Blog

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ heman chong, kevin hooyman, aki kondo, takashi kuribayashi,
domingo milella, donna ong, imran qureshi, cristina rodriguez, varunika saraf,
dana schutz, mithu sen, and wu chi-tsung
special thanks ~ angela garcia, veerangana solanki, mami kataoka, tsering tashi gyalthang
cover & back ~ cristina rodriguez, untitled (CF121.1), 31 x 41cm, chartpack color film, acrylic
paint, magazine transfer, and gold leaf on canvas, 2012; untitled no. p000.006, 47.6 x 43cm,
chartpack color film, acrylic paint, gold leaf, and mixed media on mylar, 2012
website ~ www.lovelydaze.com
contact ~ alovelydayinalovelydaze@gmail.com
copyright ~ lovely daze, spring, 2013
printed in my beloved formosa

CONTRIBUTORS

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

HEMAN CHONG is an artist, curator and writer. His art practice involves an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. He has participated in numerous international biennales including Asia Pacific Triennial 7 (2012), Performa 11, Momentum 6 (both in 2011), Manifesta 8 (2010), 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008), SCAPE Christchurch Biennale (2006), Busan Biennale (2004), 10th India Triennial (2000) and represented Singapore in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). www.hemanchong.com

KEVIN HOOYMAN was born in 1974 in Two Harbors, Minnesota and raised in Seattle, Washington. He now makes his home in Providence, Rhode Island. He has always been drawing and since 1998 has been self-publishing books of his work and doing his best to make a living with a pen. www.kevinhooyman.com

AKI KONDO was born in 1987 in Hokkaido. She lives and works in Tokyo. Kondo uses dynamic compositions, strong, vivid colors and a determined, confident brush in committing to her canvases images that encapsulate deep and complex stories.

TAKASHI KURIBAYASHI was born in 1968 in Nagasaki, Japan. He graduated from Musashino Art University (1993) and Kunstakademie Dusseldorf (2002). Having studied nihonga, Kuribayashi has always been interested in spaces where some kind of border or series of layers divides the world into different zones. He recreates such locations in three-dimensional installations. Viewers are able to experience the multiple viewpoints that such animals have. Kuribayashi has held solo exhibitions at various locations including the Kolnisches Stadt Museum, Cologne (2003) and has participated in international exhibitions including Mediations Biennale (2012), “Sensing Nature” at Mori Art Museum (2010), “New Nature” at The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2007), “Thermocline of Art – New Asian Waves” at ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe and Singapore Biennale (both in 2006).

LESLEY MA, finally a PhD candidate, is working on her dissertation on 1960s Taiwanese abstract paintings and living amongst forests of books and high-rise buildings.

DOMINGO MILELLA was born in 1981 in Bari, Italy where he lived until he was 18 years old. At that age, he moved to New York City to study photography at the School of Visual Arts (BFA 2005), where Stephen Shore was one of his teachers. He worked with Massimo Vitali from 2003 to 2010. Thomas Struth has been an influential mentor for him. Since 2001, Milella has been developing his project on landscape. Currently, he lives and works between his home town in southern Italy and New York. His photographs have been shown at Brancolini Grimaldi, Rome/London, Tracy Williams, Ltd., New York, at Foam Fotografie Museum, Amsterdam, and at Les Rencontres d’Arles. Frank. Her retrospective “If the Face Had Wheels” opened at the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York (2011) and traveled to the Miami Art Museum and Denver Art Museum. Her most recent solo exhibition was “Piano in the Rain” at Petzel Gallery, New York (2012). Her paintings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Tel Aviv Museum; Israel, among others. A new traveling exhibition is being organized by the Hepworth Wakefield Museum, UK for October, 2013.

MITHU SEN was born in 1971 near Calcutta and currently lives and works in New Delhi. She earned her BFA and MFA degrees in painting at the Santiniketan University in West Bengal and later studied in Glasgow. Trained as a painter, Mithu works in a wide variety of media, making site and time specific installations that often combine sculpture, video, sound, drawings, and even poetry. Blending fact and fiction, Sen incorporates self-portraits along with her fantastical creations. She has had residencies in New York, Brazil, China, Austria, Kenya, Japan and South Africa and solo exhibitions of her works have been held at Nature Morte and the British Council, New Delhi; Gallery Chemould, Mumbai; Bose Pacia, New York; Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna; Galerie Steph, Singapore; Espace Louis Vuitton, Taipei; and Suzie Q Projects, Zurich. Mithu received the SKODA award 2010 for the best contemporary artist in India. www.mithusen.com

SABRINA SHAFFER co-owns and runs a manufacturing and trading company. In her spare time, she waits tables at her mama’s restaurant. www.otabo.com / www.hillsboroshoe.com / www.shafferskitchen.com

CHARWEI TSAIwould like to thank her dearest editors, artists, and friends for all of their wonderful contributions for Lovely Daze in the last eight years. www.charwei.com

WU CHI-TSUNG was born in 1981 in Taipei. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in oil painting from the Taipei National University of the Arts (2004). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Taiwan and abroad, including: “Sub-Phenomena: Report on the State of Chinese Young Art”, CAFAM Art Museum, Beijing and “Boundaries on the Move: Taiwan-Israel, A Cross-Culture Dialogue”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya Israel (both in 2012); “Taiwan Calling – The Phantom of Liberty”, Ludwig Museum, Budapest and “Elusive Island”, Műcsarnok – Kunsthalle Budapest (2010); “Our Future: The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection”, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2008); “Artes Mundi”, Wales International Visual Art Prize, National Museum of Cardiff, UK (2006); 6th Shanghai Biennial (2006), Shanghai, China; and “The Elegance of Silence”, Mori Museum, Tokyo (2005). www.wuchitsung.com

Lovely Daze is a journal of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The eighth issue: Pilgrimage takes us through…

… a journey on the scaffolds
… a prayer with a lotus flower in hand
… a capture of the in-between
… a release of light
… a tour of Paris in red
… a parade of death & torture
… a landscape of passing memories
… a stare into a fictional space
… a spill on the ground
… a realm of melancholy
… an eclipse in colors
… a life in love & beauty
… and a walk in the forest

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ hisham bharoocha, mark borthwick, chen chieh-jen, peter coffin,
g.r. iranna, yukinori maeda, domingo milella, kyoko murase, wilfredo prieto, annie ratti,
wu chi-tsung, and yuan goang-ming
special thanks ~ cristina rodriguez, angela garcia, veerangana solanki, printed matter
cover ~ g.r. iranna, bhiksu (detail), 2011, acrylic on tarpaulin, 132 x 335cm
website ~ www.lovelydaze.com
contact ~ alovelydayinalovelydaze@gmail.com
copyright ~ lovely daze, winter 2011/2012
printed in my beloved formosa
~ g.r. iranna, the river of red, 2011, acrylic on tarpaulin, 168 x 264cm
courtesy of the artist & the guild, mumbai

CONTRIBUTORS…

HISHAM BHAROOCHA is an artist and musician born in Niigata, Japan and is now based in New York. Hisham concentrates on creating music, visual art, and photography. He has had solo exhibitions at D’Amelio Terras Gallery, New York, and Vleeshal, The Netherlands amongst others and has exhibited broadly in group exhibitions at Deitch Projects, New York, John Connelly Presents, New York, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Hisham’s most recent works deal with the melting together of images that happens in the mind when one is meditating, day dreaming, or going about one’s daily life. www.hishamb.net

