Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev , was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York 's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
Ocula Insight Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy. Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was born in Basco, Batanes, Philippines. Her more-than-thirty-year painting career began when she journeyed to the United States to undertake graduate studies. Abad studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and The Art Students League in New York City. She lived on 5 different continents and worked in more than 80 countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, India, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Indonesia.
Read MoreHer early paintings were primarily figurative socio-political works of people and primitive masks. Another series was large scale paintings of underwater scenes, tropical flowers and animal wildlife. Pacita's most extensive body of work, however, is her vibrant, colorful abstract work - many very large scale canvases, but also a number of small collages - on a range of materials from canvas and paper to bark cloth, metal, ceramics and glass. Abad created over 4,000 artworks. She painted a 55-meter long Alkaff Bridge in Singapore and covered it with 2,350 multicolored circles.
Abad developed a technique of trapunto painting (named after a quilting technique), which entailed stitching and stuffing her painted canvases to give them a three-dimensional, sculptural effect. She then began incorporating into the surface of her paintings materials such as traditional cloth, mirrors, beads, shells, plastic buttons and other objects.
Ocula Insight Small, circular mirrors glint from rings of colour—green, dark green, and pale pink from inside out—while sprightly brushstrokes of red, yellow, and green acrylic paint compose the background. This painted collage, titled Stained Glass (2000), is the work of the late Pacita Abad; it was donated by the artist's estate for Asia Art...
Ocula Conversation Joselina Cruz Since 2011, Joselina Cruz has been the director and curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Manila, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2018 with a series of programmes and special exhibitions, starting with Flatlands (7 December 2017–4 March 2018). A group show with James...
Related Press A MILLION THINGS TO SAY: PACITA ABAD ArtAsiaPacific : 4 July 2018 Walking through the glass doors of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) in downtown Manila, one is immediately greeted by the domineering faces of Pacita Abad's Bacongo VI (1986) and European Mask (1990)—each measuring two and a half metres tall—composed of zig-zagging geometric shapes in orange, bright yellow, jade...
Related Press Highlights from the seventh edition of Art Stage Singapore The National : 18 January 2017 ‘Contemporary art is not a decoration, it is a statement. It is a wonderful seismograph of our societies and realities.' These words were part of the opening speech given last week by founder Lorenzo Rudolf at the seventh edition of Art Stage Singapore in the South-east Asian island city. Rudolf, from Switzerland, has made it his mission to...
