Xavier Cha - My Artist Project

Holiday Cruise 2006

 "Holiday Cruise"  is an exhibition conducted in three parts.  Xavier has created multiple personas.  (1)  Horn of Plenty (2) Cornrow Hairbraid who dances expresively and (3) Polyhedra who is an elegantly masked and cloaked "deity of abstraction. Each persona comes alive at the month long exhibit for a week at a time that is a Bacchanlian Celebration at Taxter and Spengemann Gallery in NY.

Cleopatra's Presents - Hourglass (installation 2010)

Two-Way Mirror 2009

"Crystal the Nail"

Human Ad 2004

http://xaviercha.com 
This link goes directly to her webpage to view her video clip performances.

   Xavier Cha is a Happenings performer who is represented by Taxter and Spengemann Gallery. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2002 and then graduated from UCLA with a MFA in Sculpture in 2004.  She currently lives in New York and her work has been widely viewed throughout the U.S. and internationally.  Her artist style is categorized as exhibition, performance, conceptual performance, video art, and installation. 
    Xavier has experienced with alternate perceptions of space with her collaborative exhibitions. For example, in her "2010 Portal" iinstallation a space is created at a art gallery for a dancer to perform and create artist movements within that area.  A man video tapes the performance with a camera that is stabilized on robotic like legs to provide a more stable picture while filming. Why? For the observer or audience to experience an alternate perception of time and space.
   She is a frequent collaborator and she invites musicians, dancers, clowns and cults to contribute or perform in her projects and at times the invited guests add confusion to these happenings or performances.  In 2009  "Two Way Mirror" professional clowns come into the gallery and put on their makeup in a space at a gallery while passers-by observe and critique this HAPPENING.
    Another performance, for instance, 2006  "Holiday Cruise!" shows a beautiful assortment of colorful fruits and vegetables arranged along with a cultural like costume(Central or South American) in background.  However, there is a performer involved in this conceptual installation and she is buried within the arrangement of fruits and vegetables. Her feet appear sticking out.  She stays within character as though buried in the background as people walk by and wonder what does this suppose to say.   Maybe this symbolizes or conceptualizes in her opinion how people are barely visible to others when others are grocery shopping.  A person is without a face, name, or voice just present to sell vegetables.
   There are a variety of other solo performances such as Unsolicited Happenings that she creates. While she was in Los Angeles at one time she had to drive and noticed being visually assaulted by the mass advertisement of billboards and costumed outfitted patrons attracting the locals to come in to eat at their restaurant.  Xavier thinks human ads are absurd and so she decided to make an absurd pun in response to bring attention to the silliness and watch for reactions from the people in the area while videotaping for an an hour at a time. She dressed in a Fingernail costume in front of a nail salon. This one is funny. She is wearing an oval shaped cone over her head with her legs exposed dancing around on a corner. In another video there is man dressed like a shrimp dancing up some moves on a corner for a sushi restaurant.
     Last, Xavier has worked on many group exhibitions with other artists  She has contributed to the following exhibits:  2010 -Cleopatra's Presents, Quadruple Consciousness, Absolutely Others.  2009-Second Nature, Conventions, Invisible Adversaries, Skin Jobs. 2008 - PM Dawn, Agency - Art & Advertising Residents. 2007 - Uncertain States of America, Video Art in the Third Millennium. 2006- One Way or Another in Practice.2005, Makers, 2004 And if you Think You Can See Just with Your Eyes, and  2003 California Welcomes You. In Cleopatra's Presents, Xavier was a part of a group of artists, curators, who met at a cafe named, Cleopatra's in 2008 for two years.  These artists, who were all women, examined,discussed,and observed similarities and differences among their professions than presented their projects on canvas, video, photography, installations, and performances.
   What I have learned about Xavier is that she brings attention to her subjects by injecting the element of surprise,confusion and or mockery.  Forcing people to take a closer look to the beauty, absurdity, bizarre, and or less desirable things in life that are overlooked, she is able to communicate to the world through exhibitions why is the acceptable accepted. A different point of view I think is helpful in confronting what is considered average, boring, silly, and acceptable behavior in to our communities.  Art is in everyday life but what is the norm of acceptable art is a personal opinion that every person is entitled to.

Improve Everywhere "We Cause Scenes"

     Improve Everywhere was created in August 2001 by Charlie Todd.  Charlie's background began by taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York where he met most of the other performers in his Improvisational group named, Improve Everywhere.  In the Uptight Citizens Brigade, he learned about creating comedy sketches that generally pulled pranks on people in public places. There was a show many years back called,  Candid Camera, a funny show that pulled pranks on the public with comedy actors and a hidden camera. I remember this show from my youth and it was definitely fun to watch the real expressions of people unfold from shock and dismay to embarrassment or anger. Anyway, later this group formed to pull some pranks in the local communities of New York and are tamed by the local law enforcement on occasion.  Just to make sure the pranksters do not push it too far... no obscenity of language and or nudity.  The group has met annually since 2002 for their improvisation of "No Pants." This is a public displayed skit and the actors are in full bloom of their characters. A group riding the public trains with no pants on but of course, undergarments are worn, socks, shoes, blouses shirts ties, hats and et cetra. You got the picture... right. There are many other skits performed and this is just one of many funny pranks.  This I could image only causes many smiles and don't we need a little laughter in our lives?

