Author Archives: cwongyap

Art & Development

Crunch time!

M. sometimes jokes about “getting your game face on.” These days, I’m trying to keep my game face on. I’m about halfway through a marathon of Prep Life, Art Life, and Curator Life. I’ll do the touchdown dance on Friday, August 7 at 7pm — that’s the opening of This & That Int’l Mail Art Swap, a show within a show at Triple Base Gallery. Here’s a “Previously, in Christine’s Life” re-cap (a la Wofford, and Lost):

On Friday, Wallworks opened at YBCA — my day was a high-energy preparator push, and my night, a sentimental “see you later” with the kick-ass crew that I’d worked alongside for the past three intense weeks.

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On Saturday, I dived into a mountain of mail art on my desk, and updated mailartswap.christinewongyap.com with photographs, profiles of the participating artists and a revised curatorial statement. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s really starting to come together. I’m very excited about the show and so proud to exhibit some really outstanding new projects.

Exhibition mock-up

Exhibition mock-up


On Sunday, I donned my painter’s pants again for more prep work, this time for This & That. The mail swap features 32 projects — many are small drawings and photos, but there are also some projects that require more crafty exhibition strategies. I spent the day laying out the wall arrangement in Triple Base’s ‘cozy’ back room, then spackling, painting and chatting with Joshua Churchill about his project, which is gonna be awesome.

Yesterday, M and I moved me out of my studio at the Headlands into my new studio in West Oakland. Being a sculptor/installation artist, I’ve managed to acquire enough stuff to fill a 10′ moving van. I’ve graduated to a proper upright storage rack/crate for my framed works; I think my next studio project may be building a workbench for my new miter saw. Pegboard stocked, ready to go. My new studio’s going to be part art studio and part tinkerer’s garage.

Next up: making shelves, cutting some acrylic sheets, and resolving they vinyl signage. Then installing my own work.

Involved Socially — and This & That — opens this Friday, August 7, 7-10 pm at Triple Base Gallery.

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Community

Good people, good times

I once worked for a MacArthur genius. Among her many talents was a tremendously high value for people — she conveyed that no matter how smart you are or how much recognition you get, you’re only as good as the people on your team.

Even geniuses don’t go it alone.

Recently I’ve had the good fortune of working with really bright and hard-working artists.

I’ve been working alongside visual arts staff and crew at YBCA who cultivate respect and teamwork. They’re artists, students, musicians, designers and artist’s assistants who are skilled and friendly. It’s been really awesome to be partly responsible for actualizing a massive art exhibition. As a solo artist, it’s easy for me to shape my work around what’s do-able for me, but this experience has shown me firsthand the impressive scale of what resources, organization and manpower can accomplish. It’s also clarified for me that working hard is really enjoyable when you’ve got good tools, peers with good attitudes, and the environment to apply one’s skills and be efficacious.

This is all in the context of helping artists realize their projects for the upcoming exhibition, Wallworks. My former CCA professor Chris Finley is installing a huge installation of vinyl, paint, string and even more stuff, that starts with vector art and shoots off. I’ve also been helping Makoto Aida, one of the mellowest artists I’ve ever worked with, never mind the language barriers. Here’s a photo of the hand of Osamu-san, Aida-san’s equally amiable assistant:

Osamu-san's hand, with "Christine," "Sean" and "Kyle" in Japanese.

Osamu-san's hand, with Christine, Sean and Kyle in Japanese.


(Sean and Kyle are tireless YBCA crew members at who’ve assisted Aida as well.)

Odili Donald Odita, from Philly, has created some really enjoyable, flawless, geometric wall paintings. Yehudit Sasportas, of Berlin, is contributing a truly massive b/w, high-contrast wall painting that’s eerily more like graphic design than painting. The way the flat black background falls away behind the white linework is really wonderful.

Also in the show will be new works by Leslie Shows, Amanda Ross-Ho, Tillman Kaiser and Edgar Arcenaux. Beside the fact that I helped to install the show, I think it’s a really great concept for a show and many of the works will be completely unlike anything you’ve seen in a while.

Wallworks opens Friday, August 3, from 8-11pm.

