ART CITIES:Hong Kong-Angela Bulloch
Angela Bulloch is an artist working across many forms such as sculpture, installation and sound. In her work, Bulloch adopts an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating references from a wide array of sources, be it history, film or music. Bulloch’s works span many forms, but they all manifest her interest in systems, patterns and rules, and the creative territory between mathematics and aesthetics.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Simon Lee Gallery Archive
A common thread in Angela Bulloch’s artistic practice is the manipulation of codes and a sense of control. Whether that code is music- or text-based, the artist plays with and orchestrates our perception and experience of art. She proposes that this experience can be “Subliminally programmed” and her work stages that which is beyond our grasp. In a previous exhibition Angela Bulloch installed an iPad on top of one column where one could play a game. The player needs to find their way through 3D animated objects that appear realistic on the screen, then the columnsbecame real objects in real space. Angela Bulloch in “One way conversation…”, her new solo exhibition presents new sculptures that are continuation of her body of work that started when that was presented at “L’ALMANACH 16” (30/2-5/6/15) and in “Considering Dynamics and The Forms of Chaos” (10/3-31/5/16). Formed in steel and MDF, the stacked columns of polyhedra have a stylized geometry and manufactured surface sheen that alludes to Minimalism and technology. Totemic and minimalistic, the idiosyncratic physical geometry of the stacks are suggestive of the anthropomorphic qualities we subconsciously attribute to inanimate objects, creating an intriguing paradox in the nuanced interrelation between elements of the human and non-living world. Conceived and designed within a digital imaging program, the geometric forms of the sculptures have a retro-futurity, borne of the digital realm yet recalling the classical Modernism of Brancusi’s “Endless Columns”. Against a backdrop of large wall paintings, the flat planes and angles of each sculpture appear to animate as one moves around them, creating a disorienting illusion of shifts between two and three dimensions, resembling an animated illusion brought forth into reality from a simulated world.
Info: Simon Lee Gallery, 304 3F The Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong, Duration: 13/10-19/11/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.simonleegallery.com
