NZ Art Monthly - Articles

Favourite Things
by Young Sun Han
July 2008

The most personal and impacting art experiences have always felt sadomasochistic for me. A great artwork makes you aware of the relationship between yourself and that thing - you become locked into a push and pull battle. Astounding artworks tear me asunder emotionally, while I begin to devour ideas and unravel possibilities through intellectual and critical responses. My list of inspirational works are burned into memory, most likely because they triggered something intangible that made me feel empathetic and belonging to the phenomena we call the "human condition". These works reflect our mortality and confront existence through intensely painful and beautiful means.

The monasteries and wall paintings of Meteora, Greece
In Greek, Meteora translates to "hovering in the air". This site is spectacular on three major fronts: its mysterious geological physiognomy, its historic relevance as a safe haven for Hellenic culture during Turkish occupation, and the innumerable depictions of Heaven and Hell as imagined by monks from as early as the 14th century. Millions have sojourned to the terrain of Kalambaka, where vast landscapes give way to intimate interior structures filled with relics and scary frescoes. Imagine the terror of the Greeks during wartime, as they fled higher and higher, bringing them closer to the heavenly realms they painted in sealed away alcoves.

Meteora, Greece

Wallpaintings in Meteora, Greece

Movie-theatres series 1970s-90s by Hiroshi Sugimoto
Perhaps the most eloquent and apt use of light by a contemporary photographer, Sugimoto's black and white images of movie-theatres are illuminated by the light emitted from silver screens in theatres around the world. The pulsing light produces the latent image on the negative during his long exposures - usually several hours long, as dictated by the film in the reel. Images are lighter or darker depending on the film's genre: horrors and dramas are usually darker on average compared to their comedic and romantic counterparts. A simple concept executed perfectly and an interesting "portrait" of a symbol of modernity. I also find a subtle metaphor about life and death in the idea of the photographic image being finished when the projector's light is turned off.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto

60 Unit Bruise, 1976 by Paul Wong & Ken Fletcher (Canada)
View it at: http://videoart.virtualmuseum.ca/showvideo.php?id=2&clip=5& format=q&speed=256
In this performative video work, Ken Fletcher draws 60 CCs of blood from his arm with a syringe, which is then injected into the back of artist Paul Wong's shoulder. The time lapses until the area of injection begins to swell and purple due to the introduction of foreign blood. Fellow video artist Richard Fung writes: "Six years before 'gay cancer' was reported, and almost a decade before the identification of HIV, '60 Unit: Bruise' portrays a homoerotic blood-brother ritual with allusions to drug culture. But from a vantage point of two decades into the AIDS crisis, when new strains of hepatitis are constantly being identified, the audacity of its play between youth and decadence, pleasure and danger becomes a document of irretrievable innocence. It evokes nostalgia for a present no longer possible."

Scene from Paul Wong & Ken Fletcher's 60 Unit Bruise

One year performance 1980-1981, by Tehching Hsieh, New York
View it at: http://one-year-performance.com
I can honestly say that One Year Performance 1980-1981 was the first masterpiece of contemporary art I viewed while at university. The artist has given himself severe restrictions in this performative work also documented through video. For one year he punched a time clock in his New York studio every hour on the hour. This meant that he could not have engaged in any activity requiring more than an hour, including leaving the vicinity of his studio or sleeping at length. His rigorous documentation of punching a clock over the course of the year was compressed into a 6 minute video as proof of the performance. The artist started with a shaved head, which grows wildly as time unfolds. This work is a dramatic narrative about the power of an individual confronting the forces of time and sensually feeling how it flows past us.

One year performance 1980-1981, by Tehching Hsieh, New York

Untitled (Falling Buffalo), 1988-89 and personal diaries by David Wojnarowicz
This American artist epitomised the struggle of an individual identity railing against conformist society. His work was a direct reflection of the passions and tribulations in his life, and his most intimate thoughts were captured in his private diaries, which were later compiled into a book, In the Shadow of the American Dream. He obsessively documented encounters with strangers, lovers, and his observations on life in a beat-like fashion. His most iconic photograph frames a herd of buffalo tumbling over a cliff face evoking the sense of anger and unbridled lust that was rampant in his life - or perhaps it's a comment on the herd mentality of consumerist culture in America during the glitzy 80s, still yet it could speak of nature's cruelty and ambivalent nihilism ...