MARK BORTHWICK /… whom some time`s perform`s under “will shine” ay no mad no man no mark, was last sean in brooklyn, spain evade`ing all ode`s to fall an fail upon ay spell his recluse to seduce invisibles ay mystery that fade`s in with modesty an ardent glow, to letting the future go, we saw him perch`t upon a tree of sensual prism`s casting spell`s in to oblivion whilst sing`s as an eruptive chant an ol` traditional from an andelalucian gypsy tribe, her`s was imaginary / blasting the clamor of in essence of uncertainty`s an elixir of light`s to shadow an serenade one`s silhouette in to an oblivion who`s an horizon rising chanting, “ya gotta get over it all” whilst perch south facing the sun, in the spring till her leaf like moon beckon`s one through the eye`s of her leave`s…

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

CHEN CHIEH-JEN was born in 1960 in Taiwan and works with photography, film, installation and performance to explore issues connected to globalization, in particular labour, consumerism and migration. He makes artworks as an act of resistance… ‘as an act of connection, linking together the history of people who have been excluded from the dominant discourse, the real-life situations of areas that are being ignored, and ‘others’ who are being isolated.’ Chen has held solo exhibitions at Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Asia Society, New York; and Jeu de Paume, Paris. Group exhibitions include Venice Biennale, Biennale de Lyon, São Paulo Art Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, Biennale of Sydney, Istanbul Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, the Asia Pacific Triennial amongst others.

PETER COFFIN was born in 1972 in Berkeley, California; he lives and works in New York City. Coffin’s projects include constructing and flying a U.F.O. over the Baltic Sea and south-east coast of Brazil, transforming a greenhouse into a “music for plants” performance space, and designing an elaborate machine that transports a single helium balloon along what could be its own, wind-driven natural course. His work is exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at Herald Street, London (2011); Centre d’art Contemporain d’Ivry, le Credac, France (2010); Barbican Art Gallery, London; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco ( both in 2009); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Fribourg, Switzerland (2008); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; The Horticultural Society of New York, New York (both in 2007) and has participated in recent group shows including Yokohama Triennale (2011); “Filling the Void” at Guggenheim, New York (2010); and Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2009).

SABRINA FINLAY is spending the winter months in Asia. She is enjoying her mother’s cooking, her father’s lectures, working with Ryan at the factory, getting to know Sakina, new conversation with her husband Chris in Mandarin, and last minute dinners with Charwei. www.otabo.com www.hillsboroshoe.com

G.R. IRANNA obtained M.F.A. from Delhi College of Art. His selected solo exhibitions include Ribbed Routes, The Guild, Mumbai (2010); ‘Birth of Blindness’, The Stainless Gallery, New Delhi and Aicon Gallery, London and New York. Iranna was awarded the Juror’s choice award for the ABPF Signature Art Prize 08, Singapore Museum and the international scholarship from Charles Wallace Trust, British Council. Other selected group exhibitions include ‘Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern & Contemporary Art from India’, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; ‘Time Unfolded’, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi; ‘Finding India: Art for the New century’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan; Go See India, curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay and Oscar Aschan, Gothenburg, Sweden; Cultura Popular India y mas alla, la presidenta de la comunidad de Madrid Museum, curated by Shaheen Merali and Arad Biennale, Romania.

LESLEY MA has recently watched four performances by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, ran two half marathons, presented at two academic conferences, and cut her hair back to the length it was in 2005, when the first Lovely Daze was launched. YUKINORI MAEDA was born in 1971 and currently lives and works in Japan. His work has been featured in: “Magic Village COSMIC WONDER Yukinori Maeda” at MU Art Foundation, Eindhoven (2005); “Space for Your Future” at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2007); “Mellow Fever” at Galerie des Galerie, Paris (2008); “Universal Love” at Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2009); “MOT Collection: Plastic Memories –Illuminating the Now” at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, (2010); “Our Magic Hour: How Much of the World Do We Know?” at Yokohama Triennale and “Echoes”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (both in 2011). The central theme of Maeda’s projects has consistently focused upon the theme of “light”. Maeda has exhibited installations consisting of reconstructed images of found photographs, objects, lighting systems and sound systems linked to the wave length of light.  www.cosmicwonder.com

DOMINGO MILELLA was born in 1981 in Bari, Italy where he lived until he was 18 years old. At that age, he moved to New York City to study photography at the School of Visual Arts (BFA 2005), where Stephen Shore was one of his teachers. He worked with Massimo Vitali from 2003 to 2010. Thomas Struth has been an influential mentor for him. Since 2001, Milella has been developing his project on landscape. Currently, he lives and works between his home town in southern Italy and New York. His photographs have been shown at Brancolini Grimaldi (Rome/London), Tracy Williams, Ltd. (New York City), at Foam Fotografie Museum (Amsterdam) and at Les Rencontres d’Arles.

KYOKO MURASE was born in 1963 in Gifu, Japan, and currently lives and works in Dusseldorf, Germany. She completed her postgraduate studies at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in 1989. She subsequently studied at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf between 1990 and 1996 and completed a Meisterschuler from Konrad Klapheck in 1993. Her major solo exhibitions include, “Sapphire” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2010); “Fluttering far away” Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi (2010) and “Cicada and horned owl” the Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka (2007).

WILFREDO PRIETO was born 1978 in Zaza del Medio, in the province of Santi Spiritu, Cuba. He graduated from the Higher Institute of Visual Art in La Habana in 2002. He has exhibited in international events such as the Biennal de La Habana in its four last editions, the Singapore Biennale (2006) and the Biennale di Venezia (2007). Prieto was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in 2006 in New York. He was awarded the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts, the Premio F in Buenos Aires and the Cartier Foundation Award, with a residency at Gasworks, London, in 2008. Using absurdity as a strategy to entangle his viewer, Prieto disrupts the public space or gallery through objects and interventions, which combine humor with a critical reflection on the sociopolitical reality.

ANNIE RATTI lives and works in London. She employs different media to further her artistic vision, using video, photography, installation, sculpture, also collaborating with other artists. Her work has been exhibited in international venues such as: R.A.M. Camere XII, Rome (2010); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2009); Nuit Blanche, Paris (2008) (‘The Red Balloon’); White Box, New York (2006); Kuntsthaus Bregenz (2006); 4th Seoul Media International Biennale Seoul (2006); Wijnegem Belgium (2004); Gwangiu Biennal (2004); Musee D’Art Modern, Saint Etienne (2004).

CHARWEI TSAI is in love. www.charwei.com 

WU CHI-TSUNG was born 1981 in Taipei, Taiwan where he currently lives and works. He is fascinated by images, how they are made and how they are seen. His works to date have mostly involved photography and video and the processes which are needed to create images. Chi-Tsung was a finalist of the Artes Mundi prize (2006), and has exhibited internationally including ‘The Elegance of Silence’ at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2005), the 6th Shanghai Biennale (2006), “Our Future”, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2008), “The Tradition of the New” at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, and “Taiwan Calling” at Mucsarnok – Kunsthalle and Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2010).

YUAN GOANG-MING was born in 1965 in Taipei, Taiwan where he currently lives and works. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Institute of the Arts, Taipei (1989) and a diploma in Media Arts from the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, Germany (1997). His work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including the Gwangju Biennale (1995 and 2002), the Taipei Biennial (1998 and 2002), Translated Acts (Berlin, New York, and Mexico City, 2001-02), 01.01.01: Art in Technological Times (San Francisco, 2001), Luna’s Flow: The 2nd Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2002), Culture Meets Culture: Busan Biennale 2002, the Venice Biennale (2003), the Liverpool Biennial (2004), the Guangzhou Triennial (2005), the Singapore Biennale (2008), and “Taiwan Calling”, at Mucsarnok – Kunsthalle, Budapest (2010)

Lovely Daze is a journal of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The seventh issue: Good Intentions Lead to Hell? is a double issue: one side edited by the publisher and the reverse side by guest editor Alessandra Sandrolini reflecting on a shared topic.

