Bear skins, pearls and kitchen sinks in artist's show
By Wang Jie |
July 13, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
MONUMENTAL, metal kitchen sinks, gush coffee, juice, red wine and other ordinary liquids in a dazzling installation challenge the eyes, ears and sense of smell.
The work by Italian-born, Alaska-based multimedia artist Paolo Pivi is part of her solo exhibition at the Rockbund Art Museum.
The famous international artist's first show in Shanghai features very large installations featuring, separately, artificial bear skins, artificial pearls, vases and pillows. It's titled "Share, But It's Not Fair," the meaning far from clear.
Pivi, born in Milan in 1971, lives and works in the US state of Alaska. She received the Golden Lion at the 1999 Venice Biennale and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Her works have been collected by the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
On entering the museum lobby, visitors encounter an enormous globe-like hanging lamp made with more than 100 vases of various sizes, colors and shapes.
On the second floor, nearly 400 long pillows, hand-crafted in Nepal, are suspended from the ceiling. The reds and yellows of the pillows suggest Buddhist robes.
To Pivi, the narration of an artwork is not straightforward. The first impression of powerful visual surprise gives way to analysis that leads the viewer into an atypical, absurd, bizarre and extravagant world.
Pivi likes to generate ambiguous and contradictory feelings such as lightness and weight, smoothness and violence, warm and cold, seriousness and absurdity, singularity and mass.
At the artist's request, a white wall blocks the entry way on the third floor. Narrow gaps on either side are the only means of access, since the artist didn't want visitors to take in the installation all in one glance. They choose right or left and encounter a large U-shaped structure composed of artificial bearskins in white, black and brown, joined nose to tail. Viewers can sit or lie on the bearskins.
Pearl ?painting?
In another installation, viewers encounter a "painting" made of thousands of artificial white pearls placed on a canvas, as if growing out of it. The effect is one of bas relief. At one time Pivi stayed in Shanghai and was inspired by the cheap, showy artificial pearls available in many shops. The work is titled "Thank you. Ocean."
The artist frequenly uses daily life objects. For example, "It's a Cocktail Party" is composed of nine fountain-like installations that appear to be enormous, stainless steel kitchen sinks, flowing with water, juice, coffee, red wine, soap suds and other common liquids.
Viewers feel enveloped by the scene: towering silvery metal structures, colorful gushing liquids and swirling aromas.
Date: Through September 9, 10am-6pm (closed on Mondays)
Address: 29 Huqiu Rd
Tel: 3310-9985
The work by Italian-born, Alaska-based multimedia artist Paolo Pivi is part of her solo exhibition at the Rockbund Art Museum.
The famous international artist's first show in Shanghai features very large installations featuring, separately, artificial bear skins, artificial pearls, vases and pillows. It's titled "Share, But It's Not Fair," the meaning far from clear.
Pivi, born in Milan in 1971, lives and works in the US state of Alaska. She received the Golden Lion at the 1999 Venice Biennale and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Her works have been collected by the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
On entering the museum lobby, visitors encounter an enormous globe-like hanging lamp made with more than 100 vases of various sizes, colors and shapes.
On the second floor, nearly 400 long pillows, hand-crafted in Nepal, are suspended from the ceiling. The reds and yellows of the pillows suggest Buddhist robes.
To Pivi, the narration of an artwork is not straightforward. The first impression of powerful visual surprise gives way to analysis that leads the viewer into an atypical, absurd, bizarre and extravagant world.
Pivi likes to generate ambiguous and contradictory feelings such as lightness and weight, smoothness and violence, warm and cold, seriousness and absurdity, singularity and mass.
At the artist's request, a white wall blocks the entry way on the third floor. Narrow gaps on either side are the only means of access, since the artist didn't want visitors to take in the installation all in one glance. They choose right or left and encounter a large U-shaped structure composed of artificial bearskins in white, black and brown, joined nose to tail. Viewers can sit or lie on the bearskins.
Pearl ?painting?
In another installation, viewers encounter a "painting" made of thousands of artificial white pearls placed on a canvas, as if growing out of it. The effect is one of bas relief. At one time Pivi stayed in Shanghai and was inspired by the cheap, showy artificial pearls available in many shops. The work is titled "Thank you. Ocean."
The artist frequenly uses daily life objects. For example, "It's a Cocktail Party" is composed of nine fountain-like installations that appear to be enormous, stainless steel kitchen sinks, flowing with water, juice, coffee, red wine, soap suds and other common liquids.
Viewers feel enveloped by the scene: towering silvery metal structures, colorful gushing liquids and swirling aromas.
Date: Through September 9, 10am-6pm (closed on Mondays)
Address: 29 Huqiu Rd
Tel: 3310-9985
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