Shih Chieh Huang, Organic Concept, and Luminosity, 2011

Two site-specific installations presented by artwithoutwalls and the Land of Tomorrow (LOT), in collaboration with the University of Kentucky and IdeaFestival 2011.

Shih Chieh Huang, Organic Concept, 2011. September 21-24, 2011

Huang The undulating, gossamer-light sculpture scaling the steps of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts beginning on September 21stis the work of New York-based artist Shih Chieh Huang. While it may resemble a caterpillar, a cloud, and a number of other forms and creatures found in nature, this artwork is made from simple, everyday materials—plastic sheets and box fans. Huang’s Organic Concept was conceived in the artist’s imagination, in response to this unique site in downtown Louisville. In recent years, Huang’s Organic Concept works have appeared in a range of urban and rural settings—growing from a field in France, filling a barn in Belgium, crawling from a car hood in New York. In each instance, they are designed, says the artist, to explore “how to use simple materials to create something beautiful and fun.” Surprising, delightful, and innovative, the Organic Concept transforms this public entryway into a site for contemplation, inspiration, and connection. Huang will discuss his unique blend of aesthetic, organic, and technological sources as part of Ruby Lerner’s 2011 IdeaFestival presentation, “Creative Capital: Artists at the Edge,” on Friday, September 23rd.

Shih Chieh Huang, Luminosity, September 23-October 24

Huang’s most recent large-scale, multi-media installation will be on view in Louisville from September 23 to October 24 at the Land of Tomorrow Gallery (LOT), at 233 West Broadway. Co-organized by LOT and artwithoutwalls, in collaboration with the University of Kentucky’s Department of Art, the exhibition features Huang’s signature choreographed, kinetic works, as well as videos documenting the artist’s practice and sources, particularly his study of bioluminescent organisms. Within the exhibition space, the brilliant spectrum of colors fading in and out in concert with the buzz of electronics suggest the rich, colorful life of an underwater tropical reef. This magical realm has been built with amalgamations of everyday objects found in convenience stores and controlled by electronic circuitry. Illusionist and engineer, appropriator and inventor, Shih Chieh Huang is an artist on the edge, whose work redefines the ever-evolving boundaries between the organic and constructed, and excavates the magic from the mundane.

Born in Taiwan, Shih Chieh Huang has exhibited his sculptures and installations in venues across the globe, including the 2009 Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion, the ARC Biennial Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Shih Chieh Huang was a Smithsonian Artist Research fellow in 2007. His investigations into the evolutionary adaptations of bioluminescent organisms are the subject of his current solor exhibition at the Smithsonian National Musuem of Natural History in Washington, DC. Bright Beneath: The Luminous Art of Shih Chieh Huang is on view until January 8, 2012. Huang’s work is characterized by a playful, biomorphic mix of digital controls and everyday, household products and electronics such as plastic containers, garbage bags, computer cooling fans, micro controllers, LED lights, and other common materials. Entering one of Huang’s whirring, flashing, shape-and-color-shifting installations, viewers engage in a multi-sensory experience that combines the familiar with the fantastic.

This is the second time that artwithoutwalls and LOT have collaborated: last spring, the two Louisville-based contemporary art organizations co-curated Brent Green’s multi-media installation, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. “Collaboration is at the heart of Land of Tomorrow functions,” says Dima Strakovsky of LOT,” and we are pleased to work again with artwithoutwalls to bring new work by this internationally renowned artist to Louisville.” Shih Chieh Huang’s two exhibits have been planned in conjunction with IdeaFestival, in which the artist will also participate. “Contemporary artists are often at the forefront of innovation,” says artwithoutwalls director Alice Gray Stites, “IdeaFestival celebrates and promotes innovation in all disciplines, so this partnership has been exciting for all of us. We are very glad to work with LOT to further integrate art into IdeaFestival.”

About IdeaFestival:

Founded in 2000, the IdeaFestival (IF) is a world-class event that attracts leading global innovators and thinkers to discuss and celebrate imagination, new perspectives and transformational ideas. The IdeaFestival provides a unique stage to explore the cross-cutting nature of innovation involving a range of diverse disciplines, while supplying the creative tools needed to “see,” synthesize and apply knowledge in new, dynamic ways.