Though his boldly colored new show, Donguguan Highways in Hot Pink, draws inspiration from that booming new manufacturing city north of Guangzhou, Timothy Siciliano explains, its not about China per se. As a designer of gifts and costumes, I go at least once a year to visit factories and showrooms. Its like youve landed in Tijuana or something. I love going there, just because its so bizarre and a little bit crazy. Its like L.A. All the buildings lit up at nightits like Las Vegas. Outside Hong Kong and Guangzhou, new industrial zones feed our insatiable Western demand, not just at Wal-Mart, but also the MoMA design store, which carries Sicilianos wares. Theyre instant cities, he says. They didnt even exist 10 years ago. The scale of things is way off. Its just like this insane overgrowth of factoriesbut then a little village under a freeway. In his bright, teeming acrylic canvases, Siciliano riffs on Chinas growth, but also follows a narrative of charactersthe women and the bunny boys and the fish and the peacocks. There are traces of Japanese anime, Bosch, Hindu temples, and traditional shrines for ancestor worship. (Ive always been interested in Eastern design.) All of it mixes with the relentless engine of commerce; everything is happening at once in a giddy jumbleEast and West, capitalism and Communism, past and future. Says Siciliano, Its not right. Its not wrong. It just is. BRIAN MILLER
Thu., Sept. 2, 6-8 p.m.; Wednesdays-Saturdays, 12-6 p.m. Starts: Sept. 2. Continues through Oct. 9, 2010