|
Inside Looking Out (excerpts)
For Kwan Sheungchi this is manifest in a sustained exploration of the nature of artistic identity and authorship. He is interested in the question of how meaning is constructed and the question of who makes art and the interaction of other people, places and things as an integral part of the work's cultural context. His installation Don't Let the Tower Fall! is a product of his sustained critical examination of what an artist is. The work combines text, photographs, computer renderings, video and scu1pture. But the most dramatic element, a huge version of the popular “Jenga” game that involves players extracting a wooden block one at a time from a tower made by stacking these blocks in rows of three where each alternate row is aligned at right angles to the one below without causing the tower to fall was actually fabricated by Yuen Hokeung, an independent contractor employed by Osage gallery. Yeun's practical and problem solving assistances was essential to the realization of the work but was not necessarily necessary. In his work Kwan demonstrates that the “art” resides not in the object but in the idea or concept of art. Its placement in a commercial gallery (together with his invitation to the gallery director to play a game of Jenga with him) also investigates the role and function of artist and object in the contemporary art market. ...
|