Friday Friday
10AM - 6PM
Exhibition
Hello, Human!
One year project – Outing
Semiotics of the Home
EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS
2014 / 06 / 28 Sat.
2014 / 08 / 24 Sun.
10:00 - 18:00
Gary Baseman: The Door is Always Open makes its Asian debut this summer at MOCA Taipei. Featuring hundreds of works created by Baseman over three decades, the exhibition re-imagines the space of a historic Taipei building into a unique and experiential home environment. Featured spaces include the Living Room (Welcome—Introduction), the Dining Room (Celebration), Hallway (Journey), the Bedroom (the Human Condition), the Study (Heritage), the Den (Play), the Studio Office (Work), the Backyard (Performance), the Park (Escape), and the Alley (Dreams). For Gary Baseman, art and life is always mixed together, so in the Living Room, Dining Room and Bedroom, he especially includes furniture from his childhood home. Showing the breadth of Baseman’s oeuvre, the exhibition includes illustration works (published in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and The Los Angeles Times); Baseman’s complete line of designer toys including Dumb Luck, Hotchachacha, and Toby; costumes and fashion collaborations; video and sculptural installations; and new paintings inspired by his recent trips across Asia. Throughout his career and through multiple media, Baseman has explored the human condition, showing through his iconic characters and images the complexity of life. The Door is Always Open will evoke visitors to reflect and share their own stories about family, friends, mortality, pain and suffering, love and loss, secrets and truth.
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Gary Baseman is one of today’s most prominent and multi-faceted Los Angeles-based artists. From his early works as an illustrator and his Emmy award-winning animation series, to his complete line of designer toys and his imaginative paintings and photographs, Baseman’s work is wickedly insightful and seductive. Over the past 15 years, Baseman has exhibited throughout the US, Europe and South America. His current work continues to explore the human condition through painting, performance, film, and fashion.
Year created: 1992
Toby is the black, red, and white adventurous cat that loves unconditionally. A best friend and keeper of secrets, he is a character inspired by secret societies (like the Shriners, Masons, and Odd Fellows) known for their clandestine brotherhood activities. On his belly is an all-seeing eye, and on his head is a fez with a skull symbol. Toby is Baseman’s alter ego, identifiable by the soul patch that the artist once wore. Toby’s namesake comes from one of Baseman’s childhood friends, a girl five years older who babysat him and who was one of the artist’s early best friends.
Year created: 1999
Dumb Luck is a rabbit that holds a lucky rabbit’s foot; the one he cut off his own leg. Goofy, naïve, lucky, and optimistic, he represent life’s ironies: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Year created: 2002
Baseman created the character set of Dunces inspired by the mid-20th century board game of the same name. Subverting the original meaning of a dunce, a student who behaves badly and gets punished by wearing a conical dunce cap and sits in the corner, Baseman added humor and fun. Adapting typical names that school children use to tease each other, Baseman calls the Dunces Re-tardy (always late), Ditch, Fib, Goody2Shoes, Copy Cat, and Pulp.
Year created: 2004
Happy Idiot is a snowman who melts himself down to create a puddle of water for his beloved mermaid to live in. Originally conceived during a trip to Japan, the Happy Idiot was one of many characters that eagerly melted themselves for the sake of unattainable beauty. Happy Idiot is also one of Baseman’s first fine art sculptures, made of porcelain.
Ever-present and silent, Magis are the keeper of memories. They appear in the series Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou – collecting disembodied ChouChou heads and bringing them to a safe resting place. Otherwise, Demons crack open the ChouChou heads and eat their brains.
Magis also appear in “Toby’s Secret Society” (2011), representing Compassion, Destiny, Freedom, Lust, Love, Trust, and Truth. These words are written on their vestments in Latin (with one exception, Purr for Compassion; inspired by the artist’s cat). Midnight Magi (2005) is the keeper of one’s darkest nightmares. Muerto Magi (2009) is the keeper of one’s dream reality.
Year created: 2005
Marilyn is Toby’s girlfriend. Sweet and innocent, she also shares the name of Baseman’s first girlfriend.
Year created: 2005
Heroic and ever-present, the God of Love is made up of bubbles in various sizes. He spreads passion and affection to those who have lost the capacity for love and desire.
His story began thousands of years before the Forest of ChouChou and Creamy Goodness existed, during a time when creatures were unable to give or accept love because the Demons of Hate stole everyone’s sense of desire and longing, causing them to live like drones with no meaning, direction, or hope. Yet, hidden from sight, a force urged the formation of Manifestation of Desire (MOD) bubbles. Brimming with the energy of love and affection, these bubbles grew in all sizes and colors, floating and spreading throughout the land overrun by Demons.
