Ellen Pearlman, New York-based writer and editor of the Brooklyn Rail who lives part time in China, reviews “Don’t Think Too Much,” an exhibition of Beijing-based artist Ko Siu Lan currently up at Paris Beijing Gallery.
“Don’t Think Too Much,” solo exhibition by Ko Siu Lan Paris Beijing Gallery
June 5 – July 26, 2010
Ko Siu Lan’s show at Paris Beijing Gallery deals with subterfuge, double entendre, elliptical meanings, text and character-based language, and political discourse by employing the camouflage of everyday objects. Inhabiting a society where the exact day of your opening is a coded reference to the event that cannot be publicly discussed is not an issue artists in the west have to cope with as the price of admission into the art world. Here it is par for the course, where one is forced to read between the lines..
Ko was born in Xiamen, grew up in Hong Kong, and attended the program La Seine de Ecole Nationale Superior des Beaux-Artes in Paris. Her show examines mundane objects like Chinese style dining tables, revolving doors, exit signs, LED displays, rubric cubes, placards, and overhead neon lighting to understand how subliminal messaging can be configured and then disrupted when new signifiers are inserted.
In order to move between the two rooms of the gallery you have to pass through DEAR/DARE, a revolving, sand blasted glass door . Words etched into its frosted panes alternately say – “Remember” and “Forget”. In ordinary circumstances this evokes Marcel Proust’s musings on memory or perhaps looming issues for Alzheimer’s patients. But if one can read between the lines it is a muted and sharp reminder of its associated meanings and cultural referents that are immediately discernible to anyone who was around in 1989.for seminal events that can not be mentioned on any mainland Chinese-based internet server website.
IS IT ON ME, is an aluminum dinner table with a Lazy Susan revolving wheel, a re-make of a typical thirteen seat restaurant table. However, instead of food it has Chinese characters recommending actions that can serve as commands, questions,or even enforcements. The words target basic human functionality: Eat Not Eat 吃不吃, Drink Not Drink 喝不喝, Shit (Pull) Not Shit (Pull) 拉不拉, Fuck Not Fuck 操不操, Love Not Love 爱不爱 Hate Not Hate 恨不恨,, Fear Not Fear 怕不怕, Die Not Die 死不死, Live Not Live 活不活, Think (Want) Not Think (Want) 想不想,, Listen not Listen 听不听, Speak Not Speak 说不说, See Not See 看不看. These different combinations arise depending where the inner wheel comes to rest after spinning, and imply the arbitrary nature of enforcement.
A common signifier is the wall placard, used to denote toilet facilities, access areas and directions. Ko’s placards are the unspoken but clear dictum of certain types of current thinking: “Corruption In Progress,” “Please Censor Yourself,” “Caution Democracy,” and “Having Fun Prohibited..” Also used are typical colored Rubic Cubes, which Ko sells for 150 RMB. The cubes take the theme of one child, one nation, and other typical slogans and places them together in combinations of one “ System, Race, World , Nation, Country, Husband, Family, Party, Wife, Dream.” To the ordinary eye these are just puns, but to those whose reading of the political temperature are more nuanced, they are sad reminders of the exhaustion such phrases truly evoke.
Overhead fluorescent lighting is yet another everyday object of the artist’s investigations. In Don’t Ask Me Why, she has fashioned elongated T5 bulbs into commands, such as “No Thinking” which beam down upon the viewer. Unless one thinks to look up directly overhead, not a usual activity in a gallery, the command evaporates. Perhaps this is the other meaning of Ko’s work; if you don’t see it, or hear it, then it can’t affect you, no matter how much the powers that be may try to make it so.
Upon returning to New York after her first visit to China, Soraya Broukhim provides a review of Wang Qingsong’s "When World's Collide" exhibition of photographs and videos at ICP. (Read more)
Upon returning to New York after her first visit to China, Soraya Broukhim provides a review of Wang Qingsong’s "When World's Collide" exhibition of photographs and videos at ICP. (Read more)
CONVERSATIONS: Ko Siu Lan at Paris Beijing Gallery
Ellen Pearlman, New York-based writer and editor of the Brooklyn Rail who lives part time in China, reviews “Don’t Think Too Much,” an exhibition of Beijing-based artist Ko Siu Lan currently up at Paris Beijing Gallery.
“Don’t Think Too Much,” solo exhibition by Ko Siu Lan
Paris Beijing Gallery
June 5 – July 26, 2010
Ko Siu Lan’s show at Paris Beijing Gallery deals with subterfuge, double entendre, elliptical meanings, text and character-based language, and political discourse by employing the camouflage of everyday objects. Inhabiting a society where the exact day of your opening is a coded reference to the event that cannot be publicly discussed is not an issue artists in the west have to cope with as the price of admission into the art world. Here it is par for the course, where one is forced to read between the lines..
Ko was born in Xiamen, grew up in Hong Kong, and attended the program La Seine de Ecole Nationale Superior des Beaux-Artes in Paris. Her show examines mundane objects like Chinese style dining tables, revolving doors, exit signs, LED displays, rubric cubes, placards, and overhead neon lighting to understand how subliminal messaging can be configured and then disrupted when new signifiers are inserted.
In order to move between the two rooms of the gallery you have to pass through DEAR/DARE, a revolving, sand blasted glass door . Words etched into its frosted panes alternately say – “Remember” and “Forget”. In ordinary circumstances this evokes Marcel Proust’s musings on memory or perhaps looming issues for Alzheimer’s patients. But if one can read between the lines it is a muted and sharp reminder of its associated meanings and cultural referents that are immediately discernible to anyone who was around in 1989.for seminal events that can not be mentioned on any mainland Chinese-based internet server website.
IS IT ON ME, is an aluminum dinner table with a Lazy Susan revolving wheel, a re-make of a typical thirteen seat restaurant table. However, instead of food it has Chinese characters recommending actions that can serve as commands, questions,or even enforcements. The words target basic human functionality: Eat Not Eat 吃不吃, Drink Not Drink 喝不喝, Shit (Pull) Not Shit (Pull) 拉不拉, Fuck Not Fuck 操不操, Love Not Love 爱不爱 Hate Not Hate 恨不恨,, Fear Not Fear 怕不怕, Die Not Die 死不死, Live Not Live 活不活, Think (Want) Not Think (Want) 想不想,, Listen not Listen 听不听, Speak Not Speak 说不说, See Not See 看不看. These different combinations arise depending where the inner wheel comes to rest after spinning, and imply the arbitrary nature of enforcement.
A common signifier is the wall placard, used to denote toilet facilities, access areas and directions. Ko’s placards are the unspoken but clear dictum of certain types of current thinking: “Corruption In Progress,” “Please Censor Yourself,” “Caution Democracy,” and “Having Fun Prohibited..” Also used are typical colored Rubic Cubes, which Ko sells for 150 RMB. The cubes take the theme of one child, one nation, and other typical slogans and places them together in combinations of one “ System, Race, World , Nation, Country, Husband, Family, Party, Wife, Dream.” To the ordinary eye these are just puns, but to those whose reading of the political temperature are more nuanced, they are sad reminders of the exhaustion such phrases truly evoke.
Overhead fluorescent lighting is yet another everyday object of the artist’s investigations. In Don’t Ask Me Why, she has fashioned elongated T5 bulbs into commands, such as “No Thinking” which beam down upon the viewer. Unless one thinks to look up directly overhead, not a usual activity in a gallery, the command evaporates. Perhaps this is the other meaning of Ko’s work; if you don’t see it, or hear it, then it can’t affect you, no matter how much the powers that be may try to make it so.