Eruda is a mammoth iconic sculpture of a young boy selling books on the traffic lights of Mumbai. The children (who could sometimes be illiterate) often sell these books authoritatively, playfully engaging in conversations about the book’s interest value; their rigour, audacity and endurance making them mascots for the resilience of a city such as Mumbai. Kallat’s sculpture has feet shaped like homes, forming the quintessential image of a nomad whose home is where he lays his feet. Treated in black-lead, ‘Eruda’ ensures that you take back a black stain on your fingers if you choose to touch him. Black-lead is the softest form of carbon while diamond remains the hardest.

The idea of the Pop Shop Tokyo was born after the success of the Pop Shop in New York that opened in 1986. The Pop Shop in New York became a key place in Keith Haring’s artistic practice – in this space, and in line with the philosophy of pop art, his art was accessible to all, he sold t-shirts and novel articles with the images of his works and those of other contemporary artists like Kenny Scharf and Jean Michel Basquiat. In late 1987 Keith Haring traveled to Japan and acquired two 40-foot containers that would become the infrastructure of one of its larger scale projects. He painted and furnished the interiors with hand-painted wooden panels, creating an immersive experience in his line of aesthetic work. In January 1988, the Pop Shop Tokyo opened its doors in the capital of Japan with the intention of continuing the spirit of the Pop Shop New York store sharing its philosophy of art for all. The containers’ whereabouts were unknown for a long time. After a long search, they became part of Lio Malca’s collection in 2004.

Holton Rower is an artist currently living and working in New York City who attended The Putney School in Vermont. Rower’s work has been the subject of numerous solo presentations both in the U.S. and abroad, including recent exhibitions at VENUS LA in Los Angeles, The Hole in New York and Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans; and previously at Galerie 6 in Aurau, Switzerland, Galleria Maeght in Barcelona, Galerie Maeght in Paris, John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Booksellers in New York, and Cencebaugh Contemporary in New York. His work has also been featured in group exhibitions, recently at the Dubai Moving Image Museum, as well as in numerous publications and artists books, including “Pour” (2012), “Scrap” (2010), “Jaw Law” (1999), and “Nettles” (1991), a book of photographs, poems and drawings, published by Flockophobic Press. Rower’s newer works are a powerful exploration of movement, color, and form. By working with gravity while pouring paint onto various apparatuses, his works become psychedelic snapshots of his artistic process. Past works include sculptures constructed out of a variety of non-traditional materials including human hair, dollar bills, mutated locks, and fishhooks. While he does work within a wide variety of meaning, all of Rower’s works examine the processes and methods of creation, and reveal the inherent vibrancy that lies within each piece.

Since 1994, upon founding his own artistic production company, leading Thai contemporary artist Navin Rawanchaikul has been working to bridge the divide between art and life in his wide-ranging projects. His works, as he writes, “rely heavily on team spirit and collaboration,” and include performances, films, public art projects, comic books, merchandise, and a “political party,” whose platform is to connect people named Navin worldwide. Such tongue-in-cheek projects stem from Rawanchaikul’s discontent with what he sees as the insularity of the art world. He wants to transform art into a product for mass consumption, without compromising its integrity. This democratic goal catalyzed the experiment that launched his career, “Navin Gallery Bangkok” (begun 1995), a taxicab-cum-gallery that surprised unsuspecting riders with a mobile art experience, and that models a vastly more generous system for distributing and presenting works of art.

According to Scharf, “This Tiki Totem moniker is a fantasy come true. To realize something of this magnitude is beyond my wildest dreams. I love the way they relate to the Pacific Northwest culture as well as the universal Tiki culture, which extends from the South Pacific through the Northwest and up to Alaska. As I’ve said before, art should, above all, be fun, and these huge 3D forms translate that perfectly”

Leaving behind the purely abstract explorations of sculptural language in the Structure Series, in 1997 Sui Jianguo began working with the representational subject matter of the Mao suit (known in Chinese as a Zhongshan or Sun Yat-sen suit). Producing the Legacy Mantle series, he grasped this collective totemic symbol of several generations of Chinese and was repeatedly invited to international touring exhibitions, making this one of the most important projects in his practice. Although the jacket in question was designed for and, in Chinese, named after Sun Yat-sen, it became popular both in mainland China and abroad only after Mao Zedong took to wearing it on a regular basis, ultimately becoming a symbol of the Communist regime. Originally known as the Zhongshan suit, the uniform became known in the West as the Mao suit because it was the latter leader who chose to wear it with such regularity. Mao Zedong and the Chinese people share an inseparable bond of sentimentality, as demonstrated in Legacy Mantle, a large scale work of this series produced in 1997. With massive dimensions and immensely heavy, it stands tall like a monument for the Chinese people, representing not only the Communist regime but rather the deep memories of the period before Reform and Opening that have quietly disappeared. In 2011 China stands as an international power, but perhaps now more than ever it requires a monument like Legacy Mantle to document and reflect upon the past century, allowing us to move toward a new era.

“Blending themes of pop culture with techniques reminiscent of the old masters, Mark Ryden has created a singular style that blurs the traditional boundaries between high and low art. His work first garnered attention in the 1990s when he ushered in a new genre of painting, “”Pop Surrealism,” dragging a host of followers in his wake. Ryden has trumped the initial surrealist strategies by choosing subject matter loaded with cultural connotation. Ryden’s vocabulary ranges from cryptic to cute, treading a fine line between nostalgic cliché and unsettling archetype. Seduced by his infinitely detailed and meticulously glazed surfaces, the viewer is confronted with the juxtaposition of the childhood innocence and the mysterious recesses of the soul. A subtle disquiet inhabits his paintings; the work is achingly beautiful as it hints at darker psychic stuff beneath the surface of cultural kitsch. In Ryden’s world cherubic girls rub elbows with strange and mysterious figures. Ornately carved frames lend the paintings a baroque exuberance that adds gravity to their enigmatic themes.

The artist stated: “The original painting has been in Lio Malca’s collection in New York since 2005 and thanks to his continuous support, it has been included in some of the most important exhibitions of my work to date. Lio has been a great supporter of my work and it was a pleasure to think of a way to, somehow, include this work in Casa Malca. Due to security challenges and weather conditions it was best way to install an oversize print to be displayed in Tulum. I then, authorized and gifted this paint to Lio”.”