigment, ink and gold on cotton, 110.5 x 77.5 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Tsherin Sherpa, Luxation 1, 2016, acrylic and ink on canvas, 16 panels each 45.7 x 45.7 cm (total 183 x 183 cm). Image courtesy of the artist.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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If not for his focus on its philosophy and history, my interest in Himalayan art would not have been so strong. Urgen was born in 1944 to a family of nomadic
monasteries, which provided some financial
herders. He was born in Ngyalam, a village
security. He thus practiced his art and
spread on the borders of Nepal and Tibet.
sustained his family as a thangka painter,
From early childhood he moved from place
a routine he followed for over a decade. But
to place with his family, grazing yaks. The
he hungered for a deeper understanding of
family expected him to take up the work in
the craft. Many thangka schools cropped up,
his adulthood, but he aspired to follow his
but they were often limited in the skills and
uncle, who painted thangkas and murals for
knowledge they imparted.
monasteries. As the yaks grazed, he would collect broad leaves from trees and practice
In the late 1970s, he met a learned thangka
lines and drawings on their back. His parents
teacher who accepted him as his disciple. He
disapproved and he suppressed his interests
was now introduced to the intricate processes
throughout childhood. At 16, he moved to
of thangka painting through his teacher. He
Solukhumbu, a district in eastern Nepal,
began to practice the processes necessary for
leaving the family work behind. He then lived
painting. He grinded mineral stones to powder
in Jiri in central Nepal for six years, where he
to understand the nature of colours, made
met and married his wife. They then moved to
brushes to practice colour application and
Kathmandu, the capital.
prepared canvases to understand the surface. Furthermore, he studied the philosophies and
Here, Urgen had the opportunity to train
symbolism guiding various styles of thangka
in thangka art seriously. He trained under
art. Practicing different aspects of painting
a Sherpa teacher, Pagyaltsen, with whom
helped him better understand the nuances
he learnt thangka painting. He practiced
of a particular style or technique. This also
sketching and colouring thangkas every day
allowed him to understand in depth the
for months. Eventually, he began to receive
intricate symbolism of colours, attributes and
commissions to do mural paintings for
compositions specific subjects require.
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Having been developed over centuries, thangka
driven not by experience but a thirst for an
painting has many variations that are held
even deeper and complete understanding
together by specific symbolism assigned to
of his art. Moreover, his extensive knowledge
particular deities. In-depth understanding of
has helped him channel his understanding
any one painting requires not only the knowledge
in various directions. He has done numerous
of the particular deity and their symbols but an
restorations in centuries-old thangka murals,
acute understanding of the society that art has
often observing minute details to find
emerged from. In this regard, Urgen’s drive to
differences in styles. He frequently provides
understand in depth the history and development
critiques on books on thangka art and helps
of this art form became even more important.
identify paintings with the style and period
His study of numerous books on the history
they belong to. His own practice of thangka
of Himalayan societies, the philosophies that
painting is growing to this day, as he tries to
have developed in them and the way they have
perfect the style, the painting process and
been expressed through art is a valuable resource
the tools he uses. At 75, he is determined to
for understanding thangka painting itself. He has
preserve the distinctive art of thangka, in all
focused both on the guiding principles of this art
the nuances it has formed over the centuries.
and the specific means by which it has found expression. Variations in attributes of deities also reflect changes in time and places.
Urgen Dorje was born in Ngyalam, Tibet in 1944. He currently lives and works in Kathmandu, Nepal.
He has painted and drawn hundreds of thangkas and murals in an artistic profession that has spanned over five decades. Yet his art is
Tsherin Sherpa Born in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 1968, Tsherin
The artist has exhibited across the
Sherpa currently works and resides in
United States, Europe and Asia in a
Oakland, California. When he was 12 years
number of museums and Institutions.
old, he began studying traditional Tibetan
He has also participated in the 8th
thangka painting with his father, Master
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Urgen Dorje Sherpa, a renowned thangka
Art (APT8), Brisbane (2015); the 1st
artist from Ngyalam, Tibet. After also
Kathmandu Triennale, Kathmandu,
studying computer science and Mandarin
Nepal (2017), the 2nd Dhaka Art
in Taiwan, he returned to Nepal, where
Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2014) and
he collaborated with his father on several
the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale, Yinchuan,
important projects, including thangka
China (2018).
and monastery mural paintings. In 1998, Sherpa immigrated to California; here, he
He is represented by Rossi & Rossi.
