Daniel Oshima: I Wish Daniel Was My Bf

(Image taken from Kristen Peterson's article) Daniel Oshima in his installation currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery


Daniel Oshima: I Wish Daniel Was My Bf
Installation currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery, 520 E. Fremont St.
April 14th through May 4th 2012
With opening and closing performance/talks on April 14th and May 4th

     Currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery, located within the Emergency Arts, is an installation by local artist Daniel Oshima. Oshima has taken his own bedroom and installed it within the 5th Wall Gallery space, to create an intimate viewing dynamic for his I Wish Daniel Was My Bf. Over the past almost two years, Oshima has been studying a fellow by the name of Daniel Jimenez while translating his occurences into artwork. When walking into the gallery the viewer is stepping into a room that looks as if it has been inhibited; there is carpet on the floor, a curtain over the second exit, a bed in the center, a television set, two little ice cream cone lamps and even a laundry basket behind the door with what is hopefully filled with clean clothes. The room is empty of the artist and his subject Daniel, so it gives the viewer the opportunity to voyeuristically peer into the worlds of both. There is an overwhelming sense of obsession, Daniel Jimenez's face is almost everywhere; portraits are hung on the wall, scattered on the bed and strewn under and beside the television. On the television set there is a constant loop of what Oshima refers to as the gaze, the serendipitous moment when you lock eyes with a person from across the room, furthering heightening the sense of yearning and obsession. When entering the gallery, the viewer is in the exact atmosphere that the fantastical world of Daniel Jimenez being Daniel Oshima's boyfriend; it does not take place in reality outside of this space, but for the time being it does within the context of the gallery.

    The repetitive quantity of the portraits mixed with the differences in line quality seem to heighten a sense of emotionality to them, they were done by the same hand but with a different emotional urgency each time. The portraits liken themselves to a teenage girl constantly writing down her first name with the last name of a boy that she adores, writing it down seems to expand the fantasy of the epic romance with the other person and further perpetuates the fatuation with the love. Walking in, there is a sense of familiarity with both the space (that being a bedroom, easily recognizable as such) and the subject matter ( an endless fixation on the possibility of love with another), but in contrast there is an uneasiness with the entire set up. It is strange to walk into a gallery- normally white walled, lit in a sterile fashion, and in the case of the 5th Wall Gallery there are two entrance/exits- that shatters all of your expectations of what the space should do. One of the doors is locked and blocked by a curtain, further transforming the space into a traditional bedroom and also controlling the viewer to navigate the space in a very distinct way. And there is an obviously lived in bedroom that seems to function as a studio as well, neither of which are normally highlighted in the showcasing of artwork, both of which are the behind the scenes factors that contribute to the making of art and are not considered art themselves. Furthermore, the artist has brought attention to his study practice as an important feature of his exhibit. Oshima's decisions in regards to his installation creates an uncanny, obessive aura that permeates the space and the artgoers that choose to enter into Daniel's fantastical reality.

Mai Ueda Tea Ceremonies



Mai Ueda, Tea Ceremony as Pandas, performed on April 6th and 7th 2012,
P3 Studios at Cosmopolitan, Installation and Performance


Mai Ueda:
Experimental Tea Ceremonies

Performed at the P3 Studios in the Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas.

