URS FISCHER： Chaos#501

“I like the idea of error. I think it’s just a beautiful word. Anything we do successfully in life is a potential error.” Urs Fischer, a New York City-based artist, mentioned it on The Brant Foundation. This perspective lends his art a fascinating, playful, and defies limits. The NFT artwork, Chaos #501, is built from thousands of 3D models. Most of the items are familiar, such as basketball, toilet, Connect Four, and wigs. Those objects are rotating and are not limited by the physical rules of our world as they infinitely penetrate one another across the screen. These sculptures operate as archaeology in the present, aiming to be able to show the form of three-dimensional sculpture in motion. Fischer's practice is characterized by a diversity of materials, strategies, and concepts. One of his most famous works is a giant wax figure, Untitled (2011), modeled after Jambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women (1579–83). The wax drips and solidifies during the melting process until it becomes nothing like death. The work mixes the ephemeral and the unique as it melts. Fischer experimented with previously uncharted territory in the Chaos series, expanding materials from real materials like clay and wax to digital virtual figures. Fischer's work is a distortion of reality that openly admits to being influenced by the Dada, Surrealism, and Pop Art movements. These movements resemble manipulating pre-made images to create surprising and inventive combinations, scale shifts, and occasionally strong collisions of visual information. On average, work such as his computer sculpture NFT series, "Chaos," sells for approximately $100,000. A 3D model fusing an ice cube tray with a frozen steak sold for nearly $70,000. Do commercial considerations and trends make this art valuable beyond the original art? —Yao Zhuo

Nick Cave – Soundsuits

The Soundsuits series is Nick Cave's most famous work. Nick Cave produced the first soundsuits after Rodney King, a black man, was beaten by police in 1991. These soundsuits completely covered the human body, disguising the shape, gender, race and class of the wearer, thus forcing the viewer to watch without judgment. Nick Cave is inspired by African artistic traditions, armor, textiles, and stereotypical female objects. For example, a soundsuit made of African braids in the Guggenheim gallery. In addition, globes, cloth dolls, vintage rubber toys, plastic buttons, wires, feathers and sequins are among the materials he uses in his soundsuit. He uses these familiar objects to create an atmosphere where those objects are rearranged in such a way that represent material and social culture. Typically, soundsuits are presented as static sculptures. However, they can also be viewed through live performance, photography and video. Cave devises his own performances. He effectively connects static objects in museum spaces with human movement. Those soundsuits combine sculpture, fashion, and performance to connect the anxieties and divisions of our time with the inwardness of the body. Through his soundsuits, Cave not only reinvents mundane objects into something beautiful but also turns painful experiences into something hopeful. The main purpose is to use art to combat any form of discrimination. They also allow the viewer to notice the art and action of the person in the suit, rather than the social values. —Yao Zhuo

Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design

Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design is a new exhibit at the MoMA centered on the ways

tech and software designers make considerations for user input when designing for interactivity. The

exhibit contains a collection of game systems and interactive tech. Some monitors had been set up with

games inviting viewers to play for themselves.

   

As a fan of video games, I was initially excited to see the MoMA's exhibit on interactive design. The now 

tired debate over whether or not video games are art (they are) lead me to believe the exhibit might have 

something new and interesting to say about interactive media and how it can evoke certain emotions that 

other mediums cannot. However, the main thesis of the show was simply to highlight the complexities of 

interactive design from a designer's perspective. While insightful, it definitely felt like a shallow exploration 

of everything interactive design has to offer, especially when considering the recent advancements in 

interactive technology (VR, AR, AI, etc.) and what it means for our future. In fact, the exhibit seemed to 

brush off any philosophical, moral or ethical questions and accept the current trajectory of technology to be

 an inevitable given that we as humans must become privy to. Perhaps by making us aware of the 

relationships between users and designers, the exhibit aims to make its audience conscious of the 

dynamics and think more critically of interactive design going forward.

