LOOK INTO MY OWL

“Remarks on Colour” is Julião Sarmento’s first solo exhibition with Pilar Corrias in London. The work is on display now and runs through March 19th. Sarmento has studied both painting and architecture and for nearly four decades he has been exploring points where the two disciplines collide.

Julião Sarmento, Silver Lake Yellow Boob, polyvinyl acetate, pigments, acrylic, acrylic gesso, ink, graphite and silkscreen print on unprimed cotton canvas, 2010-11.

The title of this show is a direct reference to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s fractured reaction to Goethe’s statements concerning the origin of color itself. The canvasses are mostly white with occasional shocks of screen printed primary color. The color reacts with the white surface to initiate the perception of a spectrum beginning with the primary and fading away into the plane.

Julião Sarmento, Silver Lake Blue Hands, polyvinyl acetate, pigments, acrylic, acrylic gesso, ink, graphite and silkscreen print on unprimed cotton canvas, 2010-11.

The architectural leanings of the artist are evident in compositions that mimic the modernist structures depicted in the printed areas. Suggestions of living tissue, both human and plant often remark on direct sensitivities of the viewer. Sarmento calls on our susceptibilities to nature through the revealing of delicate areas and shared nervous sensation.

Julião Sarmento, White Exit, mixed media installation, 2010-11.

Julião Sarmento
Remarks on Colour
15 February – 19 March 2011
Pilar Corrias
London

Last week, we had the opportunity to look around at the Starn studio in beautiful Beacon, NY. It was one of those experiences that is not easily forgotten. The building is approximately the same square footage as an American football field and filled with work in various stages of development. The director of the studio, Gaudéricq Robiliard, showed us around and explained the various experimental processes that are currently being used in the two and three dimensional artworks.

A piece of Big Bambú engaged a large part of the studio. The huge sculpture is comprised of more than 2500 strips of bamboo lashed together with nylon mountain climbing rope. The piece changes often as lengths are unattached and reattached elsewhere moving the behemoth structure in a slow, cascading manner. The rest of Big Bambú is currently occupying the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art overlooking New York City’s Central Park through October 31st. This is one artwork that you must see.

There is a constant buzz of activity that envelops visitors to this place. The inherited space has a raw, industrial feel that is completely overshadowed by the warmth of creativity and workspace ingenuity. The harsh warehouse lighting has been dispersed by hanging large white semitransparent textiles. This sort of handmade feel to the functional furnishings pervade the interior design and predicate a sense of the practical genius that is at work. We took tons of pictures so that you may share in the amazing experience.

Be sure to click through for many more photographs.

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In five days, “One Place,” the first solo exhibition in the UK from Chiharu Shiota opens at Haunch of Venison in London. The towering work, “A Room of Memory” shown below installed at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanzawa, Japan will be on view.

Chiharu Shiota, A Room of Memory, found windows, 2009.

The piece was created from 400 windows collected over the years from a variety of abandoned structures throughout Berlin. The structure is colossal in scale but the worn and paint chipped forms encourage sentiments of an insular meditation space.

Chiharu Shiota, Biel Klavier 139, mixed media installation, 2009.

Shiota will also be creating a site specific thread piece similar to the work above from the exhibit “In Silence” at the Centre Pasquart in Switzerland. Several small, boxed thread works incorporating household utensils will also be on hand. Her intent with this vein of exploration centers around the idea of drawing in three dimensions. It is a gripping concept carried out to unforgettable results.

Chiharu Shiota
One Place
19 February – 27 March 2010
Haunch of Venison
London