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
issue 7 guest editor ~ alessandra sandrolini
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ jean-michel alberola, francis alÿs, paola anziché, harun farocki, jean-baptiste ganne, dora garcia, johan grimonprez, ns harsha, alfredo jaar, mike parr, michelangelo pistoletto, renata poljak, joaquin sarmiento, rirkrit tiravanija, marnie weber, icaro zorbar
cover ~ jean-michel alberola, celui qui parle I, 2002~2003
reverse cover ~ michelangelo pistoletto, love difference table, 2003~2010
copyright ~ lovely daze, fall/winter 2010/2011
printed in my beloved formosa

CONTRIBUTORS…

JEAN-MICHEL ALBEROLA was born in 1953 in Algeria in a French family and currently lives and works in Paris. He studied at the Marseilles Academy of Art and has been teaching at L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris since 1991. His paintings, graphics works, sculptures, and installations have been exhibited broadly in France and abroad including at the Centre Georges Pompidou (1983, 1985, 1987, 1993, 2007, 2008); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (2003); Musée du Louvre (1993, 2005); Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris (1981, 1992, 1997, 2009), Venice Biennale (1982), and Galerie Daniel Templon (since 1982). FRANCIS ALÿS was born in 1959 in Antwerp. He attended the Institute of Architecture in Tournai and the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before living in Mexico City in 1986 where he currently resides. His work encompasses various media often involving the participation and presence of the artist. These performed events are then documented as videos, photographs, writings, paintings, and animations. Alÿs’ work has been shown in many international institutions including a recent exhibition ‘A Story of Deception’ at Tate Modern, London (2010). www.francisalys.com

PAOLA ANZICHE was born in 1975 in Milan. She graduated from the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule Für Bildende Künste, in Frankfurt am Main. Her solo exibitions include: Greater Torino: Paola Anzichè-Paolo Piscitelli, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2010); Tapis-à-porter, Careof, Milano( 2009); The Functional Fake Objects, Placentia Arte, Piacenza (2007); She participated in the residency program, Pact Zollverein, Essen (2010); Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre, Paris (2009); Centre International d’Accueil et d’Echanges des Recollets, Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris (2009); group exihbitions include: Meteoriti in Giardino, Fondazione Merz, Torino (2009); Sans les Murs, Glassbox, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, Paris (2009); Die Sammlung Rausch, It Takes Something to Make Something, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main(2008). www.anziche.blogspot.com

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

HARUN FAROCKI was born in 1944 in Germany. He studied at the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie in Berlin where he currently lives and works. He began his career as a film director and was editor of Filmkritik, a magazine where he articulated an important set of theoretical ideas about the image from 1974 to 1984. Employing a wide range of media (photographs, drawings, documentary images, films), his own work questions the production and perception of images, decoding the medium of film and examining how audiovisual culture relates to politics, technology and war. Since 1996 he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally including Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany.
www.farocki-film.de

JEAN-BAPTISTE GANNE was born in 1972 in France and currently lives and works in Nice. He studied at Villa Arson, Nice and was an artist-in-residence at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 2003-2004 and at Villa Medici in Rome until April 2007. With various modes of expression as photography, writing, performances, video and installations, the activities of Jean-Baptiste Ganne are articulated around the “representation of politics and the politic of representations”. He illustrated Marx’s Capital chapter by chapter (The Illustrated Capital, 1998-2003), he was on strike (cooking) for six days during open studios in Rijksakademie (The Cookist, 2003 and redid the performance at the SFAI in San Francisco, 2007), decided to spread out his production budget converted to ten cents coins in Rome (Senza Titolo (All that Glitters is Gold), 2007) or read the whole Don Quijote in luminous morse code with a red lamp (Amsterdam, 2005; Nice, 2006; Istanbul, 2007; Gent, 2008; Paris, 2009). He exhibited with WHW in Zagreb (2001) published with Fotohof in Salzburg (2003), showed at Ellen de Bruijne Project in Amsterdam (2005 and 2006), was part of Istanbul Biennal (2007) and La Force de l’Art 02 in Paris (2009).
www.documentsdartistes.org/artistes/ganne/repro.html

DORA GARCIA was born in 1964 in Valladolid, Spain. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Salamanca, Spain, and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Holland. She currently lives and works in Brussels. Dora García uses the exhibition space as platform to investigate the relationship between the visitor, the artwork, and place. To this end the artist often draws on interactivity and performance. Through minimal changes, not encroaching on the space, the room is converted into a sensory experience, with each visitor leaving it again with his or her perceptions altered, or at the very least perhaps with a degree of skepticism. She has exhibited at various international exhibitions including: The Flower of May, Gwangju Biennale, Manifesta (2010); 2nd Athens Biennale, 10th Biennale de Lyon (2009); Sydney Biennale, H Box, MUSAC, Leon, Spain, MUDAM, Luxembourg, Tate Modern, London (2008) and numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally.
www.doragarcia.net

JOHAN GRIMONPREZ was born in 1962 in Roeselare, Belgium and currently lives in Brussels and New York. He studied at the School of Visual Arts and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. Grimonprez achieved international acclaim with his film essay, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. With its premiere at Centre Pompidou and Documenta X in Kassel, 1997, it eerily foreshadowed the events of September 11th. Grimonprez’s productions have traveled the main festival circuit from Telluride, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, to Tokyo and Berlin. Curatorial projects were hosted at major exhibitions and museums worldwide such as the Whitney Museum in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and the Tate Modern in London. Grimonprez is currently a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts (New York).

NS HARSHA was born in 1969, currently lives and works in Mysore, India. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda in 1995. Since then he has taken part in a variety of collaborative projects and exhibitions internationally including Serpentine Gallery, London (2008), Maison Hermes, Tokyo (2008); the Singapore Biennale (2006); The House of World Cultures, Berlin (2005); the 2nd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial (2002); and the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Arts, Australia (1999). Harsha won the third Artes Mundi prize in 2008.
www.nsharsha.com

ALFREDO JAAR was born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile and currently lives and works in New York. He attended Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura, Santiago (1979) and Universidad de Chile, Santiago (1981). In installations, photographs, film, and community-based projects, Jaar explores the public’s desensitization to images and the limitations of art to represent events such as genocides, epidemics, and famines. Jaar’s work bears witness to military conflicts, political corruption, and imbalances of power between industrialized and developing nations. Subjects addressed in his work include the holocaust in Rwanda, gold mining in Brazil, toxic pollution in Nigeria, and issues related to the border between Mexico and the United States. Jaar’s works has been exhibited extensively including Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989), Sydney (1990), Istanbul (1995) Johannesburg (1997), Gwangju (1995, 2000), as well as the Documenta exhibitions (1987, 2002) in Kassel. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a Mac Arthur Fellow in 2000. In 2006, he was awareded Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creacion.
www.alfredojaar.net

LESLEY MA is a Ph. D. student in art history, theory, and criticism at the University of California, San Diego. Her most recent research project is on the “modern” choices made by members of the Chinese Women’s Calligraphy and Painting Society in 1930s Shanghai. She is also an official groupie of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. www.tastingsalon.com

MIKE PARR was born in 1945 in Sydney. In 1968, he enrolled to study painting at the National Art School. In 1970, with Peter Kennedy, he established ‘Inhibodress’, an artists’ cooperative and alternative space for conceptual art, performance art, and video. Widely known as a performance artist, Parr also works with drawings, prints, paintings, photographs and videos. His work has been exhibited in Australia and overseas including most recent exhibitions: MIRROR/ ARSE, Revolutions – Form That Turn at Sydney Biennale (2008) and Volte Face: Mike Parr Prints & Reprints 1970-2005 at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006).

