Samantha Culp

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  picks October 16, 2009

  “Light Streams”

  Since its debut in 2000, Cosmic Wonder has carved out a special place in the expansive gray area between art and fashion. Founded by architect-turned-artist Yukinori Maeda (who maintains a separate art practice under his own name), the project has two dedicated spaces in Tokyo and Osaka that serve as hybrid gallery-boutiques. Both present seasonal “collections” that are amalgams of clothing, art installations, and publications.

  The entry corridor at “Light Streams,” the current exhibition in the Tokyo center, features a video shot in a Parisian gallery, in which beautiful models dressed in Cosmic

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  diary May 24, 2009

  Flu Season

  Hong Kong

  JUST A WEEK BEFORE THE OPENING of ART HK 09, hundreds of international travelers were quarantined at the Wanchai Metropark Hotel—a stone’s throw from the Convention Center hosting the fair—and most passengers landing at HKG were having their temperatures screened by hazmat-suited officials. Luckily, the specter of swine flu didn’t faze most players in an Asian art market stricken with its own ailments. The hordes descended on the city as planned, perhaps reassured by a statement from ART HK promising “hand sanitizers at the entrance and at strategic points within the fair.” Or maybe, as one

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  picks May 16, 2008

  “Tomyam Pladib”

  Organized by Gridthiya Gaweewong, founder of Project 304 and curator, with artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, of 2006’s beleaguered exhibition “Saigon Open City,” “Tomyam Pladib” brings together Thai artists who love Japan and vice versa. The title, inspired by a magazine column by Bangkok-based Japanese writer Ryota Suzuki, refers to an imaginary fusion of Thai spicy soup and Japanese sashimi. Luckily, the included artists resist such binary combinations.

  A restaging of Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s Everyone Likes Someone as You Like Someone, 2008, spills across half the gallery with its delightful, “relational”