began to explore his own style—reimagining traditional tantric motifs, symbols, colours and gestures, which he placed in resolutely contemporary compositions.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Urgen Dorje Sherpa, Tsimar protector deity (Traditional), 2001, mineral pigment, ink and gold on, 53.3 x 40.6 cm without brocade. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Five Encounters with Antoni Tàpies by Bosco Sodi ↓ page 88 — 93 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Bosco Sodi, Untitled, 2019, mixed media on canvas, 186 x 186 cm. Photo by Ngai Lung Tai of Random Art Workshop. Image courtesy of the artist and Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
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At that time, I was already painting, but only for myself. I had no idea that I was going to dedicate my life to art.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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When I was about 18 years old, I saw an image
The third encounter was again in Madrid at the
of a painting by Antoni Tàpies for the first
Museo Reina Sofia, where I travelled with the
time in a magazine. I don’t remember which
purpose to attend Tàpies’ solo exhibition. By this
magazine anymore, however, I remember
time, I was convinced that I wanted to become
seeing the black-and-white image. Even without
an artist and live from my art. I cannot describe
colour, the painting looked strong and powerful.
how many different feelings and overwhelming
I immediately fell in love. At that time, I was
thoughts came to mind upon seeing all of the
already painting, but only for myself. I had no
paintings alive before my eyes. I spent the whole
idea that I was going to dedicate my life to art.
day going back and forth to see the show; it was so very beautiful and strong—the power of all the
My second encounter happened in 1992 when I
textures, the simplicity the imperfection;
went to Madrid with my grandfather, who was
I was astonished.
an important cardiologist. He was attending a symposium, and from time to time, he invited me along to join his trips. The encounter was during a group show at the Museo Reina Sofia. The painting was full of scratches and I remember seeing a cross; it was so powerful, strong, and intense with a strange feeling of melancholy. I was blown away by all of these feelings. I immediately went to a bookshop to buy a book about Tàpies, this time in colour.
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Antoni Tàpies, Pintura, 1955, mixed media on canvas, 96 x 145 cm. Collection of Museo Reina Sofía. Photography by Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores. Image courtesy of Museo Reina Sofía.
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Barcelona, I make sure to visit the
happened after my wife Lucia decided
Antoni Tàpies Foundation. He became
to pursue a two-year Master’s degree in
an important figure in my life and
Economics in Barcelona. In order for her to
has been very influential to my work.
study and for me to have a studio so that I
I was heartbroken when he passed
could just paint all day, we decided to settle
away in 2012.
in Spain for an extended period of time. Just a few days after we arrived in Barcelona—
From all my heart, thank you for
when we were not yet even settled in our
everything, Maestro Tàpies!
new home—I heard that there was a Tàpies’ exhibition opening in Gerona, a city two hours away and he would be present. Of course, I wanted to see the paintings, but mostly I
Bosco Sodi
wanted to see the genius in person. A friend
Bosco Sodi, born 1970, Mexico City, is
was able to get us tickets for the opening and
known for his richly textured, vividly
we drove there. It was a very special night.
colored large-scale paintings. Sodi has
I was introduced to Tàpies and we had the
discovered an emotive power within the essential crudeness of the materials
chance to talk for a few minutes. I told him that
that he uses to execute his paintings.
I also painted, and to my surprise, at the end of
Sodi's paintings are like Mother Earth,
the night, his wife Teresa invited me to have
powerful and overwhelming. Focussing on material exploration, the creative
coffee with him in his studio in Barcelona
gesture, and the spiritual connection
the next week.
between the artist and his work, Sodi seeks to transcend conceptual barriers. Sodi leaves many of his paintings
For my fifth encounter, I arrived thirty minutes
untitled, with the intention of removing
before the appointment in his studio. I still
any predisposition or connection
remember the name of the street—Calle
beyond the work’s immediate existence.
Zaragoza. I was nervous, but mostly very grateful to have the opportunity to further
Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) was a Spanish artist and theorist and is one of the most prolific European artists of his generation.
