Tag: Shin Young-ok

Our 51st Catalog – Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change

The theme of our most recent exhibition, Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change was intentionally broad, to cover all sorts of external circumstances — besides the pandemic — that might influence an artists process. 

Adaptation: artists respond to change cover

Artists who work with browngrotta arts coped with the changes of the last year various ways — moving locations, taking up art photography, taking new inspiration from nature. But COVID and lockdowns are just some of the many reasons artists make changes in others include adapting when a material becomes unavailable (willow) or a new one suggests itself (fiber optic, bronze, copper, steel, kibisio, akebia), making a move in the US from the East to the South or from one country to another or from the city to the desert, facing a change in physical abilities (allergy, injury), an altered personal relationship, or a commission opportunity or an exhibition challenge. Our 51st catalog tells the stories of 47 artists from 14 countries, how their art has changed and why.

Adaptation: contents page

Replete with photos of work, installation and detail shots the catalog also includes an essay by Josephine Shea, Art Bridges Initiative, American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

“Every year brings losses and change, but 2020 brought them on a global scale. In the US, election-year politics and racial injustice, were layered on top of the pandemic,” writes Shea. “Some of the artists in Adaption created work that responded to the challenges of moment, while others looked at long-term issues, like climate change.  Work by these artists also reveals the impacts of lockdown constraints, some imposed and some self-imposed, as studio space access was interrupted and available supplies a variable for experimentation …. And, that art aids resilience, providing artists a way to find calm, express emotional turmoil and turn adversity — like injury or a mudslide or trip on a vine — into opportunity.”

Jin-Sook So spread

The artists included in the exhibition and catalog are: Adela Akers (US), Polly Barton (US), James Bassler (US), Zofia Butrymowicz (Poland), Sara Brennan (UK), Pat Campbell (US), Włodzimierz Cygan (Poland), Neha Puri Dhir(India), Paul Furneaux (UK), John Garrett (US), Ane Henriksen (Denmark), Kazue Honma (Japan), Tim Johnson (UK), Lewis Knauss (US), Nancy Koenigsberg (US), Yasuhisa Kohyama  (Japan), Irina Kolesnikova(Russia/Germany), Lawrence LaBianca (US), Gyöngy Laky (US), Sue Lawty (UK), Jennifer Falck Linssen (US), Kari Lønning (US), Federica Luzzi (Italy), Rachel Max (UK), John McQueen (US), Mary Merkel-Hess (US),Norma Minkowitz (US), Laura Foster Nicholson (US), Keiji Nio (Japan), Gudrun Pagter (Denmark), Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila (Venezuela), Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (Canada), Heidrun Schimmel (Germany), Hisako Sekijima (Japan), Naoko Serino (Japan), Karyl Sisson (US), Jin-Sook So (Korea/Sweden), Polly Sutton (US), Noriko Takamiya (Japan), Chiyoko Tanaka (Japan), Blair Tate (US), Wendy Wahl (US), Gizella K Warburton (UK), Grethe Wittrock (Denmark) and Shin Young-ok (Korea), Carolina Yrarrázaval (Chile).

Lewis Knauss Spread

For a copy of Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change, visit our website: http://store.browngrotta.com/adaption-artist-respond-to-change/


Acquisition News

Diagonal, Kyoko Kumai, stainless steel, 2016.

We have learned about a host of acquisitions for artists who work with browngrotta arts’ since our acquisition reports last July and August 2018.  A large number of our artists’ work are now included in the collection of The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum thanks to the remarkable gift of the late Lloyd Cotsen, former chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Neutrogena Corporation, which included 4,000 textiles, an endowment and equipment to support the textile collections he assembled.

Attitude, Lia Cook, Handwoven cotton and rayon, 1999.Photo by: Bruce M. White@ Lloyd E. Cotsen, 2016.