Tea Ceremony as Pandas April 6th and 7th 2012

Tea Ceremony in the Parallel Universe April 13th and 14th 2012

Tea Ceremony on the Moon April 20th and 21st 2012

Suprise Tea Ceremony April 27th and 28th 2012



For almost the entire month of April, Mai Ueda has had her artist residency at the P3 studios at the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino. Up on the third floor, it's among the restaurant row. She started her stay with her Tea Ceremony as Pandas, in which the rsvp'd guests were dressed in panda suits, sitting on the ground on alligator seating pads. The second weekend was the Tea Ceremony in a Parallel Universe, that's the one that I went to.
Mai Ueda, entered in a silk, cream colored floral kimono with the traditional bow. She had all of the equipment to mix her own macha green tea. The guests, myself included, had to be adorned with this silver wrapping paper that was reminiscent of the silver cellophane of candy wrappers. Yasmina had her as a sash, one girl had it wrapped around her head with long antennae-like feelers, the girl that was right next to me had hers around her head from under her chin up to a crude bow on the top of her head, and last mine was a mask, it was wrapped around my face with two holes cut for my eyes. Mai said that the reason for this was for us to leave behind who we were and take on something different from ourselves so we could truly enter the parallel universe. A live video recording of the performance was being taken and projected onto two hexagonal mirrors on the floor. The video feed was reflected by the mirrors onto a third mirror on the wall, it created this other worldly experience, obscuring what was seen of the images being taken. Mai went through the traditional motions of creating her macha green tea, she would make it take a drink and then pass it down the line to be shared by all. We were given little crystalline candies to offset the bitterness of the green tea.

The thing, for me, that best conveyed the sense of being in a parallel universe, was the noise from the outer casino world. It was a Saturday night, everyone walking by was dressed in their club going garb and the air was filled with excited buzz of getting intoxicated. The Tea Ceremony did not try to fight the noise, but the longer I watched the more I got lost in the silence of the event. There were two worlds co-existing, at times aware of the other and others completely self absorbed. It was almost meditative, it was an oasis within the chaotic environment of the Cosmopolitan. It was only after the performance that I truly became aware of the other world again, when a large group of inebriated people very insistently wanted to come in and try on the panda suits that were on display. The world became one again, with all of its noise and annoyances.

This upcoming weekend, Mai Ueda will be doing her last Tea Ceremony, the only information given about it is that it is a suprise. She has create something that is a secret, within a city that normally broadcasts every event so loudly, in turn she has made for a very special and very intimate occurence. Mai Ueda has combated the noise and flamboyance of Las Vegas with inner meditation, she is inviting others to escape with her, in the traditional way of a tea ceremony.

To

 watch The Tea Ceremony as Pandas click here.

Vibha Galhotra: Utopia of Difference

Vibha Galhotra, Installation view of Utopia of Difference

Vibha Galhotra
Utopia of Difference
March 22 through April 21, 2012
Jack Shainman Gallery, Chelsea, NY

"My work narrates the life of a disordered (or hyper ordered) society, with all the clashes and tensions that contemporary life brings. People build walls around themselves to create order and borders. I am interested in showing what happens when we negotiate with so-called realities created by us through our visual vocabulary." -                                                                                                                                                              Vibha Galhotra

                                                                                                                            quote taken from Jack Shainman Gallery

Vibha Galhotra, Altering Boon, 2011, glass beads, wire and wood, 136 x 36 inches

Utopia of Difference starts with camoflauged figures adorned in military garb, but instead of blending in to nature they blend into the social environment of urban homes and developments. Going further, there is a large tank like structure that has been deflated that lays defeated in the middle of the floor. Almost all of the walls in the gallery further back are draped with what seem like carpets made from these tiny little metal encasings, called ghungroos. The one constant thread throughout the entire show are these little ghungroos, I had no idea what their significance was until I researched them a little further; ghungroos are tiny little metal bells that are traditionally worn by Indian women when performing classical Indian dance. When I found out the significance of the bells, it started to click for me. While using a material that is normally feminine to create these very masculine, large forms she is marrying the two genders together to make it more universally accessible. Living and working in Delhi, India Galhotra brings in her own cultural history while referencing images that are at once personal and part of a larger conversation. There is a sense of decay and urbanization within Utopia of Difference, the colors of the bells call upon the concrete and asphalt of contemporary urban landscapes and the organic deflation of the forms denounce the power of the ever expanding globalization of state-of-the-art living styles. The small parts making up the masses seem to be representing populations of people behind the face of each country vying to be larger powers within the world; together we make up a country but seperately we are only these small individual parts that make very little noise.
Utopia of Difference feels filled with the trepidation of what the future holds for all of us, but also a sense of hope that we can change what seems inevitable. The landscape as we know it is forever undergoing the change for the future of society, but what this exhibit is highlighting is whether or not that change is for the best of everyone. Is it for our own personal interests or the for the good of every person? We keep expanding in population so our dwellings have to keep growing in number, too. Soon all we will know is the urban establishments that surround us. Will Galhotra's exhibits and others that raise similar questions be enough to expand our awareness of our situation, or will we continue to drudge on in blindness?



