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shen shaomin: bonsai series
from the 'bonsai series' (2007-2009)
image © designboom
chinese artist shen shaomin connects art, life and craft with mechanics in major installations
that cover themes of war, futuristic crisis, scientific abomination and the manipulation of nature.
his work uses chinese culture to comment on contemporary ecological issues, politics
and technology.
shaomin's 'bonsai' series (2007-2009), on show at the 17th biennale of sydney, uses the controlled
nature of the traditional bonsai art form to comment on human despoliation of the environment.
each 'living installation' is accompanied by a description with illustrations showing how each
plant has been coerced, or tortured into bizarre configurations.
shaomin's 'summit' is also on show at cockatoo island as part of the biennale.
image © designboom
image © designboom
wire cable, clamps, metal plates are used to 'torture' each bonsai tree into strange positions
image © designboom
the components are adjustable and can be moved according to the plant's growth
image © designboom
one plant being pulled length-wise
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
up close of one of the mechanisms
image © designboom
image © designboom
one of the plants being coerced to grow into an extreme curve
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
cage like structures on each of the mechanisms aid in controlling the direction in which the bonsai plants grow
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
the tools used to coerce and torture the plants into bizarre configurations
image © designboom
the tools used to coerce and torture the plants into bizarre configurations
image © designboom
the tools used to coerce and torture the plants into bizarre configurations
image © designboom
wtf!!
new works by li wei
in his most recent series, the arists adopts his now-famous gravity defying poses, commenting on landscape, religion and love using only performance art and photography.
beili liu: the mending project
the performance art and installation project involves the artist hand-stitching pieces of fabric together under a looming cloud of suspended chinese scissors.
titanic video by zhang liaoyuan
this work is supposed to be a comment on modern society, as if we are like the passengers of the titanic, but the actors in zhang's depiction remain calm, as if to say our society is trying to pretend that life-thre...
brett graham: weapons of mass destruction
'weapons of mass destruction' are large-scale projects constructed from MDF, steel and rubber tires.
angela ellsworth: seer bonnets - a continuing
a series of antiquated pioneer women's bonnets, constructed out of thousands of pearl-tipped corsage pins embedded into fabric with their points directed inwards.
paul mccarthy: ship of fools, ship adrift 2
a contemporary rephrasing of the medieval allegory, depicting a world of power without principle as the ship and its denizens hurtle obviously towards their own destruction.
shen shaomin: summit
'summit' was conceived as a response to the global financial crisis. taking the annual G8 summit as a point of reference, shaomin has created a hypothetical meeting of five of the most significant communist leaders.
wirtschaftsblatt newsroom by IDFL
source organization network
using 'game of life' cellular automaton, this installation represents the emergence of self-organizing systems. the discrete mo...
kehinde wiley: the world stage
the installation portrays young men of varied ethnic descent living in israel, depicted against backgrounds containing symbols ...
BIG architects kimball art cen
the new facility is designed to balance the neutrality of an exhibition space with the distinctiveness of a building in park c...
RENAULT 4 ever behind-the-scenes
'horsey' by eungi kim
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