ARTeCULTURE

Snuff bottles were used to store snuff. This display was inside the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore. Snuff was powdered tobacco mixed with a blend of aromatic substances. This was rumored to be a magical panacea for common ills, including the cold. It was taken by breathing in the fragrant aromas which were emitted after effervescence. Snuff consumption was a habit that quickly developed into an addiction. It was a manifestation of the class and the upper and ruling classes used it to show off their status and re-instate their place in the social hierarchy.

This practice started in the Qing dynasty, in the 18^th century, in China. Due to its reputation of possessing medicinal properties, snuff consumption slowly propagated all over China. China’s weather is humid and the snuff had to be stored in small, portable containers.

Each bottle had its own miniature spoon to scoop out the measured portions of snuff. This tobacco can be placed on a snuff dish or in the palm and slowly enjoyed through breathing in via the nose.

Common flavors of snuff included spearmint, cinnamon, raspberry, orange, rose, menthol, camphor, whiskey, bourbon and tonka bean.

It was insufficient to boast that one smoked snuff. The snuff bottles gained attention when workmanship distinguished their price and uniqueness. The more intricate the design, the more valuable it became and the humble functional snuff bottle became the trophy of merit.

The rich showed off their wealth, status and power by owning exquisitely hand crafted snuff bottles. Precious materials like jade, porcelain, lacquer, amber, coral, hornbill, bamboo or other natural resources were used to make snuff bottles. There is literally no limit in the types of snuff bottles that can be designed. The snuff bottle is the average size of a bottle of prescription medicine from the doctor.

A site-specific installation by French and Chinese contemporary artist Huang Yong Ping is on display at theOceanographic Museum in Monaco. Titled  ”Wu Zei”, the work accompanies the museum’s “Méditerranée”exhibition dedicated to dwindling biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea.

Wu Zei is a giant sea creature 25 meters across, meant to be a hybrid between an octopus and a cuttlefish. It hangs suspended from the museum’s famous Medusa chandelier–hence the glowing head–with tentacles reaching out into the exhibition space. The creature both evokes the life of the sea and refers to the looming, human-caused disasters that threaten marine life.

The installation is the latest an impressive series of efforts by the museum to link science–oceanography in particular–with art. The series includes last year’s Cornocopia exhibition by Damien Hirst, and an installation by Mark Dion coming later this year. Wu Zei will remain on view through May 2012.

A fast-rising star of theArgentinian art world,Adrián Villar Rojaswill represent his native country at this year’s Biennele in Venice. At  just 31, he will be one of the youngest artists to be given the honors of national representation.

Adrián Villar Rojas emerged on the Buenos Aires art scene with exhibitions in 2004-2005, and achieved broader recognition in 2008-2009 in international exhibitions in Ecuador and Puerto Rico. In 2009 he produced his already iconic Mi familia muerta (my dead family), an enormous whale stranded in a forest, for the 2nd Biennial of the End of the World in Ushuaia, Argentina. Since 2010 his reputation has grown with the presentation of new large-scale works including Las mariposas eternas (the eternal butterflies) at the Kurimanzutto Gallery in Mexico City, and Mi abuelo muerto (my dead grandfather), a site-specific installation at the Berlin Academy of Art.

Rojas produces  multimedia works that address broad, unanswerable but pressing questions about the nature of humanity and the fate of the world. His entry for theVenice Biennale 2011 promises to continue the line of monumental clay sculptures that began with Mi familia muerta, exploring themes of multiple realities and the nature of a civilization’s final aesthetic productions, “the last artwork of humanity.”

Rojas highlights both his Argentinian creative heritage and metaphysical preoccupations  in the title of his Venice entry:  Ahora estaré con mi hijo (Now I shall be with my son) is a line  from the Borges story “The Circular Ruins”. In the story a mystic spends years attempting to bring a boy to life by dreaming him into existence–only to discover, in the moments before his death, that he himself is the product of another’s dream.  Rojas’s dream-become-real will soon be on display in the Argentina Pavilion at the Arsenale di Venezia.

LA photographer and gallery owner Ed Freeman wants to takesurfing photography to a higher level. Which is not easy, given the vast cultural archive of imagery associated with perhaps the most photogenic of sports.  Surf shots are fun to look at, documenting a unique convergence of raw natural beauty and human skill, grace and fortitude.

For his new show, Freeman tries to position his images outside the realm of documentary sports photography. He calls it “surfing photography as fine art”, and acknowledges up front that “this is not reportage photography…I’ve taken all the liberties in editing and retouching that are permitted to artists but forbidden to journalists.”

Freeman starts with a series of amazing images taken on Oahu’s North Shore. His artistic refinements and digital enhancements turn these into jaw-droppers. The stated goal is to capture not just the grace and beauty of surfing, but it’s spiritual heart and soul.

The show opens June 11 and runs all summer at the Ed Freeman Gallery. It’s at 945 Chung King Road in downtown LA.