SukJa Kang Engles // Painting
engles@uiuc.edu
Artist's Statement
Mascot Project
2002
Digital photograph
Museum of Contemporary Art Project (at Kerry James Marshall exhibition on First Fridays)
2003 - ongoing
Candid digital photograph
Museum Project
2002
Digital video (video still)
Statue Project
2003
Digital photograph
Public Art Project
2003
Digital photograph
Artist's Statement
The works I have selected are meant to be taken as mere documents of performances outside the art sphere. I say outside the art sphere quite carefully, since several of the pieces involve direct or indirect reference to the art world through the use of space or metaphor. However, the self I represent is decontextualized within the monolithic (white) space I inhabit. This is not because of my presence as an "artist" or culture producer, but instead due to my apparent lack of proper culturally coded presentation in each of these culturally coded situations. The events are stripped of status as art objects by minimizing aesthetisization as a product of conscious decision, and are intended to appease the rational self. This is the self uniquely bound to every individual by culturally coded socialization (through the intersections of gender, race, and class). My presence challenges the notion of individuality at its extremes by exposing the underlying homogeneity of our socio-cultural systems.
