2008-05-06
The Other Shoe
Alexander Boldizar
Art fairs can be exhausting. Not just city-sized biennales like Venice, but even
those that try to limit themselves to a couple of piers, like the New York Armory
show. When I wandered those two art-filled piers, I dressed for comfort: sneakers
and a VIP pass, so I could go sit in the VIP room, put my feet up and have a drink.
I'd never been in a room with quite that many gallery directors, art directors,
and other art middlemen. They were beautiful. They wore the latest styles from
Milan, from Paris, from that magical place with heroin-addict skinniness, bulk
discounts on the color black, and eyes so sensitive they require sunglasses indoors.
Except for me in my worn-out Nikes, everyone looked like they'd just walked off
a catwalk, swinging hair and thin molto Italo ties, networking while appearing merely to lounge loosely.
I wondered why art attracts fashionistas. They seem antithetical. To paraphrase
an artist I once reviewed, design is based on a completed pattern, however complex,
while art requires the breaking of the pattern in a meaningful way. And fashion
is design at its worst: It is deliberately and ostentatiously superficial. Its
whole infrastructure�fetishization, marketing, shopping�has been almost tiresomely
critiqued. Artists and theorists have made careers investigating the distance
between art and consumer culture, propaganda, or entertainment. Even artists who
shook up the lines between art and production, between installation and shop window�Neo
Geo guys like Ashley Bickerton, Jeff Koons, Haim Steinbach, and Hal Foster�had
ideas, good ideas, behind their work. They played between two areas. They weren't
simply abdicating to the merchants.
What I didn't know at the time, sitting in the Armory VIP room, was that my sneakers
had come a long way. In a culture where street kids ripped Mercedes logos off
the hoods of cars and wore them as necklaces�not as a critique, but as a way of
branding themselves�running shoes had themselves become a fashion statement, complete
with new models every season and one-offs: limited edition shoes that started
life as failed product lines and ended as the proudest, and most expensive, possessions
of urban youth. Meanwhile Niketown, the five-floor Nike museum with displays of
Michael Jordan's used shoes and an audio soundtrack of cheering fans, was the
most visited Chicago institution in the early 1990s.
Nike has had a lot of such firsts: the first basketball shoe to crack $100; the
first to star in a Hollywood movie (Do the Right Thing, by Spike Lee); the first footwear over which teenagers "rolled" each other;
and the first to become part of the uniform of a cult that committed mass suicide
in order to rendezvous with a spaceship hiding behind the comet Hale-Bopp. Together
with purple shroud and, um, death, the Heaven's Gate cult of Rancho Santa Fe,
California, believed the two-toned Nikes would wing their wearer beyond Hale-Bopp
and on to the stars. Nike had gone from the winged Greek goddess of victory (her
Roman equivalent is Victoria), to mass-market fetish, to sacred uniform.
Although this sort of sacralization of consumer goods is not unique to urban
modernity�in Malaysia the Temiar people believe sacred spirits come from watches
and motorcycles, in Mexico the Tzotzil elders meet to ceremonially drink Pepsi
in order to commune with God, and Melanesia has several cargo cults whose intricate
rituals ensure the arrival of plane loads of Western goods�what is different in
a case like Nike is the existence of a formidable marketing department to steer
the sacralization process, to maximize affective consumer devotion and quickly
deal with events that would desacralize the product. Caricatures of fetishization
like Heaven's Gate disappear, child and sweatshop labor problems fade quickly
from the media radar, and books like The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan, or the 2003 documentary based on it, have minimal impact on the
relevant demographic. On the other hand, Nike's slogan, "Just Do It," became one
of the top five ad slogans of the 20
th century, and the 1988 ad campaign that launched it has been enshrined in the
Smithsonian Institution.
...read more on C-Arts Magazine (ISSUE#03) read more in LIFESTYLE @ C-ARTS VOLUME-03
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HIGHLIGHTS
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2011-03-30
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Van Gogh Alive – the Exhibition set to open on 16 April 2011
Singapore (30 March 2011) In commemoration of Van Gogh’s birth date today, the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands announced that it will host the world touring premiere of Van Gogh Alive – the Exhibition. Visitors will get to experience Vincent Van Gogh’s art work come alive in an exhibition that will combine the latest in sound and projection technology using images of Van Gogh’s masterpieces.
