Lovely Daze is a collection of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The first issue, “a day in New York when nothing happens,” is divided into three sections based on the different mental states that make up the artists’ day: dream, reality, and daze.
Prompted by my experience living and working for the Arts in New York, Lovely Daze is the synthesis of two opposing mentalities.
The first sprouted from a joint discovery with a like-minded friend, Kelly, of a fruition of life outside of the commonly accepted notions of accomplishment and productivity. Together, we came to an empirical understanding of the subjectivity of success, and the artlessness of slaving to attain such intangible subjectivity. Both unemployed at the time, we indulged in a mentality devoted to the wonderment of our ever-present state of vitality and the goodness of those around us. The esoteric bliss that we invented led to the naming of the publication and the theme of this inaugural issue.
The second polarizing mindset, which instigated the realization of this publication, is derived from my current employed life working for an ambitious and established artist. Encouraged to produce as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and constantly being recognized or criticized for the level of my contribution to what is believed to be the greater good, (namely the contemporary art world), I am driven to become more conscious of an exoteric life outside of familiar habits and faces.
My cumulative experience, of both being an artist and working for an artist, merged two conflicting perspectives and gave rise to the goal of Lovely Daze: To provide a platform for young artists to present, firsthand, their writings and art. Rather than resorting to the prevalent trend of encouraging young artists to shock with the hopes of instant recognition, the publication aspires to explore conversely how their theories substantiate their practice, and their thoughts corporealize through writing and making art.
The selection of works is based on the artists’ ability to develop their creative practices integrally in the areas of techniques, aesthetics, and concepts… and admittedly, it is also based on my personal admiration.
Charwei Tsai
Publisher/Editor/Designer ~ Charwei Tsai
Editors ~ Kelly Carmena, Lesley Ma, and Sabrina Shaffer
Copyright ~ Lovely Daze, Autumn 2005
CONTRIBUTORS
JESSE ALEXANDER runs very fast and he runs Overtime and understands the design studio, Crumley Alexander creative agency, and Jerome Jerome apparel line all from his home in Brooklyn. He had contributed to publications including Knit Knit and Arktip and exhibited at Bergdorf Goodman, Printed Matter, Gavin Brown, the nac in Portland, Youngblood Gallery in Atlanta, and a nondescript venue in Los Angeles.
CORY ARCANGEL is a computer artist whose work is concerned with technology’s relationship to culture and the creative process. He is 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). Cory’s work has been exhibited at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
www.beigerecords.com
AARON BENNETT is a musician/artist/art teacher. He is the lead singer of the band, Crystal Understanding, and is considering joining the MIT Spouse Club. Aaron loves cats.
KELLY CARMENA made rock cake today.
LYNNE CHAN is an artist living in New York. Her character JJ Chinois is a media and performance-based project whose highlights include performances at Kathy’s Nut Hut in Milwaukee, and the Cacti and Succulent Society of Tulsa.
JULIA CHIANG currently lives and works in Brooklyn. She has exhibited in New York and abroad and has been an artist-in-residence in Beijing, The Henry Street Settlement, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is currently one of The Creative Center’s artists-in-residence at Mount Sinai Hospital.
BRIAN CRUMLEY was born in Guam. Living in New York for ten years, he is a self-taught visual contortionist, bending his will around abstractions of form and function, testing the limits of his ability in a prolific variety of creative outlets. Flying high on the winds, floating in the water, and rolling through grasses, on a familiar journey to the unknown.
www.crumleynewyork.com
FLAVIA DA RIN is an Argentinean artist who lives and works in Buenos Aires. Fla studied at the Prilidiano Pueyrredon Fine Arts School (IUNA) and attended the Guillermo Kuitca`s Workshop Programa de Talleres para las Artes Visuales CCRRojas – UBA / Kuitca, a grant for young visual artists from 2003 to 2005.
JUAN DONADO is a Colombian writer.
SARAH DUNBAR is an artist/designer/architect currently pursuing a master’s degree in architecture at MIT. She is also the lead singer of the band, Cat Pants.
VICSON GUEVARA is a graphic designer born in the Philippines, raised in Taiwan, and now lives in New York. He studied fine arts at UC Berkeley. He can’t live without his IPod and his dog, Tyson.
RONALD GERBER lives in Leipzig, Germany. His goal is to uncover the beliefs, realities, and truths that lie behind the masquerades that people show. For him, producing art is the best way to pursue this research.
