The process of turning a jumble of fonts into an animal (see illustration) was the starting point for the artist’s exploration of typography as a way to “make the world a better place” by writing a book about love.  This before-and-after illustration will give graphic designers as well as laypersons insights into how the author’s interest in language and alphabets became transformed into a book.

In Animals Spell Love, Cundy uses a novel approach to promoting discovery and appreciation of foreign languages by shaping animals out of letterforms which spell the word “love” or the phrase “I love you.”  Cundy features sixteen different languages from Czech to Amharic to Korean.

His exploration of the features of Amharic, for example, which has 231 letterforms (see image) was especially challenging, yet every one of them is shown on the spotted leopard, whose nose is heart-shaped.  Looking for hearts, which can be found in each animal vignette, encourages the reader’s playfulness, adding value to the puzzles and “word pictures” to elevate this picture book’s universal appeal.

Photo credit: Gabriella Radujko. "Trunk to Trunklet" Illustrator: Mandana Sadat; Author: Jorge Luján; Medium: ink, collage, digital; Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

The illustrations found in children’s picture books are the subject of the annual exhibition of The Original Art, no doubt so named because it describes not only the exhibition of original artwork but also the first art a child sees. Cross referencing illustrations from 132 picture books with copies of the corresponding books in metal racks in the center of the first floor gallery at the Society of Illustrators, through December 2016, makes for a unique, interactive experience.

The show is a testament to how adults and children long to be in the presence of special things. Visitors will invariably wonder why our regard for this art form, groundbreaking when it first appeared in the early 20^th Century, perennially persists beyond childhood, with great affection and sentimentality.

Picture books appear to be quite powerful, physically connecting us to the real world as much as imaginary ones through visual literacy.  They synthesize emotions, organize information and give young and young adult readers the courage they need to handle their ever-changing lives.  At the same time, they remind us of art’s role in our early lives as children.

In The Story of Mankind, artist/illustrator Hendrik Willem van Loon writes that the first five years of a child’s life are mainly devoted to art, with music, in the form of cooing, as his/her first contribution.  Later, mud-pies become sculpture, with painting following with the use of chalk, paint and paper in exploration of the basic elements of shape which include the dot and circle family and the line family.

The role of art and the corresponding behavior of art making in human life, as described by scholar Ellen Dissanayake in Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why reaches even further back in human history when we “began deliberately to set out to make things special or extraordinary.” Dissanayake suggests that “making special” actually contributed to our survival as a species.

She also describes how art and ritual have much in common.  Both, she claims, are compelling, capturing and holding our attention; both affect us emotionally, bringing feelings into awareness.  They are deliberately nonordinary, stylized and “bracketed off” from real life.

Also, the activities of embellishing, patterning, juxtaposing, shaping and transforming while making art, which are described as part of her provocative argument, are very much on display in the stunning range of media and techniques used by the show’s artists.  These include acrylic and oil on paper, scratchboard and watercolor, watercolor and digital, gouache, pen-and-ink, collage, mixed-media, cut paper, etc., in a coherently curated show with a full color catalog.

Suggestions that we begin our lives as artists and grow up to “make special” to enhance our lives may be two important clues as to why a show about children’s book illustration will reward anyone who continues to appreciate the magic of  children’s picture books.

West Village, NYC, courtesy of Zachary Mason, www.ocrazyshaman.com.

Upon Reflection, Zachary Mason’s first New York City solo show, is the aptly named
photographic travelogue currently showing at the Decoy Workspace through January
20, 2016. Most striking is a nude self-portrait set in Central Park at night, framed by a
jogging path beside the Onassis Reservoir, an arching tree in the foreground creating its
sense of depth. An incandescent city looms in the background, reflected in the lake.
Mason redirects the viewer’s attention from cityscape to his eerie physical beauty,
capturing the wildness in him. Tall, trim, but muscled, the 26-year old artist has the
carriage of satyr.

As we see him leaning on the fence surrounding the water reflecting the city, he is a
young man at odds with the city. He is embracing it, yet is simultaneously totally out of
place. The victory over the commercialized metropolis, nonetheless, is his.
Enormously triumphant, the image if of a young man embracing Central Park while
completely ignoring decorum in a city populated by millions. His distinctive youthful
hopefulness, born of another, less tame locale, is unabashed.

