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...
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...
Barbara Kasten’s Studio Construct 51 depicts an abstract still life: a greyscale photograph of clear translucent panes assembled into geometric forms, the hard lines of their edges converging and bisecting at various points...
A steel clothing rack adorned with turbine vents, Moroccan vintage jewelry, pinecones and knitting yarn, these heterogeneous elements are used here to create an exotic yet undefined identity within the work...
In Dilemma: Three Way Fork in the Road , Wang references Peking opera in a re-interpretation of traditional text...
Empire’s Borders II – Passage and Empire’s Borders II – Workers are from the three-channel film installation Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprise, Inc...
A Portrait: Covering and Cleaning is an installation of six black-and-white video projections...
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...
Oliver Laric’s video Versions is part of an ongoing body of work that has continued to evolve and mutate over time...
Gabriel Kuri has created a series of works in which he juxtaposes perennial and ephemeral materials...
In this work the artist stages a humorously violent “intervention” against male-dominated cultures of art production in present-day China...
With Roca Carbon ( Charcoal Rock , 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...
Open Mind is a model created by Capote for a traversable public maze that, when seen from above, resembles the human brain...
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...
Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...
With Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock, 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...