Jennifer Yap's Blog
Posted by Jennifer Yap
Santa Cruz, California is set to host the annual North American Sea Glass Festival yet again on October 6 and 7, 2007.
From 11:00 to 17:00, sea glass aficionados can converge on the boardwalk in Coconut Grove to hunt for treasures among the numerous exhibitors, socialize, and enter the “Shard of the Year” contest where they can win bragging rights and a grand prize of $1,000 as well as smaller prizes.
Grading is determined by qualities such as the colour of the shard and its condition. Bonus points can be earned for entries that can demonstrate advanced age, that possess identifiable text or patterns, or depict discernible figural characteristics.
Admission to the festival is $5 for adults and free for children under 12 years-old.
For information, contest entry rules and judging criteria, visit the North American Sea Glass Association.
Posted by Jennifer Yap
Toronto’s Gardiner Museum will host Canada’s first exhibit of clay portraits and heads by one of the 20th century's most significant ceramic artists: Germany's Gertraud Möhwald (1929 – 2002).
A total of 22 pieces will be on display from October 12, 2007 to January 20, 2008.
Known for fragmentary, layered work influenced by her survival of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, the crumbling baroque architecture surrounding her home in the former GDR, the work of Gaudi, Giacometti and Goya as well as travels to Samarkand, Rome and Barcelona, Möhwald’s figures are built up of collages of clay, fired ceramics, porcelain shards, and sometimes, coloured paper, gold and found objects.
The opening will be attended by the Möhwald family as well as German collectors who are lending pieces from their private collections.
On October 14, an exhibition symposium will be held featuring German experts Gabi Dewald, Editor-in-chief of KeramikMagazin and Möhwald’s university colleague and friend, Dr. Renate Luckner-Bien. Curator Susan Jefferies will moderate.
For information and tickets, visit the Gardiner Museum.
Posted by Jennifer Yap
The wedding of Bollywood royalty Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan on April 20 has inspired two Indian sculptors to create new works - in fiberglass and sand respectively.
Inspired by a lady who came into his dreams for 25 days and asked him to make 25 sculptures of Rai, Arjun Prajapathi started work two months ago and plans to finish by June. With help from his three sons, he models the sculptures with Haryana and Delhi clay. Plaster moulds will then be made, from which the final fiberglass sculptures will be cast.
Prajapathi plans to hold an exhibition of his finished works in Mumbai - which he hopes that Rai and Bachchan will inaugurate. He also plans to present one of the sculptures to Rai.
On the other end of the permanance and durability spectrum, acclaimed Indian sand sculptor Sudarshan Patnaik has completed a 15-foot film reel made of sand featuring imagined scenes from the Rai-Bachchan wedding ceremony. Incorporating giant faces of Rai and Bachchan and a shehnai (Indian oboe) musician accompanied by a child beating dholak (hand drums), the Puri beach sculpture provides a focal point for starstruck Indians hundreds of miles away from the celebrations who are hungry for details of the couple and their wedding.
Patnaik plans to send photos of his ephemeral sculpture to Bachchan’s father, film superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
Posted by Jennifer Yap
The story broke on April 1 and I was wary because… well, it was April Fool’s Day for one, and people getting all worked up about a chocolate Jesus did seem a little far-fetched. Suspecting an elaborate media hoax, I hung back and dropped the ball on this.
My apologies.
Montreal-born, US-based Cosimo Cavallaro, known for highly visceral work and quirky use of food items (such as spraying an entire house inside and out with mozzarella cheese and piling sliced ham into a bed), has stirred up a storm of protest with a life-size milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus.
In a twist worthy of South Park, the naked crucified Christ sans cross is being hidden in a refrigerated truck in an undisclosed location. This, after a torrent of complaints and death threats were issued by Christian groups citing nudity and disrespect for Christianity.
Titled My Sweet Lord, the chocolate Jesus was slated for display from today, Tuesday, through Easter Sunday in the Lab Gallery located in Manhattan's Roger Smith Hotel. The hotel has decided to cancel and the gallery’s creative director, Matt Semler, has resigned – I presume, in protest. Meanwhile, Cavallaro claims to have received numerous offers to either exhibit or buy the piece.
If Cavallaro wants notoriety, he’s got it, but I think he was after something a little more thoughtful.
Here are my two cents, for whatever they’re worth. I hope this does not bring a chocolate fondue upon my head. Here goes…
Loincloths are themselves an act of artistic license, not biblical fact. I daresay no Roman foot soldier in the midst of crucifying his charge is going to pause to make sure that there’s a loincloth in place. If I remember correctly, soldiers were casting lots for Jesus’ clothes, so chances are pretty good that he was naked. Executions are messy affairs and if it’s alright to show the marks of violence, blood and gore on the body of Christ, why not nudity? Also, if crucifixion is about humiliating the prisoner, wouldn’t being stripped naked add to this and therefore reinforce the poignancy of Jesus’ human side and his grace in tolerating this abuse?
Next, chocolate is a relatively recent addition to Easter. Traditionally, real eggs were decorated and exchanged – and this practice still persists in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Europeans made hollow cardboard Easter eggs to hold gifts and treats. Faberge eggs evolved for the highbrow and chocolate eggs for the relatively well-to-do as European tastes accepted chocolate as a sweet. Besides being a child of commercial opportunism by German and French confectioners, there is no historical or religious place for chocolate in Easter, nor for bunnies and chicks. Easter is a celebration of resurrection and re-birth before the divine – the crux of Christianity. As such, I think Cavallaro’s piece speaks to the commercial sugar-coating of Easter as it is commonly celebrated now; what have we done to Easter, and by extension, what have we done to Christ?
It’s too bad that the reigning debate at this point in time is about religious sensitivity, propriety and censorship when it should be about love for humanity, redemption, divine grace, and the old tension between God and Mammon.
We are in Holy Week after all.
Postscript:
After (literally) sleeping on it overnight with a head full of flu-induced weird dreams, I think that if Cavallaro had *really* wanted to get people's goat, he could have wrapped My Sweet Lord in thin silver foil, inserted a ticker-tape style slip of wax paper that read "Christ" and re-named the piece Kiss Christ, thereby spoofing both the popular chocolate and referencing American photographer Andres Serrano's controversial 1989 photo. Then things would really hop.
For a more gentle, compassionate view, read Mary Rayme's article Chocolate Obama Jesus on controversial Jesus sculptures at Easter time.
Posted by Jennifer Yap
Got waylaid on my research for St. Paddy's Day and ended up at the Wikipedia page for Dublin Statues and their nicknames.
I’d almost forgotten all about Irish rhyming slang and then all of a sudden whatever little I knew came flooding back.
It’s rude, it’s crude, shockingly un-PC… but it’s such wicked fun! Absolutely no one is spared; even people the Irish *like* get rude monikers. But I enjoy these for their insolence and insistence on rhyme. If you have a warped sense of humour, you’ll enjoy these!
The politically correct will wince but remember not to take things too seriously… after all, the Irish don’t. In fact, they actually have quite a bit of affection for some of the people they lampoon in slang.
Just so you get a sense of what you’ll find:
James Joyce is “The Prick with the Stick” because his statue depicts him walking with a cane.
Patrick Kavanagh is the “Crank on the Bank” because his statue is set on a bench by the river bank looking over the water.
Oscar Wilde is the “Fag on the Crag” because his statue is lounging on a big boulder
Some statues even have quite a few nicknames… you’ll see.