The gift includes the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection, one of the world’s most significant textile study collections ever assembled by an individual and The Box Project: Uncommon Threads, organized by Cotsen Foundation for Academic Research, which includes work by John Garrett, Helena Hernmarck, Agneta Hobin, Kiyomi Iwata, Lewis Knauss, Naomi Kobayashi, Nancy Koenigsberg, Gyöngy Laky, Heidrun Schimmel and Hisako Sekijima. Cotsen’s gift also included Lia Cook’s 1999 work, Attitude.

Other acquisitions of note:

Ed Rossbach: Bobbin Lace, 1970, was acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, through browngrotta arts.

Eduardo Portillo and Mariá Eugenia DávilaNew Nebula, 2017, was acquired by the Toledo Art Museum in Ohio, through browngrotta arts.

Norma Minkowitz: The Minneapolis Institute of Art purchased a crocheted and stitched wall hanging called Journeys End, 2017, and a stitched drawing with collage and crochet, Lunar Landing, 2017.

Shin Young-ok: Rhymes from 2000 was acquired by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea

Moot, Helena Hernmarck, wool, linen, cotton, 1971. Photo by Helena Hernmarck.

Chang Yeonsoon:  In addition to being a finalist for the Loewe Craft Prize in 2018, the Loewe Foundation in London collected three works of Chang Yeonsoon’s works in August, 2018.

Polly Barton: Fertile Ground, was chosen by the Art in Embassies program to be in the US Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Nancy Koenigsberg: Teal Concentric Boxes was a gift from Camille and Alex Cook to the Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin.

Ampersand by Gyöngy Laky

Ethel Stein: Butah, 2011, went to the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois through browngrotta arts.

Kyoko Kumai: Kumai’s tapestry, Diagonal, which was acquired by teh Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2016, is on display at the Museum until the end of July 2020. The National  Museum of Art in Riga, Latvia collected Kumai’s work in 2018.

Åse Ljones: Three pieces from Ljones’ series, It is Still Quiet, were acquired by KODE Museum, Bergen, Norway in 2017.

Adela Akers: In 2018 Akers’ work, Traced Memories, was acquired by The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/De Young Museum.

Gyöngy Laky: In addition to This Way and That, which is part of The Box Collection, which went to the The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, Seek, from 2016, was acquired by the United States State Department for the new Kosovo Embassy in Pristina. 

Helen Hernmarck: Moot, 1971 was acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 


Art Assembled: New This Week March

Shades of Green, Dawn MacNutt, twined willow, paint 63.75”x 23” x 20”, 2008

We started off the month of March with a beautiful willow sculpture by Dawn MacNutt. Like many of Macnutt’s pieces, Shades of Green is an interpretation of universal human form. In creating her work, MacNutt draws inspiration from ancient human forms that were present in ancient times, as well as humans and emotions in the present.

Harmony of Yin Yang I, Shin Young-Ok , mosigut (fine threads made of the skin of ramie plant) linen & ramie threads. Korean ramie fabric, 24.875″ x 24.625″ x 1.5″, 2014.

For the second week of March, we broke the status quo and shared a walkthrough of our online Artsy exhibition An Unexpected Approach: Exploring Contemporary Asian Art. The video, which can be viewed on our Instagram, Facebook or YouTube channel, presents viewers from all over the world an opportunity to see an assortment of astonishing Asian-inspired art. If you are curious about a piece in the video walkthrough make sure to check out the exhibition Artsy page HERE, or give us a call.

Water Is Eternity, Keiji Nio, woven and braided nylon, 4.5″ x 4.5″ x 3.74″, 2009. 9th triennale internationale des mini-textiles – Angers 2009.

Next up on the queue was Shin Young-Ok’s Harmony of Yin Yang I. Made using mosigut (fine threads made of skin of ramie plant), linen and ramie threads, Harmony of Yin Yang I explores the origins of harmony in Asian philosophy. The ying yang sign, which is considered complementary rather than oppositional, embodies dualism, the idea that all energy has an equally powerful, opposing energy.

