Ric's adventures in Art Basel, Day 3: Art Asia & Scope Miami
This has hit the point of bragging already. "Look at all the cool stuff I've seen!"
Well, this is an exemplary moment of something that Art Basel brings to Miami that normally we would have had no exposure to: Art Asia & Scope Miami. These two tents were stuck together and inside had over 100 gallery booths. Art Asia focused mainly on, you guessed it, Art from Asia, while Scope Miami was focused on contemporary art in general.
I can keep gushing over what I saw or you can just enjoy the pictures. I'll put notes where necessary, but truthfully I didn't get too many names of artists or names of the pieces. There just wasn't enough time and I really wanted to enjoy as much of it as I could.
Something that stood out to me were all these little porcelain sculptures that were all over the place (I took pictures of a lot of different pieces). But the following two particularly stood out:
Those two and the pig statue below all were part of the Contemporary by Angela Li collection, based out of Hong Kong. I got into a very interesting political conversation with Angeli Li based on the art pieces.
The first sculpture is of a Buddhist Monk who looks more businessman than Monk; wearing Nike sneakers and a slick pair of sunglasses. The other is of a slutty looking girl.
I was commenting how I really liked the statues and how they reminded me of Dunny's and Munny's, which (at least in my head) appear to be inspired by Japanime. It got us talking about Japanese Culture and how on the one hand they are incredibly reserved culturally but their expressions get released in very interesting ways, like the odd kinds of Cultural Fashion Subgenre's that are found all over Japan (like Harajuku and Ganguro).
I asked her how that compared to Hong Kong, and she told me that Hong Kong was more closely related to British culture than the other Asian countries.
But I was truly fascinated when I asked her about how Hong Kong's culture was changing since Britain turned them over to China in 1997. I had been noting how several Chinese art pieces regarding Chairman Mao and Chinese Soldiers portrayed them in a way to make them look "cute", an interesting commentary on a mass murder and tools of an intolerant state.
Ms. Li told me that she had definitely noticed that the media was starting to self-censor itself because the owners of the media groups usually had businesses that interacted with mainland China, so they wanted to appease the cultural suppression of the Chinese Communists. Also, she said that the overall Chinese culture was base. Since the Cultural Revolution of the 1950's, most Chinese people had poor manners and were extremely crass, which was what several of the pieces were reflecting.
Actually, on the whole, I felt the majority of the Asian pieces were making huge cultural statements rather than artistic statements.
That's it for the Art Asia pieces. From this point forward the pieces are all from Scope Miami. Honestly, I much preferred the Art Asia pieces, but Scope was still fascinating also.
- I think these pieces were actually part of Art Asia, but they were in an area between the two sections. I find the faces so condescending. Bowing "out of respect", with a totaly condescending look on their faces.
- This picture does not do this sculpture justice at all. There was another piece like this one in Art Basel, but much larger. Whoever does this style has created the absolute most realistic looking sculptures I have ever seen, but they are just slightly skewed so the people look almost horrific.
- This was actually a loop of film that of a girl trying to escape out of the box. What was unique was that the box was real and posted ontop of the screen while the woman virtually was trying to escape from it. An interesting mix of medium.
- I loved this sculpture because Pre-Columbian Mexican History is one of my favorite time periods. This recreation of the Aztec Sun Stone incorporated elements from modern Mexican culture like a bottle of beer, pills and drugs, an Old English style letter "E" that gangs use in their tattoos, and several other derogatory images. Interesting cultural commentary.
If You Enjoyed This Post, You May Also Like:
- Just a few days in Miami: Art Basel '08
- Ric's adventures in Art Basel - Day 1
- Gerry Stecca: Untitled
- Allison's Art Basel Reflections Parts 3, 4 and 5
- Ric's adventures in Art Basel - Day 2: Art Basel on Miami Beach (Day) & Wynwood Art District (Night)
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