APT 2002 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia : Report

Jose LEGASPI b. 1959, The Philippines Jose Legaspi, Phlegm Jose Legaspi has exhibited widely in the Philippines as well as in Hong Kong, Europe and the USA. His work is informed by wide interests, and his university education in the Philippines included biology, zoology as well as fine arts. Legaspi’s work is concerned with the investigation of personal psychological states. He makes both sculptures and intimate charcoal drawings that build on his childhood memories to create bleak and obsessional imagery. For APT 2002, Legaspi will present close to 1 000 of these powerful monochrome drawings, which will line the walls of a room. The autobiographical nature of these works can be confrontational, as Jose Legaspi interrogates difficult and challenging personal issues that are more likely to be avoided within the routine of contemporary life. Nevertheless, many images are filled with tenderness and pity, evoking the complex dualism played out in daily life between love and hate. LEE U-fan b. 1936, South Korea/Japan Lee U-fan , From point Lee U-fan is a painter and sculptor who arrived at his practice though the study of comparative philosophy. He was born in 1936 in Seoul and has lived in Japan since 1956. The artist was a founding member of the important Mono-ha (‘School of things’) movement, which was formed as a response to rampant consumerism that emerged in Japan as it rapidly modernised after WWII. Mono-ha was a manifestation of Lee U-fan’s interest in developing a practice that deliberately turned away from this consumer based materialism – his ‘things’ are elemental, such as water, stones, slabs of metal and sky. This senior artist uses his paintings to explore the character of the painter’s brush stroke and to draw attention to what is absent as much as what is present. Lee U-fan’s interest in philosophy is manifest in the extremely meditative and concentrated nature of his work. Michael Ming Hong LIN b. 1964, Taiwan Michael Ming Hong Lin, Bar Merlo, QAG 09.12.02 – 01.27.03 2002 Michael Ming Hong Lin’s art intervenes and plays with architectural spaces. Through the installation of heightened ornamental motifs, Lin transforms the intended use of specific spaces. Exaggeration and visual exuberance characterise this artist’s practice, and the sheer size of his site-specific works create transformations within the buildings in which he works. The experience for audiences of walking past interior walls, through corridors and over floors is altered through the insertion of vivid and amplified patterns. The images employed are derived from the modest traditional textiles found in Taiwanese homes. Lin crafts new meaning within existing constructed spaces and challenges hierarchies associated between high and low art forms, and public and private spaces. The spectacular nature of Michael Ming Hong Lin’s practice ensures that the visitor’s relationship to physical spaces is renewed. 27