This past Saturday, the family once again converged on the Japanese American National Museum in order to mooch off of their free cultural goodness. That night's event was the opening party for Giant Robot Magazine's 3rd Biennale. There were more specially customized vinyl figurines than you could shake a stick at, all designed by the stable of artists that have helped make the Asian pop culture magazine what it is.
As much as I love Sun's work, I have to say I was most excited about the pieces by Sean Chao. I'd honestly never heard of him before, but couldn't stop staring at his meticulous tiny clay creations.
His little fantasy engineer corps endeavor to make a giant cat robot. Each detailed vignette finds them laboring over blueprints, working hard and taking snack breaks.
Bonus: Chao was really sweet and easy to talk to, even consenting to taking this awkward photo with me (hey, it was crowded!). I'm particularly into the judgmental cat behind us who's trying to get the human to think twice about his dietary choices.
Despite the resounding feline motif of his work, Chao confided that he actually isn't even a "cat person" (I'm not either) and that he prefers dogs instead (meh, I don't like those, either). He clearly has a handle on the current cat-crazy trend, though. The night was overrun with cat imagery, specifically, cat burgers, of all things.
Deth P. Sun did it.
Here's but one of Saelee Oh's cats.
And Jeni Yang took it took the extreme. Her piece included a life-sized plush sandwich-making station, complete with a bread-shaped TV featuring kitten + food animation, plus, two cat burger-building video game consoles that she designed with Beau Blyth. Lamentably, I didn't get good shots of all that bizarreness, so I guess you'll have to go see for yourself!
The exhibit's up until January 20, 2013. Most parts were pretty PG, if you were considering taking the little ones. There was, however, a creepy stand-alone walk-through installation that cautioned parental supervision. I'm not sure, though, if it's a part of the exhibit, or was simply there to get folks into the Halloween season.
Recommendation: Make an afternoon of it and walk around the corner to The Pie Hole for some Key Lime Meringue. Dude.
No comments:
Post a Comment