Tag: David Khang

Canada
www.davidkhang.com

David Khang’s work is informed by previous educational backgrounds in psychology, theology, and dentistry. In recent works, he uses ‘things’ foreign to the human body—live butterflies, extracted wisdom teeth, raw beef tongue—as prosthetics to “perform” language. Khang received his BFA from Emily Carr Institute (2000), and MFA with Emphasis in Critical Theory from the University of California, Irvine (2004). Khang currently lives and works in Vancouver, where he is a Sessional Faculty at the Emily Carr Institute. He is a 2006-07 recipient of the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art.

ARTISTS
Coco Rico
David Khang
Irene Loughlin
Juan “Cheto” Castellano
Nao Bustamente
Natalie Loveless
Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa

Curated by Lissette Olivares

Grotesques must be thought of as a site of experimentation, where risk is a seductive ally that pries open the aperture for possibility. In this collective exhibition, the grotesque is invoked as a realm of mutative, transitional, and transgressive potentiality. Employing a range of taboo materials, themes, and forms, the artists move beyond the expected, searching for unconventional ways into the audience’s sensorium. Through symbolic inversion, this group of artist-agents emphasize a return of the repressed, amplifying contemporary political issues that exist within our everyday experience.

Co-presented by A Space Gallery and FADO Performance Art Centre

PERFORMANCES
February 23 | 6:30pm

Untitled by David Khang
White Slavery in Toronto by Naufus Ramirez Figueroa
Mythical Grotesques by Irene Loughlin
Pies con Barro and Muddied Feet by Cheto Castellano
Given over to Want by Nao Bustamante

Lissette Olivares is a theorist, critic and curator. As a cultural diplomat she promotes avant-garde practices and the careers of marginal artists; her PhD analyzes cultural resistance during Chile’s dictatorship.

FADO is pleased to present Vancouver-based artist David Khang new performance, Phalogocentrix. Co-sponsored by Vtape and the Images Festival.

Phalogocentrix is a performance about language and the way it forms and informs our culture. Vancouver-based artist David Khang interrogates constructions and performativity of language that is at once gendered (phallocentric) and culturally specific (logocentric). Part calligraphy, part yoga, and part breakdancing, this syncretic ritual explores African and Asian cultural connectivities, within the theological context of a church. By bringing together traditional and contemporary cultural references, as well as trans-diasporic identities, this work is an attempt to further critical understanding of the relationships between race, gender, and language.

This performance was presented in FADO’s IDea series (2005–2007), curated by Paul Couillard.