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Image: Talos Surface-to-Air Missiles aboard the USS Long Beach (CGN-9).
July 18, 1961
Photo Credit: U.S. Navy (courtesy Center for Defense Information)
Provided by: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project, The Brookings
Institution |
Curated by Eric C. Shiner
Artists:
Joelle Ciona, Tomoko Igarashi, Miwa Koizumi,
Hiroko Takeda and Tobias Wong
On view
from:
November 12 to December 23, 2004
Reception:
Friday, November 12, 2004, 6 to 8pm
Curators’ talk:
Thursday, December 9, 2004, 6 to 8pm
Venue:
Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery, 555 Broadway, Basement Floor,
New York, NY 10012
[Between Prince/Spring Sts.]
Gallery
Hours:
Tuesday through Saturday, 12- 6 p.m.
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and Nov. 25
Admission Policy:
Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public.
ISE CULTURAL FOUNDATION is pleased to present the exhibition, Surface to Air. The exhibition
features the work of five young contemporary artists working in five fully discordant mediums:
paper, metal, clay, fiber and found objects. The common thread of the exhibition lies in the
curator's challenge to the artists to document their creative process and tactile intervention
with their art objects during the production stage using video, a medium that was new to all of
the artists. They were then asked to seamlessly incorporate this video footage into a new
installation along with the actual objects themselves. Thus told, Surface to Air examines objects
and their video lives in its attempt to fuse the materiality and three-dimensionality of art work
with the video monitor or movie screen. Although the title of the exhibition harkens to mind
imagery of missiles and battleships, in actuality, it references the visual airing of two very
distinct surfaces, here the skins of the art object and the artist herself. As the world of
technology continues to expand around us in leaps and bounds, Surface to Air attempts to corral
a single element of the technical universe by tying the medium of video to the material world of
art.
The show includes installations by Joelle Ciona, Tomoko Igarashi, Miwa Koizumi, Hiroko Takeda
and Tobias Wong. Maki Matsubayashi, a recent Yale School of Architecture graduate, designed the
gallery layout. Short descriptions of the artists and their work follow.
Joelle Ciona lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work is informed by the nest-
building habits of insects and is often produced over many weeks of gallery inhabitation. Ciona's
work has been shown at the Banff Centre in Canada and YOKOHAMA 2001: International Triennale of
Contemporary Art in Japan, in addition to many other global venues. For Surface to Air, Ciona will
create and inhabit a special storefront window installation in the Ise Cultural Foundation's 555
Broadway street level window during daylight hours starting Tuesday, November 9th and running
through the opening reception on Friday, November 12th.
Tomoko Igarashi is a New York-based jewelry designer originally from Japan. Igarashi borrows from
nature's bounty for her collection of elaborate brass, silver and gold accessories sold at a
number of New York's finest fashion establishments. Her work often includes flowers, birds and
animals in delicate filigree ranging in size from small coyote head pendants to a cascading full
breastplate necklace formed from seeming bouquets of flowers interspersed with small birds. For
Surface to Air, Igarashi will display several pieces of fine jewelry and a newly-created chandelier
made of brass and semi-precious stones.
Miwa Koizumi was trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in France where she
focused on sculpture and installation art. Upon moving to New York City after graduation, Koizumi
began producing incredibly delicate ceramics modeled on forms created by fast-drying plaster poured
into inflated balloons. The resulting works are reminiscent of splashes of milk or partially cracked
egg shells in their purely white and fluid elegance. Koizumi displays her work in multiples of
several dozen pieces at a time, and for Surface to Air, she will create two fluorescent-lit tables
atop which her ceramics will be displayed.
Hiroko Takeda was trained in the Constructed Textiles department at the Royal College of Art in
London. Now based in New York as a fabric designer for a high-end interior upholstery design firm,
Takeda continues to create her own whimsical designs using natural fibers in combination with
synthetic materials such as monofilament and recycled plastics. For Surface to Air, Takeda will
create an installation featuring several examples of her work set amidst a video environment of
her loom fast at work.
Tobias Wong, originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, came to New York to study sculpture at
Cooper Union School of Art. Consternated with the contemporary art world, Wong borrows heavily
from the high-end worlds of fashion and design in the creation of his own unique works which often
mimic or reproduce their luxury brand sources of inspiration. In Surface to Air, Wong will exhibit
his Room Partition sculpture, a work formed by sixteen commercially-available box fans arranged
in a way that immediately implicates the viewer in the production of the work's "meaning."
About the curator:
Eric C. Shiner is an independent curator and art administrator based in New York City. Prior
to completing his Master's degree in the History of Art at Yale University in 2004, Shiner lived
in Yokohama, Japan and worked as an Assistant Curator for YOKOHAMA 2001: International Triennale
of Contemporary Art. Prior to this, he completed his first Master's degree, also in the History
of Art, at Osaka University under the auspices of the Japanese government's Monbusho Scholarship
program. Shiner is interested in the representation of bodily transformation in Post-1945 Japanese
art and photography and is currently completing a chapter on the influence of popular culture on
the Japanese art of the 1980s and 1990s for a new textbook on modern and contemporary Japanese
art.
Please contact Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery for
further information . |