The fourth encounter with Tàpies’ masterpieces
meet and understand Tàpies personally. He showed me his studio, which was for me a sacred place and then we had coffee. We talked about his Pre-Hispanic object collection, about Mexico, about Zen philosophy, and art. He gave me the opportunity to show him my work; he liked it and encouraged me to keep working. At the very end, he recommended a book that has been very important for me ever since, Zen in the Art of Archery. It was a very special day that left a mark forever. I still look at his paintings very often. Every time I go to
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Bosco Sodi during his two-week residency in Hong Kong in December 2019. Image courtesy of the artist and Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
92 — 93
In Memory of My Feelings
by Ian Tee ↓ page 94 — 99 Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself and party due to my feelings about painting at the time. I sort of stuck to my guns for a while but eventually it seemed like a losing battle. Finally, one must simply drop the reserve. - Jasper Johns
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Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958, encaustic on canvas, 77.8 × 115.6 × 11.7 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Gilman Foundation, Inc., The Lauder Foundation, A. Alfred Taubman, Laura-Lee Whittier Woods, Howard Lipman, and Ed Downe in honor of the Museum's 50th Anniversary 80.32. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Jasper Johns, In Memory of My Feelings - Frank O'Hara, 1961, oil on canvas with objects, 102.2 × 152.4 × 7.3 cm, framed: 106 × 155.74 × 3.81 cm. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, partial gift of Apollo Plastics Corporation, courtesy of Stefan T. Edlis and H. Gael Neeson, 1995.114.a-d. Image courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
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This quote from 1978 reads almost like a
that reveal these impulses is In Memory of My
confession from the reticent American artist
Feelings – Frank O’Hara from 1961, in which
Jasper Johns. He is best known for paintings of
the exuberance of John’s 1954–55 painting
iconic motifs such as the American flag, targets,
Flag is muted with shades of blue-greys. The
numerals and maps, or what he describes
piece is constructed from two panels, joined
as “things the mind already knows.” Their
by hinges in the middle so the composition
interpretations teeter between the mundane and
opens out like a book. Its title is borrowed from
the cryptic; and thus, the work’s formal qualities
a poem by Frank O'Hara about the end of a
often take centre stage. John’s treatment of the
relationship and ways of coping with such
surface is sensuous and his method is unfussy.
a loss. Using this link as a point of entry, art
Marks lay bare traces of the artist's hand, even if
historian Jonathan Katz reads the painting
the outcome seems cool and detached.
as a eulogy for Johns’ intimate relationship with Robert Rauschenberg. Katz highlights
I remain fascinated by these internal
the flag composition as an important marker
contradictions. Johns' works and words
that bookends both Johns’ breakthrough work
are slippery, thus when he speaks directly
and their lives as a couple. If the idea for Flag
about a subject, one listens. There is an
came to Johns in a dream, at risk of sounding
intense vulnerability in his 1978 quote, which
melodramatic, In Memory of My Feelings was
articulates the tension between a work's
the end of that dream.
autonomy and its maker's biography. Here's another account:
The work of art “has to be what you can't avoid saying.” Johns came to my mind
“I think one wants from a painting a sense of
immediately when I was approached for this
life. The final suggestion, the final statement,
piece. Coming off the back of a recent body
has to be not a deliberate statement but a
of work inspired by his target paintings, I am
helpless statement. It has to be what you can’t
also interested in how writing mediates the
avoid saying.”
experience of visual art. The use of image appropriation and textual references are
A helpless statement that invites interpretation
strategies for layering meaning. Katz offered
and speculation—including mine. An early work
a perspective through the lens of sexuality
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time, an era when it was dangerous to
acts of voicing are less clear; he
express queer desire.
maintains the tension between knowing and not knowing, saying
To me, Johns’ oeuvre deals with the art of
and not saying—a pregnant silence.
difference. He repeats a lexicon of motifs, making subtle shifts in each iteration only
In her seminal 1964 essay Notes On
to generate greater dissonance. It's about
Camp, Susan Sontag wrote: “Many
the destabilising grey area between seeing
things in the world have not been
and meaning, troubling things the mind
named, and many things, even if they
thinks it knows. A queer subtext is available,
have been named, have not been
particularly in the appearance of charged
described.” The critical question
symbols that allude to the body, but this
has never been what a work of art
reading never entirely consumes the work.
is about, but what it is. Sontag also
The artist has offered fragments of meaning
warned of the danger of viewing art
and revealed the source of his images; but
as ‘content’ and how interpretation
consistently avoided explanation.
has the tendency to de-sensualise the art experience. Instead, she called
This gesture offers the possibility for
for “an erotics of art,” urging, “What
viewers to find beauty in the oblique, in the
is important now is to recover our
mysterious. For artists, it is about negotiating
senses. We must learn to see more,
the impulse for public expression and the
hear more, to feel more.”
desire for privacy. Just as there are layers of meanings, there are circles of trust
In front of Johns’ works, one must
among audiences. It is simply a fact about
simply drop the reserve.
communication, that intimacy is not a given, but instead, a shared condition. At times, an artist is given permission to speak through the voice of another and we see Johns ventriloquizing through O'Hara in In Memory
Jasper Johns, born 1930, is celebrated as one of the most influential American artists of the post-war era, whose work combines cerebral
of My Feelings. At other moments,
content with highly sensual handling of materials.
contextualised in the social codes of Johns’
Ian Tee Ian Tee, born 1994, Singapore, is an
with the energy of subcultures, he is
artist working across a variety of
interested in how aesthetic narratives
media—destroyed metal paintings,
can be reworked and recontextualised.
bleached and dyed textiles, and
The attitude carried is a statement
collage. His practice is an exploration
about power, defiance and possibility.
of youth, in relation to the themes of rebellion, vulnerability and identity. Conflating the history of painting
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Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime)
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
Hayao Miyazaki: Beyond the Understanding
by Truc-Anh ↓ page 100 — 107
© 1997 Studio Ghibli - ND
et al.
