Ocula Report ‘An Opera for Animals’ at Rockbund Art Museum 19 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula An Opera for Animals was first staged at Para Site in Hong Kong between 23 March and 2 June 2019, with works by over 48 artists and collectives that use opera as a metaphor for modes of contemporary, cross-disciplinary art-making. The exhibition's second iteration takes up a large portion of the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai (22 June–25...
Ocula Conversation Zoe Butt on the Challenges and Rewards of Curating Zoe Butt is the artistic director of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, the first purpose-built space for contemporary art in Vietnam. Founded in March 2016, the Centre was designed by HTAP Architects in an old steel warehouse, with cargo shipping containers added to its structure. Initiated as a social enterprise...
Ocula Report Ocula 报告｜Condo Shanghai 2019 展览看点 11 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula 即将于2019年7月13开幕的第二届 Condo Shanghai，联合上海7座画廊/艺术机构与14 家来自全球11个不同的城市，如东京、首尔、雅加达、巴尔的摩、洛杉矶、伦敦、纽约、危地马拉城、利马和墨西哥城，为实验性展览营造了一个更切实可行的国际环境。以下是Ocula的展览看点。周奥，《景观/对象WA》（2016）。橡木上固化油墨打印，左: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，中: 121.92 × 152.4 cm，右: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，图片提供：马凌画廊，上海。马凌画廊 × 80m2 Livia Benavides × LABOR × Proyectos Ultravioleta马凌画廊 |...
The artist and writer Harland Miller (born 1964) is known for his large-scale, playful reworkings of Penguin book covers. Miller takes much-loved book jackets of classic works by Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe and others as his starting point. By rendering them in oils at poster size with quirky new titles, he transforms them into contemporary, often satirical commentaries on life and literature. Whether ironic, nostalgic, or downright cheeky – Dirty Northern Bastard, by DH Lawrence, or I'm so Fucking Hard, by Hemmingway – the titles demythologise and amuse in equal measure.
Harland Miller is attracted to books as objects – the more battered, stained and lived in the better. 'I remember my parents' Penguin books. For me, they are about nostalgia for a by-gone era – that musty smell, those coffee-mug rings, the often heart-breaking inscriptions on the inside cover.'
Miller has lived and worked in New York, Berlin, Paris and London. Born in the North of England in 1964, Miller's fondness for the drizzle and grimness of those northern towns remains a strong theme in his work. 'I suppose mine is a very English sense of humour,' he says.
In this rare display of his watercolours and drawings, Miller's Penguin covers are closer to still life studies, rather than two-dimensional posters. Experimenting with different paper sizes and angles, he occasionally shows their spines, and the shadows they cast. It is a celebration of books as treasured objects. His drawings – in particular his studies for his large-scale oil paintings with their notes scribbled down the margins – are some of his most intimate works to date.
Group exhibitions include Fools Rain, ICA, London, 1996, Direct Painting, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, 2004, Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005, 2006, and The Sculpture in the Close, Jesus College, Cambridge, 2013. Solo exhibitions include Don't Let the Bastards Cheer You Up, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2009, The Next Life's On Me, White Cube Hoxton Square, London, 2012, Wherever You Are Whatever You're Doing This One's For You, Reflex Amsterdam, NL, 2013, and Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can't Be There), Blain|Southern Berlin, DE, 2016.
Related Video & Audio The Making of Harland Miller's print The Me I Never Knew Other Criteria : 24 July 2015 Harland Miller's works switch between being sardonic, hilarious and nostalgic as his own phrases replace the original titles of Penguin books.
