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18/11/2009

Four Exhibitions

Chelsea Art Museum, New York

Jean Miotte: Spirit of Defiance

Jean Miotte was born in 1926. He came of artistic age in war torn Europe in the decade after World War II, when non-figurative, gestural abstraction was emerging on both sides of the Atlantic as the dominant language in contemporary art. The embrace of abstraction was not simply a formal issue: it was literally a change in the realm of meaning and value. With social and political institutions discredited as enablers of nothing but chaos, the artist as creator and painting, by and in itself, now seemed more potent, more capable of moral meaning than the external realities of landscape, politics and society. Seeking what has been termed art autre, artists such as Shiraga Kasuo, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Emil Shumacher and Miotte championed the individual freedom of the artist as expressed through gestural brushstrokes and thick pools of color. As Miotte has commented, “My painting is a projection, a succession of acute moments where creation occurs in the midst of spiritual tension and as a result of inner conflicts.”

Miotte’s artistic influences include performance, choreography, jazz music and Ballet, and of these his most seminal influence is Ballet. In London in 1948 he did set design and saw the work of Balanchine, the Diaghilev Ballet and Margot Fonteyn. Being exposed to this variety of art was of profound inspiration to him. Dance is the universal language of non-verbal communication, evident through performance. Miotte would experiment with gesture through painting and hone lyrical movement in his own art. Gestural painting can evoke the hand of the Samurai or the surgeon, but Miotte’s lithe, inventive line echoes the living art of dance. When painting, he becomes a Zen archer, choreographing each stroke. His canvas is a stage where paint leaps, and where drips refuse gravity. Miotte experiments in media ranging from oil to acrylic, gouache, ink, etching, lithography, and collage. His use of black paint on a white or raw surface is a theme which frequently recalls calligraphy; when color appears, it ranges from primaries to earthy tones. Critics say he is unique among the Informels because he continues to grow, fighting repetition, questioning himself and his form of expression. In the 1990s he began producing the canvases currently on display, the largest of his career.

As a painter, Jean Miotte has definitely crossed boarders in a geographical sense, with his life in Europe and America, and wide acceptance in Asia. He paints from within, reaching untouched emotions. Because his art emerges from within, it brings out his spectator’s inner feelings. Miotte has succeeded in touching profoundly a worldwide audience, and because of this we confidently say he is universal.

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So-Bin Park
Curated by Thalia Vrachopoulos and Elga Wimmer

Sobin Park has exhibited globally, and this marks the second solo exhibition in the United States. Park’s imagery offsets the beautiful against the beastly into a symphony or perhaps a dissonance upon the two extremes. She juxtaposes the scaly darkness of a dragon against the delicate translucent skin of the female beauty embraced by his roughness. The resulting differences in color, texture, content, density, sparseness and the nuanced shades in-between makes for a very sensuous yet complex oeuvre. Park plays with and engages in a dialogue about beauty and its beholder, or beauty and its perceived opposite; ugliness. Nevertheless, cultural notions of beauty may be relevant in the case of Park who earned her BA and MFA from South Korean universities and has been working there all her life although exhibiting globally. Beauty is after all in the eyes of the beholder and may have been a matter of taste for Kant but in Hegel’s theories of aesthetics taste is not an issue. Perhaps in enumerating the criteria of standard discussions on beauty we need take note that our cultural notion of beauty is a cluster concept including the elements of order and flawlessness.

In Park’s work the beautiful and sublime mix to produce Kantian artistic beauty while in its Hegelian content it is spiritually imbued and gratifies the soul. Consequently, beauty is not a matter of taste alone if it’s deeply imbedded within the psyche of the individual as is the thematic uniformity of Park’s ongoing leitmotif. Flawlessness as an idea promotes kitsch and acts within a cluster that when popularly applied is a dynamic of power that is ubiquitously operant and informs the idea of beauty. Thus, we must embrace a freer definition with which to rehabilitate beauty in order to divest it of its embedded moral implications. In other words, we need to recognize the need to separate taste from appreciation. Park’s installation of drawn and painted images is produced to surround the gallery walls stretching out and around the perimeter like the dragon/beast encircling her beauty. The colors are limited to black, white and red therefore contrasting in hue as well as overall appearance and character. Her human, animal and nature combinations produce hybrids that are inviting in their sensuality but also in their moodiness.

The dragon is seen as something hellish and negative by Western standards. St. George is often depicted about to kill the animal with a spear while riding his horse. Eastern mythology embraces the dragon element as something not only positive but also royal, calling it the Dragon King or Yong-wang. In shamanism and geomancy He is holy and depicted in a variety of renditions. The dragon inhabits the oceans and rivers and is capable of great good while respected as a sign by all four religions, Taoism, Buddhism, Neo Confucianism and Shamanism. Combined with the Mountain Spirit in imagery, the royal dragon forms a complementary pair symbolizing the yin and yang or masculine and feminine energy. Asians believe that humans should not see the entire dragon because of its awesomeness thus, parts of the beast is always hidden by clouds or ocean waves. Park who is from Korea, is familiar with these interpretations but while respecting her cultural roots, in her art she is creating a new myth. Park's motifs consisting of the nude female embroiled within the embrace of a dragon is sensuous, but has a lot of other and deeper connotations.