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This & That Mail Art Swap

Welcome to This & That

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I’m pleased to announce a new curatorial project, This & That, an invitational mail art swap among international artists. Initiated in July 2009, This & That is a grassroots exchange by artists for artists.

32 artists/collaboratives are from 7 countries are participating:

Poklong Anading (Manila)
Chris Bell (Austrailia/San Francisco)
Simon Blackmore (Manchester)
Simon & Tom Bloor (Birmingham/London)
Jon Brumit (Chicago)
Michelle Carollo (NYC)
Mike Chavez-Dawson (Manchester)
Susan Chen (San Francisco)
Joshua Churchill (San Francisco)
Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson (Berlin/Manchester)
N. Sean Glover (Pittsburg, Penn., USA)
Mary Griffiths (Manchester)
Antony Hall (Manchester)
Taro Hattori (Oakland, Calif., USA)
Eric Hongisto (San Francisco)
Sarah Kabot (Ohio, USA)
Scot Kaplan (Ohio, USA)
Verity-Jane Keefe (London)
Yuen Fong Ling (Manchester)
Ivy Ma (Hong Kong)
David Moises (Vienna)
Ali Naschke-Messing (San Francisco)
Scott Oliver (Oakland, Calif., USA)
Susan O’Malley (San Francisco)
Laurence Payot (Liverpool)
Pest (Rebecca Chesney, Robina Llewellyn & Elaine Speight) (Preston, Lancs, UK)
Anthony Ryan (San Francisco)
David Sherry (Glasgow)
Daniel Staincliffe (Manchester)
Tattfoo Tan (NYC)
Jenifer K. Wofford (Oakland/Prague)
MM Yu (Manila)

Submissions will be exhibited in “Socially, Involved,” an exhibition at curated by Michelle Blade, at Triple Base Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA from August 7–September 6, 2009.

See the entries at exhibition, or at the opening reception — Friday, August 7, 7-10 pm — or check mailartswap.christinewongyap.com.

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Research

MIFfed

In “Manchester United,” Kate Sutton writes up the big-name art events in the Manchester International Festival on Artforum.com. Unfortunately it was in Scene and Herd, the mag’s gossip column/photos-of-beautiful-people section.

MIF sounds phenomenal — few cities are brave enough to host a festival of new visual arts and performance commissions of that scale. It’s nice to see coverage of the Marina Abramovich-curated exhibition at the Whitworth and Jeremy Deller’s populist-meets-conceptualist Procession, though Sutton overlooked local and emerging artists, and their varied and experimental MIF initiative, Contemporary Art Manchester.

I could have done without the author’s dishy commentary. She punctuates her reportage with snarky asides, as well as needless and predictable snooty (and classist) jabs at Mancunians at large. The “unity” conjured in the title contrasts sharply with her cynical dismissal of the very publics who host these events–and her as an art-tourist.

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Research

Holland Cotter on Song Dong’s Waste Not

In “The Collected Ingredients of a Beijing Life,” (NYTimes, July 14) critic Holland Cotter reviews Song Dong’s exhibition, Waste Not, currently at MOMA. In only a few hundred words, Cotter manages to:
– introduce readers to conceptualism,
– familiarize readers with the artist’s ouvre, political context and spiritual influences,
– describe the work on display, its back story and the viewing experience.

Economical, clear, effective for general audiences and informative for specialists. Brilliant!

In addition to the quality of the writing, I also appreciated the description of extreme frugality, a tendency I’m quite familiar with.

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Community, News

The Shop

The Silverman Gallery in San Francisco is launching an exhibition called The Shop, which is

a curated exhibition/ pop up shop featuring artist editions, prints and other ephemera. In the spirit of Fluxus, DIY and punk, THE SHOP explores the ongoing dialogue between printed culture and artistic production, tracing the ways in which self-produced multiples blur the divide between art and commerce….

Featured artists: Ari Marcopolous, Bozidar Brazda, Matt Keegan, Tammy Rae Carland, Ryan Foerster, Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, Christina McPhee, Job Piston, Joseph Akel, BLAND, Aaron Krach, Luke Fishbeck, Marc Arthur, Neil Ledoux, Susan Silton, Yuval Pudik and many more!!!

I love artist’s editions and multiples — I’ve been making them for some time now, and it’s an odd corner of the art world to operate in, because it acknowledges both that artists should be paid for their work and art can be affordable.

