Ocula Report LACMA Explores the Allure of Matter 14 Jun 2019 : Jareh Das for Ocula The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2 June 2019–5 January 2020) is an inter-generational show of 21 Chinese artists working from the 1980s to the present, including Ai Weiwei, Cai Guo-Qiang, Lin Tianmiao, Song Dong, He Xiangyu, Yin Xiuzhen, and Ma Qiusha.Staged on Level 2 of LACMA's Renzo...
Ocula Conversation Thomas J Price: Reframing Classical Sculpture When the London-born artist Thomas J Price graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Arts in 2004, the school's college art prize was by no means his most notable accomplishment as an emerging artist. In 2001, Price presented his much-talked-about work Licked, a daring performance, later profiled on the BBC 4 television...
Ocula Report Art Basel Lowdown: Shows to See 6 Jun 2019 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula To coincide with Art Basel 2019, which opens to the public from 13 to 16 June, galleries and institutions across the city are presenting a range of stellar exhibitions. From Rebecca Horn at Museum Tinguely to Geumhyung Jeong at Kunsthalle Basel, here is a selection of what to see.William Kentridge, Dead Remus (2014–2016). Charcoal on found ledger...
Ashley Bickerton completed studies at the California Institute of the Arts in 1982 before attending the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. Bickerton is known as one of the original members of the group of artists known as Neo-Geo, which also included artists such as Peter Halley and Meyer Vaisman.
Bickerton’s works are a combination of found objects, photographs, and painting. His works are colourful and figurative, yet with often grotesque connotations. His practice involves painting the bodies of his subjects then taking photographs which he manipulates in order to create his uncanny caricatures with disproportionate and unsettling features. Bickerton provides a dystopian view of humanity through his portraits of grotesque figures. His infamous ‘blue-man,’ often a self-portrait, is representative of the 20th century man who, in Bickerton’s works, is both a family man and a manic drug fiend.
Pieces produced during Bickerton’s time as an artist-in-residence at the STPI in 2006 have an almost nightmarish quality with monstrous-looking heads peering out from beneath the surface of water surrounded by debris. Bickerton’s move from New York to Bali in the 1990’s is a clear influence in his work. The frames of Bickerton’s works are made up of materials bought by the artist in Bali and recall Indonesian craft making.
Bickerton’s works are held in many international public collections including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate, London; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Berardo Collection Museum, Portugal; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Ocula Insight James Page on Yogyakarta Art Lab By Elliat Albrecht Initiated by Singapore-based Gajah Gallery in 2012, Yogyakarta Art Lab (YAL) is a foundry and production house located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. With a small staff expertly trained in a variety of metal production techniques, the lab's purpose is to engage international artists to experiment with new mediums in order to expand their practices....
Ocula Insight Ashley Bickerton 16 December 2015 In this Ocula Insight, Ashley Bickerton—who has lived in Bali for the last 22 years, but who came to the forefront of the art world as a central figure in New York’s vital East Village scene of the 1980s—discusses his work, and in particular how it has been influenced by both Bali and his time spent working at the Yogya Art...
Ocula Conversation Jasdeep Sandhu Founder, Gajah Gallery, Singapore In 1996, Jasdeep Sandhu established Gajah Gallery in Singapore with the purpose of promoting Southeast Asian Contemporary Art with an emphasis on Indonesian contemporary art. Now twenty years on the gallery is about to expand into a 6,000 square foot space in Tanjong Pagar Distripark in Singapore, and also recently opened a second exhibition...
Ocula Conversation Ashley Bickerton Artist, Bali In conversation with Ashley Bickerton he references David Ostrowski as a painter he follows. The reference is surprising as a type of erasure and emptiness often defines Ostrowski’s practice – a recent work shown at Simon Lee gallery featured just a spray of colour across the bottom of an otherwise white canvas. Bickerton’s...
Related Press Ashley Bickerton: Direct, enigmatic and in constant pursuit of profitable alienation... ArtReview : 1 July 2017 Boom! That's how Ornamental Hysteria, Ashley Bickerton's current exhibition at Damien Hirst's Newport Street Gallery, opens—with a box sporting an ominous red LED number-counter bolted to the wall. It's the kind of thing you can imagine the late Roger Moore briefly interrupting a moment of passion to rush and defuse during his 1970s/early-80s...
Related Press Where are they now? Tracking the Neo-geometric Conceptualists. LEAP Magazine : 4 April 2016 We live in a state of the perpetual present. With the revolving door of exhibitions in more and more venues, commercial and scholarly alike, thousands of artists appear on a relatively flat plane of aesthetics. This is good for a lot of things—fair art criticism among them—but it tends to hurt our understanding, as viewers, of where the...
Related Press Mutant Mystique—The STPI network Randian : 22 January 2016 Randian is in Singapore for Art Stage. As part of our coverage we are visiting a number of the institutions and galleries contributing to the emerging Singaporean and South East Asian art scene. In this article, we turn to Singapore’s STPIIf New York’s alter ego is Gotham City, then Singapore’s is more like a figment of...
Related Press Singapore Tyler Print Institute At Art Basel Miami Beach Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop for Artinfo / 03 December 2013 : 5 December 2013 For its first participation in Art Basel Miami Beach, the Singapore Tyler Print Institute is bringing a mix of Asian and international artists who have worked with its print workshop in the hope of appealing to a new American clientele.“It’s a good opportunity to present works by Asian artists to a new audience and our highlights...
