Charwei Tsai – Page 27

Lovely Daze – Issue 4

Lovely Daze - Issue 4 - 2007 - Cover, Charwei Tsai

Lovely Daze is a collection of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The fourth issue explores the ways in which Numbers influence us as value systems such as time, distance, temperature, size, money, population, and religion.

There is an Arabian saying – Once you start counting, you can never stop. I say, spare me a moment where the clockmaker loses his fingers.

*Lovely Daze – Issue 4 – 2007 –* Joel Tettamanti

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer contributors ~ vito acconci, cory arcangel, hisham bharoocha, james burke, crystal understanding, shilpa gupta, jennifer wen ma, yoko ono, cristina rodriguez, fiona ryan, max schumann, mika tajima, and joël tettamanti
cover ~ charwei tsai, étrangère,
2007 copyright ~ lovely daze, fall/winter 2007

*Lovely Daze – Issue 4 – 2007 – Max Schumann*

CONTRIBUTORS

VITO ACCONCI is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based writer, artist, and architect. A poet of the New York School in the early and mid1960s, he moved toward performance, sound, and video work by the end of the decade. Positioning his own body as the simultaneous subject and object of the work, Acconci’s early videotapes took advantage of the medium’s self-reflexive potential in mediating his own and the viewer’s attention. Since the late ’70s, Acconci has designed architectural and installation works for public spaces.

www.acconci.com

CORY ARCANGEL is a computer artist whose work is concerned with technology’s relationship to culture and the creative process. He is also a founding member of BEIGE, a group of computer programmers and enthusiasts who recycle obsolete computers and video game systems to make art and music, and a member of RSG (Radical Software Group). Arcangel’s work has been exhibited at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

HISHAM BHAROOCHA is an artist and musician born in Nidata, Japan, and is currently based in New York. He graduated from RISD in 1998. His work has been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005, 2006); John Connelly Presents, New York (2006); De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2007), and Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece (2007). Hisham was part of the Providence based bands Lightning Bolt and Black Dice and currently formed a solo band, Soft Circle.

JAMES BURKE was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He received a degree in Conservation Biology from the College of Santa Fe. He is an amateur myrmecologist and an avid handball player. For the past two years, he has been working on a project entitled The Fertile Hammock, a series of 48 drawings. Some of his most important influences include Don Hertzfeldt, Christian Marclay, and Jaromir Jagr. Between April and November 2007, James will be developing beekeeping programs in remote northern villages of Sierra Leone. He plans to spend his free time chasing the elusive tree pangolin and making drawings inspired by Dan Chaon’s short story called “Five Forgotten Instincts,” which he has read once a week for the past year.

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

CRYSTAL UNDERSTANDING Hello! Crystal Understanding is a two-person band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The four-song #4 for Lovely Daze is their fourth EP. Their first full-length album, Hold the Gem was released in May 2007.

SHILPA GUPTA lives and works in Mumbai, India. She studied at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai and since then has exhibited in international institutions such as Tate Modern, London, Liverpool Biennale; ZKM Center of Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Bose Pacia Gallery, New York. Upcoming exhibitions include the 2007 Lyon Biennale, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and at Chicago Cultural Center. Gupta initiated the Aar Paar (a public art exchange project between India and Pakistan), as well as the Video Art Road Show (screenings of video art on streets in Mumbai and Delhi). She is also the recipient of the Transmediale 2004 Award in Berlin and the Leonardo Global Crossings Award in 2005.

www.flyinthe.net

JENNIFER WEN MA is currently looking for a web designer for her website. Please take a look at www.littlemeat.net and let her know if you or someone you know is interested in working on it.

LESLEY MA is thankful for the things she learned this summer: the stimulation of solitude, the sensation of figs, French (reprise), pesto, hummus, new friendships, simple pleasures, and generosity.

YOKO ONO is an artist working and living in New York. She earned a degree in philosophy from Tokyo’s Gakushuin University and in music at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Ono has embraced a wide range of media, defying traditional boundaries and creating new forms of artistic expression including language works, such as instruction pieces and scores, film and video, music, and performance art. Her most recent albums include: Yes, I am a Witch, and Open Your Box.

CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian artist and designer who recently relocated to Miami after spending two years in New York. She received a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and Fashion Design at Parsons the New School for Design. She is currently focusing on developing her drawings.

