Untitled (Celestial Motors)

2012 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

6:38 minutes

Maria Taniguchi


Untitled (Celestial Motors) is a visual meditation on an icon of modern urban Philippine life—the jeepney. This ubiquitous form of public transportation, originally built from U. S. military jeeps left on the islands after World War II, is normally exuberantly painted and personalized. They are known for their crowded seating and kitsch decorations, which have become an omnipresent symbol of Philippine culture. Taniguchi’s formal video portrait focuses on a gleaming stainless-steel example, fresh from the Celestial Motors factory. Stripped into its basic form and shot against a white backdrop, almost like an advertisement, Untitled (Celestial Motors) bears the jeepney as an object of study. Nearly static, abstracted details of the jeepney are intercut with deliberate pans across its body. Throughout her paintings, sculptures, and videos, Maria Taniguchi unpacks knowledge and experience—connecting material culture, technology, and natural evolution—and investigates space and time, along with social and historical contexts. Whether with her quasi-abstract brick paintings or with the moving images of plain and everyday objects, Taniguchi enforces the action of viewing upon our senses. The consequence is the reinterpretation of the objects, and the attainment of sensorial and cognitive experiences.


Throughout her paintings, sculptures, and videos, Maria Taniguchi unpacks knowledge and experience—connecting material culture, technology, and natural evolution—and investigates space and time, along with social and historical contexts. Whether with her quasi-abstract brick paintings or with the moving images of plain and everyday objects, Taniguchi enforces the action of viewing upon our senses. The consequence is the reinterpretation of the objects, and the attainment of sensorial and cognitive experiences.


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Untitled
© » KADIST

Maria Taniguchi

2015

Maria Taniguchi works across several media but is principally known for her long-running series of quasi-abstract paintings featuring a stylized brick wall device...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Dutch Emerging: Ruben Janssen X GRA Fashion Bachelor 2023
© » DIANE PERNET

Dutch Emerging: Ruben Janssen X GRA Fashion Bachelor 2023 – A Shaded View on Fashion From the back to the middle and around again — Ria’s wedding dress, Alan’s patterns and John’s model: ‘My project is an investigation into evolution, explored through prisms of biology, computation and a poetic personal narrative, shifting between timescales on an evolutionary timeline...

The Art World This Week: Art Basel Miami, Anselm Kiefer Sculpture Stolen, US Repatriations, and More
© » MUTUALART

Everything you need to know about the most important headlines from the world of art in the last seven days...

Weekly Picks: Singapore (7 – 13 January 2019)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Picks: Singapore (7 – 13 January 2019) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do January 7, 2019 The Past and Coming Melt by Koh Nguang How , Grey Projects, 12 – 23 January With a focus on environmentally engaged art that speaks to Koh’s early and crucial artistic position on environmental crises, ‘The Past and Coming Melt’ features archival works as well as new recreations of previously destroyed or unavailable work and material...

100 Boots
© » KADIST

Eleanor Antin

1973

Comprised of fifty-one photographic postcards, Antin’s 100 Boots is an epic visual narrative in which 100 black rubber boots stand in for a fictional “hero” making a “trip” from California to New York City...

Other works by: » Maria Taniguchi  
» see more

Untitled
© » KADIST

Maria Taniguchi

2015

Maria Taniguchi works across several media but is principally known for her long-running series of quasi-abstract paintings featuring a stylized brick wall device...

Related artist(s) to: Maria Taniguchi » Guan Xiao, » Adriano Pedrosa, » Akram Zaatari, » Asli çavuşoğlu, » Clara Ianni, » Daniela Ortiz, » Dumaguete City, » Emily Jacir, » Haegue Yang, » Hemali Bhuta  
» see more

David
© » KADIST

Guan Xiao

2013

David is a five-minute pseudo music video that features an upbeat melodic soundtrack with a duet by the artist Guan Xiao and frequent collaborator (and KADIST collection) artist Yu Honglei...

Knotty Spell in Windy Drapes
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2016

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...

"Baqari’s wife", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1957

“These are negatives that were scratched because of a jealous husband from the Baqari family, who never let his wife out by herself...

Office Voodoo
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2010

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...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Itch
© » KADIST

Yang Guangnan

2011

Itch explores the relationship between technology and daily human experience with a motorized arm that extends from within the gallery’s wall, moving up and down while holding a projector that shows a desperately scratching pair of hands....

Series Highlights Nairobi Motor Taxi Drivers
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Photographer Jan Hoek collaborated with Ugandan-Kenyan fashion designer Bobbin Case on a project focused on the Boda Boda motor taxis roaming Nairobi...

Auto Control as a Form of Landscape
© » KADIST

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger

2017

This triptych is based on a Tesla whose interior the artist customized on the Tesla website...

China art market at greatest risk since 2008 (but also a great opportunity)
© » RANDIAN ART MARKET

by Chris Moore The China art market faces its most difficult period since 2008...