Mason pays tribute to 1950’s photographer Vivian Maier throughout the show. Maier
created a series of self- portraits in black and white, most of which incorporated her
reflection, be it in a mirror at a yard sale or the glass window of a train car, to great critic
acclaim. Borrowing many of the same techniques, Mason brings them into a modern
world, in color.

There is a sense that we are witnessing a young artist whose gifted eye is becoming
aligned with an enlighted mind. All of the images in this show use reflection, some of
which, like those of Lincoln Center, a building in Soho, and one of the Mumbai Airport
demonstrate great appreciation for the line and architectural design. There are
numerous stunning landscapes including a star-filled night sky behind mountains
reflected in a lake in Moab, Utah and a skyline of Manhattan at dusk reflected in the
Onassis Reservoir. Viewers not be personally connected to these landscapes might
experience little emotional connection to them.

Mr. Mason’s work engages viewers most is when he takes his lead from Maier,
capturing the world with his reflection in it. There we see a young photographer at a
point of change, in an ever-changing world, striving to find a place for his being. We see
this in the wonderful image taken from behind a bus driver in Sir Lanka, the viewer
sharing his view point as he looks at himself in a rear view mirror and through the
dashboard window to a world that seems so far away but promises adventure to; a very
sophisticated image of a man sitting by himself in a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan,
taken through the store’s glass reflecting women strolling down the street; and paying
homage to Maier again, where the artist holds a camera as he takes a shot through
glass in the West Village. We see the colorful city reflected there, women and men
going about their busy lives, ivy growing up a red brick wall, and the photographer
finding his focus as he begins to see how he connects with others in the world.

Zachary Mason’s Upon Reflection opened at Decoy Workspace, a part-gallery, part-workshop hosting weekly events for the border-community intersection of the Upper East Side and East Harlem. It’s located on 1261 Park Ave; New York, NY 10029. The show run January 7, 2016-January 20, 2016.

Edited by Gabriella Radujko

“The Red Studio,” Joan Snitzer’s wall installation at A.I.R. Gallery inserts the artist’s studio into the gallery space, calling for an investigation of the nature of both private space and exhibition space. The title “The Red Studio” comes from Henri Matisse’s influential painting created over a century ago. Snitzer’s installation moves Matisse’s concept into another dimension, transforming flattened space into a dynamic gridded room. The installation itself is made up of painted canvases and familiar, quotidian objects found in an artist’s studio. The viewer becomes a subject within an artist’s studio, immersed in a recognizable yet novel world.

There is no single viewing point. The relationship between the objects and the canvases creates the dialogue. Each object is meticulously placed, building a rhythmic optical experience, which is specific to the gallery setting. Even though the objects are commonplace, the effect is that the viewer becomes a witness to the very act of seeing. Snitzer successfully references Matisse’s painting while bringing it to life in a contemporary way. Snitzer’s self-reflexive clarity coupled with her whimsical aesthetic eye make for a profoundly unique and well-curated installation.

Arto Lindsay "untitled" (colored filters) 2013. Image courtesy South China Morning Post

They say Hong Kong is a cultural desert, a city that only welcomes commercial high-brow art. Though I don’t completely disagree, that cliche is slowly  disappearing and for a performance curator coming from New York’s vibrant art scene, it is exciting to break through new grounds. I wouldn’t have missed the chance to create a massive public art project– an Art Basel commission, for the launch of its inaugural edition in Hong Kong. When I was asked to produce such an event, it seemed just a perfect fit, perhaps even a dream project, as I’ve been an admirer of the progressiveness of its cultural programming (think Basel Miami’s Oceanfront Nights and Art Parcours), and an excuse for me to work with many talented artists and performers all at once.

Cedric Maridet at Art Basel Hong Kong

Cedric Maridet "Messages from the Outer World" 2013, with CU Choir (image courtesy Art Basel)

Nadim Abbas: Barricades 2013

Heague Yang "Sonicwears" 2013. Kung Chi Shing performing solo.

Angela Su "Une Charogne" 2013

Alice Ma Dance Group

Kung Chi Shing

Otomo Yoshihide

Shane Aspegren (Parade soundtrack compositions with Arto Lindsay)

Otomo Yoshihide (left), Filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and artist Ming Wong (right) courtesy Art Forum

Kira Nam Greene’s first solo exhibition at Accola Griefen gallery consists of mixed media paintings, drawings, and collages that combine the seemingly disparate elements of food and patterning to create hyper-real domestic spaces. Working with a wide range of materials, including watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, linocut, modeling clay, stencil, rhinestones, and ink, Greene’s artworks are as much influenced by 17th century Dutch Vanitas painting as by the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s. Greene’s mastery of rendering techniques and utilization of slippery shifts in perspective come together to create scenes that are at once familiar and unsettling, beautiful and grotesque.

