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Swarm Gallery

September 18 - October 26, 2009

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560 Second Street Oakland, CA 94607
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Museum of Historical Makeovers Kathy Aoki, Le Rouge a Levres le Plus Puissant (The Most Powerful Lipstick) (2009), Ink and watercolor, 22" x 30"
Kathy Aoki jumped gears to create the "Museum of Historical Makeovers" show at Swarm gallery. She's leaving behind the trappings of her past cartoon styled narratives favored for several years. Instead, Aoki takes on the aesthetics of historical illustration and ancient artifacts, while preserving her favorite themes of gender, beauty and cute culture consumerism. Creating a pseudo-museum experience, Aoki presents us with imagery that looks antique, but addresses current beauty and pop culture concepts. Aoki states, "I want the artwork to help explain why we are so obsessed with beauty and pop consumerism. Obviously (from these mock documents), it's been that way traditionally throughout history." Aoki's French drawings have the look of illustrations from French philosopher Diderot's Encyclopèdie ou Dictionnaire raisonnè des sciences, des arts et des mètiers, a mid-eighteenth century multi-volume publication which attempted to explain everything. In fact, Aoki implies that the drawings, which feature beauty processes such as lip-plumping and lower back tattooing may have been intended to be part of Diderot's publication, but were lost - only to be discovered over a thousand years later and acquired by the Museum of Historical Makeovers. In her own artistic makeover, Aoki creates hand-printed etchings after famous surgical paintings by Eakins and Rembrandt. The scenes, drawn with crosshatching and aquatint grays, depict preposterous beauty procedures such as the Brazilian waxing method. One of the most creative installations in Aoki's museum is the archeological "discovery" of the Egyptian style burial tombs of Gwen Stefani and the Harajuku girls. Aoki elevates Stefani's status to pharaoh; false artifacts, such as alabaster coasters and "stone" tablets, are covered with custom hieroglyphics. Aoki even goes so far as to provide educational guides that explain the symbols on the "artifacts" and provides analysis of the Stefani cartouche. The Stefani archeological installation also features a mini-tomb room, where viewers can peek in to see the Stefani sarcophagus. All of the museum labeling, maps and objects poke fun at pop culture and beauty consumerism. Side Gallery | C Chris Sicat The C series of graphite on wood sculptures investigate this natural meditative process of accumulative mark making. By repeatedly drawing parallel lines with a graphite pencil on selected natural and manmade objects, it creates continuous, fully saturated, luminous dark graphite surfaces. The rhythm of this process helps to quiet the invariable cycle of over-analysis and rethinking in the art making process.
Museum of Historical Makeovers Kathy Aoki, The Brazilian (2009), Solar-plate etching