Xiao Hanqiu: Love Stories and Horror Stories

 Xiao Hanqiu: Love Stories and Horror Stories

My experience with Xiao Hanqiu’s work has been limited as this show was her first solo exhibition in the United States. Suffice to say this show left an impact and continues to help pave the way for other Chinese artists looking to break into the US gallery spaces and art markets. Hanqiu’s style is clean and crisp, simple yet elegant; a modern style of oil painting that draws influence from the masters of the past. These paintings operate in a similar way to her poetry, juxtaposing objects while placing them in simple yet evocative environments.  They read in a linear fashion eluding to a larger overall narrative for the show itself. Much like the title, the show speaks to love and intimacy while also subtly hinting at the absurd. Hanqiu is a true master in this regard, making the paintings bold while maintaining softness through her brush stroke as well as delicate depictions of the female form. The stark contrast from painting to painting is where this show really shines. In some of the pieces such as Lily of the valley and flying rose elegant female forms are portrayed while with Swan or what else do you think it is and Birthday party, she dives deeper into the world of the odd and absurd. This show brings the viewer in and pulls us out, yet is still able to leave us with a sense of fulfillment and resolution when we leave.

Katelyn Ledford : Pleased as Punch

 

Katelyn Ledford’s show Pleased as Punch is a delightfully ridiculous jaunt through all methods of painting creation. Her paintings combine trompe l’oeil, actual collaged objects, cartoonish drawing, glitter, fur, buttons, as well as countless other configurations to create what might be considered a material smorgasbord. These combined creations depict images of a sort of adolescent feminine dystopia, showcasing Images of squished baby dolls, burning doll houses, and pink chainlink. The mixture of unapologetically garish use of material and kitschy imagery make for funny, eye-catching work. 

To someone who shared a hilariously awkward girly adolescence, I find these works to almost embody a universal truth. I wonder if they are somewhat opaque for people who had a completely different experience of growing up, or if their imagery is enough to impart the specific  experience. I think movies and popular culture have oversaturated this sort of story,  of an angsty teenage girl’s inner world. I wonder if these works play into that television trope, perhaps even mocking it, or if what viewers respond to is an actual lived reality that these pieces memorialize.

 

Audrey Doyle 

Reynier Leyva Novo: Methuselah

Reynier Leyna Novo's Methuselah offers a unique opportunity to observe a single monarch butterfly on its journey migrating from Canada to Mexico. Methuselah is located in an expansive gallery space, with white, empty walls and a lofty ceiling. Viewers are invited to put on VR headsets to see and follow the virtual butterfly on its migration path throughout this space. The exhibit is supplemented with a website that follows the journey of this avatar in real time as well.  Methuselah raises questions about the security of borders, and relates to issues such as migration, climate change, and the importance of transnational cooperation.

Novo, a cuban artist based in Houston, Texas, creates work that challenges symbols of power and ideology, as well as the ability of the individual to create change in our society. His practice focuses on mining historical data and official documents that he transforms into conceptual and minimalist sculptures and multimedia installations. When creating Methuselah, Novo worked with team of butterfly experts, taxidermists, animators, computer modelers, and software designers in order to create a program that accurately replicates the the butterfly movements on its migration. 

The concept of Methuselah is compelling; the monarch butterfly is an intriguing metaphor for migration and cooperation. Additionally, the software and VR experience designed for this exhibit offers an unprecedented look into the life of the butterfly. On my visit, the butterfly was resting, hanging onto an invisible branch or plant as I circled around it to view it from all angles. It felt less like a minimalist symbol for all of these important issues and more accidental, like the avatar of the butterfly had glitched. It was underwhelming when the grandness of the gallery space seem to promise so much more. 

-Brittney Fang

Nick Cave – Soundsuits

The Soundsuits series is Nick Cave's most famous work. Nick Cave produced the first soundsuits after Rodney King, a black man, was beaten by police in 1991. These soundsuits completely covered the human body, disguising the shape, gender, race and class of the wearer, thus forcing the viewer to watch without judgment.

Nick Cave is inspired by African artistic traditions, armor, textiles, and stereotypical female objects. For example, a soundsuit made of African braids in the Guggenheim gallery. In addition, globes, cloth dolls, vintage rubber toys, plastic buttons, wires, feathers and sequins are among the materials he uses in his soundsuit. He uses these familiar objects to create an atmosphere where those objects are rearranged in such a way that represent material and social culture.

Typically, soundsuits are presented as static sculptures. However, they can also be viewed through live performance, photography and video. Cave devises his own performances. He effectively connects static objects in museum spaces with human movement. Those soundsuits combine sculpture, fashion, and performance to connect the anxieties and divisions of our time with the inwardness of the body. Through his soundsuits, Cave not only reinvents mundane objects into something beautiful but also turns painful experiences into something hopeful. The main purpose is to use art to combat any form of discrimination.  They also allow the viewer to notice the art and action of the person in the suit, rather than the social values.

—Yao Zhuo