'I should have been born a boy' tops student award

[Merlion]

This online story is from the University of North Carolina Greenboro.

http://www.uncg.edu/ure/news/stories/2007/Jul/images/izumi01.png

Ryono Receives Top International Sculpture Award (http://www.uncg.edu/ure/news/stories/2007/Jul/UNCGRyonoWinsTopSculptureAward.htm070607.htm)

7-6-07, GREENSBORO, NC – Izumi Ryono, who earned an MFA in Studio Arts in May, has received the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

She was one of 21 winners selected from a field of 339 student nominees from more than 140 universities, colleges and art school sculpture programs from the United States and abroad.

Her winning work is titled “I Think I Should Have Been Born as a Boy.” It will be displayed from October 6, 2007, to April 27, 2008, at Grounds for Sculpture, an outdoor park and museum in Hamilton, N.J., and will be featured in the October issue of Sculpture magazine.

[marblecutter]

Think again! Why do people wish for the impossible?

[grommet]

Think again! Why do people wish for the impossible?
Because they want it? Were you attempting to pick a fight? Just asking.

[jOe~]

Her winning work is titled “I Think I Should Have Been Born as a Boy.” A simple reading error of the projective kind. It wasn't a wish but maybe something more thought provoking than that. Wishing only for the possible would end innovation and creativity.

[JasonGillespie]

I'm wondering what the other 338 nominees' work looked like.

[StevenW]

Good question, that looks like something from a Harlan Ellison novel, can't quite put my finger on it. "I have no mouth, but I must scream" or "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman..

[marblecutter]

Because they want it?
Some people want the impossible, always wanting what can not be gotten. Satisfaction with the simple present is not sufficient while the future seems to hold more.

[grommet]

Some people want the impossible, always wanting what can not be gotten. Satisfaction with the simple present is not sufficient while the future seems to hold more.
__________________
"Every time I make a mistake I fall into the abyss of learning something New" ~marblecutter

It is only shortsightedness or a momentary lack of creativity that would lead one to believe something was impossible. But you've indicated your learning style...
I can't truly say what she was thinking when she made this piece, but I'm seeing an interest in how things work and fit together and plumbing, or maybe "plumbing". I also know of the narrow-mindedness of people (STILL!) in regard to the interests and capabilities of women or Woman. There is simplicity and grace in it as well as awkwardness. I hope you can find something to appreciate in it. I too would love to see the ideas her peers came up with.

[grommet]

Okay, so I followed the link, and it yielded this, which I can respect.... I didn't get the grotesque part, but I enjoy the surguries on the learning channel....

In her MFA thesis, titled “Grotesque Beauty,” she explained the influences behind her work as the exploration of “the duality of beauty and the grotesque coexisting simultaneously within a singular sculptural form... I seek to make work that paradoxically seduces the viewer with the promise of beauty even as it repels in its cultivation of the unnatural and the perverse, a sculptural elegance that takes its inspiration from the aversive feelings inspired by biological malformation. My work holds beauty and grotesqueness in uneasy balance.”

Ryono cites children’s toys, cyborgs, television, tabloid media and Japanese animation as some of the main inspirations for her sculptures, whose shapes “evoke the sensuality and seductiveness of the human body.”

[danthoman]

Well I’ll probably get flamed for this… but her piece does nothing for me, the title is ridiculous and her masters thesis statement is inane dribble.

I saw pictures of the piece a couple of months ago and the only thing I felt was “how could this win a prize?” Maybe it looks better in person.

No, I’m not trying to start a fight here, just my opinion.

[GlennT]

My stars! What arrogance, to actually express an opinion here! ( which I second)

[CroftonGraphics]

Well I quite like it in the sense also of its influences.

Mind you if it was made by a guy and called it 'future leg in nano tube' or something and had nothing to do with sex or gender issues, do you think it would win an award?

Not a good artist? Why not try becoming a transvestite, tackle self seeking narcissistic issues and get noticed.

[jOe~]

Mind you if it was made by a guy and called it 'future leg in nano tube' or something and had nothing to do with sex or gender issues,do you think it would win an award? No, it would have confused the issue.

[CroftonGraphics]

I am trying to make the point that judges often love 'contraversial' issues rather than artwork itself.

[jOe~]

I am trying to make the point that judges often love 'contraversial' issues rather than artwork itself I was trying to make a pun about the "issue" rather than the art work itself. It works on many levels,my pun and the art, the issues.

[CroftonGraphics]

OK the issue is already confused! lol.

[LaurenH]

Just wanted to hop in here and say that the judges actually chose three of Izumi's pieces when they selected her as a winner. I believe that two of them will be on display at Grounds For Sculpture following the opening of the show on October 6th.

There are also 20 other winners. Their winning pieces appear in the October issue of Sculpture, and you'll be able to see them on www.sculpture.org on October 1st.

[evaldart]

Well, I don't find anything grotesque about the sculpture. Its neat, odd, seemingly well executed. I hope its kinda big or it would suffer a toy-shness that would detract. The mfa statement is no different than thousands of others..."juxtaposition" of any kind is very popular in grad school. Later you find out that ONE of the two opposing things you were trying to cram into one artpiece was wrong, so you get rid of it and run with the good one.