This work includes sketches for Extrastellar Evaluations , the project she produced at Kadist. Extrastellar Evaluations introduces Plato’s mythical state of Atlantis as the theoretical birthplace of conceptual art. Well-known and obscure epistemological notions from the annals of cosmology and mysticism guided and informed her research in the Bay Area during the Kadist residency at the beginning of 2016.
Yin-Ju Chen is a multidisciplinary artist, working in video, photography, drawing, and multi-media installation. She interprets social power and history through cosmological systems, using astrology, sacred geometry, and alchemical symbols to consider themes of human behavior, nationalism, imperialism, racism, state violence, totalitarianism, utopian formations, and collective thinking. Recent works illustrate the inevitability of cycles of history, developing the scope of Chen’s long-term consideration of notions of power and collective (un)consciousness. Chen was in residency at KADIST San Francisco in 2016.
One Universe, One God, One Nation was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s analysis of space exploration and by the astrological horoscope of Chinese political and military leader Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975)...
The Striation Scrap Lamps (vertical and horizontal) although functioning as utilitarian objects also represent Jason Meadows’s interest in a certain kind of crafted sculpture...
Donald of Doom Tank (2008) is a replica of a vintage metal toy with Donald Duck’s image one side and a soldier on the other...
Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...
Mario Garcia Torres imagines cinematic devices to replay stories occasionally forgotten by Conceptual art...
The image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...
In Restaurant, Canton, Ohio (2011), a convenience store offers food, liquor, and Coca Cola to an empty street...
The lengthy titles in Chen Xiaoyun’s work often appear as colophons to his photographs that invite the viewer to a process of self realization through contemplating the distance between word and image...
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...
Physical and mental exploration have been founding elements in Joachim Koester’s research for several years...
In Ante la imagen (Before the Image, 2009) Muñoz continues to explore the power of a photograph to live up to the memory of a specific person...
Walking Through is one of a series of videos—sometimes humorous, often absurd—that record the artist’s performative interactions with objects in a particular site...
Hill of Poisonous Trees (three men) (2008) exemplifies the artist’s signature photo-weaving technique, in which he collects diverse found photographs—portraits of anonymous people, stills from blockbuster films, or journalistic images—cuts them into strips, and weaves them into new composition...
Mario Garcia Torres discovered the work of artist Oscar Neuestern in an article published in ARTnews in 1969...
Gutmann’s photographs Untitled Nob Hill and From the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge are some of the oldest pieces in the Kadist Collection and serve as historical anchors for many of the more recent works...
Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...