In defense against the Demons, the bubbles joined together, forming the body of the God of Love that ousted the Demons from the forest.
Year created: 2005
Hotchachacha is a devil with three legs that deflowers angels by stealing their haloes. He is the main character in Baseman’s otherworldly landscape of the Garden of Unearthly Delights, a land of playful sin and debauchery, inspired by the art of 15th- and 16th-century artist Hieronymus Bosch. Once the tiniest devil, Hotchachacha overcompensates with great charm and is able to encourage angels to surrender their haloes.
Year created: 2006
The gentle, compassionate ChouChou manifested in 2006, inspired by Baseman’s purring cat Blackie - a calming force in the artist’s life. Earlier versions of ChouChou show him as a seal.
Loving and caring, ChouChous live in the Forest of the ChouChou, dedicating their love and attention to the Wild Girls, from whom they take away negative energy and hate. When a ChouChou absorbs negative energy, he oozes Creamy Gooey Love from his bellybutton. His little body then melts and, unless a girl kisses his head, his skull dries out and he dies. Only a girl of pure of love and absent of hate can kiss him to regenerate his physical body so that he can live again.
Year created: 2006
Venison is a wild girl who plays in the forest and puts branches in her hair to look like a deer. She licks the wounds of her loved ones to nurture them back to health, only to later devour them.
Year created: 2007
Brave and innocent, Hickey appears in the landscape paintings of I Melt in Your Presence and Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou. Hickey is a fruit bat who longs to be a vampire bat. He can’t break one’s skin, so he only leaves hickeys (bruises) behind.
Year created: 2008
Ooga is a caring three-headed dragon that for Baseman symbolizes parental beliefs of security and protection. Referencing Baseman’s own life experiences, Ooga translates into “cake,” a word that four year-old Baseman repeated over and over again when he wanted more spongecake while visiting relatives in Israel. Ooga represents Baseman’s parents (their religion and values) and their desire to protect him. Baseman tries to slay Ooga, to find his own way, sometimes going against his parents’ wishes.
Year created: 2009
Intelligent and innocent, the Enlightened Chou takes away the collective negativity and hate in the world. Originally named Ah, the Enlightened Chou was once the brightest and smallest in his class. When the forest is overrun by Demons that create great chaos, he and his three companions defend the land. On his head, the Enlightened Chou wears the heads of his three friends who make the ultimate sacrifice; on his body are tattoos that memorialize the plight that he experienced.
Year created: 2010
A stoic, strong-willed defender of justice, the Buckingham Warrior was inspired by Baseman’s father, Ben Baseman, who escaped into the woods of Eastern Poland during World War II, and fought as a partisan for three years. Both of the artist’s parents were Holocaust survivors, and lost most of their family members during the war. The names of the Buckingham Warrior toys (Berezne and Kostopol, for example) honor the original hometown areas of Baseman’s parents.
As the story goes: Buckingham lived in symbiosis with all the creatures of the land, until one day, the brave deer protested against the unwanted occupation of the forest by a greedy land baron and his malevolent henchmen. The Buckingham Warrior bravely fought off the assailants but eventually had his head lopped off by an evildoer. In an act of pure otherworldly defiance, the Buckingham Warrior grew his head back, as well as several other heads. The deer stood his ground, thereby cementing his legend as a freedom fighter.
Year created: 2010
Lil Miss Boo is inspired by Baseman’s collection of vintage photographs of people in masks and costumes. She is a “real” little girl dressed up in a homemade ghost costume. The original ghost girl appears in a group photo of neighborhood kids in Halloween costumes in the 1950s.
Lil Miss Boo made her debut as a character in Walking through Walls, an exhibition that reflected upon memory and mortality painted shortly after the death of Baseman’s father.
Year created: 2011
Pronounced “ah-wrooo,” like an animal howling, the adorable but vicious Ahwroo seeks attention and affection, and draws blood if he feels that he is not getting adequate love. Inspired by the artist’s cat that is sweet but demanding of attention, he asserts his needs by inflicting pain and injury.
Year created: 2010
Grrrr is a furry snaggle-toothed creature that steals and then eats the hearts of little girls. Lovelorn and longing, he sadly causes harm to those around him.
Teacher’s Pet is the Emmy award-winning animation series about a dog named Spot who wants to go to school so badly that he disguises himself as a boy (Scott) by donning on a pair of eyeglasses and a beanie cap. He becomes the best student and the teacher’s pet in his own master Leonard’s 4th grade class. In every episode, he experiences events for the first time. Spot/Scott has zealous enthusiasm, and the drive to be the smartest and best at everything.
*Gary Baseman won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual in Animation in 2003. Teacher’s Pet has won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and the BAFTA for Best International Children's Programming.
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