Art boutique from Paris

5/8-7/31/2021

Even though porcelain is most well-known in Jingdezhen, China, it is comparable to a city in Europe called Limoges, which also makes porcelain. Located in central France, Limoges is also known as the “French town of Jingdezhen” due to its production of kaolin, a raw material that can be burned white like Chinese porcelain. Limoges Porcelain is made from local kaolin clay; after being fired at a high temperature it becomes white and delicate so that the porcelain can highlight the exquisite paintings and decorations on it. Such craftsmanship won the love of the French royal family and in the 19th century, 90% of the porcelain used by the royal family was Limoges porcelain.

This time, YiCOLLECTA has brought Limoges Porcelain from France and the products are from a design brand in Paris that combines life, art, modern art symbols, and French craftsmanship. We have prepared porcelain plates, tea sets, and fragrances from a number of artists including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Alex Katz, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Not only is pop art master Andy Warhol an artist, but he is also an advertising designer, film director, and even acted as an agent for the rock band “the Velvet Underground”. Born in Pittsburg, his parents were Czech immigrants and he grew up in the working class. He is no stranger to popular culture and to him, everything in life has become common symbols in his works. When Warhol arrived in New York in 1949, he made his mark as an advertising designer and illustrator and then took a step towards creating his own art. He mixed together common goods and popular celebrities (using content that is typically seen by the general public), creating works such as “Campbell’s Soup Cans”, “Brillo Box”, and “Marilyn Diptych”, as he tried to eliminate the boundaries between life and art.

Among Warhol’s works, the method that is most representative of his artistic style is the “silk printing method.” He is also known to have mastered serigraphy and understands the characteristics of popular culture. Silk screen printing can be done quickly and copied in large quantities. However, it can also show the vivid changes in color. Warhol uses images from pop culture as elements that can be understood by people from any social class. His vision of “The Factory”, an avante-garde, free-spirited studio he founded in 1963 attracted many creative young people, socialites, etc. Those who were in the “The Factory” could become a model for Warhol’s works, regardless of their status or race. His works changed everyone’s attitude towards art, popularized it, and eliminated the boundaries between art and life.

Graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn in 1960. Although his parents immigrated from South America, he was a true New Yorker. Influenced by his mother, Basquiat was exposed to art and started to create his own works at an early age. He dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and went to Downtown Manhattan. He then became partners with his friend Al Diaz, painting and creating graffiti art in the slums of Manhattan, under the name “SAMO” or “Same Old Shit”. Basquiat gradually attracted the attention of the New York art scene. He entered the art scene in his 20’s and began to create oil paintings. In Basquiat’s works, the tones are bold and strong and the lines are unrestrained. Text is sometimes mixed in (like street graffiti), and elements such as crowns, american football helmets, boxing gloves, and peace signs can be seen as well. Most of the characters are skeletons or wear African masks, indicating a reference to African American culture. Black people are the main characters in Basquiat’s works, as he brings black culture and life into his artworks, thus showing the spirit of African-American resistance to secular vision. However, his black identity put him under a lot of pressure, causing him to become addicted to drugs. After the death of Warhol, Basquiat was affected deeply by it and ended his life at only 28.

Basquiat was a favorite in the art market at the time but his charm remains, even after his death. In 2013, at Christie’s New York auction, “Dustheads” was sold for 35.713 million euros (about 143 million Taiwan dollars) with a total turnover of 162.5 million euros (about 4.773 billion Taiwan dollars). He was named the best-selling contemporary artist in 2013.

Keith Haring was an American pop artist and was born in Pennsylvania in 1958. At the age of 20, he went to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts. Although Haring was educated by the academic system, he rose on the streets of New York to show off his artistic talent. However, when his career was reaching its peak, he suffered from AIDS, and in 1990, he died in New York, at the age of 31.

Haring’s works consist of simple and clean lines, lively, bright colors, and cute doodles that look like illustrations from a children’s book. However, each of them contain great meaning for people to think about and discuss. They aren’t just graffiti, but also art and Haring’s own attitude and reflection on society. He constantly reuses the same elements in his works: dancing/moving people, barking dogs, glowing babies, and people embracing (regardless of race and gender). Haring wants his works to symbolize innocence and purity, the imagination of a better future, and resistance to authoritarian regimes, and seemingly humorous graffiti that reflects his concern for social situations and the political environment. The characters are compressed within a space and do not have identities, reflecting his hope for equality for everyone. Haring has devoted his life to promoting love and peace and the practice that “art exists for all.” Art is life, life is art. In this case, he conveys positive and optimistic energy throughout his creations.

American contemporary artist Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn in 1927 and was influenced by his family’s strong artistic style. In 1946, he went to The Cooper Union in Manhattan to receive a traditional art education, leaving the city after graduating to study at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, where he mainly created paintings, sculptures and prints.

Unlike the abstract and non traditional methods of exploring inner emotions through art, Katz mostly seeks inspiration from his life. He is most well known for his portrait paintings, using a geometrical system of figurative painting, as well as simple outlines, vivid colors, and no perspective. All of this is a response to the avant-garde movement of “constructivism” and establishes a series of works based on flat paintings. Katz’s painting style exaggerates the characters and landscapes depicted, not only attracting the attention of the art world, but also the public. Most of his works depict women, and these female portraits have become the epitome of contemporary American women. His works are collected in major art institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate Modern, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

Robert Mapplethorpe, an American photographer whose creations are dominated by black and white photography focuses on portraiture, male nudes, floral still life photography, and so on. Mapplethorpe’s most controversial and representative work is with SM as the subject matter. Whether it is portrait photography or still life, Mapplethorpe places great value on light, shadow, and composition and one is able to see the classic beauty he pursues in his works. They exude elegance and for Mapplethorpe, the most important thing is a perfect form of expression.

In the late 1970’s, Mapplethorpe mostly took photographs of black people as he was fascinated by their muscles and lines on their bodies. Although his works were often controversial for its sexual subjects, his black and white photographs became a classic due to his extraordinary artistic techniques. In 1988, The Whitney Museum of American Art held a large-scale retrospective for Mapplethorpe, but he died of AIDS the following year. His classics have been collected in many institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

*End of exhibition

FDA Registration Number
A-124771528-00000-4

Curator: YiCOLLECTA