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO was born in 1933 in Biella. He began to exhibit his work in 1955. An inquiry into self-portraiture characterizes his early work. In the two-year period 1961-1962 made the first Mirror Paintings, which are the foundation of his subsequent artistic output and theoretical thought. In 1965 and 1966 he produced a set of works entitled Minus Objects, considered fundamental to the birth of Arte Povera, an art movement of which Pistoletto was an animating force and a protagonist. During the nineties, with Project Art and with the creation in Biella of Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto and the University of Ideas, he brought art into active relation with diverse spheres of society with the aim of inspiring and producing responsible social change. In 2003 he won the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifelong Achievement. In 2004 the University of Turin awarded him a laurea honoris causa in Political Science. On that occasion the artist announced what has become the most recent phase of his work, Third Paradise.
www.pistoletto.it

RENATA POLJAK was born in 1974 in Split, Croatia and currently lives and works in Paris. She earned her undergraduate degree from the Arts Academy in Split, and her post-graduate degree from the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, France. She has been invited to residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, and New York. Poljak’s work has been shown internationally and has received numerous awards including the first prize at the True Diva Biennale, Skowhegan, Maine (2009), Golden Black Box Short Award at the Balkan Black Box Festival in Berlin (2006), and the Annual Award of Women’s Art Center Electra in Zagreb, Croatia (1997). In 2010, her videos were screened at “Renata Poljak, in the frame of Prospective Cinema”, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
www.renatapoljak.com

JOAQUIN SARMIENTO was born in 1977 in Bogota. He graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University in the United States. After working as an engineer for several years, he decided to pursue his passion in photojournalism. Sarmiento completed a postgraduate program in Photography at the SENAC School in Sao Paulo and has worked as a freelance photographer since. In 2005, the city of Sao Paulo awarded him a grant which initiated Um Olhar (One View).The Um Olhar project brought cameras and photography lessons to youngsters living in local favelas. After three years in Brazil, Sarmiento moved back to Colombia where he currently resides and continues his work in photography with a focus on the Caribbean region. Following Um Olhar, he has moved on to organizing workshops in schools and prison facilities in Bogota. His work has been published in various news magazines throughout Latin America and has been exhibited in Colombia, Brazil, and Portugal.
www.joaquinsarmiento.com

ALESSANDRA SANDROLINI is an independent curator, critic, and Phd candidate at La Sorbonne. She currently lives between Bologna where she was born and Paris where she won a curatorial residency of the Dena Foundation For Contemporary Art in 2005. She worked as curator at Villa Medici in Rome and at Centre Pompidou in Paris where she researched and assisted in curating the shows Dada (2005); Mouvements des Images (2006); and Traces du Sacré (2008).

SABRINA SHAFFER is marrying Christopher Finally this fall.
www.otabo.com www.hillsboroshoe.com

RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA has transformed the constant movement and cultural interaction of his own life into an engaged conceptual art practice. Born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, of Thai origin, he was raised in Thailand, Ethiopia and Canada and educated in Chicago and New York. He now lives between Berlin and New York, also spending time in Thailand. His work is exhibited around the world in major museums, galleries and international art events. He is co-curator of ‘Utopia Station’ at the Venice Biennale in 2003.

CHARWEI TSAI is grateful to all her dear friends who are the vital forces of Lovely Daze reaching its fifth anniversary. At times it has been hard for the mind to live with a suitcase and traveling all the time, so she is truly thankful to those who made the short encounters become long-lasting friendships. She looks forward to attending her best friend’s wedding this fall in Dominican Republic. www.charwei.com

MARNIE WEBER was born in 1959 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles. Much of Weber’s visual art revolves around a recurring cast of characters. An animal often found in her work is the bear, which is linked to the Greek goddess Artemis. These characters, among others, are placed in vividly colorful environment, ornate, Empire style interiors or dark, dense, eerie landscapes. Her work most often focuses on the adventures of women, which sometimes take the form of half-human, half-animal hybrids with bodies cut from pornographic magazines, and other times, pale-faced, folksy ghosts known as Spirit Girls. The Spirit Girls is the name of Marnie Weber’s alt-rock musical group and also refers to a group of characters that are found in her art. Weber has two solo albums, Woman with Bass (1994) and Cry for Happy (1996), both recorded as Marnie. In 2004, a compilation of her work was release entitled Songs Forgotten: The Best of Marnie 1987 – 2004. Marnie Weber has participated in numerous exhibitions internationally and her work was featured on the cover of the 1998 Sonic Youth album A Thousand Leaves.
www.marnieweber.com

ICARO ZORBAR is a Colombian artist who works with machines and songs. His work is of a performative character; using cassette tapes, fans, and music boxes, sometimes his presence among machines and sound takes on the form of “assisted installations”. Icaro holds an MFA from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He has shown in Buenos Aires’ Museum of Contemporary Art, Galería Vermelho in Sao Paulo, New York’s ‘Younger Than Jesus’ exhibition at the New Museum of N.Y, and the Beijing Biennale. Zorbar currently lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia. www.icarozorbar.wordpress.com

Special thanks from Alessandra to: Emanuela Baldi, Brian Butler, Giuliana Carusi Setari, Ann Cesteleyn, Victoire Disderot, Eugenie Goldshmeiding, Cameron Jamie, Renata Lucas, Aurelie Wacquant Mazura, Maria Pistoletto, Francesca Ruggeri, Didier Shulmann.

Special thanks from Charwei to: first to alessandra; (asia) grandma, especially kiri + takun + their mom + dad, lots of aunts + uncles + cousins, sarah + family, irene + baby, joyce + family, bebe, ronnie + family, jason, mandy, mier, bobby, yulin jie, pao-lin, ali, faustina, heather, eugene, rudy, agnes, andre, chia-en, tcac crew, shilpa, harsha, yongwoo, utrecht, hiroshi, futoshi + staff, taka, jeffrey, elisa, nahoko, alisa, tig + sora staff, va. (us) sub, mr. & mrs. shaffer, ryan, lesley, kelly m, kelly c, angelita + family, tina, ido, naoto, ani, maria, aoi, terresa, duke, erica, eugene, jason, chris liu, yonatan, leif, pat, alex, shunyi, nigel, mingwei, john, vicson, linda, dunbar, arron, hisham, julien, mark, pete, willow, cai + family + studio, bridget, carol, printed matter staff, aa, max, cat, james, peter, fiona. (europe) asun, gerry, alba, louise, charles, grigoris, su-mei, jean-lou, lili, nico, valentine, george, shing, kahn, pablo, pier, guillaume, julie, johan, david, tony, vincent, herve, grazia, jean d l, ariane, antoine, louise, marie, francois, carmen, eloi, m-o, virginie, aurelie, joanna, gilles, claude, louis-albert. (latin america) cristina, cata leon, barbie, federico, joaco, nathalie, sebastien, maria, andres, icaro, thiago, mateo, rosario, cata casas. (australia) suhanya, michael + family, shihoko, mellissa, robyn, qag team, gene + brian + team, voiceless, anna schwartz gallery, simeon, mike.

Lovely Daze is a curatorial journal of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The sixth issue: “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”, inspired by Gertrude Stein’s quote, is a dedication to femininity and friendships. Chapters are chronicled by months, based on the cycle of the moon.

