Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

On View: Hiromi Tango’s “Promised” at Sullivan+Strumpf

There’s a problematic aspect to Hiromi Tango’s sculptures that invites the viewer's intervention, simply because they are a complete mess. Tangled bits of string, plush and rigid baubles are knotted together into a bulbous hodgepodge around a core of light, sometimes with a single word sculpted in neon at the center. Strands of fabric and material reach out like dendrites on a neuron, feeling for a connection but isolated from everything on a blank white gallery wall, asking the viewer to sit a while and try to untangle it.

There’s a problematic aspect to Hiromi Tango’s sculptures that invites the viewer’s intervention, simply because they are a complete mess. Tangled bits of string, plush and rigid baubles are knotted together into a bulbous hodgepodge around a core of light, sometimes with a single word sculpted in neon at the center. Strands of fabric and material reach out like dendrites on a neuron, feeling for a connection but isolated from everything on a blank white gallery wall, asking the viewer to sit a while and try to untangle it.

Like the frantic nests of a neurotic bird, these giant tangles are usually made of materials in tones of the same bright color — blue, yellow, pink — suggesting an underlying categorization system to the outright jumble. On display at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney through May 31, Tango’s “Promised” show has been discussed in outright psychological terms, of trying to parse issues like color’s impact on emotions and the materialization of trauma through art (which factors nicely in with the neon words, like “mum”, “promised” and “tears”). But the implications of psychology are also found in the sculptures’ analogy to neurobiology — to the physical parts that compose human consciousness. Not only is Tango laying her consciousness bare, but she is baring its underlying anatomy in neon and assemblage.


Detail

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Alex Chinneck is frequently praised as an architectural wizard for his unusual interventions, which he creates with the help of engineering experts and legions of volunteers. In 2013, he transformed a multi-story home in Margate, UK into a steep slope that resembled a skate ramp (see our coverage here). Earlier this year, he made Covent Garden's Market Building levitate, creating the illusion of the 184-year-old edifice floating off its foundation. For his most recent work, Chinneck built a brick house made entirely out of realistic, wax parts for London's Merge Festival. The piece, titled "A Pound of flesh for 50p," was put up in early October and left to endure the elements. Over the course of the past few weeks, the house has perplexed passersby as it melted and collapsed. Chinneck recently tweeted a photo of the house in its current state. Take a look at the melting house's progress below.
Levalet’s site-specific public drawings use the contours and restrictions of a space to create the unexpected. His absurdist humor appears inside and outside a variety of structures, dangling above passers-by or using objects in disarray to his advantage. Recent pieces have popped up in France and Italy.
Though hyper-realistic dolls aren’t a new invention, Michael Zajkov finds a stirring balance of engrossing detail and beauty that isn’t idealized perfection. The Russian artist’s sculpts don’t just look realistic—they look like real people, even if they’re not from this century. When the creations don early-1900s attire and are posed with 13 movable joints, their humble expressions bring viewers closer, if not a little cautious, in case they begin to move.
English novelist Edward George Bulwer Lytton wrote: "The pen is mightier than the sword," a phrase that inspires artist Ravi Zupa, who believes that we achieve purpose better and more effectively through communication with art than by violence with weapons. From his mixed media sculptures and assemblages to taro-like drawings and paintings inspired by Japanese, German, and Indian styles of printmaking, Zupa has become known for is the variety in his work, where the weapon has been a recurring motif. It takes centerpiece in his current show "Strike Everywhere" at Black Book Gallery in Denver, Colorado.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List