Wabi Savvy at Jaus
Before I get into this post for real, let me just say I have a backlog of photos from many great art shows and other events from the past year – and for whatever reason (something to do with either managing an apartment building project, or working on a play or two, or getting some installations done or some other such nonsense) I have not gotten around to posting anything about them at all. So, I am going to try and get this archive of stuff out into teh interwebs where people can actually see it. Since its been awhile for many of these, I may just put up my photos, or try and write some brief things about them. Either way, if you want more info on any, post in the comments and I will get to it.
With that out of the way, this one is more recent than some: the Wabi Savvy group show at Jaus gallery in West LA – Ichiro Irie’s fantastic little space on a suburban street across from the rock climbing gym. Wabi Savvy is a satellite exhibition of Gateway Japan Organized by Torrance Art Museum, and features over a dozen contemporary Japanese artists with the tag line “The image you already have of the warped Japanese sensibilities are probably all true”. The show opened right after the recent earthquake, then tsunami, then nuclear disaster in Japan – so Japan’s plight was already on everyone’s mind at the show which may have colored our perception of the works presented. The show ran from March 18 to May 1, 2011.
A very coherent show across many media, I found several standout works among the small collection.
- These pieces, playing with the boundaries of frame, were super well crafted with a sense of humor and play in the escape from 2d.
- These books were presented in a glass case, and looked as if they had been sanded down or carefully cut and glued – creating a grain made up of the layers of pages and text.
- This amazing time-lapse, super close up video, created alien landscapes of spores and molds growing and evolving. The soundtrack really filled out the world presented, and it was pretty captivating to just stand and watch.
- The 8-bit sushi was the postcard image for the show, and summed up pretty well the collision of contemporary culture with a retro nod and respect for traditional cultural forms.
- In this video, a soundtrack triggers small electrodes attached to people’s faces, making them involuntarily twitch and shudder in a subtle and possibly slightly painful dance.
- This hat deserves a place at the Royal Wedding of William and Kate.
- Lastly, a dancing teddy bear which had a video camera hidden inside it was placed out on the sidewalk to capture pedestrians’ reactions. The videos were then displayed on the wall opposite the bear itself, which danced away the whole night.