Fred Wilson, To Die Upon A Kiss, 2011, Murano
glass, 70" x 68- 1/2" x 68- 1/2", Edition of 6



Fred Wilson                                                          Venice Suite: Sala Longhi and Related Works

Works on display at the Pace Gallery in Chelsea, NY

March 17- April 14,2012

Upon walking into the Pace Gallery on March 23rd of this year, I was greeted with a large, ominous and organic venetian chandelier. One of the things that stood out most to me was the use of both traditional and unconventional means with which to make this chandelier; it is obviously envoking a long history of venetian glass but in a way that is uncanny. The long tendrils branching out from the center body of the chandelier envoke the tentacles of an octopus or squid, while also calling to the phalice of the human form. While the form may be very important, yet another thing that is indelibly intrinsic to the work in the gradation of clear class to an opaque black.

The initial chandelier that is the centerpiece for the Pace entrance is entitled To Die Upon a Kiss, accompanying it is a large wall text that was written by the artist himself. Wilson's account of his sculpture is just as important as the initial reaction of the work. To Die Upon a Kiss is a phrase taken from Shakespeare's play Othello. For the Venice Biennale in 2003, Wilson made a completely opaque black, venetian chandelier similar to this one that was entitled Othello; it was made with the intent to speak specifically to race and the abscence of African Americans in Venice in the Renaissance (the peak of the traditional venetian glass blowing), it was an attempt to somehow bring back those black forces that were inevitably there during that time and giving them the presence that should have always been available. Wilson's more recent gradient chandelier To Die Upon a Kiss, poignantly deals not only with race but with death (no doubt inspired by the death of his own mother). Standing underneath the beautiful bohemith one is fully aware of the draining force of the black glass, the weight of the pigment envoking the sense that it will all but drain out onto the floor. This force is in reference to the inevitability of death as a driving force, the black is a symbol of the life (in contrast to the normal use of black as death) and the gravity of it slipping away. One statement that Wilson makes on the wall that is quite beautiful, is in correlation to both pieces, while his Othello piece for the Biennale was about race specifically, To Die Upon a Kiss highlights that at the end of one's life race has a way of melting away, race is not as important a factor when faced with death, we all die regardless of our ethnicity.



Fred Wilson, Part of Sala Longhi series,black float
 glass, antiqued gold painted wood frames, Murano
 blown glass, and light bulbs,dimensions variable 



In the center room is the Series entitled Sala Longhi that consists of one larger gold frame with a white section of a chandelier breaking the traditional box of the frame surrounded by eerie smaller gold frames filled with a reflective black glass with carefully placed elipses that allow the gallery wall to show through. There is an overwhelming sense of loss and impending doom. The elipses leave want for something more, while looking at them I could see that there was a specific composition to each of them, but could not figure out their significance, it wasn't until I read Wilson's wall text for this room that it began to make sense. Wilson is using the compositions of Pietro Longhi's, a Venetian painter during the 1800's, paintings that commonly depict everyday Venetian life during the Rennaisance. The cut elipses become little floating orbs atop the gallery walls, almost like star scapes. There is a sense of eternity in the blacknes and one of loss; the viewer can look at the spots and make the correlation that there was once something there.



Fred Wilson, Sala Longhi, black float glass, antiqued painted
wood frames



Fred Wilson works with the subject matter of death in this particular series in a beautiful way. It's not in the traditional depiction of the loss of a thing or person that was loved, but it is through the use of readymade objects. These things are universal, they can be made availiable to anyone, making them more relatable, but it is what Wilson has done with them that make it a more personal account. It is apparent, walking through the silent gallery, looking at the apocryphal items that much was lost. It's like walking through a relative's home and seeing all of the deceased plastering the walls, yet this show leaves it open ended for each viewer so they can either see the dead of their past or choose to see Wilson's.

For more information about Fred Wilson visit Pace Gallery's website or watch him on Art21.