Do Ho Suh- Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home

Korean artist Do Ho Suh (previously here) has just completed his largest artwork to date at Seoul’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Titled Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home, the giant installation represents two previous residences the artist lived in at 1:1 scale, one structure inside the built with jade-colored silk evoking the feel of a 3D blueprint. The smaller structure is a traditional Korean home where Suh grew up a child which he then suspended inside a replica of his first residence in the United States, a modern apartment building in Providence, Rhode Island. The piece is so large that visitors are invited to walk inside and virtually explore it which you can do through May 14, 2014. Learn more over atLehmann Maupin and MMCA. (via colossal)

Marwen Lab studio visits

We took our students on some studio visits last week- it was so inspiring! Here are some photos:

The Universe Next Door

I'm so bummed I missed this exhibit of Abelardo Morell's work at the Art Institute this summer. Here's a short video on him and his work. I was excited to see there is a catalog for the show though!

Neighborhood sights

fall is here!

Love this wood installation a few blocks away from my house!

the loneliest pine needle floating in the air, suspended by a spider web

Caitlin Moran- My posthumous advice for my daughter

Here are a few excerpts from an article by Caitlin Moran titled My posthumous advice for my daughter. I found parts of this article to be so touching and a good reminder about what's important in life. I hope I can pass this wisdom on to my son!
Go here for the full article.


The main thing is just to try to be nice. You already are – so lovely I burst, darling – and so I want you to hang on to that and never let it go. Keep slowly turning it up, like a dimmer switch, whenever you can. Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’.

Choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. 

Whenever you can’t think of something to say in a conversation, ask people questions instead. Even if you’re next to a man who collects pre-Seventies screws and bolts, you will probably never have another opportunity to find out so much about pre-Seventies screws and bolts, and you never know when it will be useful.

See as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it. Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there." 

Via Tania

Check out the Indiegogo campaign for my friend Tania's next record!

California Landscapes

Amalia Pica at MCA Chicago

eavesdropping

outside

inside

family reflected in giant reproduction of graph paper

venn diagram

Loved the Amalia Pica show at the MCA, curated by my talented sister!

Marwen Lab final exhibition

Here are a few photos from our last class, we were doing a post-it note critique, hence the post-its on the walls. I am so proud of my students! The official opening is Friday, June 14th from 5-8pm.

Inside Marwen Lab: The Voice and Vision of Young Artists

A lovely article just came out about Marwen Lab on Sixty Inches From Center. It features a description of the program written by one of our students, Lauren. We were so impressed with her essay, we are using an excerpt as the wall text for our exhibition!
Here it is:

Inside Lab by Lauren Auyeung

While many high schoolers will spend their Friday nights relaxing at home or with friends, a few will spend them hard at work in the art studios of Marwen Lab. To put it simply, Marwen Lab is a space of artistic creativity and freedom. For three 8-week terms, highly motivated young artists in Chicago, who have applied and have been accepted, come to the studios of Marwen to work on their own continuous project that exhibits their personal and artistic character. Whether it is in the field of drawing and painting, photography, or mixed media, Lab offers a variety of opportunities for artistic self development and discovery.

Laurel Crown by Lab student Nathaniel Knize ( Image Credit: Sophia Nahli)

Although Lab has three outstanding instructors, the project is very much independent. The students begin Lab with nothing more than an idea, a vision, or maybe even just something they feel strongly about. And no matter how ambitious, ingenious, or insane that vision may be, the purpose of the entire year is to turn that vision into a reality.

The process in itself, however, may not be as clean as it appears. The purpose of the three term schedule is to give the student plenty of time to mess up and start again. The majority of the students end up changing the idea they started with at the beginning of the year, or maybe even switching mediums. Despite the bumps in the road, Lab students can always find a way to get excited and push forward in their project not only from just the instructors, but from the entire artistic community that is Marwen itself.

Chandelier by Lab student Zoe Prekop (Image Credit: Sophia Nahli)

The year is filled with peer critiques, feedback sessions, and general advice in order to inspire the student. This also gives students the chance to view their project in a different way than they originally had. However, there is never a need for a formalized critique session for feedback. Lab is a very close-knit community, and the students are more than just peer-artists, they are friends.  Just by stopping by the person next to them, they can ask “Hey, what do you think about this,” and a new inspiration can come as easily as the conversation. Lab students are encouraged to get out of their studio and learn about the projects of other students, help each other out, and ultimately learn more about themselves as individuals.

beauty is embarrassing

I watched this documentary not long ago about the artist Wayne White. You may know his work from PeeWee's Playhouse, I found his story to be really interesting. Check out the trailer and some images below...