Most of our thinking goes to the surface of our brain. When you really want to say something, you have to go to the subconscious. And then if you’re stuck there, you have to go even deeper. I can clearly remember the first time I saw
By this expression, I interpret it to mean
a Miyazaki movie. It was in 2000 in Paris.
something wider, like a collective subconscious.
My brother brought me to see Princess
To do it, the master firstly must ground his
Mononoke. Now, some 20 years later, I still
realm of imagination solidly into a collective
can’t fully understand this masterpiece nor
reality; our relation to nature, traditions,
the exact feeling it produced in me. Why is
technology, to our childhood, to bravery and so
that? Perhaps because Miyazaki’s art stands
much more. The ingredient seems so well known
“beyond the understanding,” as he said in
yet the taste so particular. This is to me what
his interview with Roland Kelts at Berkeley
creates the universal magic of his movies.
University. He explained, “Most of our thinking goes to the surface of our brain. When you really want to say something, you have to go to the subconscious. And then if you’re stuck there, you have to go even deeper.”
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My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
© 1988 Studio Ghibli
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This is what I want to do for people in my art. To bring their spirit away from this limiting and rationalized world.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Firstly, the format. It looks like a children’s
or hierarchy. Like the little spirit in the forest,
movie. The main characters are often kids
half tender, half frightful, Miyazaki gives us
or adolescents. But the treatment of the
the feeling of being in a known realm while
narration is complex. Princess Mononoke
transporting us much further away, into the
tells the moral story behind the difficult
complex vision of his world.
relationship between humans and animals. Mononoke and her human friend Ashitaka
Miyazaki said, “Nature goes beyond
represent the core opposition in the story—
our understanding, beyond the human
that between a human raised by wolves
psychology. When I draw Totoro, I want to be
fighting against humans and a human
sure we don’t know where he is looking. It’s
trying to help both sides to live together
hard to know if he gets very deep thoughts or
harmoniously. The two characters might
is he not thinking at all.”
seem at this point to be somewhat similar to the protagonists of Pocahontas, but here is
What happens beyond this mental need to
the twist—besides the fact that there is no
control? When Miyazaki was invited to Pixar
romance between the two, Lady Eboshi who is
Animation Studios to present his new movie
leading human troops to kills animals is not a
Howl’s Moving Castle in 2004, he said to the
simple villain. She’s also a courageous woman
audience, “My method for this movie is to
helping poor lepers and women of her village.
follow my heart, and don’t try to understand everything.” For sure we won’t and actually, I
In this manner, many characters in Princess
have to admit—we can’t. The main character
Mononoke produced mixed feelings because
Sophie is always changing her own age in a
they play on the balance between good and
non-chronological way during the movie. The
evil in a largely grey area. This duality is
legend says that even animators of Ghibli’s
personified in the Deer God who is capable
studio lost track while drawing her.
of ravaging his own forest and nurturing it to regenerate just by his presence. We are far from the one-sided villains of Disney and much closer to Shiva, the Hindu god of creation and destruction. Love and hate coexist with each other, without judgment
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That same year, my friend and I became totally crazy about the hot new TV series, Lost. Showrunner J.J. Abrams revolutionized the production of a TV series by creating enigma over enigma. Should I talk about the polar bear found in the middle of the jungle? He admits that they did not know exactly where they were going while filming it. But this is perhaps why it was a success. When the creator, the characters and the public are on the same level: lost, in this case. Miyazaki has a similar approach. It is as though he is in a state of dreaming himself and doesn’t control what is happening. Probably the last of his kind, he often drew the storyboard for a film by himself without first having a clear idea of the narration. The production team would often start to draw the final movie scene before he has even finished writing the story. We now live in a super efficient era. Even in the world of creation, from cinema and contemporary art, music and more; productions times are becoming increasingly shorter but with greater demands. Financial pressures have also become so huge in every field that creation
has become hyper-rationalized. Every note you hear on the radio, every image you see in the cinema, and sometimes, sadly, an artwork in an exhibition has been reimagined constantly till instinct is lost. We have to perform and there is no place for doubt and true magic. Earlier this year, Netflix announced the purchase to the rights of 28 Studio Ghibli films—many of them timeless classics and masterpieces—which were released in three batches over February, March and April. The offerings ranged from some of Miyazaki’s earliest films that were still hand-drawn animations to the new, digitally drawn productions. It's a shift that supports the idea of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze who wrote, “Every act of creation is an act of resistance.” This is what I want to do for people in my art. To bring their spirit away from this limiting and rationalized world. Hayao Miyazaki, born 1941, is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, screenwriter, author, mangaka and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers and master storytellers in the history of animation.