FIONA RYAN is currently living in New York. She plans on making a lot of candy in the near future and hopes to find herself off the grid after that. She is excited by what she has found on the floor in foreign open-air markets and she was once paralyzed by a sea urchin. Few things frighten her more than the loss of survival and humor.

www.papabubble.com

SABRINA SHAFFER is overjoyed to be back in the city with friends, preparing for her initiation into The KDU, and eagerly awaiting Charwei’s return to New York.

www.otabo.com

www.christopherbevans.com

MAX SCHUMANN is an art worker who lives and works in New York City. He has been working at Printed Matter since 1989 where he is Associate Director. Schumann is currently represented by Taxter and Spengemann.

MIKA TAJIMA was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, California, and currently lives and works in New York. Mika received her dual B.A. degree in Fine Art and East Asian Studies at Bryn Mawr College in 1997. She later attended Columbia University School of the Arts and received her MFA in 2003. Since then she has been exhibiting widely at institutions such as the Swiss Institute Contemporary Art (New York, NY), United Bamboo (Tokyo, Japan), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain), Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI), Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo, Norway), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (LIC, NY), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), among many others.

www.mikatajima.com

JOËL TETTAMANTI is a Swiss photographer, traveler, and observer. He travels to places as far away and remote as Greenland and Lesotho or high up into the mountains. He is the one who sees, what others will only realize once his images appear on magazine pages or gallery walls.

www.tettamanti.ch

CHARWEI TSAI misses the East Village, her dear NYC friends, and Colombian lindas. But all the traveling helps to tame the artist’s ego and brings new curiosities such as mushroom hunting and chicken slaughtering. Another humbling event is that due to her family’s lack of creativity, their one-year-old puppy’s name is still “Go-go,” which means “doggie” in Mandarin. She hopes not to forget how to ride the pink bike when she returns to strolling in Thompkin’s Square in the fall!

www.charwei.com

*Lovely Daze – Issue 4 – 2007* – Vito Acconci

~ special thanks to grandma, mom, dad, sis, keisuke, godmother, lots of aunts&uncles&cousins. sabrina, lesley, kelly, grigoris, tina, sarah, ama, angelita, ana calle, cristina, maria, catalina, barbie, bebe, irene, ronnie+duke+jason+eugene+ryan+gang, fabrizio, yulin jie, jc, mingwei, su-mei, jean-lou, kelly ma, shilpa, aude, andy, yoko, vito, ned, studio, cory, joël, jason, chris liu, yonatan, alex, shunyi, nigel, adam, danny, leif, pat, nat, max, hisham, naoto, linda, vicson, rene, aa, max, julian, justin, rachel, james, fiona, cat, dunbar, aaron, sunny, crystal understanding, printed matter, mika + howie, dimitrios, bettina, victoria, jenn+richard, johanna, xin zhen, amy, ekovaruhuset, cai+studio, taipei lai lai sheraton, doggie, and of course, most of all, and again, all the lovely contributors!

*Lovely Daze – Issue 4 – 2007* – Hisham BHAROOCHA

Lotus Mantra I

Lotus Mantra I, 2006

Installation with black ink on fresh lotus flowers, roots, and seeds
Dimensions variable
Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, Singapore
Commissioned by Singapore Biennale

For the occasion of the inaugural Sinagpore Biennale: Belief in 2006, I was invited to create a project at the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, a popular local Buddhist temple. I wrote the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist text on impermanence on fresh lotus seeds, roots, and flowers, then placed them as offerings on the altar in the temple. The various parts of the lotus that are in reference to the purification of body, speech, and mind in the Buddhist belief. While the fresh parts of the lotus are being offered on the altar inside the temple, a second part of the project included a living lotus plant growing outside in the corridor of the temple. (Please see Lotus Mantra II, 2006.) The lotus is closely connected to the temple as the diety Kwan Im who is being worshiped here is often depicted as standing or sitting on the heart of a lotus flower or often holding one in her hand as a symbol of purity.