To Park he means new beginnings but also the undeniable energy that infuses whatever she undertakes to create. The dragon can unfurl as a cloud, or coil in the seething froth of the waters as seen in Park's drawings. But, he always means a new beginning and fresh chi energy to the artist. Eastern folklore recognizes the legendary importance of the Dragon King and his progeny who are female and some of the most powerful dynasties have been forged from the union between their progeny and one of these females. And, like ancient Egyptian heredity traditions that assured male power through females so was the case also in Japan's Shinto Sun Goddess or in the Northern Puyo, Paekche and Silla kingdoms. Moreover, in Buddhist imagery, the dragon is clearly associated with the Guanyin a female Bothisattva who serves as the compassionate intercessor for humanity to God. The Guanyin represents the powers of both water and land and is therefore more potent as a deity than the dragon who symbolizes the sea. In fact, the Guanyin is traditionally shown riding a dragon with the waves and corals at her feet, which indicates his subjugation to her. Consequently, Park's revised mythology acknowledges this female strength that in her imagery appears as woman at one with the elements; woman fulfilled; woman empowered.

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Robert Chen: A Retrospective

Like all major artists, Chen Cheng-hsiung has been the subject of a good deal of writing. Critics and historians have traced his career, his development into a thoroughly mature Abstract painter, and the stages by which he has moved on from one kind of Abstraction to another, showing that he has never been content to stay where he was, but has constantly moved forward to explore new ground.

When Henry Moore was asked what was the meaning of his work, he replied, “I am a doer and a maker. I leave the interpretation of my work to others”. But “the others” (like me) are outsiders. How can we possibly know what goes on in the mind of the artist? For the Abstract Expressionist above all, however much he may think he has thought it out beforehand, the picture is created in the process of painting it, driven by instinct and feeling. The artist is performing, like the pianist, who does not stop to think of the next notes he will play. Jackson Pollock said of his own art: “When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I am doping…I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image… etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”.

I would not suggest that there is no thought behind Chen Cheng-hsiung’s painting. His writings and cogent sayings show that there clearly is. But when he starts to paint, what happens then, is governed by instinct and feeling, evoking that vital energy that the Chinese call qi. It is in that process that the mysterious gift of the artist lies, and it is that to which we respond when we take the work in. It cannot be explained. It can only be wondered at. Michael Sullivan

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Ferdinando Ambrosino
The Memory of Time

The Chelsea Art Museum – Home of the Miotte Foundation – is pleased to present Ferdinando Ambrosino: The Sacred Profane: Paintings and Sculptures by Ferdinando Ambrosino.

Ferdinando Ambrosino is an Italian Artist, born in 1938, who began painting in the early 1950’s. The diverse styles he achieved between the 1950’s and 70’s resemble and transcend impressionism, cubism and neo-realism. During this time his work developed, addressing subjects and themes of his native land and of the reality of Man as laborer. The Sacred Profane represents his more recent work.

The genius of Ambrosino lies in his ability to speak, at once, to the “mundane” and “sacred” in us. His figures seem both, liberated yet oppressed. The colors are simultaneously joyful yet austere. An artistic dichotomy exists in terms of semantic and style, the likes of which are very rare to come by. There is a power within his canvases and sculptures, which lures the viewer away from the comfort zone of periods and genres and ushers them into a meditative realm that can only be experienced when enshrined in a place of worship. The iconography is startling. His holy figures are ethereal in their movement and lightness, yet something about their subtle complexions speaks of a world less traveled within the repertoire of iconic traditions. Historically speaking, the gaze of an icon’s eyes is supposed to transport the pious worshipper into a spiritual dimension where flesh and the habits of this world are discarded along the way towards achieving immortal bliss. Yet, the earthliness of Ambrosino’s “Saints” seems to constantly remind the viewer of the inevitable corruption of human nature. Through suggested acts of desire, inflections towards the carnal and playful depictions of profanity, we are confronted with an almost ascetic statement: Salvation is not attainable through a thin veneer of piety and a glazed baroque-like manifestation of gestures and rituals. This is a canon that reverberates not only across the gamut of the artist’s later works, but also in the journey of stylistic explorations and phases that the artist has undergone from early beginnings until the present.

Ferdinando Ambrosino is an artist whose particular place in contemporary art practices will be the subject of interest and inspiration for many decades to come. The uniqueness of his work stems from his ability to borrow from the major predominantly modernistic genres surrounding him and then to confidently move forward. In the process, he has managed to discard the dead weight of all that which is exhausted and redundant. He has then successfully managed to assemble a metaphorical language that is only his. This language is both, relevant to a profound epistemological discourse with the past and an ongoing dialogue with the future of artistic expression.

Image: So-Bin Park, In Love. 1.5m x 2.3m.

For further Information, please contact:
Nicollette Ramirez 212.255.0719 x108 nicollette@chelseaartmuseum.org

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 19, 6 to 8pm

Chelsea Art Museum
556 West 22nd Street, New York USA
open Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 6pm
Thursday 11am to 8pm
closed Sunday and Monday
$8 adults, $4 students and seniors, free for members and visitors 16 and under

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