Asia

Pak Sheung Chuen

New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP)

2008

Sheung-Chuen Pak created New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP) during a residency in New York, using public libraries as exhibition spaces and the books they house as raw materials. One of the nine parts of this work is Page 22 (Half Folded Library), a site-specific installation for which Pak covertly folded dog-ears on page 22 of every second book (a total of approximately 15,500 books) in the 58th Street Branch Library in Manhattan. By claiming it as a “solo exhibition,” Pak intentionally turned a public institution into a private and personal museum where his works are more or less a “permanent collection.” Being open-ended as far as further interpretation (or not) by readers who encounter the folded pages, the project tests the political and social potential of personal gestures in the public realm. It is also an ironic commentary on the increasingly self-estranged yet narcissistic art world.

Pak Sheung Chuen’s practice can be described as immaterial, everyday, process-based, and collaborative. Without producing additional objects, Pak’s projects usually start with a familiar but not necessarily acknowledged idea. However, they go beyond a conceptual gesture. Through repetition and continuously anonymous intervention, the idea gradually starts to take form and infiltrates into the surroundings, leaving subtle traces. Although never visually spectacular, Pak’s projects reconfigure a personal system that involves bodily actions and effectively challenges the existing societal logic and commodity-based culture.

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Pak Sheung Chuen New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP)

Pak Sheung Chuen

New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP)