Michael Joo: Sweat Models 1991-2026
Michael Joo, Saltiness of Greatness (detail), 1992, compressed salt blocks, engraved aluminum trays, steel, wood, polyethylene, synthetic sweat, 156 × 96 × 48 in. Private Collection. Photo: Tim Lloyd
For more than three decades, Michael Joo (b. 1966, Ithaca, NY; lives and works in New York City) has been making artwork that is informed by multiple disciplines, drawing from technology, science, architecture, environmental studies, and other systems of knowledge. This exhibition focuses on Joo’s early work from the 1990s, during which time his practice was directly informed by his undergraduate studies in biology. These works, many of which have not been exhibited for many years or are being realized only now, are inspired by the social and technological aspects of creative spaces such as the laboratory and the kitchen. Joo sees these spaces as similar to the artist’s studio: places where knowledge can be questioned, gained, and shared. His early works are built around modes of measurement and consumption to produce a sense of abstraction and distance through specific materials.
Joo’s 1990s works are partially informed by the major issues of the time, including the AIDS crisis and the mass adoption of information technology. The featured works concern the human body and its vulnerabilities without explicitly depicting the body. The body is described and measured to its benefit and detriment; the range of human senses is alluded to through materials imbued with flavor or smell. Using industrial materials, research equipment, kitchen supplies, and synthetic sweat and tears that act as replenishable analogues for bodily fluids, Joo employs the rigor of scientific study to acknowledge the fragility of the body and the artifice of identity construction. Through these works, Joo seeks to present the body—and more broadly, society—as a kind of “shimmer,” something that moves too fast to fully measure and with more depth and dimension than can be comprehended. This exhibition is organized by guest curator Christopher Y. Lew for C/O: Curatorial Office.
Michael Joo, Slanty, 1992, aluminum, sandblasted text, synthetic tears, 24 x 60 x 60 in. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging
Michael Joo, Saltiness of Greatness (detail), 1992, compressed salt blocks, engraved aluminum trays, steel, wood, polyethylene, synthetic sweat, 156 × 96 × 48 in. Private Collection. Photo: Tim Lloyd