Blum and Poe – Opening for Zhang Huan’s 49 Days

This past weekend, my new Russian artist friend and I checked out the opening for Chinese artist, Zhang Huan in Culver City.

The show featured numerous sculptures made of old bricks. The featured piece, Pagoda, standing at 22-ft, had many guessing how on earth did they install this massive sculpture in that room. In the center was a stuffed pig.

According to the gallery notes (copy+paste):

Pagoda serves partly as a tribute to Zhu Gangqiang, or the “Cast-Iron Pig”, now famous for having survived 49 days in rubble, following China’s historic 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Upon hearing its story of survival, Zhang negotiated the pig’s purchase and has subsequently adopted him into his studio, employing a full-time caretaker and making his likeness a central part of his artistic practice. The number “49″ (from which the show takes its title) is dually significant, both for its relationship to Zhu Gangqiang’s story and for its connection to Buddhist thought, as the Buddhists believe 49 days is the amount of time ones soul remains on earth between death and reincarnation

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Ace Gallery Beverly Hills – Robert Irwin’s Column

For the majority of the attendees, the genius of Robert Irwin was a bit too much to grasp.

Notice that no one is looking at the prismatic sculpture, not even the Ace employee standing to guard it. Curatorial fail.

Perhaps it’s because Super Bowl buzz is in the air, but while looking at the sculpture, I fantasized that a burly, football player would enter the space and run directly towards the column, knocking over the Ace gallery attendant and also sending the art object crashing over…. that would have been AWESOME!

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Michael Wilson Tarantula Spider Table

How beautiful is this?!?

I create modern-organic, sculptural designs, interweaving function and fine art. Combing equal parts western and eastern sensibilities with delicacy and meticulous technique.

A similar table can be bought here.

Link: Michael Wilson Designs

Frank Kozik – Dead Che

D.(Dignus) M.(Memoria) Dux Mortuus Potens Pugna Erat Insolentia Occisus Est. Loose translation: in life, a proud commander; in death, nothing.

PYO Gallery LA Presents Estrada Fine Art’s 8 Artists

Stopped by at the tail end of PYO’s opening reception for Estrada Fine Arts…

Here are some of the pieces that caught my eye:

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Jacques Louis Gautier – Mephistopheles

Many years ago, I came across this amazing bronze sculpture in a Los Angeles shop. Unfortunately, it was already sold and the owner was on his way to pick it up. Ever since, I’ve been looking for another opportunity to come face to face with Mephistopheles.

From Sotheby’s:

Gautier modelled this extraordinary figure of Mephistopheles in the early 1850′s and sent it for display at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Its idiosyncratic design proved a success and soon after the firm of Duplan et Salles began to cast the model in bronze. Busquet, a critic for the journal L’Artiste was moved to write ‘They have edited this strange Mephistopheles with a long and grimacing profile which one can see, not without some surprise, in the showrooms of the principal stores in Paris’. One customer was the Duchess of Alba, who acquired a cast for the cabinet of Napoleon III.

Skull Bank

Picked up this kitschy skull coin bank from Urban Outfitters. The slot is in the back of the head. Pretty Cool.

I’m thinking about going back and buying nine more, painting them all matte black, and then, stacking them in one of the corners of my play room….evoking the eeriness of the Catacombs of Paris…or not.

KAWS 1000% Dissected Companion Bearbrick – Mono

Came in the mail today all the way from Brooklyn, NY. Stands at ~29 inches.

Ace Gallery – Herb Alpert’s Black Totem Series

Sooj and I attended the Opening Reception for Herb Alpert’s Black Totem Series at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills. Lots of people dressed in black (myself included), free booze, news camera, sculptures. It was fun.

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Subodh Gupta – Very Hungry God

Of the piece, Gupta said…

… “Very Hungry God”, was made in 2006 for the Nuit Blanche annual all-night festival in Paris. My work was conceived to be shown in a church in Barbes on the outskirts of Paris which is largely inhabited by an immigrant population.

I made the work in response to the stories I read in the news about how soup kitchens in Paris were serving food with pork so that Muslims would not eat it. It was a strange and twisted form of charity that did not continue for long but raised conflicting ideas of giving and the way we have become now.

Outside the church I served vegetarian daal soup as a form of “prasad” (in India when you go to a temple or a guduwara you are offered food with the blessing). I liked the mix of the Catholic church and my intervention using a symbol that many artists have used before – the skull – and its many connotations.

‘Very Hungry God’ is like a vanity, but also the idea of food and the utensils is very much part of my language dealing with ideas of the everyday and turning them into iconic symbols.

Link: Subodh Gupta