Installation view at Singapore Biennale, 2006

Lotus Mantra II

Lotus Mantra II, 2006

Installation with black ink on fresh lotus flowers, roots, and seeds
Dimensions variable
Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, Singapore
Commissioned by Singapore Biennale

For the occasion of the inaugural Sinagpore Biennale: Belief in 2006, I was invited to create a project at the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, a popular local Buddhist temple. I wrote the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist text on impermanence on a living lotus plant placed in the corridor of the temple. The local temple visitors many of whom knows the Heart Sutra by heart recited the text in front of the plant. Some also brought flowers to place in the soil of the plant and small fish to feed from the water of the plant as offerings. The other part of the project included offerings of the lotus root, seeds, and flower on the altar inside the temple. The various parts of the lotus that are in reference to the purification of body, speech, and mind in the Buddhist belief. (Please see Lotus Mantra I, 2006.) The lotus is closely connected to the temple as the diety Kwan Im who is being worshiped here is often depicted as standing or sitting on the heart of a lotus flower or often holding one in her hand as a symbol of purity.

Installation view at Singapore Biennale, 2006, Photo courtesy of Wubin Zhuan

Tofu Mantra

Tofu Mantra, 2006

Installation of black ink on fresh tofu
Dimensions variable
Commissioned by Singapore Biennale

For the occasion of the inaugural Sinagpore Biennale in 2006, Tsai was invited to create a project in the former military camp of Tanglin. During the evening of the vernissage, the artist performed the writing of the Heart Sutra in Chinese calligraphy on a large piece of tofu. Each time after she had covered one layer of the tofu with the sutra, she would cut the surface off and began again, until the last layer was completely covered. During the remaining time of the exhibition, the Tofu Mantra, 2005 video, which shows the process of the scripted tofu decaying, was projected onto a table in the interiors of the site.

Singapore Biennale

Installation view at Singapore Biennale, 2006, Photo courtesy of Wubin Zhuang

Belief
First Singapore Biennale
Artistic Director: Fumio Nanjo
Curators: Roger Mc Donald, Sharmini Pereira, and Eugene Tan
4 September ~ 12 November 2006

Exhibited Works:
– Lotus Mantra I & II, 2006, Installations at Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple
– Tofu Mantra, 2006, Installation at Tanglin Camp

Press Release:
BELIEF is the theme for Singapore’s first visual arts biennale, Singapore Biennale 2006 (SB2006). If today’s world has painfully called into question many certainties governing society, history and humankind, can it also be described as an era of uncertainty in which the very subject of belief is in question? In the context of this so-called crisis of values, what do we individually and collectively believe in? Do we act on our beliefs or is belief simply a mindless act? Are the religious beliefs communicated by the great faiths more relevant than the secular beliefs in science, progress, democracy and politics that succeeded them? Or has the conflict between the two spawned such states of violent and ethical extremism in the service of religious and economic power that belief in anything appears incomprehensible? Are we beyond belief or at the threshold of its revival?

SB2006 aims to address the complexities that surround and inform some of these questions. Through a diverse selection of international contemporary art practices, including artists from Singapore and its neighbouring regions, the biennale sets out to create a reflection rather than a representation of contemporary art’s relationship with the subject of belief. In turn, this process of reflection will also examine the question of belief in relation to the system of art itself. With its longstanding relationship to religious and secular systems of thought, what are the inherent values of contemporary art today?

Artistic Director Fumio Nanjo and his curatorial team will present the Biennale across a collection of venues, including museums, religious spaces, public institutions and disused buildings. Traversing the city, some of the exhibition sites will include the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, National Museum of Singapore, Sri Krishnan Temple, The Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator and Tanglin Camp. Together, these selected sites provide a local perspective onto one of the unique features that characterise Singapore, among other things, as a multi-religious and multi-cultural society, where many seemingly conflicting beliefs appear to co-exist alongside one other. Additionally, many of the chosen venues, most obviously the religious spaces, also provide a historical context through which to reflect on the critical relationship played by architecture in the construction of belief. Paradoxically, sites of religious worship in Singapore continue to draw a retinue of worshippers, whilst, the ‘great temples of culture’ represented by museums, remain significant, for their lack of devoted followers.

SB2006 is a culmination of the growth of Singapore’s artists and achievements in visual arts at home and abroad. It highlights Singapore’s prominence as an international visual arts hub, not only providing new opportunities for Singapore artists, curators and arts businesses, but also as a key enabler of exchange and collaborations for the global arts community.