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CUE Art Foundation: Karen Tam, Curated by Mary Jane Jacob | Tom Secrest, Curated by Trenton Doyle Hancock - 31 Jan 2008 to 8 Mar 2008 Current Exhibition |
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Karen Tam
Model Kitschy Kitchen Mao: Not Made in China!, 2007 Mixed media, Dimensions variable |
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* Image 2 Karen Tam, Orientally Yours, 2007 As installed at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge, Alberta): Hardwood flooring, stage, menus, placemats, fridge, deep fryers, stove, mah-jong tables, curtains, podium, bar counter, plants, tables, chairs, cigarette shelf, fish tank, Coke machine, high chair, lanterns, photos, video various items, fabricated and borrowed from local community & businesses to recreate the dining and kitchen of a chop suey parlour. Pie, ice cream, tea and pop were served. Gold Mountain Fridays were held every Friday during the exhibition, providing light refreshments and great entertainment, including performances by The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonor�alists. Karen Tam Curated by Mary Jane Jacob January 31 � March 8, 2008 Opening Reception Thursday, January 31, 6:00 � 8:00pm �Karen Tam brings us China or the conflated and complex Chinese-ness that surrounds us. Her environments embody it. They are home. They are us.� �Mary Jane Jacob Karen Tam�s installation work employs a delicate balance of humor, confrontation and innovation to promote awareness and change in regards to cultural identity and authenticity. The artist works in many different media, including music, video and sculpture. Blended together, the finished product is both poignant and functional. Tam, a Canadian-based artist, strives to wittily point out Western culture�s fascination with, and prejudice towards Chinese culture through their notions of the Chinese and the reproduction of Chinese culture. More specifically, Tam is �particularly interested in the history of the Chinese Diaspora, especially its close connection to the emergence of the overseas Chinese restaurant and cuisine both in North America and internationally.� Also of interest is the historical and current production of Eastern goods for Western taste, something Tam investigates through her installation at CUE Art Foundation, her first solo exhibition in New York. Home and interior design shows, competitions and home d�cor stores that treat Asian cultures as commodities gave rise to the basic premise for the installation. Similar to a home design showroom, Tam creates four modern-day chinoiserie rooms called Pagoda Pads. The rooms consist of a kitchen, living room, children�s playroom and a bedroom. Many parts of the kitchen will be functional and the children�s playroom will be filled with toys purchased in Chinatown, at discount stores, including many of the lead-contaminated toys recently recalled. All the Pagoda Pads will include what the artist describes as an �Oriental flair.� To achieve this, Tam will incorporate music, photographs, paper cut-outs, text and fauxantiques. Played within the installation as background music will be Chinese Firecrackers, a recording of people Tam asked to do cover versions of 19th and 20th century English and French racist tunes. ARTIST�S BIO: Since receiving a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Karen Tam has exhibited her work in Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom and the United States. She has participated in residencies across Canada, as well as the Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. In 2006, Tam was awarded the Joseph Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts for most outstanding young visual artist. She has also received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Qu�bec, and Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l�Aide � la Recherche, Qu�bec. Recent activities include solo and group exhibitions: LAB 7.3: Pagoda Pads (2007) at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia; REDRESS Express at Centre A,Vancouver, British Columbia; Orientally Yours (2007) at The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta; and Portraits d�artistes, a Conseil des arts de Montr�al initiative. Upcoming activities include participating in group shows at the Mus�e d�art contemporain de Montr�al and the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, and a solo exhibition, On Rock Garden, at AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Tom Secrest Curated by Trenton Doyle Hancock January 31 � March 8, 2008 Opening Reception Thursday, January 31, 6:00 � 8:00pm �Even though his imagery implies a passage of souls from one plane to the next, the earthen grit of his hues encases his figures, binding them to mortal confinement. Tom�s characters hardly acknowledge each other; instead they just go about their business in the shadows.� � Trenton Doyle Hancock Louisiana-based artist Tom Secrest, has always accompanied his work as a printmaker with countless numbers of drawings and paintings. Incredibly prolific, the artist possesses thousands of notebooks containing his work. Embracing the fantastic and psychological over the real, Secrest�s influences include such varied imagery as the early illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by John Neill, childhood storybooks like Journeys Through Bookland and the plethora of images employed by the celebration of Halloween. Since childhood, he has used artwork as a means of escaping his surroundings and to, as the artist describes, ��fall into my own form of �Neverland� or down Alice�s rabbit hole.� In his first solo exhibition in New York, the works on view comprise poignant examples of the artist�s unique imagination and recurring themes from the past several years. Secrest generally begins each piece without a specific subject in mind; rather, armed with these influences and his own life experiences, he lets each piece materialize on its own. This also speaks to the fact that he never titles his works, opting for them to speak for themselves. The winged figure in Untitled, 1998 (above, left) could be viewed as, among other things, an angel or a vampire and is a recurring subject in his work. This ambiguity is mirrored in Secrest�s own life experiences, as the piece was created just before the bittersweet event of the artist�s retirement from his position as Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Secrest began doing self portraits while in undergraduate school and has continued throughout his career, often inserting his own image alongside fantastical characters like in Untitled, 2006. Oftentimes the artist finds frames, preferably ones which he considers to be �non-academic,� and then creates a piece specifically for the frame. Flat, geometric shapes and eyeless, isolated figures mix with the artist�s muted, earthen palette to create a cryptic world where the line between the ethereal and the substantial is blurred. The inclusion of the artist�s own likeness in these works underlines the complete incorporation of his work and inspirations in all facets of his life and environment. They provide the viewer with the perfect windows into which one gets an unedited glimpse of the artist�s own version of the traditional �fairy tale.� ARTIST�S BIO: Tom Secrest was born in Columbus, OH, in 1942. He received his BFA and MFA from Ohio University in Athens, OH in 1966, and 1968 respectively. His work has been featured in a variety of exhibitions, including the One Man Show, University Art Museum, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA (1998); the First International Exhibition of the National Academy of Fantastic Art, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, (1986); and the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Prints Exhibition, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, (1981). Calvin Harlan wrote about Secrest�s work in The New Orleans Art Review in June of 1986. His pieces are in a number of prestigious collections including The Print Collection of The New York Public Library, New York, NY; The Print Collection of Harlan and Weaver Intaglio, New York, NY; The Print Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; and The Collection of The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. This exhibition at CUE Art Foundation marks Secrest�s first solo show in New York University art museum. |
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