In late July, I accompanied my husband, Don, who had business in Shanghai and Beijing, on my first trip to China. Although my exposure was limited to a few days and venues in each, I found the contemporary art scenes in both cities astounding. What follows here and in the post on Beijing are a few random notes on what I saw and experienced.In Shanghai, other than the Untour Shanghai Food Tour, which provided a wonderful introduction to Shanghai's old French Concession neighborhood and its enticing street foods, the Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, better known as the Power Station Museum of Art, was a standout. Situated in a converted electric plant on the Huangpu River, the museum is China's first state-run museum devoted to … [Read more...]
Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada at LACMA
Despite the existence of a 10-acre sculpture park devoted to his work in Joshua Tree, CA, Noah Purifoy was largely unknown to the mainstream art world until the Getty's Pacific Standard Time exhibitions shed light on the artist, his career and his contributions. A single junk assemblage by Purifoy appeared in Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970, at the Getty proper and a half-dozen works were featured in Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980 at the Hammer. It is perhaps as a result of this newfound exposure that America Is Hard to See, the exhibition that opened the Whitney Museum's new building, presented a work by Purifoy in its "Scotch Tape" section devoted to assemblage and collage (see image below … [Read more...]