What do people usually think about when they notice the objects surrounding them? Few will view these objects as human beings, since most people simply regard these objects as everyday items. According to their perspective toward objects, however, people’s perceptions of these objects might change. There is an artist who regards objects as human beings and expresses this into his art. He regards daily things not only as instruments of art, but also as living creatures in his world of artwork. What led the artist to this kind of art? The Sungkyun Times (SKT) introduces Kingos to a unique exhibition that exhibits the collaboration of art and objects from our daily lives.
Terry Border and His World of Artworks
Who Is Terry Border?
Terry Border is a photographer and an artist who creates art works with various materials that are highly related to our daily lives. Snacks, eggs, fruits, nail clippers, lip balm and spoons are some examples. He mainly uses wire to connect these materials and express them as human beings. Since 2006, Terry Border has been creating these works, his so-called Bent Objects Project, in earnest. As the popularity of his artworks continues to grow, they are being introduced around the world through Social Network Services (SNS). Nowadays, Bent Objects Projects have been featured in magazines in the United States (US), China, France, Russia, Germany, and Italy, and his website was the number one culture link of the year according to the London Telegraph.
Unique World of Artworks
▶Bent Art
Bent art is a unique technique conceived by Terry Border which creates a personified character by attaching arms and legs to materials, using wire. Although personification notation is widely used in the field of art, making a personified character by grasping the characteristics of objects and bending wires is distinctive. The main purpose of bent art is to get ideas from familiar materials and connect them to seemingly unrelated elements with novel imagination, creating a new perspective of ordinary things. Therefore, viewers can use their imagination as if they are watching an animation like Toy Story which shows a private world of objects.
▶Visual Storytelling and Black Humor
As a way of communicating in the digital media era, Terry Border pursues visual storytelling techniques that send messages using visual images. He creates various stories about objects and his experiences as a theatre of situation. Then, he transfers those stories to visual storytelling. Furthermore, Terry Border uses black humor as an effective device of bringing light to social irregularities or raising fundamental questions about human beings. Black humor offers the viewers opportunities to gain wisdom and insight toward life by expressing serious themes in witty ways and emphasizing tragedies.
Representative Artworks
Mail-order Bride
Mail-order Bride is the first creation by Terry Border as a bent art artist. He used to be a photographer of commercial advertisements. One day, however, he started to doubt his career choice, to the point where he could not even decide the structure of the subject for photography by himself. Terry, therefore, quit his job and decided to make other artworks. Unfortunately, he had to work as a baker at a grocery store during this period to support himself. One day, while working, he accidently saw a lemon and a similar-looking bottle of lemon juice on the shelves. This was the beginning of his bent art. “I thought that having a fake lemon next to the real lemon would be very insulting to the real lemon. I also wondered how they think of each other. Then I thought the lemon juice was a kind of commodity that the real lemon ordered by mail.” Terry Border put wires on a lemon and bent them into a human figure. In this way, he created a scene of a real lemon receiving a package, the fake lemon, like a scene in an animation. Ultimately, this work is a witty satire of a bride, ordered by mail.
Heart over Diamond
Heart over Diamond depicts the cards as having personalities, using the heart and diamond pattern depicted on them to show that human beings are loving beings. Two cards prepared a diamond and heart to get a partner and the partner chose a card with hearts, which showed the sincerity of love. In this way, this work satirizes people obsessed with materialism, who try to win over other’s minds only with money and material things.
Here are many other interesting works that depict the world of objects regardless of satirical works.
•Date: Oct 13th, 2017 - Dec 30th, 2017
•Entry Fee: 10,000 for adults
•Location: Savina Museum of Contemporary Art (Anguk-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul)
•Operating Hours: 10:00 am - 18:30 pm (Closed on Mondays)
•Terry Border’s Website: http://bentobjects.blogspot.kr/
If you visit the website, you can see the artworks of Terry Border and his interesting stories!
Painter Paul Klee once said, “Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible.” As he said, objects from our daily lives might not be as they seem. The shift of ideas that seem simple, but no one had tried, led Terry Border to becoming the number one artist of bent art. Having a new perspective on things, even in a bizarre way, will help people have a new attitude toward life. If someone needs a transition in one’s life, the SKT recommends visiting this exhibition!