The application of bright colors and kitsch materials in Flower Tree manifests a playful comment on the influence of popular culture and urban lifestyle. And though his works share a similar sensibility to Claes Oldenburg’s oversized sculptures from everyday objects, Choi draws from his immediate surroundings and life experience. Public sculptures with a flower theme are often used to decorate the rapidly urbanized cities in Asia, which are constructed with concrete and steel materials. Ironically, these public sculptures are usually also superficial and made from the same unnatural materials. Thus, while seeming to be a celebration of nature’s beauty and the need for imagination when living in an environment with a diminishing natural aesthetic, Flower Tree embodies the paradox of modern life.
Using a broad range of media and materials including video, moulded plastic, inflatable fabrics, shopping trolleys, real and fake food, lights, wires, and kitsch Korean artifacts, Choi Jeong-Hwa’s practice blurs the boundaries between art, graphic design, industrial design, and architecture. Along with artists such as Bahc Yiso, Beom Kim, and Lee Bul, Choi was part of a generation whose unique and varied practices gave rise to Seoul’s burgeoning art scene in the 1990s. Trained in Korea during a period of rapid modernization and economic growth, Choi’s work acknowledges and internalizes the processes of consumption and the distribution of goods and has resulted in his being recognized as the leader of Korea’s pop art movement. Often infusing his works with a hint of humor, Choi creates monumental installation with everyday objects. His works also touch on issues of accessibility in art and contemporary culture, concepts of individual authorship and originality in art, and they comment on the privileged environment of art institutions and the prized status of artworks amidst a consumer-frenzied world.
Sign #1 , Sign #2 , Sign #3 were included in “Found Object Assembly”, Copeland’s 2009 solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco...
The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...
In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...
Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...
A Portrait: Covering and Cleaning is an installation of six black-and-white video projections...
Concerned with the early history of Singapore, Zai Kuning spent many years living with and researching the history of the Riau peoples who were the first inhabitants of Singapore...
To explore the boundaries between artwork and audience, Gimhongsok created a series of sculptural performances in which a person wearing an animal costume poses in the gallery...
Oliver Laric’s video Versions is part of an ongoing body of work that has continued to evolve and mutate over time...
Composed of four images, the series Sleeping Elephant in the Axis of Yogyakarta (2011) explores the artist’s observation of how Javanese mythology and cosmology have marked the geography of Yogyakarta, the cultural centre of Indonesia...
Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...
Telescopic Pole is an adjustable telescopic pole that extends vertically from floor to ceiling and is held up by its own internal pressure...
A Flags-Raising-Lowering Ceremony at my home’s cloths drying rack (2007) was realized in the year of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China...
Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...
The video “Shangri-La” refers to the mythical city of James Hilton’s novel “Lost Horizon” written in 1933 and is exemplified in a film by Frank Capra which speaks of eternal youth in a city of happiness...
In this work the artist stages a humorously violent “intervention” against male-dominated cultures of art production in present-day China...
In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...
Every work in Hoeber’s 2011 series Execution Changes is titled in alphanumeric code...
In addition to Yang’s signature drying rack and light bulbs, Office Voodoo includes various office supplies like CDs, paper clips, headphones, a computer mouse, a stamp, a hole puncher, a mobile phone charger...