Mickey Yang solo exhibition at P/////AKT Amsterdam.
Mickey Yang: Closed eyes Oomph part III
9 June – 21 July, 2019
P/////AKT, Amsterdam
In idolatry people look at a poster of Mao, Jesus or Buddha before they close their eyes at night. They desire to hold the memory of the image in the dark space of their mind. The opposite happens when we see images of the plastic soup in the ocean and want to shut our eyes in relation to our own responsibility for this disaster. But what if you are struck dumb by the torrent of social media posts, the omnipresent commercials, billboards and brand advertisings which promise you an appealing rich and adventurous lifestyle? Maybe you just need to look away. This is where we are entering the realm of visual artist Mickey Yang, who satirizes the spoiled and fragmentary glances into the hyperreality that is projected onto our globalized, postcapitalist society, tricking the viewer like a magician. Are we duped by an artist who just recreated a copy of our artificial world? Do we need to look away or perhaps just try and really see?
Yang plays with the notion of misidentification in a light-footed way, far from the aggressive advertisings that are ceaselessly surrounding us. Her theme is taken from a natural phenomenon: the reptilian capacity of mimicry in which she recognizes a similar strategic mechanism as for instance applied in theme parks and resorts. She leads us to an area below the surface of our superficial culture, beyond what the human mind would normally perceive at first sight.
She has previously shown ingenious ways of transforming rather common materials in intriguing ways, for instance at Unfair in 2016, where she presented a small video work of a swelling and shrinking sponge. It mesmerized the viewer by its resemblance with the entrails of a living organism. Now, at P/////AKT, we find a ‘landscape’ consisting of soap, wax, metal, video projections and papier-mâché sculptures and, oddly, a large number of tiny Garra rufa or ‘doctor’ fish that are known for their use in spas.
The Closed Eyes metaphor of her large installation at P/////AKT evolves around the questions concerning our capability to (still) experience our own ‘nature’, the open minded gaze of our childhood. Just in case, this shouldn’t be seen as a sentimental ambition. Instead of merely proposing a cleansing ritual, Yang offers us something that is as alien as it is banal, humorous and serious, bringing something new and perhaps returning something lost as well.
Text by Pedro Bakker
The exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of Ammodo, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Mondriaan Fonds, Stroom Den Haag.
About Oomph
In a way we consider the oomph the highest achievement in art. It’s the sensation, perhaps in the underbelly at first, when you encounter something that touches and convinces you in a very direct yet inexplicable manner, something that happens between the viewer and the work and which is undeniably there: a connection or intuitive/unmediated relation and entrance to the work, even if (or especially if) you cannot quite put your finger on it.
P/////AKT’s 2019 exhibition programme Oomph features solo exhibitions by Ricardo van Eyk, Pedro Barateiro, Mickey Yang, Katja Mater and Leyla Aydoslu.
About P/////AKT P/////AKT is a non-profit exhibition space for contemporary art that organizes and facilitates large scale solo presentations through which the audience gets the opportunity to gain insight in the thinking space of the artists. P/////AKT provides a platform for exceptional, emerging artistic talents, who distinguish themselves through their unique and authentic language and who are capable of giving a different view on the current way of thinking. They are stimulated to work out new developments and are given the opportunity to present their work to a relevant audience. Furthermore, P/////AKT always asks the artists to produce new work that relates to the specific nature and dimensions of the given space and to present their own mental space as an overall presentation within the given context.
Photo: Charlott Markus, courtesy of P/////AKT Amsterdam.