CHEN Long-Bin

(陳龍斌)

"Content in Forms" Long-Bin Chen's majestic works are inextricably tied to issues central to contemporary society: his sculptural forms are fashioned out of the cultural debris of our information society-discarded reading materials.  Through the skillful manipulation of a buzz-saw, out-of-date books, newspapers, magazines and computer paper are transformed into art works that from a distance look like wood or marble.  But his seemingly monumental forms are ironically built of paper, and on close inspection, the reading materials that fit together like the pieces of a puzzle can be dismantled to their original form.  Although the finish of the pieces is smooth and polished like stone, the sculptures can be riffled like a book and the printed texts and illustrations magically appear.  The content of the reading materials informs the works with various connotations.

On the most obvious level using recycled materials to make art is a commentary on the waste of human consumption and its attendant ecological problems of garbage disposal, the mindless destruction of forests, and by implication, the uncontrolled  eating up of nonrenewable resources.  But Chen also mourns the loss of books as aesthetic objects with their once luxurious leather binding, fine paper and beautiful typesetting.  Nearly obsolete, they have been replaced by mass-produced cheaply made paperbacks that disintegrate within a few years.  Books and the knowledge they contain have a totemic power for Chen.  It is not only the book as an object but the cult of literacy and its educational heritage that he treasures.  Born in Taiwan, Chen inherited the Chinese love of literature, a reverence for history, and the sacrality of the written word.  The political content of books is still an issue in his recent efforts. 

(1) Excerpts from Patricia Eichenbaum, Bard College, NY

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