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ angela garcia, asun gonzalez, shilpa gupta, tsering tashi gyalthang, hao jie, li-ling hsu, catalina leon, liliane phung, sita raiter, alba roberts, gerald roberts, cristina rodriguez, and jennifer shaffer

cover ~ alba roberts photographed by her father gerald roberts. alba is also a species of old garden roses with white petals.
opposite page ~ untitled, painting by cristina rodriguez
copyright ~ lovely daze, autumn/winter 2009
printed in my beloved formosa

CONTRIBUTORS & MUSES…

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

ANGELA GARCIA was born in Colombia in 1980. She graduated from l’Ecole Supérieure des Arts Culinaires de Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France with the Grand Diplome (Major de Promotion). Angela further cultivated her technique under the direction of such chefs Alain Ducasse (Paris and New York), Pascal Barbot (Paris), Cristophe Moret (Paris), Carlo Cracco (Milan), Pascal Molines (Lyon), Claus Weitbrecht (Lyon), Christophe Canati (Saint-Émilion). Inspired by the concept of Lovely Daze, Angela launched her own company, Lovely Daze Desserts in Miami.
www.lovelydazedesserts.com

ASUN GONZALEZ was born Spanish but with aerial roots. Mathematics, public relations, and jewelry are the few different fields explored by this unsettled mind. Asun is the mother of Alba Roberts and makes Charwei drool to think about her cooking. Charwei has never experienced such intelligence, creativity, humor, and love at a dinner table, perhaps with the exceptions of the Shaffer’s and her grandmother’s.

SHILPA GUPTA was born in 1976 and currently lives and works in Mumbai where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts. Shilpa’s works utilize interactive video, websites, objects, photographs, sounds and public performances to probe and examine subversively such themes as desire, religion, notions of security on the street and on the imagined border. Her works have been widely exhibited in leading international institutions and biennales. In 2004, she received the Transmediale Award in Berlin and the Sanskriti Prathisthan Award in New Delhi. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati in February, 2010. www.flyinthe.net

TSERING TASHI GYALTHANG was born in India and spent his early childhood with his uncle at the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamsala. After winning a contest from Microsoft, he moved to the US in 1997. In 2003, he saw a film from Vietnam and decided to move there. He started a film and animation studio in Saigon and has been living there since. Haoao Jie is a professional caretaker (nanny and chef) specializing in zuo yue zi. She travels from household to household each month to prepare for the 30-day traditional Chinese ritual including special diet and care for the mother and her newborn.

LI-LING HSU received a Ph. D. from Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne in Paris with a focus on religion and ceremony and is currently based in Taiwan. She is the author of several books including: “The Song of Path to Shamanism” (2003) and “Eagle’s Feather” (2008).

CATALINA LEON was born in Buenos Aires in 1981. She decided to take painting seriously in 1998 and took various courses until 2002 when she strated studying with painter Mariana Lopez. During 2003-5, she received a scholarship, “Beca Kuitca” given by Gullermo Kuitca to study with him. Her solo exhibitions include: “Convertidas En Perlas Mis Lágrimas Brotan Del Mar” (2004) at Alberto Sendros Galeria; and “Cruz Imaginal” (2008) at Daniel Abate Galeria, both in Buenos Aires. Her group exhibitions include: “J’en Reve”, Cartier Foundation (2005) in Paris; “Rendez-vous 2008”, MAC Lyon; “Lost for Life” (2009) in Museum of Art in the Americas in Miami; and “¿Porqué Pintura?” (2009) in Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires. She received the Petrobras Award for her installation: “Patio o pintura para piso y plantas” (2007). Her work is in various national and international collections, including a recent aquisition by MALBA (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Buenos Aires.

LESLEY MA is excited to start a new chapter of her life as she will be a Ph. D. student in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of California at San Diego in fall 2009. She thanks her friends, family, and New York for the inspirations throughout the past six years. www.tastingsalon.com

LILIANE PHUNG graduated in 2005 from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts. Her solo exhibitions include: “Dairy Queen et Declin”, Fat Galerie, Paris (2008); “The Lickin’ that Doesn’t Hurt”, Allsopp Contemporary, London (2007) and group exhibitions include: “J’en Rêve”, Cartier Foundation, Paris (2005); “Lil’ Kings”, L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris (2005); “Les Beaux Arts Prennes Le Metro Station Pyramide”, Paris (2005); “Carpenter’s Workshop”, Galerie Alain le Gaillard, London (2005); and “Downtown to Downtown”, L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Geneva (2005).

SITA RAITER was born in Santa Barbara, California and currently lives and works in Saigon. Her drawings are packed with small details and repeating patterns and she sees the drawing process as a form of meditation.

ALBA ROBERTS is half Spanish, half Australian and enjoys mingling antipodes. Her interests include: travels, studies, food, and the wish of learning everyday.

GERALD ROBERTS is Australian but European by heart. Lately, he is pretending that the world is a line.

CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian artist based in Little Havana, Miami. She was born in Bogota in 1980, on her father’s birthday in February. She received a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design and Fashion Design at Parsons the New School for Design. Cristina is currently experimenting with large-scale paintings and drawings.
www.crwork.net
www.bynumberstudio.com

JENNIFER SHAFFER learned traditional Taiwanese, Chinese and Japanese cooking growing up in her mother’s kitchen. She is self-taught in Western cooking – namely German, French and Italian – and continues to explore various culinary cultures and traditions. Having her own family established for her the important role that food plays in lifestyle and family. Her children Ryan and Sabrina, and husband Howard are grateful for this. She continues to explore all different traditions of cooking, especially when she travels to a new place. She believes that food takes a big part of a lifestyle, if not the most important part.

SABRINA SHAFFER is living the better part of this year at the beach where she spent her childhood summers. She hugs and kisses her mother everyday, misses her father and her brother Ryan while they are working overseas, and thinks of Charwei when collecting seashells. www.otabo.com
www.thekdu.com
www.svsv.net
www.christopherbevans.com
www.goodbully.com

CHARWEI TSAI is actually straight. www.charwei.com

AGNES VARDA was born in 1928 to a Greek father and French mother and currently lives in Paris. Her films, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style. Her films include: La Pointe Courte (1956); Cleo 5 to 7 (1962); Happiness (1965); Vagabond (1985); The Gleaners and I (2000); and The Beaches of Agnes (2008) and her artworks are exhibited widely including: MoMA, New York (1997); Cartier Foundation, Paris; SMAK, Gent (2006); and 10th Biennale de Lyon (2009).
www.cine-tamaris.com

~ special thanks: (asia-pacific) family, especially takehiro + his mom + dad, lots of aunts + uncles + cousins, sarah + family, irene + baby, joyce + family, bebe, ronnie, jason, mandy, mier, yulin jie, jesse, pao-lin, ali, heather, eugene, rudy, agnes, andre, suhanya + team, gene + brian + team, shilpa, taka, jeffrey, elisa, nahoko, alisa, tig + sora staff, doggie. (us) sub, mr. & mrs, shaffer, ryan, lesley, kelly m, kelly c, tina, naoto, angelita + family, cristina, ani, maria, aoi, terresa, duke, erica, eugene, yonatan, jason, chris liu, ido, leif, pat, alex, shunyi, nigel, mingwei, john, vicson, linda, dunbar, arron, hisham, julien, mark, pete, willow, cai + family + studio, bridget, printed matter staff, aa, max, cat, james, peter, fiona + papabubble. (europe) grigoris + family, su-mei, jean-lou, lili, nico, alba, asun, gerry, valentine, george, shing, kahn, pablo, pier, albi, alessandra, guillaume, julie, herve, grazia, jean d l, ariane, m-o, virginie, aurelie, joanna, gilles, claude, louis-albert, tony, vincent. (latin america) catalina, barbie, federico, thiago, mateo, rosario, cata c, natalia.