Untitled (Falling Buffalo), 1988-89

Web site: www.asianpunkboy.com by Terrence Koh AKA Asian Punk Boy
Before Terrence Koh became an international art darling and the latest enfant terrible, he diligently maintained an entangling web site with hundreds of links showcasing daily musings, poems, bodily fluid drawings, flash movies, and digital slideshows. The web site still communicates his irreverent attitude as a punk artist now embraced by the art glitterati. The web medium is used to full effect, and he is deftly aware of its narcissistic charm and voyeuristic appeal. This web site is arguably the crux of his artistic practice. Don't get too lost in his bunny holes!

Terrence Koh AKA Asian Punk Boy

Kiss, 2002, by Tino Sehgal
This excerpt describes the work very well:
Kiss offers an unexpected experience for the museum visitor. An eight-minute choreographed loop, Kiss presents a man and a woman rapturously embraced and enacting different interpretations of some well-known kisses from art history - such as those by Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brancusi, Edward Munch and Jeff Koons. Alternating couples act as interpreters of Sehgal's work, moving constantly and morphing slowly from one kiss to the next. At the end of the sequence, the man and woman seamlessly change roles and the continuum is reenacted. Kiss is danced continuously during all public gallery hours. Upon completion of the exhibition, no physical trace of the work of art remains.

I encountered the work in the beautiful Spiegelraum (Mirror Room) during the Berlin Biennale of Mice and Men. No physical object could complete with the raw beauty of the space and romantic spillage of light. Sehgal's performance was a perfect compliment to such a dramatic atmosphere and creates a powerful experience for the viewer out of the most economic means - human touch.

Kiss, 2002, by Tino Sehgal
This image was removed at the request of the artist as it infringed copyright

Anatomie de l'enfer, 2004 written and directed by Catherine Breillat
An uncompromising feminist work, Breillat's film serves as a contemporary allegory of male-dominated society's repression of female sexuality and harsh treatment towards women. It is a brave and intimate look into the power of the female body, and why it is feared by its male counterpart. The plot encircles the relationship of a woman engaging into a psycho-sexual ritual with a man exploring the female anatomy for the first time. What he finds terrorises and destroys him. He responds by eliminating the threat - his carnal female partner. Scenes are loaded with religious references and dreamlike sequences, which challenge conventional representations of sexuality.

Anatomie de l'enfer, 2004
Written and directed by Catherine Breillat

Mass Games, Pyongyang, North Korea
Dubbed the largest human performance in the world, this spectacle comprises tens of thousands of performers that move in perfect gymnastic, visual, and musical synchronicity. It is the ultimate embodiment of extreme socialist ideals - the power and emphasis of a functioning group over individual prowess. It is performed in mandatory homage to rulers Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, who understand the capability of art to crystallise movements and spread propaganda. It is at once deplorable and awe-inspiring in terms of the perverse power of the ruling nation and the skill of coordinated human capabilities, respectively. The gruelling training process and cultural significance of the Mass Games is most objectively documented in the 2004 British documentary, A State of Mind.

Mass Games, Pyongyang, North Korea

Mercury Fur, 2005 by Philip Ridley
Philip Ridley, a British playwright and filmmaker is known for his brutal language and tales of youth gone awry in apocalyptic East-end London settings. Mercury Fur is his fifth adult play for theatre. The stage set, a visceral domestic wasteland, snaps audience members centrally into the story of survivalists who organise sordid parties for the wealthy. Ridley's main conceptual interests question what happens when language and history breaks apart so that it is barely recognisable? In the play, one generation of catastrophe has erased the collective history of the 20th century - Marilyn Monroe is remembered as Hitler's girlfriend in the mind of schoolboys. Forgetting history is a frightening premise and an appropriate post 9/11 cautionary tale.

Mercury Fur, 2005 by Philip Ridley

The flying hair scene from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 2007 by Julian Schnabel
Films are often remembered for their quintessential peaks and grand denouements. Sometimes the quiet, seemingly inconsequential sequences hold power. Such was the case for a moment in this film about successful fashion editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered complete paralysis as a result of stroke. His consciousness is trapped in an immobile body, which can only blink out of one eye. In a rare stand-out moment, the protagonist reminisces, and suddenly he is driving a designer car across an open road with a beautiful girl at his side. The camera locks intimately onto the back of her head as tendrils of brown hair dance and squeal in the carefree wind. This shot lingers for quite some time, expressing Bauby's freedom in this cherished memory. He is able to leave his body via imagination, even if just momentarily, and this scene exquisitely captures Bauby's sense of bliss.

The flying hair scene from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 2007 by Julian Schnabel