Michael Joo: Sketch of Bodhi Obfuscatus

Sketch of Bodhi Obfuscatus (Space-Baby)Bodhi Obfuscatus (Space-Baby) Michael Joo (March 1, 2005 – May 1, 2005) is an installation created by Michael Joo, an American-born Korean artist whose works are characterized by material, cultural and philosophical contrasts. For the Asia Society, he creates an installation using a sculpture from the Asia Society’s permanent collection as a source of inspiration. Using contemporary technology, Joo explores the texture and nature of the stone material used in a 3rd century Buddha, which was created in the Gandharan area of Pakistan. A halo of surveillance cameras trained on the sculpture lit with fiber-optic lights will cast a series of projections onto walls that surround the sculpture. Joo’s past works frequently juxtapose the rarefied and the disposable; the sacred and the secular; the ancient and the contemporary. In addition to Queens Museum of Art in New York, Haus de Kulture der Welt in Berlin and Sonje Museum in Seoul, Joo has shown his work in numerous international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale in 2001, Whitney Biennial in 2000 and the Johannesburg Biennial in 1997.

Commissioned by the Asia Society under the curatorial direction by Melissa Chiu, Museum Director and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asia Society, Bodhi Obfuscatus presents not only a new and unique way to enjoy the Rockefeller collection but reveals the Society’s ongoing commitment to fostering a more inclusive look at the artistic expression of Asian societies beyond the pre-modern and historical arts.

Pressetext

Michael Joo: Sketch of Bodhi Obfuscatus (Space-Baby)Bodhi Obfuscatus (Space-Baby)
Kurator: Melissa Chiu