Lovely Daze is a collection of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The fifth issue explores how Hunter-Gatherer societies live in accordance with Nature and ephemeral elements.

Often one discovers ease and creativity in adapting to the perpetual flux of Nature – the shift of light densities from day to night, season to season; the affected air as the natural consequence of altitude, temperature, and vegetation inspired by nomadic values prevalent in hunter-gatherer societies, this issue reveals our instinctual habits in preconditioned light and air, and the experience of transition. Here, nights are celebrated in darkness (with just a little fire) and summers are spent in sweat with beasts roaring here and there…

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ hisham bharoocha, mark borthwick, brian chippendale, john giorno, fritz haeg, jungil hong, baptiste ibar, mateo lópez, papabubble, rosario lópez parra, thiago rocha pitta, cristina rodriguez, dana schutz, su-mei tse, and grigoris tsolakis.

cover ~ mark borthwick, joey an fin
copyright ~ lovely daze, summer 2008
printed in my beloved formosa

CONTRIBUTORS

HISHAM BHAROOCHA is an artist and musician born in Nidata, Japan and is now based in New York. He graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1998. Hisham was part of the Providence based bands Lightning Bolt and Black Dice and currently formed a solo band, Soft Circle. He was one of the core organizers and drummers at Boredom 77 on July 7th, 2007 at Brooklyn Bridge Park. His artworks have been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005, 2006); John Connelly Presents, New York (2006); De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2007), and Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece (2007) and he recently co-curated a photo exhibition at Mountain Fold, New York (2008).

MARK BORTHWICK an some`time`s will shine….. last seen onna pilgrimage leav`in spain with donkey in hand, travel`in upon a journey opper`tune`ing no`where`s land introduce`ing tal`is`man`s lover`s hand inna gypsy`s land…

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

BRIAN CHIPPENDALE stems from Providence RI, mixing time between drawing and playing drums in rock band Lightning Bolt and solo as Black Pus. In the spring he also spends a lot of time chasing leaks around with buckets before they hit him in the head. He is not growing any leeks this year.

JOHN GIORNO was born in 1936 in New York. He is a poet and performance artist. He founded the artist collective Giorno Poetry Systems and coined its mass communication experiment Dial-A-Poem. He was the prominent subject of Andy Warhol’s film, Sleep. Currently, he also works as an AIDS activist and fundraiser.

FRITZ HAEG like a system of crop rotation, the artist works between his architecture & design practice Fritz Haeg Studio (though the currently preferred clients are animals), the happenings & gatherings of Sundown Salon (now Sundown Schoolhouse), the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab (including Edible Estates) and his role as an educator. He has produced projects and exhibited works at the Tate Modern; the Whitney Museum of American Art; Mass MoCA; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Wattis Institute; the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Maastricht; and the MAK Center, Los Angeles, among other institutions. His first book, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, is published by Metropolis Books and distributed by D.A.P.
www.fritzhaeg.com

JUNGIL HONG aka “jhonni glug” must eat burdock to pull burdock from the ground.

BAPTISTE IBAR was born in France in 1977. He immigrated to the US at the age of seven and attended Rhode Island School of Design where he received a BFA in Painting in 2000.
In 2006, Baptiste completed a set of twelve paintings (the disasterology calendar) to be featured in Michel Gondry’s feature film, The Science of Sleep. Ibar’s paintings are the product of a visionary visual sensibility coupled with a Blakean conception of history. His works are in private collections worldwide.
www.baptisteibar.com

MATEO LOPEZ was born in 1978. He earned his degree in Fine Arts at Los Andes University in Bogotá. He has had solo exhibitions in Bogotá and Mexico City, and was recently awarded first prize at this year’s Cuenca Biennale in Ecuador. His work was recently shown at the MAMBA (Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires) as part of the exhibition Sincronias, and at Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation’s Interrogating Systems: 2008 Grants and Commissions Exhibition. Currently, he is also commissioned to work on a book of his works for the Triennal Poligrafica de San Juan, Puerto Rico.

LESLEY MA once studied hunter-gatherer societies and the human-animal relationship presented in children’s literature. She is glad that this issue of Lovely Daze made her think about that period of her life and knowing that the random knowledge she thought she would never use again is actually quite worth revisiting. This time through art.
www.tastingsalon.com

PAPABUBBLE was born in Barcelona in 2003 and has since created candy making homes in Tokyo, Amsterdam and New York City.
www.papabubble.com

ROSARIO LOPEZ PARRA is an artist based in Bogotá and currently a professor in sculpture at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She received an MFA in 1997 from Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. Her works has been exhibited at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Casas Riegner Gallery, Bogotá, Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá, and Galeria Nara Roesler, Sao Paulo.
www.rosariolopez.info

THIAGO ROCHA PITTA was born in 1980 in Tiradentes MG Brazil. He is now based in Rio de Janeiro where he has lived and worked since 1999. He began his formation as an artist in his childhood with his father who was also an artist, Fernando Pitta (1952-2006).

CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombia native forever traveling from place to place working as an artist and designer. She received a BFA in Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and furthered her studies at Parsons School of Design. She is currently living in Miami Florida where she co-founded the art and design collective by_number.
www.crwork.net
www.bynumberstudio.com

DANA SCHUTZ was born in 1976 in Livonia, Michigan and received an MFA in 2002 from Columbia University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rose Museum at Brandeis University, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas. Her work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Hermitage, St Petersburg; the Royal Academy of Art, London; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

SABRINA SHAFFER is living the better part of this year at the beach where she spent her childhood summers. She hugs and kisses her mother everyday, misses her father and her brother Ryan while they are working overseas, and thinks of Charwei when collecting seashells. www.otabo.com
www.thekdu.com
www.svsv.net
www.christopherbevans.com
www.goodbully.com

CHARWEI TSAI is caught romanticizing in Paris again today. (And the mice-free and light-flooding studio only enhances this old habit of hers.) www.charwei.com

SU-MEI TSE is an artist based in Luxembourg. She uses various media (videos, photographs, installations, objects…) in function of the core idea she wants to express. Sound, rhythm, and music are also important components in her work, which are characterized by a placing in suspension, moments of silence and an invitation to a degree of introspection. Su-Mei’s work has recently been exhibited at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, at Beaumontpublic in Luxembourg and MOCA Taipei with her friend Lee Mingwei. For 2009, she is preparing a show for Contemporary Art Center of Mito in Japan and working out a project for the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. She is a big fan of Lovely Daze and is happy to participate in this current issue!

GRIGORIS TSOLAKIS was born in Greece in 1981 and raised in Belgium. He moved back to Greece in 2004 where he currently studies graphic design.

~ special thanks to aa, aaron, abby, alba + family, alessandra, alex h, ama, ana calle, angela l, angelita + family, anna j, aoi, baptiste, barbie, bebe, boris, brian c, cai+hh+studio, cat k, catalina, chris liu, cristina, dad, dimitrios, doggie, duke, dunbar, eugene, federico, fiona, fritz, gilles, godmother, grace, grandma, grigoris, heather, herve, hisham, irene, james, jason, jason b, jasper, jc, jean dl, jean-lou, jenn+richard, joanna c, john g, julia c, jung, keisuke, kelly, kelly ma, leif, leila, lesley, lili, linda, lots of aunts+uncles+cousins, lumi, mandy, mari, mark p, mateo, max, mika + howie, mingwei, mom, naoto, nicolas, nigel, pat, printed matter, rachel, rene, roni, ronnie, rosario, ryan s, sabrina + family, sarah, shunyi, sis, suhanya, su-mei, taka, terresa, thiago, tina, tony b, veronique, vicson, yonatan, yulin jie, and will shine. (to honor h-g egalitarian attitudes, names are listed alphabetically.)

