a selection of contemporary asian artists

Lin Tianmiao, Here or There, 2002. 

Goldfish Salvation by Riusuke Fukahori: incredible three-dimensional goldfish embedded in layers of resin. 

The Perfect Home II, Do Ho Suh, 2003.

Felis Catus Animatus, Hyungkoo Lee, 2006-7. Resin, aluminum sticks, stainless steel wires, springs, oil paint. Lee creates the inner imagined anatomical structure of cartoonified forms such as the depicted Tom from Tom and Jerry, suspended in the moment of the ultimate chase. He has also created apparatus and sculptural forms that, when worn, magnify/distort the human form and encase it in glass/plastic forms: extremely relevant to my practice.

Tetsuya Ishida [ 1973 - 2005 ] The surreal painter’s own life tragically ended when he was hit by a train in 2005. His melancholic works, equally, seem to reflect the introspective quiet despair of modern life.

RMB City, Cao Fei. The Chinese artist created a simulated city in the virtual online metaverse known as Second Life. Her other work is equally interesting and deals with the virtual, i.e. her avatar “China Tracy”, who travels alone through the illusionary landscape as participant and observer, a stranger in a strange land.

Second image depicted is U-Ram Choe’s Urbanus Female, 2006, metallic material, machinery, metal halide lamp, electronic device (CPU board, motor). U-Ram Choe is one of my favourite contemporary artists at the moment. His kinetic work with machinery in creating artificial “biological” organisms invokes discussion on humanity’s impact on the natural world and the increasing fusion of the organic and the machine (leading towards the Singularity).

Rompers, 2003 [ video ] “Motohiko Odani’s photographs, sculptures, and videos project his vision of an altered nature penetrated by brutal technology. The vision of this machinist dystopia was embodied in his works for the 2003 Venice Biennial. The video “Rompers” showed a grotesquely humorous paradise inhabited by a girl with reptilian eyes cheerfully communing with exotic birds.”

I can’t express the need/want to watch Rompers, but it doesn’t seem to be in online publication anywhere. Motohiko’s other works are equally fascinating in their dystopian themes and outcomes.