In the paintings Happiness is Just a Bowl of Cherries, Royal Jello, and Kimchi Joy, the food items named in the titles of each piece are rendered in exquisite, exacting detail, each referencing the corporeality of the body. The foreground patterning recedes and advances around the food-objects, and in the case of Cherries, is reflected in the bowl the cherries are sitting in, adding an exquisite weight to the rendering of the ceramic. In Royal Jello, the gelatin mold has become an organ, pulsating as the foreground patterning refracts through its gelatinous blob. The kimchi in Kimchi is depicted so fleshily, that it is almost repulsive – it looks like it might be made of skin.

Greene’s largest piece in the exhibition, Peanut Butter, Saba & Ketchup, mixes a huge range of patterning – an Ikea tablecloth, Chinese silk brocade, Japanese Noh prints, and Persian and Italian tiles, to name a few – with a hodgepodge of food from different cultures. While the ketchup, cans of tuna, and Skippy peanut butter are clearly from the present day, Green also includes a pair of hanging pheasants, a bowl of fish heads, and peeled lemons – overt references to vanitas paintings, in particular “Still Life with Lemons” by Pieter Claesz. The combination of Western and Eastern sources in terms of both foodstuffs and patterning, combined with a refusal of straight perspective, makes for a sophisticated meditation on the nature of consumption. The references to vanitas paintings combined with the corporeal quality of the renderings clearly point to questions about our own mortality.

Kira Nam Greene
“Blue Plate Special”
Accola Griefen Gallery
547 West 27th st.  #634
April 11 – May 18, 2013

Han Bing and friends, Art Basel, Miami, 2006/photographer unknown

I wrote my first poem after participating in poetry as a “good audience member” by attending the performances of  friends who were poets.  I was sharpening my ear for a style of poetry writing I prefer–work written to be performed rather than for the page. In celebration of National Poetry Month for this month’s Artcards Review,  I returned to earlier work which was inspired by interdisciplinary approaches to life, living, and learning–Expatriate Recommends Diaspora and the accompanying photograph is the result of those forces–transcribing an interview about its subject, Anthony Xavier Edwards, for artist Nathalie Latham, whom I met at Paris Photo in 2006 formed the content for the poem.  Later that year, I arrived at Art Basel, Miami, met artist Han Bing and his wife Maya Kovskaya (right of Han) pictured above, learned about his performance piece which become part of the movement “walking the cabbage”, and also learned of their friendship with Nathalie.  Poetry creates community and rewards minds with the imagination to see that everything signifies and that everything connects.

Expatriate Recommends Diaspora

Now Tony, dear, what do you call yourself?

Enthused, confused, stunned, besotted…and a designer

Anthony Xavier Edwards, unlikely fashion star, moves to Shanghai from down under

Ensconced to the Bund by postage stamp, envelope sealed by Yves Saint Laurent

Tony loved his Australia, then left it

~~~

Do it, but, where? Do it, but, where?

Pack the tuxedo, treat the crème one with care

Ooze north with glamour, oh aren’t you fab

Design a restaurant? Sure, take a stab

Line China with cashmere

Your office with mirrors

Find the modern in the erhu

Minus the tears

Press the chairman for his email

You want to scatter your seeds

Feng shui for the Wall

Will it include beads?

First, headline failures

Think turbine engine tour

You wanted appreciation

Damn Australia, it’s a bore

Next, wool deal goes awry

Valise emptied of money

Stripped to your tee

Terribly unfunny

Soon there were scarves for Hillary

the dressing of Chinese King Tuts

Costumes for the orchestra

lace and tailoring and fine hautes

~~~

It ended all “prêt-a-porter”

“Nothing’s better than you” he’d say

and “That’s not ego

but confidence

I pray”

Photo:  Gabriella Radujko; reproduction of content on retired Edward Ruscha business card

There is no School of Edward Ruscha, but if there were, prerequisites would include an embrace of ambiguity and the spirit world–its students paraphrasing quotes such as these from his recent talk with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library on March 6, 2013:

I have a deep need to make a book.

It doesn’t matter what it is about.

The idea for a book comes first.

