Artsy Bench

“Spaghetti Bench” by Pablo Reinoso

Coming Exhibition: A Parallel Tale ~ Taipei in 80s X Hong Kong in 90s

“A Parallel Tale ~ Taipei in 80s X Hong Kong in 90s”

Who:  

Comic Home Base
Hong Kong Arts Centre
Dala Publishing Company

When: June 25, 2014 – Aug. 31, 2014 (Sat.-Sun 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.)

Where: 

Comic Home Base
North Campus Drive
Provo, Utah 84602

How Much:  Free!

More Information: Here and Here.

Participating Hong Kong Comics Artist: Fung Chi-ming, Ho Ka-fai, Seeman Ho, Li Chi-tak, Justin Wong 
Participating Taipei Comics Artist: 61Chi, Sean Chuang, Amin Lee, Push Comic (Ah Tui), Ahn Zhe (Tu Tse-Wei) 

Comics artists from Hong Kong and Taipei set out on a fascinating time-travel trip with their drawing pens, taking a stroll down the memory lane to trace the footprints they left in the two cities in the 80s and 90s. Stories and scenes that pop up in the artists’ minds as they revisit the old times are transformed into pages of original comics – some light-hearted and some thought-provoking – to illuminate their memories of the people and things from a few decades ago, and even the social and cultural phenomena at that time. 

Featuring 10 comics artists and 10 comics works loaded with nostalgia, the exhibition takes everyone to travel backward in time, returning to the Hong Kong and Taiwan in the sweet, old past. The exhibition was held in Taiwan as one of the programmes of the “Hong Kong Week 2013@Taipei” and received overwhelming response. The exhibition will be shown in Hong Kong in this summer. In addition to the exhibition, there are also a series of side events aiming to offer the general public valuable insight into the comics and publishing industry both in the past and at present, as well as the startling artistic ability and creative talent of the artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

Side Events

– 1+1 Live Drawing Demonstration

– Sharing Session: I Am a Comics Artist/ Publisher!

“First Look Inside Expanded Harvard Art Museums”

by Greg Cook via “The Artery“

“Light is one of the most important materials of architecture,” Renzo Piano said at a talk at Harvard University in 2009. Light and transparency—one of the ways he makes light part of his architecture—are primary themes for the suave, celebrated Italian architect.

“Transparency is still a very important quality of urban life,” he said at that Harvard talk. “Urbanity comes because the buildings talk to the street.”

These notions are evident in his designs for the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums between Quincy and Prescott streets in Cambridge. On Tuesday the university announced plans to reopen the complex on Nov. 16.

Since the project began with the closing of the institution’s Fogg Museum and Busch-Reisinger museums in 2008, he’s taken the iconic Italian Renaissance-style courtyard at the heart of the 1927 Fogg, which has been protected with listing on the National Register of Historic Places since the 1980s, and extended it upward and crowned it with a futuristic-looking, steel and glass pyramid that floods the five-story-tall space with sun.

Piano first made his mark as a post-modern punk with his designs for Paris’s Pompidou Centre in the 1970s, which seemed to expose all the guts of the museum  . . . .”

“Fantasy Meets Technology in Ocean Resorts’ Underwater Art Show”

By Bekah Wright via Yahoo! News

Where does one go to see an art exhibition in the Maldives? Under the sea, of course — the Indian Ocean, to be exact. Two of the island nation’s luxury resorts will be showcasing underwater works from photo artist Andreas Franke’s “Phantasy Fairytale” through May. 

The sites, Huvafen Fushi and Niyama, are sister properties in the posh Per Aquum collection, where rooms start at about $600 a night. Rather than in some stuffy gallery, the “Phantasy Fairytale” showings are in Subsix, Niyama’s underwater music club, and Huvafen Fushi’s Lime spa, also below sea level. 

Two photo shoots were necessary to create each fantasy-themed piece, one using an underwater backdrop and the other taken in a studio with real-life models. The superimposed images are encased in Plexiglas and stainless-steel frames, and divers put each piece — priced from $15,000 to $12,000 — in place per Franke’s specifications. 

What will visitors see in the “Phantasy Fairytale” galleries? Some familiar faces are captured in a combination of photography, nautical exploration and digital mastery: fairytale characters such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Star Money, The Snow Queen and The Last Unicorn. The two spaces have four identical Franke images, with the exception of The Snow Queen, only at Niyama, and The Last Unicorn at Huvafen Fushi.

Franke, an award-winning Austria-based photo artist and avid scuba diver, has said of the series: “With my photographs, I want to pull the spectators into unreal and strange worlds. Mystified scenes of a fairytale play within a fictional space. Dream worlds you can get lost in, or that you can identify with. This creates a new and unexpected atmosphere. This work shows very much of myself, since I am always on the lookout for stunning themes to create new images that have never been seen before.”

The Snow Queen is one of the characters in Andreas Franke’s underwater exhibition. (Photo: courtesy of Per Aquum …

Adding to the story each image tells: salt and algae that collect on the frames, along with the ever-changing world of marine life around them. “The underwater scenery is beautiful, coral reefs surround both Subsix and Lime Spa. You can see all sorts of coral from finger coral to brain coral, hard coral and soft coral,” Stacey Dean, Per Aquum’s director of marketing and communications, told Yahoo Travel in an email. “There are also many fish that live in the coral reef such as parrotfish and clown fish. We even have the odd turtle, stingray and reef shark that swim past.” . . . . . .

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