Chinese Canadian artist Terence Koh show in Cool Hunting top 5 art shows 2008

BEST ART SHOW 2008

Terence Koh’s first New York show Flowers for Baudelaire was selected as one of the top 5 art shows of 2008 by Cool Hunting, a website which  ’attracts and inspires’ more than 250,000  readers from around the world with daily updates on  art, design and technology. It described the show as ‘delicate’ and ‘mesmerising’.

In keeping with a common Koh all-white trope, the studio has been turned into a smoky white room, the floor and walls gessoed into a white landscape of slopes eliminating the right angles of the room. After removing their shoes to enter the room, guests are treated to the “flowers,” gorgeous readymade canvases, simply constructed from corn syrup and powdered sugar. The results are sweet and mesmerizing in their simplicity, a delicate tribute to the French poet’s Les Fleurs du mal.

Cool Hunting

Terence Koh Flowers of Baudelaire

The show consists of 51 paintings of varying sizes created using titanium paint, corn syrup, and powdered sugar.  Curated by Vito Schnabel, a close friend of Koh’s and the son of the artist Julian Schnabel, the show was held at the home of Oliver Sarkozy, the half-brother of France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The artist maintained that the works were edible at the opening, even licking a painting in example though few of the guests such as Anna Wintour, Cynthia Rowley and Salman Rushdie ventured to taste the works. Others in attendance for the opening and after party were artists Dash Snow and Agatha Snow, Museum of Modern Art curator Klaus Biesenbach, gallerist Jeffrey Deitch, music mogul Lyor Cohen and photographer Todd Eberle. The Upper East side space, formerly the studio of late photographer Richard Avedon, was painted entirely white -floors, walls, and ceiling- as part of the display.

Art Observed

The Paintings at Terence Koh’s New Show Are Possibly Edible [NY Magazine]
Now Licking | Terence Koh [The Moment]
Terence Koh Revealed [Hint Mag]
Uptown Baby [Vmagazine]

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