As book artist, Ruscha challenged his interviewer and the audience.  There was puzzlement among the literati, perhaps, because as book readers, according to  Walter J. Ong, we humans are so literate that it is “difficult for us to conceive of an oral universe of communication or thought except as a variant of a literate universe”.

Ruscha’s practice, an alternate universe, is more rooted in oral communication than literacy and inspired by “a spirit that jumps”.  Think leaping flames.  It is no wonder that Ruscha is fascinated by fire or that he suggests that time for reading Holdengräber’s list of books selected with him in mind might only be possible “in another life”.

Thus was born Twentysix Gasoline Stations, his first artist’s book, published in 1963 in black and white and so named, for what exactly?  “Critics want to know; what is it?” inquires Holdengräber, with emphasis on the “is”, so that it sounds like “tis it?”  “What tis it?” Ruscha, of course, won’t tell what it refers to, only what it doesn’t.  It is not a reference to the 26 letters in the alphabet.  It is not a reference to the 26 rides (each way) hitchhiking to Florida from Oklahoma City and back again.

“There is no agenda with gas stations, says Ruscha.  The title came first and then needed to be carried through.  Art needs to be something that makes your scratch your head.  Ambiguity is a good thing.  Art needs to be wide open”.

“Ed Ruscha Books & Co.”, March 5-April 27, 2013 at Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, NY will coincide with the publication of MIT Press’s Various Small Books: Referencing Small Books by Ed Ruscha (2013) which documents ninety-one of the books inspired by Ruscha’s own, reproducing covers and sample layouts from each, along with a detailed description.

In a city made quiet due to power outages south of the thirties, it was an interesting choice to have sought out films exploring noise.  “A Cinema of Industrial Noise”, a series of four films shown at MOMA on Halloween included the twelve minute, 1929 film, NYC Street Scenes and Noises, which slowed time down so appreciably, it seemed twice as long.

Capturing a time nearly two decades after Alfred Stieglitz’s moody, genre photographs of the city before ubiquitous skyscrapers, satellites and metered parking, the short film included long gone street scenes where trolleys mingled with horse-drawn carts and the masculine activities of the strangely named Noise Abatement Commission.

Cruising the streets of New York’s Times Square and Radio Row, now part of the World Trade Center site, by van, men in hat and coat took concerns about auditory health, which we continue to abuse, to the streets, filming men, like themselves in hat and coat, while coaxing them to listen and learn about the deleterious effects of the noise pollution surrounding them.

Using the warbling test tone as a tool of measurement, the commission alerted their audiences that street noise was depriving them of 42% of their hearing.  Fast forward 80 or so years from now; films will no doubt document the abuse of our ears, albeit a self-induced variety.  It will hardly matter that we did it fashionably.

Symphonie Mécanique, a thirteen minute, 1955 film by Jean Mitry, described as  “an abstract ballet of industrial images and sounds”, accompanied by Pierre Boulez’s1950’s “musique-concrète arrangements “ was a kaleidoscope of black and white triptychs with a predictable, unimaginative sound-track to 21st century ears, but one representative of the composer’s “motive behind all his work”, according to writer Calvin Tomkins–”the search for anonymity”.

Crisp footage of mass production as it approached the final stages–newspapers, thread, bottles, cigarettes, madeleines—seconds before being folded, wrapped, corked, wrapped or molded celebrated the efficiencies of  the modern industrial world with none of the social commentary found in Chaplin’s Modern Times released twenty years earlier.

Leave it to Dr. Seuss to find humanism in the machinery of modernity.  Gerald McBoing Boing, an Academy-Award winning film directed by Robert Cannon, based on a Seuss story of the same name, tracks the rise to celebrity of a little boy who speaks no words–rather, he speaks in sound affects.  In seven short minutes, retro graphics and illustrations capture the 1950’s stylistically.  As to the materialism of the era, ”Now Gerald is rich, he has friends, he’s well fed,  ’cause he doesn’t speak words, he goes boing boing instead!”

As collage, the film series charms until Punking Out, the 1978 film directed by Maggi Carson, Juliusz Kossakowski and Fredric A. Shore, disturbingly defends the exposure to potential NIHL (noise-induced hearing loss) at CBGB (Country, BlueGrass, and Blues) with Hilly Kristal’s defense, “Violence starts when people can communicate”.

photo credit:  Christian Jankowski “Review/Waterproof Test” East River NY 2012 from Discourse News, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, New York