Truc-Anh Born in 1983 in Paris, Truc-Anh is a
known and unknown characters.
visual artist degreed of La Cambre,
His work has been featured in numerous
National School of Visual Art, Belgium
of solo exhibitions in Galerie Sator, Paris,
and of ECAL, Haute Ecole d'Art et
Galerie Quynh, Vietnam or Galerie
Design in Switzerland. He works in a
Varola, Los Angeles. Truc-Anh has been
large range of techniques and media
the subject of articles in various national
including drawing, woodcarving,
and international reviews such as
3D printing, installation, and video.
Hyperallergic, Le Monde, L’Officiel, Los
His series “Ink Kingdom” displays an
Angeles Times, ArtAsiaPacific and Wall
accumulation of portraits in which
Street International.
he depicted the spiritual presence of
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime)
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Charwei Tsai on Mongolian artists Ganzug Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher
by Charwei Tsai
↓ page 108 — 115
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Lullaby for Mother Nature, a performance by Ganzug Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher for the 15th Anniversary of Lovely Daze, published by Charwei Tsai on January 15th, 2020, at TKG+, Taipei. Photography by Anpis Wang. Image courtesy of TKG+.
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I first met Davaa and Ganzug during their
Goethe Institut. I had a loose idea to trace
performance in the “IS/IN LAND” exhibition
the immaterial migration of two spiritual
curated by Nobuo Takamori at Kuandu
traditions, Tantric Buddhism and Shamanism
Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei. I was intrigued
in Mongolia. Spontaneously, the three of
by the authenticity of their practice. For me,
us together with choreographer, Arco Renz,
there is nothing more important in art than
planned a two-week road trip to the mythical
authenticity. It doesn’t matter how well a
site of Shambala in central Mongolia and
work is produced, how intelligently an idea is
towards the lake areas in the north.
thought out, or even how hard we have worked on it. As artists, when we lose a genuine
On our way north, we met with Shaman
approach, we lose everything.
Purevdorj. He happened to be heading to Darkhad Valley the next day to practice with
How do we define this quality of authenticity
three of his students, and invited us to join.
or genuineness when most often it’s just
Together in two cars, we travelled mostly off
based on a feeling or an intuition? In the
roads to where it is considered as the most
works by Davaa and Ganzug, what is clear to
sacred place for shamanism in the region.
me, is the sense that their performance is not limited as an opportunity to express an idea or a thing. It goes beyond an expression. It is a warm invitation for us to enter a passage that transports our mind from one place to another. It pushes our senses to open up and our awareness to heighten. Through their performances, we embody an understanding that there is greater space in our mind than what we are used to. This is also the heart of Shamanistic rituals that I witnessed last summer in Mongolia. I was invited by Taiwanese curator Meiya Cheng to conceive a work for a conference in Ulaanbaatar on migration organized by the
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
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Khun Ovoo / Human Cairns, a performance by Ganzug Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher the for book launch of Lovely Daze, published by Charwei Tsai on January 18th, 2020, at C-Lab, Taipei. Photography by Christopher Adams. Image courtesy of the artist.
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During our time working together it became hard to separate what is art and what is life.
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et al.
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Lullaby for Mother Nature, a performance by Ganzug Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher for the 15th Anniversary of Lovely Daze, published by Charwei Tsai on January 15th, 2020, at TKG+, Taipei. Photo by Anpis Wang. Image courtesy of TKG+. Portrait of Shaman Purevdorj. Image courtesy of Charwei Tsai. Khun Ovoo / Human Cairns a performance by Ganzug Sedbazar & Davaajargal Tsaschikher for book launch of Lovely Daze published by Charwei Tsai on January 18th, 2020, at C-Lab, Taipei. Photo by Christopher Adams.
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On our way north, we met with Shaman
tame their camels, the local people to move
Purevdorj. He happened to be heading to
rocks blocking the roads, and invite anyone
Darkhad Valley the next day to practice with
who we come across to join us for meals.
three of his students, and invited us to join.
Wherever there is nature and kindness, a
Together in two cars, we travelled mostly off
temple is found.
roads to where it is considered as the most sacred place for shamanism in the region.
