Fairy #2 (2011) depicts a surreal scene of roughly assembled household ephemera, potted plants, and a faintly visible figure rendered in thin red line. The picture shows a grouping of tables and stools arranged in a dense cluster. A collection of objects, all brown or burlap-hued, cover their surfaces: ceramic pots, wooden planks, roughly geometric wooden sculptures, and even a small figure that perches precariously atop of miniature cube alongside a forked wood finish form. Chiba’s use of a nearly monochromatic palette makes it difficult to discern many of these objects, and they only become recognizable from their faint resemblances to things in real life. The picture’s monochromatic field, however, is interrupted by color three times: by the French blue finish of a stool positioned in the background, by the leafy green foliage of two potted plants, and by the nearly imperceptible red line drawing of a figure superimposed over the dense assemblage in the foreground. Presumably the “fairy” of the work’s title, the red figure looks towards the viewer with soft eyes and a delicate smile and at first glance appears benevolent. Chiba, however, renders the fairy into a violently contorted posture, its arms and legs twisted to conform along the shape of the objects piled behind it. Alternately playful and curiously violent, Fairy #2 offers a dreamlike image that is at once reminiscent of bedtime stories and apocalyptic fears. In this context, the “fairy” could be seen as an imaginatively playful creature, but it could also be read as an allusion to the faint bodily outlines left behind during the nuclear bombing attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Masaya Chiba utilizes painting, sculpture, and installation to create dreamlike works that respond to Surrealism traditions while also exploring the limits of representation and translation. Many of his paintings begin as assemblages in his studio, and in preparing these installations, Chiba collects seemingly random assortments of objects – photographs, wooden planks, potted plants, excess paint – to stage unusual material landscapes. Other objects used in his paintings are also drawn from memory, suggesting an illusory attempt to recapture objects and experiences that no longer exist in the present. Once configured into a desired form, Chiba utilizes these installations and objects as studies for his richly rendered oil paintings. Seemingly whimsical at first glance, his pictures also suggest an undercurrent of anxiety and instability, as if the perceptible world was melting away below us.
Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling makes a Miami Beach cameo Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art Basel in Miami Beach 2023 news Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling makes a Miami Beach cameo A self-portrait by Jesse Darling, who won the prestigious British award this week, is on sale at Chapter NY gallery Gareth Harris 9 December 2023 Share Jesse Darling, O Cowardly Word , 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY, New York A self-portrait by the Turner prize winner Jesse Darling is available with Chapter NY gallery at Art Basel in Miami Beach...
Fridge-Freezer is a 2-channel video installation where Yoshua Okón explores the darker side of suburbia, d escribed by the artist as “ the ideal environment for a numb existence of passive consumerism and social a nd environmental disengagement...
End of 2008, Pierre Leguillon presented at KADIST, Paris the first retrospective of the works of Diane Arbus (1923-1971) organized in France since 1980, bringing together all the images commissioned to the New York photographer by the Anglo-American press in the 1960s...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Why I sing in English; how Cambodian art can survive | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar Nyein Su Wai Kyaw Soe | Frontier March 12, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
« On ne démocratise pas le rapport à la musique, à la danse en les réduisant à un “éveil musical ou dansant” » Offrir Le Monde F in octobre tombait une nouvelle pour le moins sidérante : le directeur académique des services de l’éducation nationale en Indre-et-Loire annonçait le démantèlement des classes à horaires aménagés musique et danse ( CHAM et CHAD ), de la 6 e à la 3 e , du lycée Paul-Louis-Courier, de Tours, au nom de la mixité sociale et scolaire...
A 49ers Anthem Charges Back From the ’80s for Super Bowl Sunday | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint Arts & Culture A 49ers Anthem Charges Back From the ’80s for Super Bowl Sunday Rae Alexandra Feb 7 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email A 49er and a Dolphin dancing* at the 1985 Super Bowl to classic Narada Michael Walden track, ‘We’re the 49ers.’ [*This is a lie.] (Focus on Sport via Getty Images) Look...
Le jeu d’illusions grinçantes du photographe Jeff Wall, à Bâle Cet article vous est offert Pour lire gratuitement cet article réservé aux abonnés, connectez-vous Se connecter Vous n'êtes pas inscrit sur Le Monde ? Inscrivez-vous gratuitement Article réservé aux abonnés « Boy Falls From Tree » (2010), de Jeff Wall...
This series of photographs is part of the body of work Allora & Calzadilla made regarding the situation in Vieques, an island off the mainland of Puerto Rico used for the 60 years by the U...