Long - Bin Chen  Reading Sculpture April 5 - May 10, 2003 Opening reception April 5, 5-7pm The Frederieke Taylor gallery announces an exhibition of new work by Long - Bin Chen entitled Reading Sculpture.     Chen is known for using books, newspapers, magazines and other material that has been discarded as the medium for creating his sculpture. This act of recycling paper-based material informs Chen's work, and the figures he creates are of an odd and extraordinary beauty. Buddha faces, Aztec and Chinese Warriors, the human figure, land maps and entire rooms are magically created out of the discards from our "paper society". Long-Bin Chen was born in Taiwan where he presently resides, after having lived and studied in New York in the nineties. The theme of the converging of Chinese and American cultures is central to his work, as is the notion of consumerism that now informs both cultures. Bought from trash collectors or gathered from the street, the outdated indexes of modern life, snatched from extinction, are recycled; nothing is destroyed for this art. Added to this are Chen's political concerns: book burning occurred in historical China as well as in the West. Chen brings attention to the fact that, in the history of both worlds, the power of the word as well as the fear of the written word coexist side by side. Chen has exhibited widely, in the United States, Germany, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. He has received many prizes, awards and international grants. In 1987 he received the 12th Shih Hsiung New Artist Prize in Taipei, in 1995 he won a Prize in the Triennial of Small Scale Sculpture in Stuttgart, and in 1998 the Silver Prize of the Osaka Triennial in Osaka, Japan. He has participated in several exhibitions at the Frederieke Taylor gallery in New York (when it was known as the TZ'ART Gallery ) and will take part in the "Buddhism and Contemporary Art" exhibition at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, NY, this summer. Home | Exhibitions | Artists | Contacts Copyright © 2003 by Frederieke Taylor gallery