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Tuesday December 4, 2001 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Solo exhibition of Michael Joo
FILED UNDER: Uncategorized
All Access, 2011, Mirrored borosilicate glass, 35 × 15 × 12 in (88.9 × 38.1 × 30.5 cm)For his inaugural exhibition with Blain|Southern, Exit From the House of Being, Michael Joo has created a series of new sculptural works which aim to challenge and reformulate our understanding of space. Bringing together three groups of works so that they exist in dialogue, each engages the viewer in an assessment of spatial territory, referring to social, natural and personal boundaries. The ways in which we might conventionally quantify, physically experience or theoretically categorise our surrounding environment are subverted, as the materiality of each object and the syntax of the gallery space itself become fluid and unfixed.The artist’s practice endeavours to combine and foster links between seemingly contradictory states. Binary oppositions are dissolved as he brings them into balance; the physical and metaphysical, the organic and industrial, inclusion and exclusion, and movement and stasis are all explored as being intrinsically linked, one and part of the same thing. With this exhibition, Joo encourages us to consider the inherently unstable nature of space and identity. His interest in the process of material metamorphosis informs his use of unorthodox materials and techniques. Constructed from mirrored borosilicate glass, the Expanded Access works are composed of groups of delicate rope and stanchion forms which seem to simultaneously emerge from and melt into the structure of the gallery. Joo plays with the idea of malleable architectural space; the stanchions, which would traditionally dictate the rules of entry to a particular place, appear on the floor, walls and ceiling of the gallery. Thus, the artist suggests a new spatial arrangement, which does away with accepted social constructs.

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