Artist Interviews: Wang Xin, Bi Rongrong, Lu Zhengyuan, Gao Lei, Zhao Yi Qian

In 2014, I spent six months in Shanghai in residence at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel. During my time there, I interviewed five artists born after the One Child Policy (which was recently disbanded). The interviews are published on two different on-line magazines. Read about Artist-Hypnotist Wang Xin at Playspace Magazine - October 2015 and sculptor Lu Zhengyuan, painter Zhao Yi Qian, installation artist Bi Rongrong and sculptor Gao Lei at Artfile Magazine.

Bi Rongrong, study for Moving Greyscale, ink on paper, dimensions variable 2014

Gao Lei, R-312, metal caging on canvas panel, @ 40 x 30 inches, 2014

Zhao Yi Qian, Deja Vu, 2014, oil on canvas, 180 x 135 cm

Wang Xin, The Gallery at Westbund Art Fair, iteration 3

Bushwick and Canada: Jeff Schwarz, Elisabeth Kley

At Outlet in Brooklyn, Jeff Schwarz. Outlet Link

A New Yorker, Schwarz is inspired by graffiti, fashion design and shifting space

The works are wheel-thrown

And heavily glazed (this a detail from below)

In this duo, matt and glossy glazes intertwine

They are like paintings, though Thomas Michelli would disagree Hyperallergic review- glazed on tile

In the round, where

...surfaces can be matte, even peeling - 

View of front room works at eye level

Elisabeth Kley at Canada in Ozymandius.
Canada New York Link

These are hand-coiled and built, glazed with homemade mixtures

Inscribed with ancient Turkish and Chinese-inspired patterns

Wall works accompany the objects

Which face us like the Terra Cotta Warriors at X'ian

One example of a glossy layer

They look hand-inked, as if a ballpoint pen had bled...

Here with a wall mural Kley painted

William Corwin wrote movingly and thoroughly about this work in his Brooklyn Rail review. Read it here: Artseen/Elisabeth-Kley-Ozymandias

David Bowie

The 70s in LA can be hard to explain, but this film comes as close as anything. First 15 minutes. This image is from later in the film, when he talks about different personas setting people free.

Clipped text:
"Alan Yentob's incredible documentary made for the BBC in 1974, which Nicolas Roeg saw and took the car scenes for The Man Who Fell to Earth. This documentary changed the way rock docs were made - before this they were chronological, linear, and this film was modeled after the mercurial nature of its subject, David Bowie."

Cracked Actor, 1974

Burri, Doctor to Painter

Burri at the Guggenheim on Free Night.
After an hour's wait around the block visitors had 30 minutes to  hasten through the exhibition. 

Burri trained as a doctor, but in WWII was interned in an American  prisoner's camp.

He became an artist during that time, and after the war, committed himself to art full-time.

Deep blacks and gloss with matt. Photos don't do it justice.

He had a penchant for red, though I did not feel his understand of red ran deep. This is a beauty, though.

He began experimenting with plastic and celotex, an insulation material, taking the sewing of burlap to greater dimensions.

Around 1960s, when he spent time in America.

Crackle paintings from 1970s

Inspired by the desert

Pick up from earlier: metal

Pickup from earlier: burlap

Some of the very first burlap paintings

Possibly the first on view

And later plastic works, beautifully presented as an introduction to Burri's work.