Taide

We are featured on this issue of Taide, Finnish art magazine. On the page, is an exhibition view of Have You Seen the Pink Whale?

 

 

Come Closer

For our exhibition at Visu Gallery in Kokkola, Finland, we worked with various states of bitumen products. In solid state we use cold-mix asphalt and made a piece that negotiated the  gravity of light versus ground. Heat, light, energy, density, materiality and immateriality were some dialectics that we were interested in. Accompanying that, we also presented a series of Bitumen Stripes that derived from the pouring of bitumen on metal plates. We allowed the viscosity of the bitumen to take its natural course on the plate. It flowed like the brown river of kokkola, forging new routes each time the plate moved.

 

     

     

 

 

 

Thank you to the following newspaper for writing about our work and showing interest in our process.

Probably the longest newspaper name—Keskipohjanmaa and Österbottens Tidning.

   

 

Press Release

“Come Closer Again” is Yunrubin’s solo exhibition at Visu Gallery. In the exhibition, the duo, consisting of Joanne Pang and Jonas Rubin presents new works that shows developments between ground matter in relation to the notions of entropy and travel.

YUNRUBIN regards ground as both physical foundational material and as existential subject. In this context, they identify the ground as the object on which site and situation are founded. They question the paradoxical nature of it as in entity and as a host for emptiness.

“Come Closer Again” explores the contingent relationships between distances and its limitations, with references to the road as a platform for a sense of (dis)placement that bridges destinations and origins.

The intervals and succession of travel is explored in  Bitumen Stripes, a series of aluminum plates covered with broken stripes of bitumen. The way physical and mental spaces between two points are connected by relation and attraction are investigated.

Researching on ground and gravity, light, as immaterial substance, is set into dialogue with tangible asphalt. Light is given weight and structure through the establishment of a three dimensional floor piece in the work Light Weight, an installation consisting of four light boxes filled with asphalt lined side by side to form an area of light and dark.

For Yunrubin, the human condition and subjectivity is regarded as essential themes to which they understand how to approach subject-object relationships. Receptions are not limited to what is visible or tangible but to the immateriality of movements, poetics and the dialectical tensions between structure, material and humans.

 

Kokkola

We have arrived in Kokkola, Finland to prepare for a solo at Visu Gallery. It is a quiet town where everything is within walking distance. Birch trees, specks of people, pastel colours intersperse within a silent finnish atmosphere. The weather is colder than expected. Spring is almost coming or maybe it is here.

 

  

Mikael Åberg’s piece at Visu Gallery

Installation

when the weight of the material confronts, the body becomes a force.

the product upon arrival

it takes more

floor allocation

the hand and the material

Asphalt

The smell of bitumen tells us that have come to the right place. We discuss the project with Samwoh.
Their approach is practical. “If it is to function, we must use 003, with extra polymer”
Not a word about aesthetics, metaphor or expression, but pure objectivity, pure asphalt.

 
 black rain

at the mean time, on the road, a construction goes on.

 

Body

I am lying on the bed
I am horizontal
The wardrobe is looking down at me
It is vertical
The table is parallel to me
Higher than me
My sister is near me
She is perpendicular to me
The window is parallel to the wardrobe.
A horizon hole
The fan is higher than me
Rotation distortion
My comforter is twirl around me
An axis
Against my body
That surrounds me

–

“The subject does not belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tiles

floor was erupting
brothers were looking
life passed over the materials
that stood through time
far cries, what shy

Tucked along streets of Pasir Pajang, Jade house sits in Haw Par Villa, Singapore, a park that was built based on myths and folklore that are associated with the Chinese culture.

Jade House

the floor , silent or roar ?

stride

In Finland, a man can walk three stripes in one a stride. This Spring, we are looking forward to spend some walking times in Finland. We are having a solo exhibition in Visu Gallery, Kokkolo followed by a group show in Joutsa.

Digging to China

Where does the ground/surface start. What does it consist of. If we remove everything on top of the ground, if we dig down to the ground. We will be facing a paradox in the same way as the question “What comes after the end of the universe? What comes after that? “

If the asphalt is on the ground, and is not ground itself, we must remove it to reveal the “real ground”. But under the asphalt there is sand, laying on top of the ground. And when we have removed that, we will find the ground covered with soil and clay and so on.

Where does the ground/surface start?

Situated Ground Exhibition

We curated an exhibition in the studio the last three days of the stay, titled ” Situated Ground” after the main work: ten pieces of road with a yellow line on a line on the floor. In previous projects, we had made large outdoor asphalt installation. For this occasion, we obtained asphalt (as road material) directly from the road and worked with it indoors. To underline the notion of (dis) placement in time and space with regards to the body and the materiality of being, we mounted a photo with a road sign on the wall. It was taken one year ago when we were on the road  in Iceland.

The show was well received. It was a lovely experience to confront the material again.