Filed under: ribbitz
It’s interesting to watch people who come to visit the SUPERFROG Gallery to experience Yu-Cheng Chou’s work. As they slowly make their way through the show, the sounds of shoes scraping the floor harmoniously mix with the ambient soundtrack that accompanies Chou’s video, Jamerendu. However, the sounds of shuffling always seem to come to stop at Paperwork I, as viewers stand before the piece, cross their arms and mumble questions like,
“Is it a painting?” or “How did he make this?”
I have noticed that the technique behind Yu-Cheng Chou’s artwork, especially in his digital pieces, is what grabs his viewer’s attention. Mounted against plexiglass, his digital photography transcends two-dimensionality and poses many questions to the viewer regarding consumerism, materialism, and the way in which the media influences our lives.
Yu-Cheng Chou’s approach to digital photography is unlike any other artist and is something I find very unique and inspiring. Often in digital photography, an artist is physically detached from his subject. However, I respect how Chou immerses himself completely into his subject and does not let his camera divide the connection between himself and his work. In Paperwork I, he appropriates an image from mass media and physically manipulates it, so as to retain his physical presence in the digital piece. He touches his subject — a Prada advertisement — with his own hands. With every twist and crumple, he creates a three-dimensional landscape within the photograph, showing the valleys and mountains that make up the consumerist landscape we are subjected to daily. The digital image and the meaning behind his artwork truly evolves through this technique and his choice of medium. Yu-Cheng Chou challenges the way we look at art, inspiring his viewer to ask questions and to connect with his artwork on a personal level.
