Hasta La Ideas

East-meets-West in Vietnam’s art celebration focused on growth

As the cultural center of Vietnam, Hanoi recently made the ideal location to kick off Tiger Beer’s latest event in its free art and music series, Tiger Translate. With more than half of the country’s population born after 1975, the theme focused on growth, providing a badly needed forum for local Asian artists to come together and show off their work on a bigger scale and international platform.

Overseas artists included Prefab77, a wheat-paste trio from Newcastle, England, and JabaOne, a street artist from Belgium who resides in Singapore. They were matched with locals Hoang Art, whose Western-influenced style earned him a first-prize award in Hanoi’s Long Bien Festival of Arts; Pham Huy Thong, a studio painter and teacher whose work doubles as social commentary; Linkfish, a name recognized for being one of the first pioneers of the street art movement in the country; and DungJoon, a painter who is also an architect and art director. “For us, the reason we have such shows is to create the exchange,” said Tiger Translate Global senior brand manager Patsy Lim, citing how the invitation of major-name international artists helps shine the spotlight on lesser-known ones.

Tiger Translate Hanoi unfolded on Hoa Lo, the same road where the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison is located. Although it took eight levels of approval by various city departments to close off the street for the event, the choice clearly worked to drive home the growth theme.

Under a cloudy sky, heavy heat, humidity and the never-ending honks of scooters and cars, the artists spent a few days before the event painting the wide walls installed along the block, occasionally switching their focus to six plywood trees. Nearby, workers installed pieces by international artists turned into mesmerizing 3-D by Tiger Translate. The final touches were made in front of more than 3,200 eventgoers on the evening of the show. While most of the Vietnamese artists already spoke a little bit of English, language wasn’t a problem. “Because it was all visual, it’s people who have sketchbooks,” said Marc Ross of Prefab77. “The language barrier doesn’t matter.”

While spray painting his own piece, Hoang Art observed Prefab77’s wheat-pasting technique and invited them to collaborate on an area of his piece. In fact, all of the collaborations worked similarly. Artists began their pieces, and as they checked out each other’s progress, they’d suggest how they could add their own signature.

For such a young street art scene—Linkfish told us it’s only about five years old, originating from hip-hop parties held in underground Hanoi locations—both Prefab77 and JabaOne were surprised with the art prowess of the Vietnamese. “They have a very good level for beginners,” said JabaOne. He was particularly impressed with their lack of access to more sophisticated types of spray paint. “When they move to the modern spray can, their technique will even be better,” he said. Prefab77 echoed the same sentiments about Hoang Art. “His style is incredible. I can’t imagine there’s many of that size of walls in Vietnam that you could paint and not get arrested,” Ross said.

The rapidity with which the Vietnamese artists did their work was also something Prefab77 found remarkable. Pham Huy Thong, who had never painted on outside canvases before, painted his tree with a picture of a baby—as a representation of the changing consumer habits of today’s youth—in under an hour and a half. Using brush and acrylic paint on top of Prefab77’s wheat-pasted posters, his piece ended up being the paradigm of the East-meets-West goal of Tiger Translate.

From the side of the local artists, they were most taken with Prefab77’s wheat-paste method, a style they had never seen. “We have spray cans, pens or brushes,” said Linkfish. “They have stickers and posters.” Whether it was a matter of tradition, the local artists said they never realized street art could be made outside of the use of conventional materials. Prefab77’s response was a little ironic, “They have the best glue we’ve ever used!”

Tiger Translate will run in other cities this year and continue exploring the themes of growth and metropolis.

Art and tech collide in a London exhibit devoted to the beauty of motion

At the entrance of the Kinetica Art Fair a confusing installation—a wall of brightly-lit exit signs—greets visitors. The exhibition gets no less paradoxical once you enter as life-like skeletons with crow skulls gesture and click their beaks above in amazingly realistic ways (though their bodies are actually robotic arms built by Dutch artist Christiaan Zwanikken).

An unusual event now in its third year, this London fair brings together kinetic, electronic, robotic, sound and light art works. Our first thought was that it’s a physical coming to life of the One Dot Zero Robotica film that we saw last year, which as it happens is also showing at Kinetica. An edgy underground atmosphere pervades the exhibition, both literally, being held in the vast basement space of the Ambika P3 gallery, and stylistically with a host of international artists who are, in the best sense, geektastic.

Robotic and kinetic works especially summon images of hours tinkering in workshops to make these extraordinary creations. For example, a robotic arm capable of drawing or, one of my favorites, the handsome Interference Machine by Norwegian artist Kristoffer Myskja—a toy that makes two glasses filled with water sing by substituting a robot for a fingertip to rub the rim of the glass.

Overall, the impression at Kinetica was a celebration of the intricate delicacy of technology, not only in robotics but also a chirping egg nest light by Tomomi Sayuda, infinitely reflected LED light works by Hans Kotter, and even in digitally-cut clothing. Skin Graph, a new fashion label, uses the 3D topographical data from our bodies, tracing the contours of our physical form to create bespoke leather clothing—in effect, a second skin.

Those in London can check out the show through 6 February 2011.

Sixteen standout artists seen at Art Basel Miami and beyond

Save a few post-recession moments, each passing year of art-fueled events taking over Miami Beach and beyond during the first week in December seems bigger than the last. With more and more lavish parties, dinners and VIP previews surrounding the core established by Art Basel, it’s easy to lose sight of the actual art within the fabulous, sun-splashed platform for marketing luxury that the experience has become. After visiting nearly all the fairs, we managed to find a few gems sourced from
Nada, Basel,
Pulse and
Scope however—from OCD techniques to slightly goth themes, commentaries on visual culture and pop art statements—all pictured below.

