catching up is impossible but here goes!

i literally haven't written since i decided to open an art gallery in JANUARY!

jesus!

...

well, i OPENED IT!

check it out at www.ooibotos.com

and photos of the gallery are at

http://www.jonathandsolomon.com/index.html?id=109,115

(jonathan solomon is a professor of architecture at HKU. i let him do whatever he wanted pretty much, but i told him, please do something crazy and dramatic and radical. the origami-like red fiberglass facade was the result.)

it's located at 5 gresson street - in the middle of nowhere, yet in the middle of absolutely everything. basically, the gallery is on the wet market lane located between 88-90 and 92-94 queen's road east.

we have really weird hours, so if you care to drop by, please check the website first.

my gallery is my major "fuck you, no compromises" statement to the world, the only thing i do in my life (besides blogging here every six months) which isn't meant to please anyone but ME -- a desperately needed antidote to my very commercial life of making stuff people love and buy.

...

too much water under the bridge to attempt a recap. highlights were:

shooting the shanghai tang ad campaign (april)

visiting zhou yi, artist, during the installation of her monumental towers on place vendome, paris (april)

checking out the milan furniture fair (april);

opening the art gallery (may);

shanghai tang party at legation quarter, beijing (june) -- i just came back from that.

those are all the highlights my addled mind can remember at this moment, but, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

.....

i just came back from beijing, where i was fortunate enough to see the graduation projects of the central academy of fine arts, from all divisions - fashion to painting to photography to industrial design.

CONCLUSION (with the concurrence of 3 deans of the school, with whom i was walking around the shows!): oil painting is dead. "so stale", "there's a problem with the teaching". HELL YEAH.

there were plenty of graduates from the fine arts department who clearly possessed virtuoso technique. but not the vision or content to match.

 anyway, i can't look at a painting these days without feeling straitjacketed.  not only does NEW, CONTEMPORARY painting seem hemmed in by technique and materials, but its manifold expressions have been fully explored (and exhausted) during the last 300 years. PLEASE ARGUE WITH ME, because i'm saying something outrageously sacrilegious.

(and please do NOT write a comment to this blog which is CUTE, approving, pat and servile. I HATE that!)

not surprisingly, my art gallery is devoted to THE AVANT-GARDE in all categories, especially photography, because the latter is THE MOST DYNAMIC CATEGORY OF FINE ART these days, for many reasons, which deserve a separate, compelling expatiation.

but, dammit, not now.

gotta run.....

but, PHEW, i wrote an update!