Lovely Daze is a collection of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. The fourth issue explores the ways in which Numbers influence us as value systems such as time, distance, temperature, size, money, population, and religion.

There is an Arabian saying – Once you start counting, you can never stop. I say, spare me a moment where the clockmaker loses his fingers.

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma, and sabrina shaffer contributors ~ vito acconci, cory arcangel, hisham bharoocha, james burke, crystal understanding, shilpa gupta, jennifer wen ma, yoko ono, cristina rodriguez, fiona ryan, max schumann, mika tajima, and joël tettamanti
cover ~ charwei tsai, étrangère,
2007 copyright ~ lovely daze, fall/winter 2007

CONTRIBUTORS

VITO ACCONCI is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based writer, artist, and architect. A poet of the New York School in the early and mid1960s, he moved toward performance, sound, and video work by the end of the decade. Positioning his own body as the simultaneous subject and object of the work, Acconci’s early video tapes took advantage of the medium’s self-reflexive potential in mediating his own and the viewer’s attention. Since the late ’70s, Acconci has designed architectural and installation works for public spaces.
www.acconci.com

CORY ARCANGEL is a computer artist whose work is concerned with technology’s relationship to culture and the creative process. He is also a founding member of BEIGE, a group of computer programmers and enthusiasts who recycle obsolete computers and video game systems to make art and music, and a member of RSG (Radical Software Group). Arcangel’s work has been exhibited at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
www.beigerecords.com

HISHAM BHAROOCHA is an artist and musician born in Nidata, Japan and is currently based in New York. He graduated from RISD in 1998. His work has been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005, 2006); John Connelly Presents, New York (2006); De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2007), and Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece (2007). Hisham was part of the Providence based bands Lightning Bolt and Black Dice and currently formed a solo band, Soft Circle.

JAMES BURKE was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He received a degree in Conservation Biology from the College of Santa Fe. He is an amateur myrmecologist and an avid handball player. For the past two years he has been working on a project entitled The Fertile Hammock, a series of 48 drawings. Some of his most important influences include Don Hertzfeldt, Christian Marclay, and Jaromir Jagr. Between April and November 2007, James will be developing beekeeping programs in remote northern villages of Sierra Leone. He plans to spend his free time chasing the elusive tree pangolin and making drawings inspired by Dan Chaon’s short story called “Five Forgotten Instincts,” which he has read once a week for the past year.

KELLY CARMENA lives and works in New York City.

CRYSTAL UNDERSTANDING Hello! Crystal Understanding is a two-person band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The four-song #4 for Lovely Daze is their fourth EP. Their first full-length album, Hold the Gem was released in May 2007.
www.crystalunderstanding.com

SHILPA GUPTA lives and works in Mumbai, India. She studied at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai and since then has exhibited in international institutions such as Tate Modern, London, Liverpool Biennale; ZKM Center of Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Bose Pacia Gallery, New York. Upcoming exhibitions include the 2007 Lyon Biennale, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and at Chicago Cultural Center. Gupta initiated the Aar Paar (a public art exchange project between India and Pakistan), as well as the Video Art Road Show (screenings of video art on streets in Mumbai and Delhi). She is also the recipient of the Transmediale 2004 Award in Berlin and the Leonardo Global Crossings Award in 2005.
www.flyinthe.net

JENNIFER WEN MA is currently looking for a web designer for her website. Please take a look at www.littlemeat.net and let her know if you or someone you know is interested in working on it.

LESLEY MA is thankful for the things she learned this summer: the stimulation of solitude, the sensation of figs, French (reprise), pesto, hummus, new friendships, simple pleasures, and generosity.
www.tastingsalon.com

YOKO ONO is an artist working and living in New York. She earned a degree in philosophy from Tokyo’s Gakushuin University and in music at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Ono has embraced a wide range of media, defying traditional boundaries and creating new forms of artistic expression including language works, such as instruction pieces and scores, film and video, music, and performance art. Her most recent albums include: Yes, I am a Witch, and Open Your Box.

CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian artist and designer recently relocated to Miami after spending two years in New York. She received a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and Fashion Design at Parsons the New School for Design. She is currently focusing on developing her drawings.
www.crwork.net

FIONA RYAN is currently living in New York. She plans on making a lot of candy in the near future and hopes to find herself off the grid after that. She is excited by what she has found on the floor in foreign open-air markets and she was once paralyzed by a sea urchin. Few things frighten her more than the loss of survival and humor.
www.papabubble.com

SABRINA SHAFFER is overjoyed to be back in the city with friends, preparing for her initiation into The KDU, and eagerly awaiting Charwei’s return to New York.
www.otabo.com
www.christopherbevans.com
www.svsv.net
www.thekdu.com

MAX SCHUMANN is an art worker who lives and works in New York City. He has been working at Printed Matter since 1989 where he is Associate Director. Schumann is currently represented by Taxter and Spengemann.

MIKA TAJIMA was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, California, and currently lives and works in New York. Mika received her dual B.A. degree in Fine Art and East Asian Studies at Bryn Mawr College in 1997. She later attended Columbia University School of the Arts and received her MFA 2003. Since then she has been exhibiting widely at institutions such as Swiss Institute Contemporary Art (New York, NY), United Bamboo (Tokyo, Japan), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain), Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI), Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo, Norway), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (LIC, NY), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), among many others.
www.mikatajima.com

JOËL TETTAMANTI is a Swiss photographer, a traveler and an observer. He travels to places as far away and remote as Greenland and Lesotho or high up into the mountains. He is the one who sees, what others will only realize once his images appear on magazine pages or gallery walls.
www.tettamanti.ch

CHARWEI TSAI misses the East Village, her dear NYC friends and Colombian lindas. But all the traveling helps to tame the artist’s ego and brings new curiosities such as mushroom hunting and chicken slaughtering. Another humbling event is that due to her family’s lack of creativity, their one-year-old puppy’s name is still “Go-go,” which means “doggie” in Mandarin. She hopes not to forget how to ride the pink bike when she returns to strolling in Thompkin’s Square in the fall!
www.charwei.com

~ special thanks to grandma, mom, dad, sis, keisuke, godmother, lots of aunts&uncles&cousins. sabrina, lesley, kelly, grigoris, tina, sarah, ama, angelita, ana calle, cristina, maria, catalina, barbie, bebe, irene, ronnie+duke+jason+eugene+ryan+gang, fabrizio, yulin jie, jc, mingwei, su-mei, jean-lou, kelly ma, shilpa, aude, andy, yoko, vito, ned, studio, cory, joël, jason, chris liu, yonatan, alex, shunyi, nigel, adam, danny, leif, pat, nat, max, hisham, naoto, linda, vicson, rene, aa, max, julian, justin, rachel, james, fiona, cat, dunbar, aaron, sunny, crystal understanding, printed matter, mika + howie, dimitrios, bettina, victoria, jenn+richard, johanna, xin zhen, amy, ekovaruhuset, cai+studio, taipei lai lai sheraton, doggie, and of course, most of all, and again, all the lovely contributors!

