Interview between Lotus L. Kang and exhibition curator Amy Jones
Further info: Exhibition handout, Video Tour, Reading List, Publication, Limited Edition
Lotus Laurie Kang’s artworks evolve with time. Working across sculpture, photography, installation and drawing, the artist uses her acute sensitivity to process and site to reflect on bodies, identities, memories, and histories. For Kang’s first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, In Cascades reorganises the spaces and fissures of Chisenhale Gallery, asking what is passed down and what is lost as we move through the world?
At the centre of the exhibition, ten industrial steel joists are suspended from the gallery’s ceiling. Echoing the lotus root – a recurring motif in Kang’s practice – the joists contain cavities that enhance their strength; a generative absence through which Kang’s commission materialises. Swathes of exposed photographic film tumble from each joist. Vulnerable to their surroundings, their porous skins continue to absorb light and humidity; bodies in states of perpetual becoming.
Sculptures, using tatami mats as their foundation, lie on the floor of the gallery. A portable, domestic technology, they imply cyclical movement and adaptability; a vessel upon which to rest a body on the move. Elsewhere, sand-cast aluminium sculptures of lotus roots, anchovies, and kelp knots sprout discreetly. Seven rat pups, cast in coloured glass, recline and tangle at the edges of the gallery. They are in-betweeners that live across and within the hollows of infrastructures; repellent pests, accepted kin, and human proxies in scientific contexts.
Through close attention to material, site, and process, Kang’s commission slips between what is seen and what is felt, what is abundant and what is lost, continually imprinting upon us the recurring question: what sticks and what falls away?
As an extension of Kang’s commission, her first publication will launch in July 2023, including new photography; a conversation between Kang and poet CAConrad; an essay by writer Estelle Hoy; as well as original texts by the exhibition’s curator Amy Jones and curator Victoria Sung.
In Cascades is commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London, and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, where the exhibition will be presented from 22 September 2023–7 January 2024.
Super Joist, steel, hardware, tanned and unfixed film (continually sensitive), sheet silicone, cast aluminium kelp knots, cast aluminium lotus root, spherical magnets
3500 x 6960 x 11430mm
Cast aluminium dried pear
20 x 80 x 80mm
Tatami mat, cast aluminium cabbage, photographic paper, darkroom chemicals, sheet silicone, paper, tangerines, photographs from the series Fleshing Out The Ghost
400 x 500 x 1460mm
Cast glass
30 x 110 x 45mm
Tatami mat, sheet silicone, stretch wrap, cast aluminium intervertebral discs, cast aluminium shiitake, cast aluminium lotus root, cast bronze lotus root, sesame seeds, nylon, photographs from the series Fleshing Out The Ghost
90 x 1000 x 1150mm
Tatami mat, pigmented silicone, sheet silicone, cast aluminium perilla leaves, photographs from the series Fleshing Out The Ghost
260 x 580 x 910mm
Cast aluminium yellow croaker, cast aluminium ginseng, cast aluminium cabbage, cast aluminium lotus root, cast aluminium shiitake, pigmented silicone, nylon
170 x 910 x 70mm
Cast aluminium anchovies, pigmented silicone
Dimensions variable
Thirty-eight cast aluminium kelp knots, cotton thread
3340 x 80 x 80mm
Tatami mat, cast aluminium cabbage, photographic paper, darkroom chemicals, sheet silicone, paper, tangerines, photographs from the series Fleshing Out The Ghost
400 x 500 x 1460mm
Cast glass
30 x 160 x 70mm
Cast glass
25 x 100 x 25mm
Cast aluminium anchovies, nylon thread
1340 x 80 x 80mm
Cast bronze lotus root
30 x 30 x 5mm