FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tiong Ang:
FROM NORTH TO SOUTH
November 16 – January 6, 2007
Florence Lynch Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent videos by Dutch artist, Tiong Ang. The exhibition is on view from November 17 to January 6, 2007. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, November 17, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
For his second one-person exhibition in New York and with the gallery, Tiong Ang presents an exhibition that includes a series of recent videos, paintings, photographs and a billboard size banner.
Immunity (Real Time / Slow Motion), 2006 duration 1’22 and 2’ 34, 2 DVDs, color & sound
Immunity (Real Time/Slow Motion), a double-channel video work, is a mind challenging piece. On two small screens Tiong Ang is showing the same video-recording: in a busy shopping street in Seoul, Korea amidst an Asian crowd a black man with a big photo bag around his neck, is appearing. He is nearing the camera and is gradually becoming more visible, undisturbed by the fact that he is focused upon and therefore is detached from the people surrounding him. It looks as if the many heads in crowd makes way for him like the Red Sea; for a moment the man halts in the centre of the picture, investigates the distance and walks on. At the end the man enters a shop that by chance is situated directly next to the camera.
Tiong Ang shows this same image without any manipulation on one screen, and in strong slow motion on the other. The same reality, the same accidental observation, seems an arbitrary registration in one recording, and a symbolical staging in the other. The black man projects a Messiah-like appearance amongst the Asian multitude. What effect is Ang aiming at by showing both versions together? Is he searching for a antithesis of fortuitousness and alliance by fate, does he want to reveal the mediatized difference between distance and engagement, is he raising the issue of artificiality of the effect, even or particularly when this is applied to a so called engaged image? The pictures show a balance how a solitary human being is seeking to engage with his environment, and how on the other hand the notion of an existential internal immunity is taking shape.
Shuttle (From North to South), 2002 duration 19 min., DVD, color & sound
A badminton shuttlecock is mounted in front of the lens of the video camera. From the back of a motorbike a ride across the city of Yogyakarta (Indonesia) is simply recorded, creating a sensation for the viewer of flying behind the shuttle. The urban landscape passes by, barely visible in the periphery of the image, as the shuttle remains in focus and in the centre of the frame. The ride takes us from the north of Yogyakarta to the city's south, across the historical quarter of the Kraton, the Sultanate’s Palace, .a national symbol for sovereignty during the colonial years. The simple, hypnotic image also refers to the game of badminton as a carrier of complex national identity of a nation struggling with its global positioning.
Bandits, 2005 duration 17 min., DVD. color & sound
A nervous, always moving and ever-changing recording of motorcyclists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, focusing on riders with a mask before nose and mouth. Meant as a simple protection against a growing pollution problem that many Asian cities have to face in their rise into modernization, the continuous images of masked riders evoke a sense of resistance and illegality, while in the periphery of the frame signs of unmasked faces, traces of different religions, social class and even traditional culture can be seen.
The exhibition is generously sponsored by The Mondriaan Foundation, the Consulate General of the Netherlands, and Grace USA.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 6:00 p.m. For further information and photographic material please contact Florence Lynch or Kari Pierce at 924-3290.