Chris Burden’s frenetic installation at LACMA “refers specifically to Los Angeles … of the future” but it’s more reminiscent of fast-growing megacities, like Chongqing and Dubai.
AX Mina
AX Mina (aka An Xiao Mina) is an author, artist and futures thinker who follows her curiosity. She co-produces Five and Nine, a podcast about magic, work and economic justice.
Posted inArt
New iPad App Makes Sketching Social
MANILA, Philippines — For years now, artists and designers have had blogs and social media to give the general public access to their studios and lives. But what if you could peek into artists’ very thought processes? What if you could see their sketches evolve day by day, before they’re actualized into stunning installations?
Posted inArt
Trick or Treat in the Manila Slums
MANILA, Philippines — The film opens casually enough. Children wearing Halloween masks float, or roll, backwards. As we pay attention to the surroundings, we realize we are following the children through the poorest conditions, which shoot past us. Over time, we realize we are on railway tracks, and the children are on a cart. People pop in and out of frame, and the kids with Halloween masks continue to stare at us.
Posted inArt
3 iPad Apps Recreate the Museum Experience…Almost
MANILA, Philippines — Over the past few months, I’ve watched with envy as stunning museum shows have gone up in my old haunts in Los Angeles and New York. Thankfully, in recent months three museums have released exhibition-related apps for the iPad and iPhone. To see how they stack up, I reviewed three apps (CA Design HD at LACMA, AB EX at MoMA, Cattelan at Guggenheim) in their iPad incarnations. Here are my thoughts.
Posted inArt
A Zen Buddhist and a Catholic Walk Into a Composition
MANILA, Philippines — The words “Catholic” and “Zen” rarely appear in the same sentence together, but there’s a potent history of mixing of these traditions. Benedictine monk Thomas Merton famously studied Zen and Taoist classics as part of his meditative practice, and Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh has written often of Christian-Buddhist dialogue.
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An Artist Grapples With the Worst Documented Attack on Journalists
MANILA, Philippines — On November 23, 2009, just a little over two years ago, Esmael Magundadatu, the vice mayor of the southern Philippine city of Buluan, invited 37 journalists to accompany him as he filed for his certificate of candidacy. The group, along with a cadre of lawyers and family, never made it to their destination.
Posted inOpinion
Cardboard Los Angeles
MANILA, Philippines — One of the lovely things about living abroad is seeing the American art world through the internet. When in the US, I’m tugged in so many directions from brick-and-mortar spaces, but there are a ton of American gems online, and not all of them are in New York and Los Angeles. Like Ana Serrano’s project on display in Houston.
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The Father of Filipino Conceptual Art
MANILA, Philippines — Where does one start with Philippine contemporary art? So little is known outside the country, even amongst foreign-born Filipinos.
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World’s Longest Graffiti Street in China?
MANILA, Philippines — As is so often said about Chongqing, you’ve never heard of it, but with 30 million people and rising, it’s one of the largest municipalities in the world (for perspective, all of New York state has some 20 million people). Located in the heart of southwest China, a former city in Sichuan Province but now independent, Chongqing also hosts the country’s largest graffiti street, and perhaps the world’s.
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Art, Tech and the Tropics: Writing on Philippine Contemporary Art
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — What’s up, Hyperallergic? I’m excited to begin blogging again more regularly this month. I’ve just landed in Manila, the bustling capital of the Philippines, to begin a month-long writing residency at Green Papaya Art Projects.
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Getting Naked for Ai Weiwei [NSFW]
BEIJING — When Ai Weiwei’s assistant, Beijing artist Zhao Zhao, was brought in for questioning recently, the supposed charges were simple: distribution of pornography. The image in question was “One Tiger, Eight Breasts,” a shot of Ai with four young women, all of them naked. I first saw the photo in August 2010, when he tweeted a link to it and said “Trusting each other fully,” though the link to the image no longer works.
Posted inOpinion
“We Need to Ai Weiwei”: The Ai Weiwei Question on Chinese Social Media
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — What has the response to Ai Weiwei’s tax case been like in China? We’ve seen the thrilling surge of netizens lending over a million dollars to the artist, and he recently made a deposit while he contests the bill. The artist has returned to Twitter, posting actively once more. Many reports have emphasized that Ai’s name is blocked on searches on Sina Weibo, but, as with the Wenzhou train collision last year, netizens are using images to circumvent censorship and show their support.
