Catalogue Than Sok "Les Formes de l'Eau"
Nous sommes très heureux de présenter ce mois-ci une exposition consacrée à l'artiste Cambodgien Than Sok intitulée "Les Formes de l'Eau" à la Galerie Lee , et dont la commissaire est Erin Gleeson. C'est la première fois que cet artiste cambodgien majeur expose en France. Nous montrerons une série de compositions "all-over" à l'acrylique présentant des motifs répétés sur toute la toile qui suggèrent l'eau sous tous ses aspects. Le titre de la série fait référence au Kbach, l'art traditionnel khmer de l'ornementation décorative, transformé par Sok en une méditation sur la nature et sa possible destruction. - 3 - 26 février 2022
Nous sommes très heureux de présenter ce mois-ci une exposition consacrée à l'artiste Cambodgien Than Sok intitulée "Les Formes de l'Eau" à la Galerie Lee , et dont la commissaire est Erin Gleeson.
C'est la première fois que cet artiste cambodgien majeur expose en France. Nous montrerons une série de compositions "all-over" à l'acrylique présentant des motifs répétés sur toute la toile qui suggèrent l'eau sous tous ses aspects. Le titre de la série fait référence au Kbach, l'art traditionnel khmer de l'ornementation décorative, transformé par Sok en une méditation sur la nature et sa possible destruction.
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3 - 26 février 2022
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THAN SOK
Kbach Teuk / As It Is Above, It Is Below
by Erin Gleeson, January 2022
Than Sok’s most recent body of work for Batia Sarem feels like a living, breathing
meditation on its eponymous subject: water forms, or kbach teuk in Khmer
language, the artist’s mother-tongue. The intricate, rhythmic paintings manifest
dual heartbeats of homage. Present is the heartbeat of teuk – water – its life
and life-giving qualities, its being-ness and relationality with interdependent
beings. Present is the heartbeat of kbach – form and ornamentation; imagined
and created by ancestors’ relations with nature’s forms, kbach has been
applied to material culture’s sacred and secular surfaces in and beyond what
is now Cambodia for over a millennium.
To think with the becoming of Kbach Teuk, I propose centering mimicry in Than
Sok’s multidisciplinary practice through a selection of past works. Whether in
drawing and painting, installation, video, and performance, Than conjures
doubles, replicas, re-presentations, and likenesses of materials, spaces and
rituals related to Cambodia. In his first solo exhibition, Tragedy (2009), he
constructed delicate, miniature replicas of rural, wooden, animist spirit houses
wholly with incense sticks. Incense is one of a number of materials used by
humans at the site of a spirit house to aid in opening a potential relation
and communication with a spirit or spirits, whether ancestral, territorial, the
undead, or others. Burning the sculptures to ash – as a performance and video
installation – was a critical thinking into the values and behaviors asserted
through nationalized religion. In Than’s ongoing series Objects of Belief (2012
-), he photorealistically documents Cambodian Buddhist temple material
culture. Likenesses of offerings, talismans, and other functionary items are
rendered in watercolor, centered on a white picture plane, and sometimes
presented as pairs with their model object. Hand strung jasmine wreaths, mylar
wrapped gift baskets, money (in both Khmer Riel and United States Dollar),
clocks, silver trays, candles, meditation pillows, red string, tea sets, donation
boxes, umbrellas, and so many more objects are seen together. Disassociated
from temples’ time and space, especially in the deliberate absence of the
likeness of the Buddha, the drawings set a peculiar scene without a setting,
provoking curiosity around belief’s relation to material culture. The installation
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