The 465 Gallery is presenting Kuo I-Chen from Taiwan showing “Home-Less is More”, new works created during his residency in New York.
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. 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 “Invade” connecting inside and outside by a huge airplane shadow and “Lost Contact” sending images back from a floating balloon, both works convey the collective anxiety and drifting state of mind of human in a modern city. Then “Survivor Project” creates a future prophecy by collage pictures of past catastrophe news and “Introduction” depicts the deepest memories of everyone by showing papers at seaside fluttering by wind. Also in the work “Shadow of Light” inspired by the phrase in Bible “God said, Let there be light: and there was light”. Kuo 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, and reverses it in order to let the bible reborn from the ash. “Snapshadow” Kuo shots “photos” which photographer is not at presence by using APP SPY Cam on smart phone to supervise someplace on earth.
In this solo exhibition Kuo will present two new works created during his residency in New York. The first one “Soul Out” 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 “Home-Less is More” 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 reality of American dream.
Kuo I-Chen
Kuo I-Chen was born in 1979. He received his Master of Fine Arts in New Media Art from Taipei National University of the Arts. He works primarily on interactive units, single channel video and performance art. Drawn by the ever-shifting relationship between humans and the environment, his pieces play on the comfort and suffocation produced by our immediate surroundings, and re-interprets the dependence and anxiety of modern-day dwellers towards institutional cages. In 2005, Kuo became the youngest artist ever to represent Taiwan in the Venice Biennial; his works have since been shown in various international exhibitions. He just completed the ISCP program in New York in Novemberthis year, which is an artist in residency program sponsored by the Ministry of culture in Taiwan.
456 Gallery/Chinese American Arts Council
On April 14, 1989, the Chinese American Arts Council opened the first non profit Asian art gallery in SOHO. The Council's office, located at 456 Broadway 3rd floor, was renovated to include Gallery 456. In keeping with the Chinese American Arts Council's dedication to promoting Asian art and artistic exchange, Gallery 456 will give new opportunities to Asian artists to show their works. The central location, near the other galleries in SOHO, will help these artists enter the American mainstream. Both traditional and contemporary art will be represented in ten to twelve exhibitions annually.
KUO I-Chen Solo Exhibition “Home-Less is More”
12.06.2013 - 01.03.2014
456 Gallery/Chinese American Arts Council
456 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013
info@caacarts.org