It is difficult to talk about Maria Taniguchi’s work. Like an archaeologist piecing together artifacts, she unpacks knowledge and experience connecting material culture, technology and natural evolution. Beyond her objects, we are asked to look at their context. Who sees an object? How are we seeing this object? What associations can we make? A lesser-known…

What if life was nothing but a flux of images? What if life could only be retained as such a flux of images? Chen Tong loves every facet of life. Chen Tong paints images. Chen Tong’s images capture life in every detail, fastidiously, abundantly, unceasingly, erotically. His paintings fascinate through the precision of expression and…

A single substance connecting all continents, saltwater has a habit of sustaining certain life forms while desiccating others. Its rising levels may threaten life as we know it, but, on shore, it drie…

Zhang Ding’s work conveys objects and phenomena that are impossible to describe through language alone. Perhaps the essence of these things is too primal, to the extent that language—artificial and pretentious—cannot touch them. Perhaps the system of these things is too complex, and language cannot communicate their complexity. Substances overcome their physical properties, removing the…

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was a fan of painter Nicolas Poussin. He analyzes Poussin’s use of light and composition in painting Echo and Narcissus, and expands on its subject matter. The concept of the echo holds different meanings in different cultures. To the Greeks and Romans, the echo was an impediment to communication; to Native Americans, the…

Blazin’ up in of the Seoul Museum of Art, the mammoth exhibition PEACEMINUSONE offers a glittering addition to the canon of swag-as-art. While the group exhibition features work by such international artists as James Clar and Fabien Verschare and a broad range of contemporary South Korean artists, PEACEMINUSONE is for, by, and about one man:…