Contributions from Evan Orensten and Jonah Samson

At right: “Confetti Death” (2010) by TYPOE, seen at
Spinello Gallery

“The Universal Now: Trafalgar Square 1975/1971” (2010) by Abigail Reynolds, seen at Ambach and Rice Gallery (Also showing at Reynolds’ first stateside solo show at Ambach and Rice, opening this Friday, 10 December 2010.)

L: “To Be Titled” (2010) by Nick van Woert, seen at Yvon Lambert; R: “Sunken Sediment” (2010) by Jen Stark, seen at Carol Jazzar

L: “Do it, Complete Yourself Man” (2010) by Brian Dettmer, seen at Packer Schopf Gallery; R: “Fold II” (2009) by Suzanne Song, seen at Mixed Greens

L: “Fourth Street Flop” (2010) by Charlie Roberts, seen at Richard Heller Gallery; R: “Kaleidoscope” by Damien Hirst, seen at White Cube Gallery

L: “Home and the World” and R: “Untitled” (both 2010) by Adam Fuss, seen at Cheim & Read Gallery

“The Funeral Party #2” (2010) by Allison Schulnik, seen at Mark Moore Gallery

“Double Scramble” (1977) by Frank Stella, seen at
Van de Weghe Fine Art

L: “Chant 2” (1967) by Bridget Riley, seen at Art Basel; R: “Denib El Delphini” (1965) by Paul Feeley, seen at the Gary Snyder Project Space

“Harto de adioses (de la serie)” (2010) by Adrián Villar Rojas, seen at Ruth Benzacar Galería de Arte at Art Basel

“QWERTY East” by Sarah Frost, seen at the William Shearburn Gallery at Art Miami

Chalk it up to the Germans’ noted reputation for being efficient. The fourth annual Gallery Weekend is Berlin’s version of a power punch for denizens of the art world: 40 galleries and 40 openings over the course of three days. But beyond the obvious marquee names such as Damien Hirst at Haunch of Venison and Olafur Eliasson at Martin Gropius Bau, knowing where to go can be the paradox of choice. Here’s a shortlist of artists that stand out from the bunch.

Andreas Gursky is a visual artist of Goliath proportions. Taking Google Earth-esque images and rendering them into huge, powerful photographs, his new series “Ocean I-VI” is a jaw-dropping panoramic interpretation of water, land and the mysterious subaquatic depths that ripple in between. “Ocean I-IV,” Sprüth Magers Gallery, Oranienburgerstr. 18, Berlin. Opening: 30 April 2010, 4-9 pm; exhibition until 9 June 2010.

New work from the Jerusalem-born artist Ariel Schlesinger—a talented arsonist whose sly tricks with fire spit up in the least likely of places—promises to make you look twice. “Reverse Engineering,” Galerija Gregor Podnar, Lindenstr. 35, Berlin. Opening: 30 April 2010, 10 am-3 pm; exhibition until 5 June 2010.

American painter Elizabeth Peyton‘s bold, highly stylized portraits of cultural icons such as Kurt Cobain, Jarvis Cocker and Matthew Barney have always commanded a loyal following and demonstrated her relevance, beginning with her first solo exhibition at New York’s hip Chelsea Hotel. “New Paintings and Drawings,” Neugerriemschneider, Wallstr. 85, Berlin. Opening: 30 April 2010, 10 am-3 pm; exhibition until 2 July 2010.

“The Eskimos have two hundred ways to say snow. I have three million ways to say no,” Norwegian artist and writer Matias Faldbakken has publicly opined, and this stubborn streak surges through his work of prints, installations and moving images that crackle with political overtones. “Matias Faldbakken,” Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Kurfürstenstr. 12, Berlin. Opening: 30 April 2010, 10 am-3 pm; exhibition until 4 June 2010.

Who better than German photographer Tobias Zielony—known for his stark, stripped-down photographs of teenage delinquents—to tackle the story of “Le Vele di Scampia,” a ’70s urban housing project in Naples that proved to be one of the biggest failures in recent history? His 2009 film splices together over 2,000 photographs shot at dark at the complex, producing a nine-minute animation that starts, stutters and suspends erratically through time to jarring effect. “Film and Photographic Series,” Koch Oberhuber Wolff, Brunnenstr. 9, Berlin. Opening: 30 April 2010, 10 am-3 pm; exhibition until 3 June 2010.

Picking the brains of Gestalten‘s book editors and designers, Youyoung Lee reports to Cool Hunting on what inspires them.

Spanish artist Roberto Mollá‘s latest work, a series of 15 compositions taking up the famous Japanese tale of pearl diver Princess Tamatori (showing at the upcoming Pulse art fair in NYC), puts the artist in the well-populated ranks of other cultural interpreters of the story. Compared to Hokusai’s explicit illustration of the fabled sexual encounter between girl and octopus and more recent examples in manga, film and pornography, however, Mollá’s surreal vision makes for a more restrained telling.

In fact, it was Mollá’s minimalist graphic style—mixing geometric shapes, delicately realistic pencil renderings, and a sparing use of color—that first caught our eye at the Fountain exhibition in Miami last January. While the work we saw then took up Japanese themes too, these new pieces see the 44-year-old punctuating his grayscale palette with gold instead of red.

A futuristic tenor, reinforced by Mollá’s use of cream-colored graph paper as a medium and vector-based imagery, nicely plays off the artist’s highly-detailed depictions of sea creatures, like mollusks festooned with tentacles and beautifully scaly Koi fish.

Inspired by artists such as Dadaist Francis Picabia, Italian Futurists and Russian Suprematist El Lissitzky, Moll#225;’s uses the influence of these art movements to come up with his fresh and personalized style.

Be sure to check out “Tamatori” at Christina Ray Gallery’s (formally GlowLab) booth at Pulse New York, 4-7 March 2010.