EVERYTHING MUST GOMartin WongDec. 10, 2009-Jan. 31, 2010PPOW Gallery, NYC

http://www.ppowgallery.com/exhibition.php?id=51

Martin Wong
Everything Must Go

Curated by Adam Putnam

Full color catalogue available

December 10, 2009– January 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 10, 6-8pm


P•P•O•W is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Martin Wong, curated by Adam Putnam. Martin Wong, who died in 1999 due to an AIDS related illness, was born in 1946 in Portland, Oregon and moved to New York City in 1978. He received a degree in ceramics, but decided to become a painter when he was thirty years old. He first started exhibiting at the Semaphore Gallery in New York. Martin Wong's last exhibition at P•P•O•W was in 2000.

For most of his time in NYC, Martin Wong stayed nestled in the Lower East Side, enmeshed in the fabric of his neighborhood and the people around him. His work has traditionally been described as a document of that time in the 1980's and 1990's, capturing a moment in the history of the city marked by vacant lots, graffiti and a burgeoning club culture.

This exhibition presents an intuitive ramble through the estate left by this unique and visionary artist. It offers a glimpse into a private world populated by crumbling tenements, vacant lots, prisoners (with those burning eyes), closed gates (and open legs), downtown poets, hustlers, and if we are lucky, perhaps an off-duty Fireman.

Martin Wong wanders through an urban landscape and refashions it into something new. His paintings take us inward, through a hidden, alternative landscape of longing and deeply felt subjectivity. Following this logic of desire, a crumbled brick tenement can become laced with the erotic or a painting of a single cactus can carry all the restrained passion of an unmet gaze from a sexy stranger.

Also on view are several rarely seen photo collages on loan from The Fales Library archives as well as drawings and sketches. These photos are remarkable for the fact that they not only exist as source material for some of the larger paintings but also as a rare document of the long walks the artist would take in and around the Lower East Side.

The vacant lots have long since been filled in, but don't let the glass facades fool you. There is always the torn seam or frayed edge... you just need to know where to look.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full color illustrated catalog with an essay by Carlo McCormick.

On January 26th there will be a panel discussion tentatively based upon the themes of secret languages in the work of Martin Wong. The event will be hosted by the NYU Steinhardt School of Art and Arts Professions.

Adam Putnam is an artist living and working in NYC. His work has been exhibited at P.S.1, Art Statements Basel, the 2008 Whitney Biennial and most recently, at Taxter and Spengemann Gallery. In 2006 Adam Putnam, with artist Shannon Ebner, curated the show Blow Both of Us at Participant Inc.

Where is Home? Chinese Artists and Community — Artists Panel Talk moderated by Lily Wei Saturday, Dec. 12th at MOCA, NYC

Where is Home? Chinese Artists and Community

Location: MOCA 215 Center St. NYC

Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009
Time: 3:00pm-4:30pm

MOCA presents curator, essayist and art critic Lily Wei in conversation with the artists of "Here and Now: Chinese Artists in New York, Chapter II: Crossing Boundaries" about home, community and the artistic process.

Lily Wei, moderator

Artists:
Long-Bin Chen
Ming Fay
Shiyi Sheng
Zhang Hongtu


Moderator Bio
Lilly Wei is a New York-based independent curator, essayist and critic who contributes to many publications in the United States and abroad. She has written regularly for Art in America since 1982 and is a contributing editor at ARTnews.

New Website for INDAARInternational Network for Diasporic Asian Art Research

http://indaar.asianaustralianstudies.org/

Art by artists of Asian descent in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States is a significant cultural production, both in historical and contemporary terms. INDAAR offers a context to internationalise research on diasporic Asian art in these countries and others.

AIMS:

INDAAR is an international network for researchers interested in comparative and transnational studies of diasporic Asian art.

The network facilitates opportunities for initiating transnational dialogues and generating collaborative research projects.

ABOUT:
INDAAR was initiated by the founding convenor Dean Chan and launched in 2009.

The founding INDAAR Executive comprises Dean Chan, Margo Machida, Alexandra Chang and Jacqueline Lo.

This network is a special project of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN) and established in association with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project entitled “Being Asian in Australia and the United States”.

INDAAR is also supported by the School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Australia.

INDIGO: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura KinaBaroda, New Delhi, Mumbai — India

INDIGO: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina

Baroda, New Delhi, Mumbai – India

“Not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”, an Englishman in the Bengal Civil Service is said to have commented. In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated, in the West, with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India.

Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Indian artist SHELLY JYOTI and US artist LAURA KINA’S new works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges.

Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery, embellishments, and azrak resist dye techniques along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago, IL.


Shelly Jyoti works in the exhibition and bio:
http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_works_in_exhibition.htm
http://www.shellyjyoti.com/about_us_biography.htm

Laura Kina works in the exhibition and bio:
http://www.laurakina.com/newwork.html
http://www.laurakina.com/statement.html

Catalogue Essays:
Murtaza Vali - The Dye That Binds : Indigo Iconographies -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_murtaza_vali.htm
JohnyML - Indigo Inscriptions -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_inscriptions_johnyml.htm
Michelle Yee - Moving Materials : Reclaiming Histories Of Migration -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_michelle_yee.htm




Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Preview Red Earth Gallery Baroda, Gujarat
December 15-16, 2009
Reception: December 15, 2009 5:30-8:00 pm, artists will be present
Red Earth Art Galleries Pvt. Ltd.
ABS Towers, Old Padra Road Vadodara, India 390007
Tel: 91 265 3201526
http://www.redearthgalleries.com/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
India Habitat Centre New Delhi
December 22-28, 2009
Opening Reception: December 23, 2009, 5:30-9:00 pm, artists will be present
Open Palm Court Gallery
India Habitat Centre Lodhi Road
New Delhi, India 110003
http://www.indiahabitat.org/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Nehru Art Centre
January 12-18, 2010
Opening Reception: 12 January, 5:30-8:00 pm, Shelly Jyoti will be present
Dr. Annie Besant Road Worli, Mumbai, India 400018
Tel: 91 22 2496 4676-80
Fax: 91 22 2497 3827
http://www.nehru-centre.org/artgallery.html

Forum for Contemporary Theory
Laura Kina Artist Lecture - “Diaspora on Devon Ave: Stitching South Asian/Jewish Intersections”
Shelly Jyoti Artist Lecture - “The Politics of Indigo: Revisting India’s Torrid Colonial past”
December 31, 2009 4:00 pm
Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics
C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex
Framji Road, Baroda-390 007
Gujarat, India
Tel (0265) 2338067
http://fctworld.org