Lovely Daze Issue #3: When I Am Alone, Everything Is So Surreal, revisits André Breton’s almost-century-old Surrealist Manifesto* with a collection of artists’ writings and artworks.

*In the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, Breton defined the term surrealism as: Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

publisher/editor/designer ~ charwei tsai
editors ~ kelly carmena, lesley ma,
and sabrina shaffer
contributors ~ rita ackermann, aa bronson,
santiago cucullu, david kennedy-cutler,
andrea galvani, n.s. harsha, federico herrero,
james hoff, jungil hong, lee mingwei,
justin lowe, jean-lou majerus,
cristina rodriguez, julian seidl,
eyeam soreel, and su-mei tse
cover ~ andrea galvani,
la morte di un’immagine #5, 2005
copyright ~ lovely daze, fall 2006

CONTRIBUTORS

RITA ACKERMANN was born in Budapest. She immigrated to the US for an education of pop in 1991 and has lived and worked in New York since.

AA BRONSON lived and worked as one of the three artists of General Idea from 1969 through 1994, when his two partners died. He now lives and works as a solo artist in New York City, and also as the Director of Printed Matter, Inc., an artists’ bookstore.
www.aabronson.com

KELLY CARMENA was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and now lives in New York City.

SANTIAGO CUCULLU was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and currently lives in Milwaukee. Recent solo exhibitions include a new project at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Group exhibitions include: 2006 Singapore Biennale, 2004 Whitney Biennial, and How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age at
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

DAVID KENNEDY-CUTLER was born in Sandgate, Vermont in 1979. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
www.niceandfitgallery.com

ANDREA GALVANI was born in Verona in 1973 and currently lives and works in Bologna and Milan, Italy. He has participated in many exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including his recent retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Monfalcone, Gorizia, Italy.

N.S. HARSHA was born in 1969 and currently lives and works in Mysore, India. Recent exhibitions include: Singapore Biennale; The Artist Lives and Works at The House of World Cultures, Berlin in 2006; Indian Summer at L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris in 2005; Another Passage to India at Ethnography Museum, Geneva, Switzerland; Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India at Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, Asia Society, and Queens Museum of Art, New York, USA in 2004.

FEDERICO HERRERO was born in 1978 in San José, Costa Rica where he currently lives and works. He studied painting at Pratt Institute, New York from 1997-1998. He has exhibited at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice in 2006; Aichi EXPO in Japan in 2005; Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist in 2002; and 49th Venice Biennale, curated by Harald Szeemann, where he received the young artist’s prize in 2001.
www.blowdelabarra.com

JAMES HOFF is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York.

JUNGIL HONG was born in Seoul, Korea. Jung’s favorite past time was sneaking into a peanut field and eating raw peanuts from the ground. In 1986, the Hong family moved to suburban New Jersey, where they spent weekends fishing in a murky canal next to Highway 1. Jung currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, watching hawks on temple tops and waiting patiently for DJ Jazzy Jess’ mixtape.

LEE MINGWEI was born in Taiwan and currently lives in New York City and San Francisco. Lee was raised in a dual Buddhist-Catholic background. As a child, he spent his summers at a Chan (the Chinese ancestor of Zen) monastery where he learned the simple power of concentrating on daily activities. Lee eventually moved to the US and attended a Benedictine high school in California. He earned a BFA in Textile Arts from the California College of Arts in 1993, and an MFA in New Genre Public Art from Yale University in 1997.
www.leemingwei.com

JUSTIN LOWE was born in 1976 and currently lives and works in New York City. He received a MFA from Columbia University in 2004 and a BFA from Hampshire College in 2000. Solo exhibitions include Helter Swelter at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York, 2006; Collecting Pictures in the Brain Hotel at Sculpture Center, Long Island City, 2005; and Waterfall at The Wrong Gallery, New York, 2004.

LESLEY MA is fascinated, distracted, and inspired by Texas.
www.tastingsalon.com

JEAN-LOU MAJEURS is a teacher based in Luxembourg. He leads an educational program at the Luxembourg penitentiaries. He has a passion for 20th century furniture design as well as for the arts. He often works in close collaboration with Su-Mei Tse.

CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ is a Colombian artist and designer living in New York City. She received a BFA in Industrial Design at Rhode Island School of Design and recently finished a year of Fashion Design at Parsons New School of Design. She is currently designing textile prints, working on her drawings during free time, and preparing for her third illustrated travel book project in India and Bhutan.
www.crwork.net

JULIAN SEIDL lives and works in New York. She graduated from Hampshire College in 2000 in Art and Photography. Selected exhibitions include: On The Beach at Printed Matter, and The Image-World at the International Center of Photography in New York.

SABRINA SHAFFER is preparing for her return to (and Charwei’s departure from) New York City.
www.otabo.com

EYEAM SOREEL is a poet, an artist, or a critic based in Urk. His work has received wide international acclaim and he has exhibited and “exposed himself” as he prefers to call it- in some of the world’s leading galleries. His last massive show, Nueva Galería Difusión, October 2002, Bogotá, was controversially shut down by Colombian authorities after failing a supposed health inspection. “Soreel might be the last true artist to understand that in order to make the inner the outer, matter must be modified”, as Colombian author Juan Carlos Donado has said about Soreel’s work. “In what seems to be the last attempt to truly address the issue of representation (Vorstellen), Soreel immerses the spectator in a network of references that aim to underscore what I have otherwise referred to as pathology,” stated philosopher Roy Ben Shai has recently stated in the journal Cinemaesthetics (No. 17, Spring/Summer 2006). Notwithstanding the anathema cast upon him by the artistic community –his last conference in New York ended when the audience booed Soreel off the stage for his notion of Bedford Design/Entertainment – the artist has decided to publish yet one more time.

CHARWEI TSAI enjoys riding her bike around Thompkin’s Square Park where friendly neighbors and cute dogs hang out. She now looks forward to joining her first artist’s residency in Paris on New Year’s Day in 2007. And though she does not enjoy bread and cheese so much and
prefers authentic Taiwanese beef noodle soup,  (especially from Lai Lai where she hangs out exclusively) she will stick faithfully to her fortuneteller’s words and remain confident that 2007 will be another amazing one.
www.charwei.com

SU-MEI TSE is an artist based in Luxembourg and Paris. She uses various media (videos, photographs, installations, objects…) in function of the core idea she wants to express. Sound, rhythm, and music are also important components in her work, which are characterized by a placing in suspension, moments of silence and an invitation to a degree of introspection. Su-Mei’s work has recently been exhibited at Peter Blum Gallery, PS1 in New York, Albion Gallery in London, and at Casino, Forum d’Art Contemporain in Luxembourg.

~ special thanks to grandma, mom, dad, sis, keisuke, lots of aunts&uncles&cousins. sabrina, lesley, kelly, tina, sarah, ama, cristina, angelita, grigoris, faustina, terresa, marat, bebe, irene, ronnie+duke+ jason+eugene+ryan+johan+gang, lewis, juan carlos, ana maria, maria, fabrizio, yulin jie, mingwei, su-mei, jean-lou, susan, aude, andy, yoko, jason, chris liu, yonatan, alex, shunyi, nigel, adam, danny, leif, pat, and max chen. howie, whitney at altria, rita, lizzi, julien, hisham, jorge, lansing-dreiden, dan, aa, max, julian, justin, rachel, james, cat, printed matter, dimitrios, dave, nice&fit, andrea, cai+studio, federico, santi, harsha, sb2006 staff, jung, the artists’ galleries, taipei lai lai sheraton, and of course, most of all, and again, all the contributors!