I LIKE the title of the Asia Society’s latest, and possibly best, foray into contemporary art. “One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” borrows a familiar colloquialism for go-it-alone ingenuity and persistence under pressure, not bad qualities for a young artist. The phrase is also the title of the 1978 punk standard by Blondie, […]
Defying The Definitive By Daniel Kunitz September 14, 2006 To what degree does an artist’s heritage inform his work? It is a particularly American question, since, no matter how deep our roots in this soil may dig, all of us have, to some degree, a multiple identity. But so what? Shouldn’t an American artist be […]
RHIZOME.ORG at THE NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Net Art News February 1, 2006 Punching the Clock By Peggy MacKinnon “Clockwork,” a documentary-style series of four short multi-channel video works by Jeanne C. Finley and John Muse, centers around the concept of time–as social ordering tool, as cultural construct, and as an intrinsic element in […]
January 14, 2006. Page E-10 By Kenneth Baker Finley and Muse at Sweetow: Under the title “Clockwork,” Bay Area videomakers Jeanne C. Finley and John Muse present four new multichannel works at Sweetow. Using multiple fixed cameras, they took half-second shots every half minute over 16 consecutive hours. They focused on a hairdresser (“Shampoo”), a […]
By Kenneth Baker January 14, 2006. Page E-10 Schulz at Sweetow: Marin County painter Cornelia Schulz still takes seriously the idea, rooted in the ’60s, that abstract paintings ought to exploit their own physical profiles, to make parameters of their perimeters, as author William Gass might say. Schulz’s recent pieces at Sweetow take her […]
Anno at Sweetow: Just four pieces at Patricia Sweetow by Bay Area painter Kim Anno make a substantial exhibition. Anno paints in oil on aluminum, a completely nonabsorbent surface that forces her to modulate color by thinning, wiping and scoring it. These operations in themselves give rise to a kind of abstract pictorial drama. […]
Symbioland Jeffry Cudlin October 7, 2005 When contemporary artists play with traditional media, it’s often a tongue-in-cheek affair. Arguably, then, Jiha Moon isn’t doing anything new. Even her collision of traditional Eastern brushwork with elements of kawaii— Japanese pop-culture cuteness—has already been thoroughly mined by better-known artists such as Takashi Murakami. But however familiar her […]
On Exhibit: Jiha Moon’s Shining Contrasts By Michael O’Sullivan Friday, September 16, 2005 “SYMBIOLAND,” the title of Jiha Moon’s exhibition at the Curator’s Office, pretty much says it all. Suggesting not just the term symbiosis, which describes an interdependent relationship between two often disparate entities, but a rough fusion of the words “symbol” and “land,” […]
Jiha Moon’s Fantasy Islands By Jessica Dawson Thursday, September 15, 2005 Just a few days after winning the $10,000 Trawick Prize, painter Jiha Moon triumphed again with the opening of her solo show at Curator’s Office last weekend. Moon’s detailed ink-and-acrylic paintings on rice paper evoke fantasy worlds, ancient scroll painting and the “Hello Kitty” […]
A more Minimalist branch of Ab-Ex is found at Patricia Sweetow Gallery on Geary Street, where the 68-year-old German artist Joachim Bandau presents a careful selection of monochromatic watercolors and drawings and geometric lead sculptures. In his works on paper, Bandau achieves a rich black surface from a meditative process of layering. The artist switched […]