I’m really excited about the show, and will definitely make it at some point to see it — but I won’t be there on the opening, because it coincides with the opening of Involved, Socially, at Triple Base Gallery, and if I may shamelessly self-promote it, it’s an exhibition curated by Michelle Blade featuring the works by Amanda Curreri, David Horvitz, Mark McKnight, Jessica Williams and Christine Wong Yap.
August 6–September 6, 2009
Opening Reception: August 7, 7–10pm
Triple Base Gallery
3041 24th Street, San Francisco, CA
gallery hours: Thu-Sun 12-5pm

I’ll be showing a new installation and my first curatorial project — an international mail art swap among multi-disciplinary and conceptual artists. I find the practices of invited artists completely intriguing and hope you will too.

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News

July 12: Headlands Open House

I’ve enjoyed being a member of the artist’s community at the Headlands Center for the Arts for almost two years now. When I left graduate school, I wanted to make bigger work, experiment, and be a part of a larger art community, the Headlands has certainly afforded that. Now, my stint as an Affiliate Artist is coming to a close. Join me for my last Open House before I relocate my studio back to Oakland.

My studio at the Headlands 2007, preparing work-in-progress Soft Sculpture for Brougham Hall for the FRED Festival, Cumbria, UK

My studio at the Headlands 2007, preparing work-in-progress Soft Sculpture for Brougham Hall for the FRED Festival, Cumbria, UK

The Open House is a chance to visit the Headlands’ artists, writers, dancers, choreographers and musicians in their studios. There are a number of international and national artists in residence, as well as emerging talents of all kinds. Readings and performances will also be scheduled throughout the day. The Open House is free, and I encourage you to take advantage of this thrice-yearly opportunity to visit the historic Headlands buildings (including 960, around the bend, in which my studio is located, in the basement), enjoy some great local and organic food at the Mess Hall, and visit the nearby Rodeo Beach afterwards.

Great Great Great and OK OK OK, 2009, neon and glitter pen on paper, 16.75 x 24.5 inches / 42.5 x 62 cm. I'll be showing these and other new works on paper and assemblages, as well as some projects from the Breathe Residency, at the Open House.

Great Great Great and OK OK OK, 2009, neon and glitter pen on paper, 16.75 x 24.5 inches / 42.5 x 62 cm. I'll be showing these and other new works on paper and assemblages, as well as some projects from the Breathe Residency, at the Open House.

Artists in Residence: Jacob Dahlgren (installation, Sweden), Fallen Fruit (interdisciplinary, Los Angeles), Desirée Holman (interdisciplinary, Oakland), April Martin, film/video (OH), Aaron Noble (visual, CA), Tomas Phillips (music/composition, NC), Chris Sollars (film/video, San Francisco), Lysley Tenorio (writing, CA), Barry Underwood (photography, OH)

Project Space: Robert Minervini (painting/installation, CA)

Tournesol Award: Shaun O’Dell (painting)

Headlands Graduate Fellows: Michael Arcega (sculpture/installation, Stanford), Patrick Gillespie (interdisciplinary, CCA), Vera Kachouh (film/video, SFAI), Aaron Maietta (interdisciplinary, UC Berkeley), Michael Namkung (interdisciplinary, SF State), Joshua Short (installation, UC Davis), Andrew Witrak (sculpture, Mills College)

Affiliate Artists: Colette Campbell-Jones (visual), John Casey (visual), Christina Chan (visual), Julie Cloutier (interdisciplinary), Sandy Florian (writing), David Fought (sculpture), Christopher Gray (visual), Eric Hongisto (painting), Ginelle Hustrulid (film/video), Robin Johnston (fiber/visual), Julie Lara Kahn (interdisciplinary), Pawel Kruk (visual), Justin Limoges (visual), Emily McLeod (photography), Eileen Starr Moderbacher (visual), Danielle Mourning (film/video/photography), Megan Pruiett (writing), Sarah Rosenthal (writing), James Sansing (sculpture/installation/photography), Wayne Smith (visual/sound), Melissa Stein (poetry), Emily Wilson (visual), Maw Shein Win (writing), Christine Wong Yap (interdisciplinary)
Staff: Holly Blake (painting)

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