Art in the Age of Truthiness

A new exhibit at the Target Gallery at the MIA addresses how current technology effects how we see truth and sort through reality.

The exhibition title truthiness comes from a comedic segment of The Colbert Report where Stephen Colbert indirectly bashes president Bush's decision to invade Iraq.  The exhibition focuses on new forms of media such as second life and video chatting.  The show asks questions about how we take in information and how we believe what we believe.  One piece graphically shows an artist who fakes his death and shows it on a video chatroom and the piece shows the reaction of the viewers.

Most people don't believe what is on the internet, yet the show describes, especially with the pieces from second life, how we want to believe what is on the internet and the computer.  Most of the pieces try to blur the distinction between fiction and reality.

The show is up until June 9th, 2013.

Chun Kwang Young

South Korean artist Chun Kwang Young creates art that embodies an argument about tradition and new technologies.  Although his art doesn't literally showcase some of the technologies, or any of the technologies, that are part of our contemporary world, he does bring up discourse between the different medias of the ages.  His website showcases all of his work.

Chun has spent his recent art career, the 90s till present, exploring the transformation of ideas and arguments.  He creates thousands--and I mean literally thousands and thousands, of Styrofoam triangles of various sizes that he wraps in traditional Korean mulberry paper.  The paper was used extensively in the literary world of Korea for all of the modern era.  Books, newspapers, posters, food wrap, etc, are all things that mulberry paper was used for.  Chun takes these old papers that he collects and forms them into medicine packages--the triangles.  He then takes these triangles and makes surfaces out of them.  He makes weird lunar and extraterrestrial surfaces.  The alien and hostel surfaces of his artwork create a dialogue that suggests something futuristic and progressive, contrasting the tone and ideas of the mulberry paper.

Chun is an artist that is rooted in tradition but is being pulled and changed by our contemporary society.  He ask questions about whether or not this is good or bad.  He wants to understand the implications of our society and remind us of the great traditions we come from, while also being excited about the future and the different ideas that can be provoked from it.