Beschreibung:

Terence Koh These Decades that We Never Sleep, Black Light 2004 Mixed media installation comprised of a crystal chandelier, paint, lollipops, vegetable matter, human and horse hair, mineral oil, rope , glass shards, stones and artist's organic material. 190 x 72 x 72 cm (74 7/8 x 28 3/8 x 28 3/8 in).
Provenance Maureen Paley Gallery, London Exhibited London, Maureen Paley Gallery, The Black Album, November, 2004 — January, 2005; London, The Royal Academy, USA Today, 2006; St Petersburg, Russia, The State Hermitage Museum, USA TODAY, 24 October, 2007 - 13 January, 2008; Literature USA Today, exh. cat., The Royal Academy, London, 2006, p. 205 (illustrated); The Saatchi Gallery, ed., The Shape of Things to Come, London, 2008, pp. 546-547 (illustrated); Terence Koh Love for Eternity, exh. cat., Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Ostfildern, 2008 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Spanning across photography, sculpture, painting, and performance, Terence Koh’s body of work thus far exudes a dark romanticism entwined with notions of birth and death. Koh first gained notoriety for his website Asianpunkboy, which he described as being “filled with an infusion of gentle surfaces, dissident eruptions, haikus, mapped pictures, dirty illustrations, moist cum, decadent artificial words, love and all manner of faggy filth”. Koh says that he couldn’t live without his website as it is the most direct and free tool of a visual artist enabling him to share ideas with thousands of people at the click of a mouse. The labyrinthine layout of the site, where links to images or illustrations constantly reconfigure themselves so that the user becomes lost, reflects his artistic concerns with age and racial identities. Likewise, his artistic output mirrors his temperament, giving us an insight into his personal mythology. These Decades that We Never Sleep, Black Light takes the form of a chandelier bulging with sexual innuendo. Underneath the dripping crystals and bijoux is a concoction of human and horse hair, glass shards and the artist’s own blood and faeces. The work’s focus is close psychological ties between lust and death. The unceremonious flirtation between pleasure and pain is dangerous but simultaneously irresistible and is consequently what makes the work so beautiful. This duality is catalysed by the consuming darkness, which transforms the array of found and sourced objects into one mass, and exemplifies Koh’s perverse approach to artistic production. As a highly fetishistic work that insinuates itself into the viewer’s subconscious, These Decades instils feelings of temptation and danger at the same time as loss is mirrored by physical desire. Read More