Braid Cabinet
Shih Yung-Chun
時永駿
Production date
2019
Object Detail
Media
plastic, wood, glass, metal, ceramic, wool, yarn, wigs
Measurements
cabinet 186.5 x 123 x 58 cm
installed 213 x 123 x 65 cm
installed 213 x 123 x 65 cm
Notes
At the start of 2018, immobilised by a broken foot and unable to paint, multi-disciplinary artist Shih Yung-Chun began to write a novel centred on the house and studio where he had lived for the past eight years, titled in English ‘Pre-construction’. His interest in magical realism, fantasy and whimsy is evident in his writing and in the works that then developed from the novel when he recovered. Shih sees his installations and paintings as two interdependent halves of a whole: his unusual practice in the works held in the White Rabbit Collection has been to set up and photograph elaborate installations of found and made objects before photographing them in order to create highly realistic oil paintings. This vintage cabinet, once a shop fitting that displayed snacks in an old-school Taiwanese grocery store, reminded the artist of the display window of a wig shop he had seen on the street. He says, ‘Therefore, when I wrote ‘the lady who loves woollen yarns’ for the novel, I naturally put the inspiration of this cabinet in the story. I also like woollen yarns.’ The end result is both comical and macabre, as if the hair on these disembodied heads had continued to grow. Staring out of their glass prison, the animal and human faces resemble creatures from a fairy-tale who have been transformed by an evil spell.
Accession number
2019.055