2008 Shanghai Art Fair: International Contemporary Art Exhibitions

Sept. 13th 2008

Pick of the Day at 2008 Shanghai Art Fair: International Contemporary Art Exhibition

by Jo Jung Sung

Jo Jung Sung is hailed from Seoul, Korea. Out of so many paraded exhibitions in their orderly defined spaces at the 2008 Shanghai Art Fair, Sung also staked a small niche with adequately illuminated wall and floor to stylishly display and present his idea of built environment. This particular piece by Sung had gravitated me to reverse my listless walking around in the seemingly endless exhibition hall.

The artwork centers on the theme of packaging visual arts for sales, all the necessary creative objectives of Sung to participate, promote and sell his artistry in the Art Fair. Visual arts derived from natural landscape, in this case his Korean context, could be transformed from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional form, of course, including the fourth dimension, the sense of temporal moment if further explored the philosophy of visual development as well as interpretive extrapolation or understanding of natural world.

On the flat canvases, the buildings in perspective silhouette are featured with natural landscape as the natural materials derived for building use. In other words, the natural landscape delineates the building set within its context. The plainly untouched or whitewashed areas beyond the building silhouette are left void, implying the vast natural world beyond left for individual to interpret its imaginative existence. As a result, the silhouette buildings like appliqué seem to float on the canvases, further explicating the 2-dimensional world one naturally perceives.

Via angular view or intended perspective, the buildings could be transformed into miniature model and packaged for sales. Note the miniature building vacuum packed and hung on the wall and set on floor for display, therefore, they are models displayed and for sales. Similarly, buildings in true size are also built for sale and for one to live in. Either way, fundamentally, an idea can be consequentially transcended, enlarged into a true size building or reduced in size as an object. With a little imagination in putting the idea on paper, in this case, on a canvas, the idea is transformed into its true or reduced size in scale as well as in any selected point of view or perspectives.

Most of the monochromatic models are constructed in distorted forms, in fact, directly lifting or transforming 2D images into 3D modeling but retaining their original angular or axonometric view. Rather not pragmatic in real, but already extensively explored and built in many cases as in the international renowned woman architect Zaha Hadid who has led in this fieldwork, the gothic distortion reverberates an archaic form, when trial and error of enacting a space possible to dwell in or take shelter out of available tree branches or stones.

In some cases, if further explored with feasible materials as well as structurally, and as one of the models hung on the wall has already revealed, the distortion in perspective actually invokes ideas about how conventional form could be trancended into the post-modernistic twisting and turning. An inventive form is here established where its structural order allows.

Sung's artwork is not really exceptional in inventing notion; it is a simple idea. It is simple in applying general understanding of the perceived and built world. It is exploring natural or visual perception and the perceived idea. Albeit an everyday part of our sensible perception, this simple notion can easily become oblivious or overlooked. For Sung, however, with his investigative reexamination and skilful reapplication of built environment into visual arts, he has effectively reenacted the idea of natural perception into, indeed, a good piece of artwork that is evenly sprinkled with meaningful contents.


Jeremy
Shanghai upon the Sea
Sept. 15th 2008

Shanghai Urban Sculpture Centre, Part 3

Monochromatic expressions at its best...

The polemic of cake as art and / or art as cake...

Bozo Ideological Acts in the disguise of Monkey King and Pigsy

Pure Expression in Metallic Form

Well, well...!?

Jeremy

Shanghai upon the Sea

Sept. 13th 2008

Shanghai Urban Sculpture Centre, Part 2

Two Cherries on A Thimble

Spotlighted Central Focus


Bisected Red Horses

Wired and Humbled

Mosaic Expressions

Yo-ho, bro !

Welcome to the artsy-fartsy world of colors !

Shit for sale as visual art instead of practical fertilizers...

Jeremy

Shanghai upon the Sea

Sept. 13th 2008

Shanghai Urban Sculpture Centre, Part 1

Within the creative and imaginative iconoclasitc world...

Watcha lookin', boy?

Fundamental flaws of human beings in their topsy turvy landscape

Tryin' to be super heroes or zeros...

A balancing act at its tipping point...

Centaur...forever a mythical figure.

Jeremy

Shanghai upon the Sea

Sept. 14th 2008

Rainy day on the Mid-Autumn Festival day

Today is the day of the Mid-autumn Festival. As shown online, temperature today is at the high of 26 degree Celcius.

It rained rather heavily at about 8:30 this morning. The plan for day out today would have to be altered acccordingly.

But it shines right now at this moment of blogging. With a room to the view, this camera angle or visual POV has become a part of my daily life ever since I moved into this apartment in the last three years over. Together with a little keen reading and observation about weather from day to day, the room with a view has sort of become a view of weather forecast for me.

The tree is located within the boundary of the kindergarten plot. The top part of the tree has shown sign of color changing, from green to yellowish now.

Jeremy

Shanghai upon the Sea

Sept. 14th 2008

The 4-course Lunch after the visit to Shanghai Urban Scupture Centre or Red Town

Hakka Fragrant Fried Beancurd

Steamed Salmon

Sichuan Style Ox Blood Virality Soup, a spicy greasy soup dish with coagulated ox blood cubes, cow meat, bean sprouts, rice vermicelli and various spicy ingredients.

Hangzhou Style Light Stirred Chilly and Pork

Jeremy
Shanghai upon the Sea
Sept. 13th 2008