During our time working together it became hard to separate what is art and what is life.
The shamans have mastered what makes a memorable performance, which is a play between accident and control. They were precise and diligent with their preparations of deciphering the right time and space for the ceremonies to happen as well as
Davaajargal Tsaschikher is a sound artist, singer and lead of the famous Mongolian ethnic Rock band Mohanik. Ganzug Sedbazar is a graphic designer and artist.
the appropriate ceremonial costumes and offerings. Yet they also welcomed the unpredictability of the great spirits and natural elements that they worshipped. Along the way, everywhere we arrived with the shamans, the weather would change dramatically. The first time this happened was when we stopped at a
Charwei Tsai Charwei Tsai graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in industrial
nomad’s home on a sunny day. Almost as soon
design and art & architectural history
as the shamans arrived, some clouds started
(2002), and the postgraduate research
to gather and it started to drizzle forming
program La Seine at L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2010).
two giant rainbows just above where we were
Highly personal yet universal concerns
setting up camp. Then at night, while they were
spur Tsai’s multi-media practice.
performing rituals to call their ancestral spirits,
Geographical, social, and spiritual motifs inform a body of work, which encourages
lightning struck and thunder roared all across
viewer participation outside the
the valley suddenly as if they were a part of the
confines of complacent contemplation.
ceremony. During the last day of the practice, as we were parting, it started hailing and fog gathered creating an ethereal smoky pathway.
Preoccupied with the human/nature relationship, Tsai meditates on the complexities among cultural beliefs, spirituality, and transience.
Through our journey together, I began to learn from the shamans and Mongolian friends the art that runs in their veins. Every time we stopped, they would always make an offering and pay respect to nature. They would build stone structures, burn incense, kiss the earth, tie prayer flags on trees, pour milk or liquor on the ground, or throw flour into the air. They would also help the nomads to
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Lovely Daze Issue 11: I Wish I Had a Horse! A publication by Charwei Tsai since 2005. Courtesy of Lovely Daze.
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Jason Wee on Lee Wen
by Jason Wee Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
→ page 116 — 121 et al.
Lee Wen, Mereka Merdeka, Grey Projects, 2017. Image courtesy of Jason Wee.
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To call what artists do anything but art—to call it dance, theatre, or literature— only “perpetuates the injustice” of the state of not being free that art both exists in and represents. The emphasis on Lee Wen’s storied art
why art mattered began with drawing and
practice has been placed, justifiably, on his
painting, and the genres of portraiture and
performances and installations, and less on his
landscape.”3 Yet, in reading those notebooks,
songwriting, ruminations, and versifications
it is just as possible to conclude that art
both online and in print . The volume of text
began for Wen with the epigram,
that he’s generated over the decades is valued,
the aphorism or the verse: the line that
by himself and by his colleagues and critics,
Ch
primarily for its performance potential and for
oeuvre may in fact be both a drawn and a
its relation to his paintings and drawings. Adele
written one. The combination of drawing
Tan’s essay on his music cites his “notes, words
and verse arrived early; the work that Wen
and the ether in the air” in a consideration of
acknowledges in his retrospective catalogue
1
ng-Đài considered as germinal to Wen’s
Wen’s songs on the subject of that dream of a
as his earliest is A Waking Dream (1981), a
unified body we call the nation, or Singapore .
book of verses accompanied by his doodles.4
2
In examining Wen’s notebooks, Võ H ng Ch
ng-Đài suggests that Wen’s “search for
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Lee Wen, Boring Donkey Songs cover, 2016. Image courtesy of Jason Wee.
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At the same time, Wen shied away from
As his body began to fail him, these words
describing himself as a writer. Perhaps one
became the continuation of a drawing practice
reason is his family background; his father was
by other means. I spent the past days re-
a well-regarded Chinese-language journalist
visiting the manuscript for Boring Donkey
and essayist whose early death added to the
Songs, a collection of his diaristic writings and
aura of his literary fame. Once, in one of his last
lyrics that Grey Projects published in 2017, to
interviews, Wen described an encounter in a
prepare for a possible new edition with new
bookstore when someone familiar with the elder
material from the last two years of his life.
