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New York Art. Cont'd.
Blending imagery from photography and direct observation, Packer creates a dream-like fantasy, weaving realism and surrealism into a plausible whole. In Louisiana Dreams the artist is perched in a tree camouflaged as an iguana, while in the background, another 'self-portrait' is morphing into butterfly wings covering a bed. Even the nonpoisonous king snake lurking about assumes the palette of the deadly coral snake. All is not what it appears to be. The swirling vines and arching, moss covered, limbs offer temporary sanctuary from rising waters.
Packer's colorful, irreverent paintings explore the disconnect within our understanding of the interrelatedness of plant and animal life. Drawing upon extensive research at major public and university museums of natural history, Packer examines our cultural and historical habits of entitlement whereby we capture, classify, catalog, and possess all living things. Self-portraiture is metaphor for these inevitable human failings. The viewer is a witness to nature's beauty while at the same time is an unwitting participant and victim in its demise. Kathi Packer's works are in the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, The University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Dentistry, Hartford Hospital, Phoenix Corporation and in private collections throughout the United States. Her paintings and drawings can be viewed at www.kathipacker.com, www.firststreetgallery.net, www.artincontext.org.
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Jiang Hu: Contemporary Chinese
Art
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Romp
with Rubens, by Kathi Packer.
Holy
Sanctuary, by Kathi Packer.
Jiang Hu, a broad survey
exhibition representing the best in contemporary Chinese art, will be on
view at the Tilton Gallery from May 23 - June 30. The exhibition
features painting, sculpture, video and photography by some of China’s
most important artists working today, including Zeng Fanzhi, Wang
Guangyi, and Feng Zhengjie. Organized by Huang Zhuan, an internationally
recognized curator and professor of art theory at the Ganzhou Academy,
the exhibition features works by 34 Chinese artists, both established
and emerging. The show’s title, Jiang Hu, can be literally translated as
“rivers and lakes,” but its metaphoric meanings are rich and varied. It
can denote a “wild or unsettled region,” or an idyllic fictional realm
inhabited by itinerant outsiders, including scholars, monks,
fortune-tellers and artists, who were said to possess magical powers. .
In more recent times, Jiang Hu refers to the underworld society whose
members possess the gravity defying powers of flight and super-human
martial arts skills as popularized in the recent film, Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon. The multi-layered meaning of the title speaks to the
fluid, dynamic boundaries of the project itself: the new exhibition is
inaugurating a larger, ongoing five-year project that will include
traveling exhibitions and continuing dialogue with the selected artists.
Jiang Hu opens during the Asia Society’s Contemporary Chinese Art Week.
“While contemporary Chinese art is only now receiving the interest and
attention that it merits, the Tilton Gallery has been showcasing works
from China for nearly a decade,” said Janine Cirincione, director of the
Tilton Gallery. “This is the perfect opportunity for New Yorkers to see
for themselves why Chinese art has set the contemporary art world
ablaze.” Cirincione noted that Sotheby’s first-ever contemporary Chinese
art auction held in New York recently set record-breaking prices.
Corresponding exhibits, drawing from the same group of artists, were
held at Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles from April 29 - May 20, 2006 and
will be at the Kustera Tilton Gallery in Chelsea from May 25 - July 14,
2006. Participating artists include: Cui Xiuwen, Feng Zhengjie, Gu Dexin,
Guan Wei, Gu Wenda, He Sen, Lin Yilin, Liu Wei, Lu Hao, Ma Liuming, Ni
Haifeng, Shi Tou, Sui Jianguo, Peng Yu, Sun Yuan, Unmask Group, Wang Bo,
Wang Guangyi, Wang Jianwei, Wang Luyan, Wang Yin, Wang Youshen, Wu
Shanzhuan, Xiang Jing, Xu Tan, Yang Shaobin, Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi,
Zeng Hao, Zeng Li, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Xiaotao, Zhao Gang, and Zhu Jia.
In another example of its commitment to Chinese art, the Tilton Gallery
is establishing an artist-in-residency program in Tongxian, just outside
of Beijing, due to open this summer, 2006. After purchasing several
acres of land in the Chinese arts district ten years ago, gallery owner
Jack Tilton commissioned the construction of two new buildings. Leading
Chinese sculptor and architect Ai Wei Wei designed one of the
structures, and the Boston-based architectural firm Office dA created
the second. Both buildings will provide housing, studio, and exhibition
space for the residency program, which offers a unique opportunity to
international artists to live and work in China. A third building, a
raised courtyard designed by artist Zhao Gang is currently under
construction.