Artists: Kyung Me and Sydney Shen
Exhibition title: Poor Thing
Venue: Hotel Art Pavilion, New York, US
Date: September 8 – October 13, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Hotel Art Pavilion
During the Victorian era, a wave of criminals disguised themselves in women’s mourning garb to commit a range of crimes, from petty theft to murder. In her new work, Kyung Me explores the subversive potential of the decorative, envisioning a character who uses the front of fragility and beauty to detract from a more sinister interiority.
Similarly, Sydney Shen considers protection and permeability with her sculpture of a folding hospital screen with chain maille panels.
A breath that is only transparent space, to the point of considering everything that happens to it as being inside itself, only creates, in its aimless intention, imagined exteriors, no less than does this intention itself. Assuming the guise of many different shapes, each breath distinguished itself by its own way of agitating the void as though familiarizing itself with futility, sometimes seeking as well to accommodate itself with another vaster, emptier breath—here, emptiness inspired no fear whatsoever!
—Pierre Klossowski, The Baphomet
When there is no-body to protect, can you penetrate a breath?
Kyung Me (Yale MFA ’18) lives and works in New York. Solo exhibitions include 17Essex, NYC; Selena Gallery, Brooklyn. Select recent group exhibitions include Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles; NADA NY 2018 with Hotel Art Pavilion. More of her work can be found at sunflowercat.com.
Sydney Shen (b. 1989, New Jersey) lives and works in New York and studied at The Cooper Union. Solo exhibitions include Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; Motel, Brooklyn; Holy Motors, Hong Kong. Select recent group exhibitions include American Medium, NYC; Aike-Dellarco, Shanghai; Minibar, Stockholm; Weekends, London; Hester, New York; Springsteen, Baltimore; Fused Space, San Francisco; Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Et Al, San Francisco. Shen is co-author of Perfume Area, a book of prose published by Ambient Works, New York. More of her work can be found at http://sydneyshen.info/
Kyung Me and Sydney Shen, Poor Thing, 2018, exhibition view, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York
Kyung Me and Sydney Shen, Poor Thing, 2018, exhibition view, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York
Kyung Me and Sydney Shen, Poor Thing, 2018, exhibition view, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York
Kyung Me, Untitled, 2018, Ink, graphite, and charcoal on Arches cold-pressed paper, 18 x 24 inches
Kyung Me, Untitled, 2018, Ink, graphite, and charcoal on Arches cold-pressed paper, 18 x 24 inches
Sydney Shen, [DATA EXPUNGED], 2018, aluminum, steel, dimensions variable
Sydney Shen, [DATA EXPUNGED], 2018, aluminum, steel, dimensions variable
Sydney Shen, [DATA EXPUNGED], 2018, aluminum, steel, dimensions variable
Kyung Me and Sydney Shen, Poor Thing, 2018, exhibition view, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York
Kyung Me and Sydney Shen, Poor Thing, 2018, exhibition view, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York
Sydney Shen, [DATA EXPUNGED], 2018, steel, dimensions variable
Sydney Shen, [DATA EXPUNGED], 2018, casket handles, dimensions variable