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THEME: INHERITANCE

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 Telling stories about the past; using forms, styles and memes of the past to comment on culture and issues of today.

Claire Partington creates ceramic figures that address European colonialism and social hierarchies using 17th-century figurative traditions and materials. The heads are interchangeable. (clairepartington.co.uk).

Rose B. Simpson layers the much-loved style of Maria Martinez’ black on black pottery onto an icon of modern Chicano culture creating tension between popular culture and everyday life and the ethereal aesthetics of traditional forms. (rosebsimpson.com)

Marcel Duchamp’s Bottle Rack is an icon of modern Western art (Dada).

Huang Yong Ping puts the many arms of a Buddha (a common image in Buddhist art) on Duchamp’s readymade rack. In doing so, he builds on the notoriety of the rack to comment on the collision of East and West in our globalized world. Going deeper, Huang connects the spiritual images of faith and religion to the icons of Western secular art, suggesting both are objects of veneration that reflect the cultures (and mindsets) from which they came  (nytimes.com).

Zhang Hongtu explores the collision of East and West by fusing styles, materials and images iconic to both. 

 

“In Mai Dang Lao (McDonald’s)," a hamburger box, fries container, fork, and knife are cast in bronze and adorned with traditional Chinese motifs like the taotie mask, typically featured on ancient ritual bronze vessels used in worship of the ancestors. Here it is combined with the iconic logo of the fast-food giant, transforming the “Happy Meal” into a Shang-dynasty artifact. By juxtaposing ancient China with contemporary America, and ritual art with consumer culture, Zhang whimsically critiques systems of power.” (brooklynmuseum.org)

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“Guo Xi–Van Gogh, 1998," depicts the mountainous ranges of Guo Xi’s shan shui scrolls rendered in Vincent van Gogh’s post-Impressionist brush strokes. (artforum.com) In both instances, the artist draws on history to shed light on the present.

Andrew LaMar Hopkins is a Louisiana Creole artist who illustrates scenes of life in 19th-century Creole New Orleans in the style of that time. (nytimes.com; onartandaesthetics.com)

Michael Rakowitz’ The Invisible Enemy Must Not Exist is an ongoing series of reproductions of historical and cultural objects stolen or lost from Iraqi museums after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The reproductions are made in common modern packaging and graphics, thus connecting today’s Iraq to its cultural heritage, which are both in jeopardy. (michaelrakowitz.com).

The wallpaper comes alive in Lisa Reihana’s monumental (80 foot-long, 70 minute-long) video “scroll” depicting the incursion of Captain Cook into the Pacific Islands. Based on the 19th-century wallpaper, "Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (Native Peoples of the South Pacific)," 1804–1805, which romanticizes and exoticizes these island “paradises," this video includes live-action vignettes set against a lushly illustrated background. This moving tableau retells the stories depicted in the original paintings, but this time through a critical, more clear-eyed lens.  (deyoung.famsf.org)

English/Nigerian artist Yinka Shonebare tackles issues of colonialism, immigration and globalization in his sculptures and installations, which are often based on familiar icons from Western culture and art. His signature material is the patterned Dutch cloth frequently worn in Africa.

 

"Lord Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle" is a large sculpture showing a diminutive symbol of British power, trapped and transformed into kitsch. It was temporarily installed in London’s Trafalgar Square (a place that honors Lord Nelson).   

 

"The Great American Library" is one of Shonebare’s many installations of bookcases loaded with cloth-covered books. Written on the spine of each book is the name of an immigrant to the United States who contributed to American culture and life.   (Yinkashonebare.com)

Zhang Hongtu
Andrew LaMar Hopkins
Claire Partington
Michael Rakowitz
Lisa Reihana
Rose B. Simpson
Yinke Shonebare
Huang Yong Ping
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