Domestic Transformer

A big wow crossed my lips upon watching Gary Chang's mind-bending apartment. Chang, an architect in Hong Kong, gives a whole new dimension to an apartment that's merely 344 square feet. Through the use of sliding panels and walls he is able to sleep, eat, and even enjoy a late sunset in the same area of space.

Sliding panels and walls are longstanding architectural concepts in Asia. Korean palaces often consisted of interlinked chambers that could be joined by moving aside sliding doors, that would then create a banquet hall for special occasions.

Chang's idea merges such traditional concepts for the modern urban environment, while living green by making do with less.

Urban Gawkers of China

i like people. from blank on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed this concept video by Eric Leleu, on view at Art Labor Gallery Shanghai until June 10. The random walks of tourists, you discover, are actually set in a predetermined pattern, destined to take souvenirs photos by Tiananmen, the Temple of Heaven, and other iconic Beijing monuments.

Who says people aren't predictable?

Shanghai As Muse

I just came back from a fascinating panel on Asian Americans in the Media at Barnard College. Aside from the heavy representation in hip-hop, which I thoroughly enjoyed,there was also an unusual talent whose fusion jazz music is bringing his musical interpretation of Shanghai to an American audience.

Dave Liang gave up a career in management consulting to create the Shanghai Restoration Project, an electronic music initiative that's putting together excerpts of Shanghai '20s jazz music and splicing it with traditional Chinese instruments and the beats of hip-hop.

His music is evolving, but only because he's just starting to discover himself. I especially like this NPR interview and the accompanying video, because it gives his music a more definitive context.

Floating World

Art! Who comprehends her?
With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?
—Ludwig van Beethoven

There's so much about art I know so little of, which is why pieces that connect me for a brief moment to a kindred soul is a gift. Guo Hongwei's deceptively simple works of everyday objects bring a redeeming glow to the mundane world of electric plugs and plastic stools. So much talent in a 27-year old makes me wonder where he'll be 5 or 10 years from now.





The supposition that art is a gift as opposed to a collectible, something that doesn’t try to sell you anything, runs counter to our contemporary notions of what constitutes a meaningful exchange.
-Lewis Lapham

The gallery business in New York is probably not at the apex of its profit margin, which according to one art dealer I spoke to, is for the better, especially for "those overinflated Yue Minjuns."

While this dealer is a respected expert in the field, I paused and reflected on that statement. We live in a time when a highway robber can no longer hold us at gunpoint, demanding us to choose between "your money or your art," because these are now indistinguishable commodities. It's time to consider the possibilities: will we be exchanging shares of art on a stock exchange? Going long on the formaldehyde sharks, and shorting the images of red-faced Chinese?



Then again, I guess hard times for the art-collecting rich don't call for such explicitly wide smiles. It cuts a little too close to the bone.

Guo Hongwei's works are on view at Chambers Fine Art from April 1st to May 15th

Wealth is in the air

Damien Hirst
Painful Memories/Forgotten Tears, 2008
Gold plated, glass and Cubic Zirconia

I just finished reading "Greed Never Left" by Michael Lewis, a retrospective of Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. If you've been keeping up with the latest movie news, Stone and his Hollywood entourage are preparing to release an overdue sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Stone expresses his usual pessimism about American capitalism, telling Lewis he returned to the world of finance and greed because we're apparently witnessing "the collapse of capitalism and the collapse of our society." This of course is Stone at his most ironic. After the release of Wall Street Michael Douglas was accosted by Wall Street bankers claiming kinship, seeking him out to say, "Man, I want to tell you, you are the single biggest reason I got into the business. I watched Wall Street and I wanted to be Gordon Gekko."

Stone's grave outlook, the ongoing housing crisis, and an anemic economy does make it difficult to imagine business as usual. But in Asia, the engines of enterprise are just starting to roar, with 62 out of 92 new billionaires on the annual Forbes list hailing from China, India and Japan. They are captains of industry as well as innovators like Lei Jufang, one of few women on the list who is pioneering a path in Tibetan medicine.

I've thought about an Asian equivalent to the wheeling, dealing, greed mongering world of Wall Street, and I don't think there is one. Could this be a by-product of a cultural gap between our two modernities? Does an emphasis on family values prevent moguls from reckless capitalism that has become so glamorous in the United States, a path so dangerously alluring that it is ultimately unstoppable? Only time will tell.

Happy Chinese New Year

In a world of multiple, co-existing modernities, it's only fair to celebrate multiple, co-existing new years. 2010 began over a month ago. Now the year 4708 is upon us, bringing my attention to a recent article on CNN Asia edition about the revival of the Chinese dress in Singapore.

Every now and then fashion designers take a stab at bringing back traditional clothing to the mainstream. Shanghai Tang comes to mind. But each time their success is met with limitations. In East Asia, for a woman to feel and represent the modern, her clothing must look modern, or Western. When I lived in Seoul, I wore two hanbok-inspired tops, a sartorial move that was met with surprise and amusement, not really by my non-Korean colleagues, but rather by my Korean associates. Was the traditional dress too confined to certain holidays and special occasions to make the quantum leap to daily wear?

Which is why I'm all the more piqued by the bold and striking designs from Mazzario Cheongsam and My Mandarin Collar. Would they make it into regular wardrobe rotation? Judge for yourself.

A Word About Toyoda

Are you okay? by Daifuku Sensei. Toyotas comprise the majority of Japan's armada of taxis, such as this cab in Tokyo.

An empire is slowly crumbling, and with the accelerator pedals out of order, it's impossible to stop the decline. When I first heard about the automotive recall by Japan's largest car manufacturer, I brushed it off as a minor footnote to the corporate biography of the most powerful company in Japan, if not the world. But this wasn't Hyundai circa 1986. This was Toyota, is Toyota, and a car company in free fall.

I'm not hopeful about Toyota's future. I say short that stock, and do it now. The scandal has been met with denial, indifference, and even arrogance, quickly followed by primal fatalism.

Martin Jacques ruthlessly noted that empires in decline usually do not notice an ongoing state of deterioration until it is too late. What does this mean for a company that embodies post-war Japan? I foresee seismic changes ahead, a threat to business as usual that's also an opportunity in disguise. I hope I'm not alone.