Vanessa Beecroft

     Vanessa was born in 1969 in Genoa, Italy.  He art is a unique fusion of conceptual issues consisting primarily of recorded photographed events. Her subjects stand still, usually finding unity, among multiple subjects by wearing the same colored outfits, shoes, wigs, makeup, or color of skin. Her events and or performances mostly represent the female body; sometimes a woman is clothed and many times she is nude. What I read also stated that she uses the locations historical events as a backdrop but injects her personal view /  message in her displayed events. Thus, provoking her political angle arranged in a historical context.  What is she saying with her art? What I see is a woman taking on many roles in her life. Women strive to accomplish varying roles in society. Maybe my point of view is completely wrong. Nonetheless, her events are created before an audiences eyes and the characters/ performers usually stand motionless. So, in a sense her events appear like a painting being recreated before the audiences eyes. Some imagery is strange or confusing others are beautiful and symbolic.

     

Maurizio Cattelan Contemporary Artist

 

     Maurizio is an Italian born artist who is well known for his dark puns on social and political rules of acceptance in society. Maurizio held many odd jobs in his earlier years yet furniture designing served as his catalyst into the artist world. He pokes fun and does it with enough finesse to be successful.   He derives subjects from past historical themes as his focus and sometimes substitutes animals for people. A humorous style filled with a satirical angle can entertain but also can anger viewers, too. For example,  Him, 2001 is a photorealist sculpture of a miniature of Hitler in  prayer.  This  photo is a contradiction that would summons plenty of comments from observers near and far.  Another sculpture involves a collapsed squirrel who is dead, at a table in a kitchen, with a gun on the floor.  Maurizio seems to push the limits in many of these artistic installations/sculptures but he must be doing something right because people are paying him to show his work. Art has many forms and freedom of expression goes along with it. I am not saying I don't find some of his work comical because I do. He is quite talented in crafting creations and provoking emotions by viewers.

   

Lauren Bon / Not a Cornfield / Farmlab

Agricultural growth in bed of El Camino

     The following photographs are of vegetation or agriculture being grown, in the city of Los Angeles, for the Farm Lab project by trustee and owner Lauren Bon of the Annenberg Foundation. Her message is to bring attention of organic life struggling to live with in the confines of of an area in Los Angeles that is encompassed by city buildings, houses, open land and homeless patrons. 

      Another project of Lauren Bons is "Not a Cornfield."  This project was initiated in 2005.  The project's main focus was to bring to light the sounds of a field.  The 32 acre piece of land was a corn field in reality but the sounds of the land was the main purpose and direction of her project. Wind rustling past leaves of the field, bugs chirping, a train passing by sounding off its horn, and surrounding sounds of the local community were recorded.   Her group of members who helped in this project set-up two large speakers in the vast field three thousand feet apart to grasp a surround sound experience. Her projects bring attention to the smaller things in life that do not get much attention by the average person walking or driving by.  I viewed an interview of her by KCET regarding the Farmlab  project and I was inspired by her attention to the details of a street in Los Angeles that she focused on.  She turned this area into a cornfield and the volunteers assisted in raising corn crops that varied in multiple colors from pale white to blue-green, to purple-red, and chocolate.

The Beall Center for Art

When I attended the Beall Center at the UCI campus I viewed this exhibit of "Birds". I realized quickly what the focus was as the pneumatic apparatus began to fill with air. I love birds and I enjoyed observing the birds flight as I continuously walked in a circular motion around the project. If a person stands still the birds rest but as the observer grows closer the birds take flight to escape the passers-by. As you take a closer look at this picture, one views the narrow tubes above the birds transferring the compressed air to create movement in this fabricated sculpture.

 I am not sure what this is suppose to be but it resembles a shuttle.  The design looks like many elongated shaped balloons.  I had no idea what I was walking into when I arrived.  I thought I was going to see this giant blue balloon like dog; however, I missed that exhibit and I was pleasantly surprised by these two exhibits. It was quite loud in the studio as these sculptures would mechanically inflate with air.  There was an intermittent hissing and braking sound resonating throughout the gallery as people walked around to observe. 

Stelarc

 Stelarc is an Australian performance artist who pushes the capabilities of the human body by robotic manipulations. Modern technological creations are integrated with his body that reveal involuntarily movement that appear not feasibly possible. Also, pneumatics is used in Stelarc's functional mechanical performances. The compression of air or gases transfer through the apparatus creating movement pushing the limitations of body limbs.As I view some of his work I am reminded of the movie, The Matrix.  In the scene when Neo is reborn, he is first unhooked by all systems which are currently sustaining his fictional life form and than he is transported to the main ship by a mechanical robotic arm. This scene is so raw and intriguing. I especially cringe when I view the many nodules left on his body that must be further removed.