// BLURB //
Crunch! Crash! Kerrr-pow! Here and today, this is the sum of your cultural progress: a ceramic whizbang of through-and-through beauty; a testament of your will written in shards and dust. It’s lovely, isn’t it? The pulsing of an ego with each new break. There’s nothing new here. Maybe that’s the best part. Artists and writers and musicians frequently destroy their art, oftentimes because they are unhappy with it. Ai Wei Wei famously played with concepts surrounding meta-destruction by dropping a 2000-year-old vase in 1995 in a move that can only be described as oof. These ideas work if we think about destruction as a vehicle for altering the deeply entrenched beliefs of the audience. A priceless artifact being shattered wakes something up inside of us, forces us to seriously think about why this is happening and what the artist is trying to say. Of course, this example is different from typical artistic destruction, but one thing remains the same: the need for the artist to feed her ego. Whether done through the destruction of work deemed not up to snuff, or through public mutilation of irreplaceable history, the artist is being seen exactly how she wants to be seen.
Crunch! Crash! Kerrr-pow! Here and today, this is the sum of your cultural progress: a ceramic whizbang of through-and-through beauty; a testament of your will written in shards and dust. It’s lovely, isn’t it? The pulsing of an ego with each new break. There’s nothing new here. Maybe that’s the best part. Artists and writers and musicians frequently destroy their art, oftentimes because they are unhappy with it. Ai Wei Wei famously played with concepts surrounding meta-destruction by dropping a 2000-year-old vase in 1995 in a move that can only be described as oof. These ideas work if we think about destruction as a vehicle for altering the deeply entrenched beliefs of the audience. A priceless artifact being shattered wakes something up inside of us, forces us to seriously think about why this is happening and what the artist is trying to say. Of course, this example is different from typical artistic destruction, but one thing remains the same: the need for the artist to feed her ego. Whether done through the destruction of work deemed not up to snuff, or through public mutilation of irreplaceable history, the artist is being seen exactly how she wants to be seen.
//EDITION, MEDIA, SIZE & WEIGHT//
Unique Edition, Shanghai 2019
RGB LED display, acrylic painting on Plexiglass, paper collage, teakwood frame
52(W)×52(H)×5.5(D) cm // 8.55 kg
//EXPOSURE//
“Fathers Of My Father” at island6 Shanghai Main Space
Unique Edition, Shanghai 2019
RGB LED display, acrylic painting on Plexiglass, paper collage, teakwood frame
52(W)×52(H)×5.5(D) cm // 8.55 kg
//EXPOSURE//
“Fathers Of My Father” at island6 Shanghai Main Space
//CREDITS//
Owen 欧文 (painting) • Zoé Charvériat-Young 杨素儿 (performance) • Yeung Sin Ching 杨倩菁 (production supervisor) • Thomas Charvériat (art direction & animation) • András Gál (documentation) • Carlin Reinig (blurb)
Owen 欧文 (painting) • Zoé Charvériat-Young 杨素儿 (performance) • Yeung Sin Ching 杨倩菁 (production supervisor) • Thomas Charvériat (art direction & animation) • András Gál (documentation) • Carlin Reinig (blurb)