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Terence Koh, The Self Become the Wood (f) (2009). Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie
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“Adansonias” is the most recent solo show of Chinese-Canadian artist Terence Koh, running through June 18th at Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie‘s Austrian space. The exhibition was titled after Koh’s imaginary opera–first performed at the Parisian Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie in 2009–and it gathers vestiges of the piece’s conception and execution, including two white grand pianos, and photographies. Koh’s “Adansonias” has been referred to as a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, involving sound, theatrical, and visual art. The stillness and silence in the space contrast with the dynamism of the documented opera piece, as this show barely echoes the performance itself, but elucidates on the aesthetic and intellectual aspects of Koh’s creative process behind the work, while attributing a perennial solemnity to the artifacts on display.
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Terence Koh, Installation View (2011). Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie
More text and images after the jump…
Koh is one of the young artists that are considered heirs of Joseph Beuys’s post-conceptualism. To explore and challenge notions on a number of subjects, such as frailty, ephemerality and identity, among others, he has made use of various mediums, including video, site-specific performances, installations, and sculptures. These works are developed through the documentation, reinterpretation, and subsequent merging of historical art movements or styles–including ancient Egyptian Art, Gothic, Baroque, Pop Art, Actionism, and Conceptualism. The work reflects at times an extravagant and seeming unapologetic lust for the more contemporary aspects of luxury, counterbalanced with performance-based asceticism.
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Terence Koh, Installation View (2011). Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie
The aesthetic excess and narcissistic elements in Koh’s work have been pointed out, in a number of occasions, as a mere extension of his glam-punk lifestyle. This argument sustains that the cult to youth and haute couture embedded in his work could become a deterrent for his maturing as an artist, and formulates questions on whether the legitimacy of his work’s spellbinding impact in the art world–along with its adequacy within the contemporary market–would be sustainable in the long term. However, “Adansonias” delivers an engaging meditation on the politics of tradition and heritage, as Koh’s recontextualizes the exhibited pieces to make them pose as synthetic relics, or the most tangible testimony of a thing past, regardless of whether that “thing” (in this particular case, the opera) is relatively recent. In this show, the egocentric exuberance and pursuit of novelty associated with Koh’s name appear not to be ends in themselves, but stylistic means that he uses in order to give the works a ready-made transcendence, in this way structuring a subtle commentary on the role of relics as symbols of cultural cohesion and instruments of institutional perpetuation.
- M. Silva
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Terence Koh, Adansonia II (2009). Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie
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Terence Koh, Adansonia I (2009). Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Thaddaeus Ropac Galerie]