Lee said “I guess you're not a genius like your
Wen’s love for end rhymes and half-rhymes
father!” If to write is to contend with the shape
is brightly visible like raindrops in the sun,
and shadow of genius, Wen, whose affections
reflective of Wen’s longstanding attraction to
for his parents are reverential, would prefer to do
songwriting and the spoken verse. The rhymes
otherwise: dance, strum, sing, turn himself into a
emphasize a broadly digressive humor—
plinth, anything to avoid becoming that revered
sometimes silly, sometimes impishly so—that
object, the authority. The question of whether
undercuts any pity for his present loneliness
to sing what he calls his “boring donkey songs”
or lack of well-being, such as this untitled gem
is always a question of whether to punk or not.
from 2015 that conjoins in the word “dump”
Moreover, Wen’s description of his work was as
both the romantic and the scatological:
5
“contemporary visual art—full stop,”6 and he was sensitive to the ways that artists may disavow the art in their practices, if only as a tactical evasion of restrictive regulatory regimes. To call what artists do anything but art—to call it dance, theatre, or literature—only “perpetuates the injustice” of the state of not being free that art both exists in and represents.7 Perhaps this is a case of taking an artist at his word by not taking him at his word. His late practice of near-daily writing seems to contradict his focus on the image, or at least the image fixed in the public’s mind from photographs and recordings as the Yellow Man. Yet more interesting than arguing for Wen to be seen as a writer despite himself is the idea that, for Wen, to see is inevitably to read. Our sense of an image is enveloped by and envelops our understanding of words. So his words on the page may be as strongly image-like as any of his late drawings.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
I used to know a friend who helped me overcome dumps Now he’s just a stranger on some one else’s arm Don’t mean to be tragic not even grump I just do fine without women and wine Just give me some time With a guitar and harp Up with my blues I’ll sing you anyhow tunes To anyhow rhythm To anyhow blues Without no clues
et al.
Nearly all those lines offer a visual object—an
1. A point that Lee Weng Choy has earlier made in the
arm, a face, a glass, a musical instrument—
catalogue essay for Lee Wen’s retrospective. See Lee Wen:
that disappears in the verses when a final
Lucid Dreams In The Reverie Of The Real, Singapore Art Museum (Singapore 2012), 42.
“anyhow” song is sung. In a month, it would
2. Adele Tan, ‘The Profane Ear (in a habit of earnestness)’,
have been a year since I last saw Lee Wen.
ibid, 24-29.
After years of living with Parkinson’s disease,
3. Võ H ng Ch ng-Đài, Line Form Colour Action (https://aaa.
he passed away in March 2019. The double
org.hk/en/ideas/ideas/line-form-colour-action). Accessed 04
negative in that final line seems instructive, to evade evasion, a kind of punking of punking, leaving us with a tantalizing trace of something. The company of others dissipates,
February 2020. 4. Lee Wen, A Waking Dream. (https://issuu.com/leewen/docs/ awakingdream-leewen). Accessed 04 February 2020. 5. Interview between Lee Wen and Esquire Singapore, Lee Wen: What I Learnt. (https://www.esquiresg.com/lee-wen-
every object darkens and leaves the scene,
singaporean-artist-dies-age-61/). Accessed 04 February 2020.
and slowly, finally, so does the artist and his
6. Lee Wen and Iola Lenzi, Shifts in Singapore's Art scene
body. I took the line as a kind of necessary
(http://leewen.republicofdaydreams.com/iola-lenzishifts1.
consolation for myself. At the end of the line, something stays.
html). Accessed 04 February 2020. 7. Ibid.
Lee Wen (1957-2019) (Chinese: 李文) was one of Singapore’s most internationally recognized contemporary artists. His
performances and installations often expose and question the ideologies and value systems of individuals as well as social structures. He divided his time between Singapore and Tokyo.
Jason Wee Jason Wee is an artist and a writer. He
the upcoming Asia Society Triennial
founded and runs Grey Projects, an
and Yavuz Gallery Sydney. Curated
art library and artist residency now
exhibitions include Stories We Tell To
in its 12th year. His books include the
Scare Ourselves With (MOCA Taipei
poetry collection An Epic of Durable
2019), and Singapur Unheimlich (ifa
Departures, and SQ21: Singapore
berlin and stuttgart 2015).
Queers in the Twenty-First Century. His art is most recently seen at Tomorrow Is An Island (NTU-ADM Galleries 2020) and at the 2019 Singapore Biennale, and at
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Jay DeFeo in front of early stage of The Rose. 1961 gelatin silver print. JDF Reference no. R0511. Photograph: Marty Sacco (San Francisco Examiner). © [year] The Jay DeFeo Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
Rose is a Rose is a Rose: A Meditation on Jay DeFeo’s The Rose
by Megan Whitmarsh ↓ page 122 — 127
et al.