MAX GLEASON graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2002 with a BFA in sculpture. For the past three years, he has worked in New York City in the film and television industry, both in art departments and post-production capacities. He continues to work as a painter and video artist at his studio in Williamsburg. His paintings, sculptures, and video works have been exhibited in New York, Providence, Boston, and Atlanta.
www.maxgleason.com
PATRICK HENRY is a 25-year-old artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. He creates emotive, representational drawings based on his experience touring with punk bands during the past three years. His experience with raw youth culture contributes to the bold, animalistic mark-making and imagery necessary to portray the complexities of being a kid in America.
BAPTISTE IBAR was born in France in 1977. He immigrated to the US at the age of seven in 1984. Attended Rhode Island School of Design and received a BFA in Painting in 2000. His paintings are in private collections ranging from Mexico City to New York to Paris. In 2005, Baptiste completed a set of twelve paintings to be featured in Michel Gondry’s upcoming film, The Science of Sleep.
www.baptisteibar.com
JAPANTHER is a four-year-old terror of a lo-fi rock group. Recent work with Dan Graham and his Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty puppet rock opera inspired them to make their own punk puppet opera. The resulting Dump The Body In Rikki Lake features eleven-foot puppets by Dan Luce, drawings by Devin Flynn, UFO and Sadu 907, video by Elisabeth Arkhipoff, lighting by Eugene Tsai, and puppeteering by Ken Berman and Sarah Frechette.
www.japanther.com
AUDE JOMINI is a Swiss artist who relocated to the US in 1993. She lived in Boca Raton, Florida, before attending the Rhode Island School of Design. Aude has participated in group exhibitions in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Providence, Brooklyn, and New York. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Her work utilizes the American built environment as a starting point; to create alternate constructions within the pictorial plane; or to denounce and emphasize certain social issues arising in the spaces and landscapes inhabited.
DANNY KOHLER was born in Washington D.C. and raised along the east coast of the US. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2002. He currently lives and works in Atlanta where he supplements his income as a master cheesemonger.
JUSTIN LOWE received an MFA from Columbia University in 2004 and a BFA from Hampshire College in 2000. He currently lives and works in New York. Selected exhibitions include Collecting Pictures in the Brain Hotel at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, Dwellings at the Brooklyn Public Library, Passage, and Greater New York at PS1.
LESLEY MA studied the history of science at Harvard University and received her MA in museum studies at New York University. She finds pleasure in all things ephemeral.
LILIANE PHUNG is a French-Vietnamese painter who works and lives in Paris. She graduated from L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 2005 and her selected exhibitions include J’en Rêve at Fondation Cartier and The Carpenter Show at Galerie Alain le Gaillard in Paris.
BRADLEY PITTS is an artist with two degrees in aerospace engineering. He grew up in Manhattan and currently lives in Brooklyn. In January 2006 he will move to Amsterdam to start a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie.
www.bradleypitts.info
CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian designer/artist living in New York. She received her BFA in industrial design from Rhode Island School of Design and is currently extending her studies in fashion design at Parsons School of Art.
JULIAN SEIDL lives and works in New York. She graduated from Hampshire College in 2000 in art and photography. Selected exhibitions include On The Beach at Printed Matter, and The Image-World at the International Center of Photography in New York.
SABRINA SHAFFER is a Taiwanese-American shoemaker and writer, whose main contributions are her criticisms of Charwei.
www.otabo.com
CHARWEI TSAI is a Taiwanese artist living in a messy apartment in New York. Formerly acclaimed for her impressionable sense of lethargy and implausible presence of an absent mind, while producing Lovely Daze, Charwei officially became a self-inspired workaholic. Her first and only exhibit happily debuted at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2005 (a very lucky year).
www.charwei.com
SETH WEIDER is an illustrator/artist and to the publisher’s knowledge, works and lives in Maine. Seth has not been seen or heard of since 2002. In fact, he remains to be the only contributor unaware of this publication due to a failure to be contacted via email. However, his benign personality is assumed not to get the publication into any sort of copyright trouble.
JIA ZHANG was born in Beijing. Jia likes to leave places and things behind and find things that are left behind. She doesn’t like to own things except for memories and a song to play in her head.
Special thanks to grandma, mom, dad, sis, kesuke, aunts + lots of cousins. tina, sarah, ama, bebe, angelita, sofia, bobo, ronnie+duke+gang, yulin, leif, andrew, chris liu, jason, yonatan, alex, shunyi, ad, ido, lewis, danielle, naoto, kris, rene, tsuyoshi, johnathan, ganden, henry the cat, printed matter + max, cai studio, yng, p.s.1, fondation cartier and obviously, all the contributors.