To finish off March we shared Water is Eternity, a woven and braided nylon sculpture by artist Keiji Nio. Nio creates sculptures with the traditional technique of kumihimo. In the past, Nio has used the technique to create works that have been featured in the International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne as well as the International Miniature Textile Triennial in Angers, France.


An Unexpected Approach — Contemporary Art for NY Asian Art Week 2019

Top: Grinded Fabric-Three Squares Blue Threads and Blue #689, Chiyoko Tanaka
Bottom: (Left) Ceramic 49, Yasuhisa Kohyama
(Right) Ceramic 50, Yasuhisa Kohyama.
Photo by Tom Grotta

For the 10th year, New York is celebrating Asian Art Week from March 13th – 23rd and we’ve prepared related programming of our own. Through the end of this month, browngrotta arts is presenting An Unexpected Approach: Exploring Asian Contemporary Art, an online exhibition featuring 21 accomplished artists from Japan, Korea and the US, whose work reflects a contemporary Asian sensibility. 

Pulguk-sa, Kyong-Ju, Glen Kaufman, silk damask, silver leaf; screenprint, impressed metal leaf, 48” x 24” x 1” 1990. Photo by Tom Grotta

More than three dozen works are included in the exhibition. including select works of ceramic, textile, basketry and sculpture. The artists in this exhibition, including Jiro Yonezawa, Yasuhisa Kohyama, Glen Kaufman and Shin Young-Ok, have an understanding of traditional processes and aesthetics, but apply this understanding in a contemporary manner. Conventional Asian materials and/or techniques are featured, but often used in unconventional ways.  

Indigo Grid, Kiyomi Iwata, silk organza, 39″ x 29″ x 5″, 2011. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Kiyomi Iwata, for example, who has lived in the US for many years, explores the boundaries of East and West using silk organza metal. She creates sculptures that combine traditional Japanese aesthetics — organza boxes with kimono references – in minimalist grids, forms common in contemporary Western art.

Chiyoko Tanaka, who lives on the outskirts of Kyoto, weaves fabric on a traditional obi loom, then distresses it with brick and mud or clay. By grinding her newly woven cloth with earth, she exposes that original warp, unveiling the essence of the fabric. She says of her deconstructions, “I feel that my woven work is about time and the human condition.”

New York Skyline I + II, Jin-Sook So, steel mesh, electroplated silver, patinated, gold leaf, thread, 33″ x 39.5″ 2.25″, 2006

Jin-Sook So’s work is informed by time spent in Korea, Sweden and Japan. So uses transparent steel mesh cloth, folded, stitched, painted and electroplated to create shimmering objects for the wall or tabletop. The past and present are referenced in So’s work in ways that are strikingly modern and original.  She has used old Korean schoolbook pages to create collage and steel mesh to create contemporary pojagi and to re-envision common objects — chairs, boxes and bowls. 

Lyric Space, Shin Young-Ok, Korean silk fabric and handmade ramie threads, 26.4″ x 26.4″ x .75″, 2014. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Kyoko Kumai, the subject of a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, also works in steel, using steel threads to weave or spin strikingly contemporary clouds of steel. Jiro Yonezawa has received numerous awards for his bamboo vessels and sculpture. Formally trained in Beppu, Japan, Jonezawa then moved to the US, and when he did so, the lacquered twill-patterned form associated with Beppu was transformed by the artist into sensuous sculptural vessels, formal yet more freely formed.

 You can view An Unexpected Approach: Exploring Contemporary Asian Art Online by visiting browngrotta arts’ You Tube channel.  You can see each individual work in the exhibition on Artsy.

