I-Chen Kuo “Home-Less is More”
Gallery 456 in Chinese-American Arts Council
This event has ended.
Taiwanese Artist KUO I-Chen was the youngest participant of Venice Biennale in 2005. He was invited to various important museums and biennales such as ZMK, Singapore Biennale, Sydney Biennale, Seoul International Media Biennale…etc and keeps being invited by museums internationally. This is KUO’S first solo exhibition in New York. He uses different media to create a poetic contextual artistic language. He investigates the nature of life by paying close attention to environment, the sense of belonging, and the state of mind that has vanished.
From the work connecting inside and outside by a huge airplane shadow and sending images back from a floating balloon, both works accurately convey the collective anxiety and drifting state of mind of human in a modern city. Then creates a future prophecy by collage pictures of past catastrophe news and depicts the deepest memories in everyone’s heart by papers at seaside fluttering by wind. Also in the work KOU inspired by the phrase in Bible “God said, Let there be light: and there was light”. KOU uses a convex to let the word “Light” on the bible to burn, and whole bible is burned to the ground. KUO records this burning process, and reverse it in order to let the bible reborn from the ash. KUO shots “photos” which photographer is not at presence by using APP SPY Cam on smart phone to supervise someplace on earth.
This time KUO will present two new works created during his residency in New York. The first one reuses trash in New York subway as consumer goods, reflecting human’s manipulated unconsciously and lacking of sovereignty under Capitalism. On the other hand, the second one puts the everywhere homeless people together with modern decorated skyscrapers, forming a special scenery. By deconstructing the word “homeless” and combining it with modernistic phrase “less is more”, KUO develops a new meaning and the title “Home-less is more”. In the project, he purchased cartons from homeless people and used them to build the classic Art Deco style decorated building The Empire State building model. Forming a skyline in the artist’s mind, KUO reveals the dilapidated darker side of luxurious ostentatious appearance which comes from the real life American dream.
Media
Schedule
from December 06, 2013 to January 03, 2014
Opening Reception on 2013-12-06 from 17:00 to 19:00