Rose Kennedy Greenway

Tombstoner said:
These were at the Hirschorn in DC a couple years ago; wonderful sculptures (not very edgy, but the craftsmanship is awe-inspiring). It's great to have rotating exhibits such as this, but I wish we could land some more quality permanent installations.
Click to expand...

Tombstoner -- I believe that these are on the Greenway because Big Ai Weiwei [and he is BIG] is a major part of a HUge [Bernie's comment] exhibition at the MFA Megacities Asia

April 3, 2016 – July 17, 2016
Ann and Graham Gund Gallery (Gallery LG31) and other places throughout and outside the MFA itself

for instance Big Ai has a snake [snaking of course] across the ceiling just outside the Cafe and a whole bunch of bicycles in the Shapiro Glass Court -- ironically displacing a faux Scholars Rock [sculptured from Stainless Steel]

_MG_6131_4x3_0.jpg


Eleven artists sculpt urban reality

The accelerated rise of megacities—those with populations of more than ten million—over the last 50 years has profoundly affected the lives of their inhabitants. Asia is home to more megacities than any other continent: the works by the 11 artists in this exhibition respond to the political, environmental, and social conditions of their home cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Seoul, conveying their textures, proportions, and striking material and visual juxtapositions.

Accumulations of objects that each artist encounters in daily life—dishes, doors, plastic bags—become immersive sculptures.

Like a sprawling megacity, this exhibition extends to all corners of the Museum. You’ll find works located throughout the galleries, and even outside the Museum’s Huntington Entrance, and at Faneuil Hall.

From the endless stream of migrants in densely packed Mumbai, to the bicycles that until recently filled the streets of Beijing, works by Hema Upadhyay and Ai Weiwei evoke the constant motion that characterizes emerging megacities.

Urban consumption is at the heart of Take off your shoes and wash your hands (2008) by Delhi’s Subodh Gupta: a wall of stainless-steel utensils found in urban Indian kitchens.

Choi Jeong Hwa finds beauty and grandeur in urban appetites, with an installation comprised of cheap plastic objects from markets and 99-cent stores, while Delhi’s Asim Waqif and South Korea’s artist collective flyingCity are inspired by the rapid building that surrounds them—from the ubiquitous bamboo scaffolding of construction projects, to the metal parts churned out by machinists in central Seoul trying to compete in a globalizing market.

Aaditi Joshi amasses plastic bags on which Mumbai retail relies, finding beauty in them despite the enviromental threat discarded bags pose, and Beijing’s Yin Xiuzhen alters rubble left behind by waves of demolition around her city. Using cast aside historic objects as new construction dominates their cities, Song Dong creates interactive architectural sculptures that recall how Beijing families once ingeniously extended their cramped living spaces into rooftop pigeon coops, while Shanghai-based Hu Xiangcheng’s constructions find life in windows and doors salvaged from dismantled Ming- and Qing-era houses. Seoul’s Han Seok Hyun creates an undulating landscape of green products in Super-Natural (2011)—using bottles of rice wine and packages of dishwashing detergent—to ask how his city’s growing environmental consciousness can be reconciled with its ever advancing urban development.
Click to expand...
 
Big Ai Weiwei's Heads make an appearance on the Greenway

story from Universal Hub
Adam Castiglioni watched the installation of a snarling dog head and other animal heads on the Rose Kennedy Greenway this morning; part of a work by Ai Weiwei that represents the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac
Click to expand...

2woofdogart.jpg


Big Ail's work is featured in the Megs-Exhibit Megacities Asia -- open throughout the MFA and in other places [April 3, 2016 – July 17, 2016]

_MG_6131_4x3.jpg


Snake-Ceiling-2.jpg


668_4x3_0.jpg

April 8–July 17, 2016

Share your “fresh pics” with #mfaMEGA! Take a photo of yourself with Choi Jeong Hwa’s Fruit Tree at Marketplace Center near Faneuil Hall and enjoy free admission to the MFA as part of “Megacities Asia.”

To redeem, simply show a photo of yourself with the Fruit Tree on your mobile device at any MFA ticket desk.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Those orange cones will make great dunce-caps

statue-with-traffic-cone-on-head-sheldonian-theatre-oxford-uk-bya6ww.jpg


(Oxford Sheldonian theatre - this was a drunken pasttime - surprised there are so few pics online of this phenomenon)
 
Good spot for a coven from Salem to hold a meeting.
 
All kidding aside, it does look like his animal head sculptures on a pole were inspired by PEZ dispensers.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
EdMc said:
Good spot for a coven from Salem to hold a meeting.
Click to expand...

Ideally hosted by the latest and greatest Hollywood celebrity charismatic megafauna/talking barnyard critter, Black Phillip!

Who I would presume the filmmakers named "Black Phillip" as a historical reference to the diabolic loathing and hatred 1600s British Protestants held for Phillip II of Spain--he who unleashed the Armada on England, and was the European prince more capable than any other, via means belligerent or seductive, to reassert full-blown Catholicism onto English culture. Oh how the New England Puritans would have trembled and seethed at his memory...

Also, dude really tended to dig black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Spain#/media/File:portrait_of_Philip_II_of_Spain_by_Sofonisba_Anguissola_-_002b.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_XTFjvvcnQ
 
Sprngh2o said:
Art to some, I guess.
Click to expand...

Spengh -- Haven't yet formally seen the MegaCities Asia exhibition -- but visiting the MFA -- you get exposed to it in the most unlikely ways

In addition to the Bicycles and Snake of Big Ai there is also a bit of participatory art hidden way back in the Korean Gallery

by-artist-choi-jeong-hwa-as-part-of-the-museum-of-fine-arts-bostons-picture-id518260862

You can sit on this chair and be photographed in a strangely Virtual Environment called MANDALA courtesy of Korean artist Choi Jeong

The other thing about the exhibition is a wall sized plot of Greater [ city ] population versus time for the past 60 years and projecting into the future until 2030

You can argue about the specific methodology as Boston is shown growing to 4.7 Million by 2020 or so whereas some agglomerations such as the CMSA and CSA shows Boston already @ " 7.6 million, which makes it the 6th largest Combined Statistical Area in the country. "*1\

BUT -- by comparison to these Asian Mega Cities several of whom have populations of around 30 Million now and still growing at astonishing rates -- thw major metropolises in this part of the world [i.e. US and Europe] are static and getting smaller on a percentage basis for nearly everything except GDP and GDP / capita

There is an impressive plot on the wall of the Gund Gallery Gift Shop





* 1 http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/boston-population/
 
If you were the mother of a little tyke who wanted to play in the fountain, wouldn't you look askance at this exhibition?

My "Pennies from Heaven" ;)
 
EdMc said:
If you were the mother of a little tyke who wanted to play in the fountain, wouldn't you look askance at this exhibition?

My "Pennies from Heaven" ;)
Click to expand...

EdMc-- No I'd just tell the tyke go play in the fountain or else BIG Ai will sit on you -- that should do it

;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top