SEPTEMBER 12 - OCTOBER 17
Chih-Chien Wang is debuting a new body of work titled The Jelly Project #2 as Gallery 44's first exhibition of the fall season. As Wang writes, "The Jelly Project combines several media to rethink the ways of seeing, of representing, and the ways of understanding."
Wang uses photo and video cameras to document, recreate and realize concepts or feelings. In a similar way that he uses a camera, he uses jelly to express ideas in a less literal way. The project looks at jelly as a fictional documentation carrier that records information existing in the space such as the reflected light, sound, scent and even emotions which vibrate nearby. The jelly becomes super-documentation – it records data in a form that people are not able to decode. Photographs of people’s encounters with jelly will be on display, along with texts and jelly and its containers.
"Wang practices an artful taxonomy in which seemingly mundane objects - the artefacts found in any household - take on a strange particularity becoming palpable integers of the self in that they shed light not only on how this artist lives, but how he thinks about the objects that he lives with." - James D. Campbell, exhibition catalog writer
Born in Taiwan, Chih-Chien Wang has been living in Montreal since 2002. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and Cinema from the Chinese Culture University in Taipei in 1994, and worked for several television companies producing documentaries before moving to Canada. Wang obtained a Masters of Fine Arts in Studio Arts at Concordia University in 2006. Wang’s works, whether using photography or objects, frequently contain subtle traces which might refer to personal, cultural or social concerns while dealing primarily with his everyday experience. Since 2004, Wang’s works have been seen in exhibitions held in Montreal, Lausanne, Milan, New York, Ping Yao, Peterborough, Toronto, Boston, Miami and Beijing. Wang is represented by Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain.
The Jelly Project #2 opens on September 12 and continues until October 17, 2009. A closing reception will be held on Thursday, October 15, from 6 to 9 pm at Gallery 44, located at 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 120, Toronto. The artist will be present.
