Last weekend I was in San Jose, CA to visit friends and attend an opening reception for ITAB: International TECHstyle Art Biennial in which I had a textile piece. It also turned out to be a fabulous opportunity to see art.
Part 1- One afternoon my husband and I visited the San Jose Art Museum, a small museum but one which has a very respectable collection of contemporary art. Upstairs was featured Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection of representative pieces of American art from the 1960’s onward (no photography permitted) including work by Jasper Johns, Willem deKooning, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer.
On the main floor was Initial Public Offering: New Work fromSJMA’s Permanent Collection, a very exciting show with lots of styles and variety. Ashutosh Bhardwaj’s enormous oil and acrylic painting, Induced Epidemic, 2007, used contemporary imagery especially about beauty and the cosmetics industry to highlight sociopolitical issues related to consumerism.
Alison Saar’s Coup, 2006, composed of wood, wire, tin and found objects spoke of issues related to growing up and separation of mothers and daughters. Coup, related to the French couper, meaning “to cut” talks about the need for the daughter to jettison the heavy baggage by cutting off her her hair.
Basing his large acrylic collage on canvas, James Barsness included many cultural and religious references in All Souls Surfs Up Green Thumb Buddha, 2008 to illustrate the Buddhist belief in the duality of good and evil.
Tulip Twins (Triptych), 2005 used a personal folklore vocabulary to show recurrent peasant-like characters that appear in various environments. With gouache and latex paint on wood panel, Claire Rojas employed a flat and limited palette effectively.
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Combining painting, the human body, photography and performance, Huang Yan created photographs of his face painted with traditional Chinese landscapes. Summer, from the series The Four Seasons, 2008, continued his ongoing series, Body Landscapes.
Part 2- International TECHstyle Art Biennial. The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles was buzzing on Sunday, August 10 for the opening reception. Each artist present gave a 2-3 minute talk about inspiration for the work and methods. I had expected a rather small gallery space and was pleasantly surprised to find the space much larger and the reception very well attended. The range of work was amazing, everything from 2-D weavings to several very creative interactive pieces.
A floor to ceiling work by Paula Chung, Head MRA, 2014, used fiberglass screening and free motion quilting to reference body imaging as a window into our lives. Hung out from the wall, this piece cast wonderful shadows behind it.
Detail
I have followed the work of Eszter Bornemisza from Hungary for some time in photographs and was excited to find an example in this show. Using vilene, wires, plugs, thread, organza, keyboard buttons, wires and paper pulp, she used cast paper and machine sewing to create a very textural surface in Technopolis, 2014, a work inspired by cultural layers found in the earth.
Sometimes simple ingredients produce the most amazing results. June Lee’s Witness: And No One Else Was There, 2013, used only plaster, thread and the technique of very intricate and exacting wrapping to rework the theme of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil to address the propensity of people in a crowd to wait and witness rather than act.
Detail
There were several jacquard-woven tapestries in this exhibit. I was particularly intrigued with Swan Point, 2013, by Michael Radyk. This work, digitally designed, used recycled vinyl coated recycled polyester, linen, wool, and rayon flock to produce a very complex monochromatic quadruple cloth weave in which long woven floats were cut and manipulated very effectively.
The work I looked at longest and went back to several times was Chifu Memory, 2014, by French artist Brigitte Amarger. Using radiographic film (recycled x-rays) which she transformed with laser cutting, burning, engraving and sewing, Amarger created a textile memory of an old ancient textile grafted onto modern technology. This ghostly image also threw beautiful shadows on the wall.
Detail
My own entry in this show, First Moment, 2013, was featured in a previous post.
Also at the SJM of Q&T was a three women show, Forming Our Lives. Christina Velasquez, one of the participants, used humor to address a more serious subject, the expectations put on women in contemporary life.
La Mujer Tiene que Ser Bella, Women Must be Beautiful, 2008
(hair curlers, combs, cosmetics
La Mujer Tiene que Tener Las Medidas Perfectas, Women Must Have Perfect Measurements, 2008
Tape measures
Part 3- San Jose Downtown Doors (http://sjdowntown.com/downtown_doors/). Walking on the downtown streets of San Jose, you had to notice large poster-size works of art displayed on the doors of various businesses, forming a wonderful outdoor gallery. Basically, these artworks are the result of a competition for high school students. The winners have their artwork reproduced on vinyl and then a local business sponsors that vinyl image being professionally adhered to a door. The range and sophistication of work was truly impressive and a great way to validate and encourage young artists. Here is a sampling.
Sierra Larsen, Touching Two Worlds
Yajaira Acosta, Mother Nature
Neni Silva, The Hero Within
Kaila Caballero, See the Truth
Laxmi Korwar, For the Love of It
Did I mention that there was also the San Jose Jazz Festival going on downtown that weekend.? Wish I had taken photos of some of the very colorful attire worn by attendees. We didn’t have tickets but to the festival but enjoyed the music from the street.
