shu and joe

Never got around to putting up these images from the Fast Break show that opened at PKM Gallery in April. A strong group of contemporary Korean art was on display. A couple of the highlights:

Yoon Jeong-mee, Pink Project, 2007

Yoon Jeong-mee, Blue Project, 2007

Incredibly tiny hand-modeled figures. Can’t recall the artist’s name.

On our way to Bali, we stopped over in Hong Kong for a few days. Got to see some friends and family, visit a few islands, do some hiking, and narrowly escape a feral pigeon attack.

Shu’s aunt, mom and brother in the New Territories.

Sunday in Central: thousands of migrant cleaning ladies flood the streets to relax on their day off.

I’ve got to give props to Nike for not doing anything half-assed. The finals of the Jiumen 3v3 basketball tournament took place last night inside the Forbidden City. I don’t know what kind of strings you have to pull or who you have to pay off to make this kind of thing happen, but it certainly makes an impression. They even had a giant Nike logo emblazoned on the roof of the nearby palace – the Great Helmsman is no doubt turning in his climate-controlled glass display case.

Anyway, the guys at DMG did a damn fine job pulling this thing together. I spent a few days at their office helping out with the graphics for the event and from what I could tell, they’ve got a young crew who work hard and do it up profesh.

I was happy to receive a knock at the door today – especially when I found out that it was the mailman, and not some guy trying to sell me hacked software. The good folks at Victionary were kind enough to send me copies of two of their recent publications, which I contributed some work to. The titles are Zoom In Zoom Out and Logology. Both have been in book stores for a few months, but, ya know, mail to China is pretty damn slow (even from Hong Kong).

Working for a multinational ad agency has its perks (especially for those who don’t actually work for one, but who have a significant other who does). The Spikes ad awards took place in Bali this year, which meant that Shu would be heading down to sit in on a few lectures, ceremonies and dinners. I went along too, but my schedule was filled mostly with catching up on some reading while sipping fruity drinks on the beach. Some additional highlights:
- The homemade honey-melon jam laced with vanilla bean at the Laguna.
- The cliff-side “infinity pool” at the Ritz-Carlton overlooking glassy 6 foot beachbreaks.
- Monkeys trained to steal cameras, glasses and even the sandals off your feet. Articles could be reclaimed by paying around 50,000 rupiah ($6) per item to an enterprising local at whose feet your items would be deposited by said monkeys.

Wrangle up a little sponsorship, and watch the numbers soar…

Pecha Kucha, the rapid-fire lecture series founded in Japan and now franchised around the globe, made its second appearance in Beijing in April. With a little PR help from Nike and the use of the corporation’s gargantuan space inside factory 706, the event turned out to be the event of the week, pulling in more than 500 art/architecture/culture enthusiasts. Maybe it free beer and door prizes, I don’t know, but whatever the case, people turned out. And they were rewarded with some interesting displays from local designers, architects and artists. But, um, what was up with the giant glow ball?

Beijing’s New Capital Museum was completed in 2005 and features a massive column that pierces through the 5 storey structure at a slightly oblique angle. It’s reportedly the 2nd largest museum in China and features some of the finest lighting and display systems I’ve seen on the mainland. The museum recently featured its first large scale exhiition of Western art titled “Aftershock.” The exhibition was a kind of greatest-hits-of-the-YBA affair, although many of their most notorious works were not to be seen. It seems that the government run institution is still not ready to bear a full-scale earthquake.

The oblique cylinder may look good from the outside, but it results in some awkward interior solutions: