Highlight #31: Life through the Art

Reality and Art in Monaco, U.S.A., Japan and Hong Kong

Monaco, Monaco <DUANE HANSON>

20 February ~ 28 August 2016_The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

Duane Hanson creates life like sculptures that represent average Americans, concentrating on "those that do not stand out", presented also in <Queenie II>(1988) and <Flea Market Lady>(1990-1994) sculptures are like real people, but do not have individual names because no one pays attention to them. However, for the artist, the emptiness and loneliness of their existence can capture the true reality of ordinary people. As a realist, Hanson creates hyper-realistic sculptures, paying attention to every detail from body hair to veins, and handpicking clothes and accessories.

Throughout his forty-year career, he has always produced works that expressed his political view with a dash of satire. His earlier life-sized paintings depict soldiers killed in action, police brutality, and homeless people. As a sculptor, Hanson is mostly interested in the human form as subject matter and means of artistic expression. His working-class portraits, for instance, reveal the banalities and trivialities of everyday life, and turn our attention to the overlooked members of society. At his solo exhibition, visitors can see elaborate works and grasp the hidden side of the real world through Hanson’s hyper-realistic sculptures.

<Flea Market Lady> 1984/1995

Edition 4/4(unique editions) Bronze, polychromed in oil, mixed media, with accessories Collection of Gilbert Costes Installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery (2 June-13 September 2015) Image ⓒ Luke Hayes
<Cowboy> 1984/1995

Autobody filler. polychromed in oil, mixed media, with accessories Variable dimensions Courtesy The Estate of Duane Hanson ⓒ The Estate of Duane Hanson
<Queenie II> 1988

Autobody filler. polychromed in oil, mixed media, with accessories Variable dimensions Courtesy The Estate of Duane Hanson ⓒ The Estate of Duane Hanson Photography by Robert McKeever

U.S.A., New York <PROJECTS 102: NEIL BELOUFA>

12 March ~ 12 June 2016_The Museum of Modern Art(MoMA)

The exhibition features two major works of French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa who works with sculpture, moving-image and media: <The Colonies>(2016) and <People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water>(2013). <The Colonies> is a custom-built architectonic installation the artist made by hand using inexpensive construction materials and techniques. The installation loops in images through closed-circuit television, and all the cables and cords connected are visible.

<People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water> is a video work that features a group of people in an anonymous city describing their longing for bourgeois urban culture. The artist worked with actors to generate scripts that imitate such genres as infomercials and science fiction. In the space between the fantasy he shows on screen and the actual space of galleries and surveillance systems in which he places his works, the artist emphasize that “Work isn’t the actual object but the relations I have built with it”.

<People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water> 2011

Video 10 min 59 sec Installation view, Schinkel Pavilion, Hopes for the Best, April 4-May 31, 2015 Courtesy the artist, Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Mendes Wood DM, and ZERO…Milan Photo: Andreas Rossetti
<Les Manques Contenus> 2011-13

Video(color, sound, 10:59 min.), plexiglass, steel construction, computer prints on paper, tape, paper, plastic sheets, clay, MDF, and found objects 3×2.5×2.1m Installation view, Love Is Colder than Capital, Kunsthaus Bregenz, February 2-April 14, 2013 Courtesy the artist; Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris; Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles; Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo; and ZERO…, Milan Photo: Christian Hinz
<People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water(Still)> 2011

Video(color, sound) 10:59 min Courtesy the artist; Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris; Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles; Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo; and ZERO…, Milan

Japan, Tokyo <ROPPONGI CROSSING 2016: MY BODY, YOUR VOICE>

26 March ~ 10 July 2016_Mori Art Museum

Since 2004, Mori Art Museum has presented a series called “Roppongi Crossing”, designed every three years to offer a comprehensive survey of the Japanese contemporary art scene. This year, curators have gathered from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to choose pieces for the fifth edition.
There are five categories: “Relationships between Self and Others, between Body and Identity”, “Revisiting The Past”, “Alternative Stories Born Out of Unique Perspectives”, “Exploration of the New Relationship between People and "object"” and “Transforming Senses of Gender and Possible Future”.

Looking into one representative artist, Yamashiro Daisuke introduces an installation on the theme of “personification/empathy” in connection with his social and personal experience such as earthquakes in Japan and birth of his son. Including Daisuke, twenty artist groups from Japan examined today’s world through a different method ranging from their own body to social systems. Because, in this complex society, no one is truly free from relationships. If you want to know how Japanese artists see the present, visit the triennial exhibition.

Hasegawa Ai <(Im)possible Baby> 2015

Digital print 90×135cm
Yamashiro Daisuke <TALKING LIGHTS> 2016

Installation
Miyagi Futoshi <Flower Names> 2015

Single-channel video with color and sound 20 min 59 sec

Hong Kong, Hong Kong <TRACEY EMIN: I CRIED BECAUSE I LOVE YOU>

21 March ~ 21 May 2016_White Cube Hong Kong

A controversial contemporary artist, Tracey Emin brings her works to Hong Kong. Emin has expressed herself in a wide range of media—drawing, installation, photography, and video. The result of intense self-discovery, her works give us access to her intimate autobiography. Paintings, embroidery, and neon lights that reflect the diversity of her practice will be exhibited on both floors of the White Cube.

The titles of her works are quite intuitive and expressive; <All I want is you>(2015), <Waiting to be with you>(2015), and so on. Every work illustrates a private moment from her life that contains the pain of loneliness, complexity of desire, and fear of separation. She reveals her emotion as it is and draws inspiration from them. Often of a provocative and challenging tradition, Emin makes us feel cathartic. The artist sums up her practice in one sentence: “I look at myself, and I paint myself, but they’re portraits of my mind, of my deepest thoughts.” How about feeling a climax of emotion through her works at the exhibition? ■ with ARTINPOST