The complete list of artists participating in this exhibition is: CHANG YEONSOON; YASUHISA KOHYAMA; NAOKO SERINO; KEIJI NIO; KIYOMI IWATA; KYOKO KUMAI;JIN-SOOK SO; SHIN YOUNG-OK; NANCY MOORE BESS;JIRO YONEZAWA; TSURUKO TANIKAWA; GLENN KAUFMAN; NORIKO TAKAMIYA; NAOMI KOBAYASHI; HISAKO SEKIJIMA; MUTSUMI IWASAKI; JUN TOMITA; MASAKO YOSHIDA; HIDEHO TANAKA; CHIYOKO TANAKA; HIROYUKI SHINDO


Art Assembled: New This Week January

Mind Garden, Shin Young-ok, 2018
Several kinds threads, bamboo weaving on loom, 72 × 35 1/2 in

A new year and new art, oh my!

We kicked off the new year with Shin Young-ok’s Mind Garden. The varied blue hues of Mind Garden immediately draw your attention, leaving you with a desire to look deeper into the details. In Mind Garden, Young-ok seamlessly weaves ombre blue hues with a geometric pattern. The South Korean native transforms traditional Korean aesthetics into innovative contemporary works of art. “The aim of my work is to convey a genuine Korean atmosphere and its cosmic space through rich color, shapes, forms and material quality,she explains. While doing this I try to link the Korean tradition with modern trends.”

Togetherasone, Marianne Kemp, horsehair, linen, cotton, wooden frame, 31” x 15” x 2”

Marianne Kemp’s Togetherasone was also on social-media display this month. Present in much of Kemp’s work is horsehair, a material which constantly fuels her creativity.  Kemp’s unconventional weaving techniques give each of her pieces a unique character. That uniqueness is further elevated by her unparalleled use of texture, color and movement. The resulting three-dimensional nature of her pieces leaves each viewer not only wanting to look at each piece, but to touch it as well.

Tasting Green, Deborah Valoma, found iron objects, crocheted cotton thread, stinging nettles dye 61” x 5” x 3.5”, 2018

Next up, we shared Tasting Green by Deborah Valoma. Ingesting, bathing in, and dying with a distillation of stinging nettles leaves for a period of two months has produced a multi-sensory experience of green, for Valoma. “My body has been steeped in the smell, flavor, and feel of an earthy, brownish green,” she wrote of the piece. The common weed, Urtica dioica, has been used for food, medicine, fiber and dyes throughout Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa for millennia. Stinging nettle is also a perennial native to western United States and Canada and can be harvested locally from wetland areas.” It is a formidable plant,” writes the artist, “an ally of those in need of protection, fortification and healing. The bite of the fresh plant and its rich iron content syncretizes it with warriors of the wild.”

Offering i, Gizella Warburton, mixed media installation 18” x 12.5” x 63””; 2014

For Gizella Warburton, last in our social media queue for January, the process of making is visceral. “The materiality of cloth, paper, thread, wood and paint connect me to an innate human urge to make marks” and to “decipher the meaning of our physical and emotional landscapes,” describes Warburton. Warburton’s vessel forms, such as Offering i explore an intuitive response to linear, textural and light detail within landscape and surface. The process of making the vessels forms is quite contemplative, and includes a variety of subprocesses which, in the end, result in and aid each piece in coming to fruition.


Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog Cover Naoko Serino and Mary Yagi

Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

It’s big! It’s beautiful (if we do say so ourselves –and we do)! The catalog for our 30th anniversary is now available on our new shopping cart. The catalog — our 46th volume — contains 196 pages (plus the cover), 186 color photographs of work by 83 artists, artist statements, biographies, details and installation shots.

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Naoko Serino Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Michael Radyk Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Lilla Kulka Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Jo Barker Spread

The essay, is by Janet Koplos, a longtime editor at Art in America magazine, a contributing editor to Fiberarts, and a guest editor of American Craft. She is the author of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (Abbeville, 1990) and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). We have included a few sample spreads here. Each includes a full-page image of a work, a detail shot and an artist’s statement. There is additional artists’ biographical information in the back of the book. Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art can be purchased at www.browngrotta.com http://store.browngrotta.
com/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-30-years-in-art/.
Our shopping cart is mobile-device friendly and we now take PayPal.