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2011-01-05
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Works by Vincent Leow A mid-career survey of Vincent Leow’s oeuvre marking a new direction in the artistic practice of Leow,
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2011-01-05
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Organized by Hou Hanru in collaboration with ShContemporary 9th September, 2010
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2031-01-01
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An interesting exploration into art in Singapore by nineteen artists, including seniors like Tang Da Wu, Jimmy Ong and Zai Kuning “who have lived
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2010-10-06
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The installations of Java’s Machine: Phantasmagoria by Augustinus Kuswidananto (a.k.a. Jompet) have been shown in a number of variations, exploring syncretism or strategies to reconcile
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2010-10-06
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Filipino artist Bembol Dela Cruz presents the concept of art reflecting art, with an explosive narrative that carves life out
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2010-10-06
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Islamic art in Indonesia used to be associated with religious calligraphy only, but in 2009 Lawangwangi’s exhibition of Contemporary Islamic Art showed that calligraphy is just a form of language.
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SPONSORED
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EMERGING ARTIST
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 There is a new epidemic trend in the contemporary art of Asia sweeping through the population of younger artists: Animamix Art.
Amalia Kartika Sari
Each artist has a full right, and at the same time an obligation, to explore forms and ideas continuously, although naturally there will be many obstructions and challenges along the way.
Hayatudin
“A community is often proud of a certain building, viewing it with a sense of grandeur. Meanwhile, a range of monumental idioms are often used to mark great moments in history.
Edo Pillu
 From different generations and cultural backgrounds, S Teddy D and Daniel Flanagan present together their collaboration on Transubstantiation.
Daniel Flanagan
From different generations and cultural backgrounds, S Teddy D and Daniel Flanagan present together their collaboration on Transubstantiation.
S Teddy D
 Not unlike other Filipino-Americans who journey to the Philippines to learn more about their roots, Hanna Pettyjohn undertook such a passage in reverse.
Hanna Pettyjohn
I do not wish to become a president, professor, doctor, governor, celebrity, corruptor, politic expert or anything else.
Nyoman Darya
Solo Exhibition:
1998 Urban Personality Exhibition, Chongqing, China
2001 Hangzhou Jincai Gallery
He Wei-Na
 Ong-Arj’s painting has point out thoroughly content in a society condition today. Even it express through looks weird human image.
Ong-Arj Loeamornpagsin
 Fazar paints with his heart. He believes that his interpretation is like “worship”. Any composition existing in his painting is his effort of concretizing what he feels.
Fajar Roma Agung Wibisono
 With great imagination, he has been using a very unique artistic language to express his very much primitive and strong emotion on the surrounding characters.
Yang Pei Jiang
 In Ardana’s works garlic becomes most artistic in various ways it is rendered whether it is presented individually or in groups of bulbs, cut open, blown up, its thin and transparent layers peeled, as well as severed and torn.
Dewa Ngakan Ardana
Filippo Amato Sciascia (born at Palma, Di Montechiaro, Italy, 1972) will present his solo exhibition of his recent works titled Lux Lumina at Kendra Gallery of Contemporary Art from the 12th December 2009 – 14th January 2010.
Lux Lumina
 Hui Xin’s art addresses both the phenomenon of our constant need for visual stimuli, as well as our desire to be surrounded by objects that give us pleasure. His new paintings and sculptures bring out a dichotomy between naive happiness and adult-themed amusements.
Hui Xin
Since childhood, Nano has enjoyed reading comics, even producing his own comic book in junior high school. Comics became the first visual art Nano came to know.
Nano Warsono
2002:"Ilusi Koran", Semarang Gallery, Semarang. "Transisi", Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta.
Budi Ubrux
 Selected Solo Exhibition
2005:“Paradoks Batas”, Edwin Galeri, Jakarta. 2003: “Painthink”, Edwin Galeri, Jakarta.
F. Sigit Santoso
 He got The Special Award From The 25th Exhibition of Contemporary art in 2008 and winner Prize from 11th Panasonic Contemporary Painting Competition when he postgraduate.
Chalermpon Ratanakomonwat
 The inspiration behind his recent paintings came in 2005 while he was observing his second child was a son. People say that when babies sleep they are guarded by angels. This common experience evoked a wave of questions: Was the baby dreaming? What was he dreaming about? What was he feeling?
WAHYU GEIYONK
 “Many artists like to ponder on the past and the present through the history of human civilization,” says young artist Wang Mian. “With pieces of information and inspiration they
WANG MIAN
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