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. — Anaïs Nin “Maybe I've been absurd about wanting to do
The Rose needs to be seen, but here's a
a big flower painting, but I've wanted to do
description anyway: the painting is a foot
it and that is that. I'm going to try. Wish me
thick, over ten and a half feet tall and weighs
luck,” wrote Georgia O’Keeffe in 1934 to a
more than one ton. It is a star-like shape with
friend regarding a commission for Elizabeth
radiating rays carved into thick layers of paint
Arden. She had painted her first large flower
and mica. It is mostly white and gray with bits
painting in 1924. “I’ll paint it big, and they
of blackish green.
will be surprised into taking time to look at it.” O’Keeffe had no theories to offer on her
Throughout the 1950s, DeFeo had supported
paintings: “The painting is like a thread that
herself by making jewelry and taking odd jobs.
runs through all the reasons for all the other
In 1953, she was fired from her job as an art
things that make one’s life.”
teacher after being convicted for shoplifting two cans of red paint. “Maybe that's why I
Jay DeFeo started The Rose in 1958,
finally went into black and white,” she said in
working almost exclusively on it until 1966
an interview with Paul Karlstrom in 1979. “The
when eviction from her apartment (which
red paint really did me in.”
also doubled as her studio) forced her to stop. Friend and fellow artist Bruce Conner filmed the extraction of The Rose from her workspace, which necessitated the removal of a window and the use of a crane and forklift. He speculated that without the eviction she might never have stopped working on it.
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The Rose was just a painting like any other when
themes of being an artist: of making, of cyclical
she started it; all that she knew was that it was
gestures, of death and decay.
going to have a center. From the perspective of her friends and family it became a personal
DeFeo quit making art for four years after
vortex. She did not see it that way while she
finishing The Rose. She spent this time
worked exclusively on it for almost eight years.
“freaking out, mainly.” She described it as her
In that same 1979 interview, she said the images
‘happening’ period. “Everyone else was staging
for her work were sensed, like ESP. “I had an inner
happenings during that period.” She was
core of faith that this thing would emerge into an
having them.
ultimate form, of which I had no knowledge. I just kept reaching for it intuitively.”
For years, the painting seemed forgotten, hidden behind a fake wall while the San
She recognized that the painting may have led
Francisco Museum of Modern Art figured out
to her divorce, and she understood the concern
what to do with it. It had started to fall apart
friends had for her mental well-being. Comparing
from its own weight almost immediately after
her life to the act of painting, she said, “You have
being removed from her apartment, and was
to destroy a little bit in order to build a little bit.”
set into plaster to preserve it. The Whitney Museum of American Art acquired it in 1995
The painting went through a series of titles,
and, since its restoration, the work has been
recorded in various brochures and interviews.
exhibited only a handful of times.
Initially she called it The Death Rose. She decided that title was too negative, so she changed it
In 1989, DeFeo died of cancer at the age of
to The White Rose, which symbolized life. In
60. It is likely that the materials she used—in
the end she settled on The Rose, which she felt
addition to her smoking habit—shortened her
represented a unity of those opposing ideas.
life, though her health had always been fragile.
It is impossible to separate the creation of The Rose from the completed work. It speaks beyond the realm of painting, reflecting both the futility and beauty of life and of the creative cycle. It is a Kali-like action, a sort of primal cry. It steps off the path of being primarily about paint and abstract expression, and speaks to the larger
Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
Megan Whitmarsh, Art In America/Jay Defeo, 2018, embroidery thread, pencil, wonder-under, fabric and foam, 76.2 x 101.6 x 5.1 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Collected Writings By Artists On Artists
et al.
learned about many artists that I had never heard of; some stayed with me, some I was determined to find out more about, some I promptly forgot. The story about the The Rose intrigued and lingered within me. Having since seen the painting in real life—in 2013, some 24 years after I first saw its reproduction—my appreciation has not dimmed. My regard was never simply for the painting itself but for the woman who painted it; for her belief in the painting and for her inability to let it go until she had to. Such fidelity to one’s vision is rare and potent. It seems somehow to transmit a sort of radiance, which inspires. “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” — Anaïs Nin
Jay DeFeo, born in 1929, was a visual artist working in the San Francisco Bay area from the early 1950s
The Rose in art school. During those years, I
until her death in 1989. She left behind a diverse oeuvre, but is chiefly remembered for her monumental
I first saw a reproduction of Jay DeFeo’s
painting, The Rose (1958-66).
CODA
Megan Whitmarsh Los Angeles-based artist Megan Whitmarsh, born in 1972, works predominantly in textiles, using hand embroidery and fabric to create wall pieces and sculptural works which make reference to both contemporary and past cultural history. She has shown in galleries and museums internationally.
Jay DeFeo (1929–1989), The Rose, 1958-66, oil with wood and mica on canvas, 327.3 × 234.3 × 27.9 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Jay DeFeo Foundation and purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and the Judith Rothschild Foundation 95.170. Photograph by Ron Amstutz. © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
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