Contemporary Art Influenced by Korea and Japan: An Unexpected Approach

Opens September 16th in Greenwich, Connecticut

Mary Yagi Outdoor Sculptor Art from Japan

Mariyo Yagi preparing her outdoor sculpture “A cycle- Infinity” for the upcoming exhibit in the US. Photo by Yuna Yagi

From September 16th to November 4, 2016, the Bendheim Gallery of the Greenwich Arts Council in Greenwich, Connecticut will present Contemporary Art Influenced by Korea and Japan: An Unexpected Approach, curated by browngrotta arts. The exhibition includes select works of ceramics, textiles, baskets and sculptures by artists from Japan, Korea and the United States that each reflect an Asian sensibility.

Textiles and Ceramic Art from Korea and Japan

Weaving by Chiyoko Tanaka, Ceramic by Yasuhisa Kohyama. Photo by Tom Grotta

Varied materials and techniques

The 23 artists in this exhibit have a close relationship to a traditional craft aesthetic, manifested in a contemporary manner. They have chosen conventionally Asian materials and/or techniques (dyes, papers, gold leaf, persimmon tannin, kategami) used in both time-honored and unconventional ways. Examples include studies by Hiroyuki Shindo of the vanishing art of natural indigo dyeing and by Jun Tomita on ikat dyeing.  Jennifer Linssen’s innovative sculptures of katagami and Keiji Nio’s Interlacing-R, which references complex Japanese sumihimo braiding reimagine conventional techniques. Masakazu and Naomi Kobayashi, Naoko Serino and Kyoko Kumai also create new relationships among disparate material and techniques.

Kiyomi Iwata Gold Mesh Sculpture

Auric Grid Fold, Kiyomi Iwata, aluminum mesh, french embroidery knots, gold leaf, silk organza, 19″ x 18″ x 10″, 2013. Photo by Tom Grotta

In other works, like Kiyomi Iwata’s Auric Gold Fold, Glen Kaufman’s Shimogamo Scrolls: Studio View II and Jin-Sook So, Pojagi Constructions I and II, gold and silver leaf play a role, their luster and longevity suggesting immortality, power, divinity. The artists share a concern for surface and material interaction, evident in Chiyoko Tanaka’s Grinded Fabric-Three Squares Blue Threads and Blue #689, of linen distressed with earth and stones, Hideho Tanaka’s Vanishing and Emerging series of stainless steel and singed paper and Mariyo Yagi’s twisted rope sculpture, A cycle-Infinity. The artists in Contemporary Art Influenced by Korea and Japan: An Unexpected Approach create work that is formal and contained while visibly involving the hand of the artist. This exhibition is a collaboration between the Greenwich Arts Council and browngrotta Arts.

The complete list of artists participating in this exhibition is:

Nancy Moore Bess (United States); Pat Campbell (United States); Kiyomi Iwata (Japan); Glen Kaufman (United States); Masakazu Kobayashi (Japan); Naomi Kobayashi (Japan); Yasuhisa Kohyama (Japan); Kyoko Kumai (Japan); Jennifer Falck Linssen (United States); Keiji Nio (Japan); Toshio Sekiji (Japan); Hisako Sekijima (Japan); Naoko Serino (Japan); Hiroyuki Shindo (Japan); Jin-Sook So (Korea/Sweden); Norkiko Takamiya (Japan); Chiyoko Tanaka (Japan); Hideho Tanaka (Japan); Takaaki Tanaka (Japan); Jun Tomita (Japan); Mariyo Yagi (Japan); Chang Yeonsoon (Korea); Jiro Yonezawa (Japan); Shin Young-ok (Korea).

The Bendheim Gallery is located at 299 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich, Connecticut; 203.862.6750; info@greenwicharts.org.