Art that runs the gamut from finely hand-designed to highly amusing to downright pyrotechnical is popping up like little green buds around town, mirroring the eclectic face of contemporary art worldwide. Painstakingly crafted one-of-a-kind objects co-exist happily with those stitched together from commercially produced, once-popular electronic toys. A sense of beauty abounds, as does a sense of humor, these being by no means mutually exclusive.
Gallery Katz, which was founded last spring by recent Rhode Island School of Design grad Drew Katz, celebrates its first anniversary by inaugurating an annual furniture-design exhibition, this year with the theme " Tables/Chairs. " Opening next Friday, Katz’s " First Annual Furniture Design Exhibition " will include work by Steven Butler, who compares furniture making to composing music, and Daisuke Hirabayashi, who describes his low-slung, metallic blue steel " Floor Chair " as being inspired by his early years in Japan: " Taking off your shoes before entering a house, and lying, sitting, or eating on the floor is second nature in Japanese culture, whereas in American cultures chairs come into great effect. The ‘Floor Chair’ gives people the opportunity to experience the act of sitting at floor level with the advantage of a clean sitting surface. "
Tiger Electronics introduced the annoying electronic pet Furby in the late ’90s, and though it has passed from general popularity, Furby lives on on eBay and in the heart of a least one young artist, Kelly Heaton, who studied at MIT’s Media Lab and has a knack for combining high-tech engineering with pop culture in her art. In 2000, she dismembered 400 1999 Special Limited Edition Christmas Furbys in order to re-engineer them into an electronic reflective pool; now, she has fashioned their unused " skins " — 400 furry little red-and-white products of an irrational consumer mania — into a cloak for one of consumerism’s greatest icons, as Heaton calls her: Missus Santa Claus. The outfit will be on view in " Kelly Heaton: Dead Pelt, " which opens at Howard Yezerski Gallery this Friday. PETA protests are unlikely.
" My Low-Tech Art " is the topic of a talk by artist Cai Guo-Qiang this Monday at that bastion of tech, MIT, where Cai is currently artist-in-residence. Best known for large-scale outdoor performance pieces involving gunpowder explosions, Cai also incorporates Chinese history and ritual into his installation works, using elements like feng shui and Chinese funerary customs. He is one of 15 international artists who’ll be represented in the ICA’s upcoming " Pulse: Art, Healing, and Transformation. " For now, go hear what Cai has to say about his explosive art and life. Although his past pyrotechnic projects range in scope from the huge " Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10: Project To Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters " (designed to be seen from outer space by aliens) to the modest " Nevada " (in which he burned a pinch of gunpowder to form tiny mushroom clouds in various locales), it’s unlikely he’ll set anything on fire at MIT. Still, you never know . . .
The " First Annual Furniture Design Exhibition " is at Gallery Katz, #305 at 450 Harrison Avenue in the South End, from May 2 through 31; call (617) 423-6328. " Kelly Heaton: Dead Pelt " is at Howard Yezerski Gallery, 14 Newbury Street, from April 25 through May 27. Call (617) 262-0550. Cai Guo-Qiang will talk about " My Low Tech Art " at MIT’s Auditorium 10-250, 77 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, on April 28 from 7 to 9 p.m. The talk, in Chinese, will be translated into English by an interpreter; call (617) 253-4006.
