Do Ho Suh show The Perfect Home II at the Brooklyn Museum

The show that remains in my memory is Do Ho Suh show The Perfect Home II at the Brooklyn Museum. There was only one work of art which is a full-scale replica of his former apartment in New York. He recreated his studio apartment using translucent and different pastel shades of fabric such as pink, blue and green.

The Perfect Home II was disappointing even though I have loved his works for a long time. I believe that his works are effective when we look very closely and experience the ambiance of the space including the color, details, and texture. In Suh's work; the details are shocking. His art is like walking a fine line between the near perfect details of house equipments and the inevitable imperfections in the delicate sewing. However, in the display at the Brooklyn Museum, we had to look at a distance. The show feels like just getting information about him and the work by wall texts and Art 21 video, not experiencing his intention and the handicraft of the construction.

Smack Mellon-Prince by Bonnie Collura

                Bonnie Collura is a talented American artist who was born in 1970. Her work is mainly focused on different forms of figurations. Her collection of work named Prince is a great representative. The space this show was set up in works as a supplement for the works. The non-polished, raw, open plan interior space became something that is setting off the works. Walking in from the main entrance the layers and depth of the sculptures already speak for themselves with their varieties of color and styles. With a couple of works displayed on the floor and rest of them hanging from the celling, the layout provides a complex visual experience. Stepping closer, the details of the works started to shine. Natural and handmade materials were used in all Collura’s pieces. Each figure is compacted and complicated by using many natural or handmade textures. By combining these elements the figures start evolving yet remain cohesive. Individually they bring viewers different kinds of satisfaction while walking around and between them. Among all Collura’s work a couple of them are different form of human body; distinct male face with softer, feminine body feature created surrogate figures. As the artist of this intensive collection, Collura plays different roles while making these figures; she is part director, part fabricator, and part weird scientist who invented several versions of a male surrogate. By subverting restrictive gender roles of the artist she created a revolutionary path of forming figures, which makes her a rather modern sculptor. 

Dana Schutz at Petzel

Dana Schutz’s Imagine Me and You at Petzel

By Lizzy Lunday

When viewing artworks, I generally follow a routine of scanning the room before going up to a piece that interests me for further inspection. This closer look is where the magic lies in Dana Schutz’s exhibition Imagine Me and You. Schutz’s ability to create large, thick, gestural strokes, while still controlling color was truly mesmerizing to me. As I look back at images of these paintings from afar, I find myself moderately disinterested in the content of the work, because to me its purpose is mainly to serve as a foundation for Schutz to lather her painterly skills upon. The smallest piece, Touched, is a portrait of such thick paint application that you wonder if you’ve ever seen paint applied so thick in your life. To further highlight the dense, sculptural use of paint from a straight-on view, she fingers out four holes where the nipples of the figure would be. The paint is applied exquisitely, whereas the figure itself could be considered unappealing. This dynamic between the ugliness of the figures and the skillful way in which they are painted is perhaps the basis of their appeal.