S2 Ep2065: KIRK KE WANG Lue Gim Gong "The Citrus Wizard's Journey" Exhibit & Event
Lunchtime Conversation host Nanette Wiser welcomed Eckerd College retired professor and artist Kirk Ke Wang to studio to talk about his journey and upcoming project celebrating America 250, as well as a documentary about his life and work.
Wang is the Professor Emeritus of Visual Arts, Eckerd College and Board Director, Ringling Museum of Art with dozens of exhibitions and installations that have wowed the art world. In the exhibit currently at HV, "The Citrus Wizard's Journey" Lue Gim Gong and the Immigrant Spirits is curated by Quinton Spiaggi and runs through June 27. This summer, Wang is installing an art installation of the Oldsmar resident who re-defined how citrus was grown here in Pinellas County and Florida accompanied by his two pet roosters and favorite white horse.
👉You can be part of this exhibition and help decorate lanterns that will line the entrance to the sculpture on June 13 at 11am-2pm at President Bararck Obama Main Library. Email wangkk@eckerd.edu to register and receive your lantern kits (limited to 25 volunteers).
Writes Wang on his website: [https://www.kirkkewang.com/] Born in Shanghai and living in Tampa Bay and NYC, for almost 40 years, I focus my art on issues that conflict my experiences with today's mainstream typecasts, from the standpoint of a diaspora. In my art practice, contents overrule forms and methods. I experiment with a wide range of media, such as painting, sculpture, photography, video, conceptual, performance and installation art, etc. Although oscillating between them, I intend to weave a tapestry of my vision of the world, led by a consistent thread: the fear of inexorable cataclysm. For example in my recent exhibitions:
* I used a sculpture/video installation to discuss the dilemma of contemporary life being pulled by forces of mental and physical attractions, in the exhibition “Weightlessness” (Nanjing Museum of China);
* I used paintings and electronic sculpture to question human identity/fidelity via EKG heart prints of the wounded soldiers in Iraq, in the exhibition “Language of Heart” (Elliott Gallery of Eckerd College);
* I used 200 sculptures made of toy blankets and performance/videos to stage a “suicide” of animals to protest the consumption of nature by humans, in the exhibition “Last Meal” (Saltcreek Art Space)
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