by Patricia Frischer
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| Shinpei Takeda, James E. Watts, Zach Cordner |
Oceanside
Museum of Art
Shinpei Takeda: Limit of Your Safe Space
Until Sept 11Those familiar with Shinpei Takeda’s woven works know that he gives us a wonderful all encompassing experience of space, both airy and solid at the same time. Often there has been a underlaying message about the state of the world giving additional meaning to the works. The large art that greets you at the entrance to this exhibition with it grand scale and barbed wire interior speaks to those past works.
But in this show in which he explores both virtual and augmented reality, he reaches out to the community to ask, “How do you define your own safe space?” Many of us consider our homes a safe space after more than 2 years of a global pandemic. We see Ukrainians in the daily news struggling for a sense of safety. But there are people who are not just affected by temporary crisis, but deal with displacement and combat long term. He choose five people around the world who became collaborators in this process of defining safety and to do that he had to create a safe space for them to communicate.
For this project, communication took the active form of 2d and 3d object design. To show off the results, there is one virtual reality scene created where you don goggles. There are also five more augmented realities that you access with your smart phone. And to make your feel comfortable and safe there are woven chair hammocks instead of benches for easy viewing. (Hint: to get out of the chair hammock, just back up until you are standing!). There is also a video presentation of the workshops he arranged.
This exhibition is supposed to open conversations about what it means to feel safe from discrimination, criticism, harassment, and any other emotional or physical harm in society and in emerging virtual spaces. You need time to do this so allow plenty when you visit.
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| Shinpei Takeda |
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| Shinpei Takeda - detail |
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| Shinpei Takeda - virtual reality |
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| Shinpei Takeda - augmented reality |
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| Shinpei Takeda |
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| Shinpei Takeda - detail |
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| View from front of gallery to the rear of gallery. Photo: Shinpei Takeda |
James E. Watts
until July 17
The James Watts Institute for
Artistic Behavior is the private domain/library/playhouse of an artist inspired
by literature. He attaches pieces of printed metal scrap which have their own stories to wooden bases. So there are layers and layers of
meaning in this almost life sized gathering of a variety of characters. There
are jokes and unexpected juxtapositions plus hand carved stone additions that
seems to add a bit of gravitas. Beth
Smith has included some of our favorite works in this mini-retrospective. The
charming set of Perfect Day Quilts and flower vases are also available in the
gift shop.
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| James Watts - Flowers |
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| James Watts - flowers |
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| James Watts - Perfect Day Quilt |
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| James Watts - detail |
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| James Watts - Frankenstein |
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| James Watts - Quosimoda, Esmealda, and Goat |
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| James Watts - Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and horses |
Zach Cordner has put together a
great cross section of images of the underbelly of Oceanside which are
fascinating and not as frightening as you might have expected. Two of his own works are included but are not the
usual celebrity images of his you might see in Rolling Stone magazine. The Jordan
Verdin wall of homeless people is especially beautiful….yes, beautiful and you can see it at the sample video at the top of the page. A video in the exhibition by 2thabrain with its tattoos and jacked up muscle cars is worth
the 9 plus minutes that it runs.
Other local photographers include Dominic Cooley, Sergio
Garcia, Robby Gogatz, Trevor J, Charlie Neuman, Jens Ochlich, Brookes Reeder,
Cameron Reeder, JT Rhoades, Edna Navarrete, Adam Ruzzamenti, David Stoddard and
Andres Ximenez.
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| Zach Cordner |
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| Zach Cordner |
A new shelf for the Museum Store
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| Allan Marrow |
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| Allan Marrow - After the Fire, limited edition linocuts |
