스킵네비게이션

Robert ZHAO Renhui, Evidence of Things Not Seen, II, 2020, Mixed media, variable dimensions, on-going project

Commissioned by Busan Biennale 2020

Special thanks: Jacob FABRICIUS, Pooluna CHUNG, JiYeon SEONG, Jihyun WOO, Bongnae CHO

Music: Coda by George CHUA from the album, Evidence of Things Not Seen, 2006

Robert ZHAO Renhui works mainly with photography, but often adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, presenting images together with documents, objects and videos. His artistic practice investigates contemporary ecology and the problems confronting us in the Anthropocene, including species extinction. With their vivid colors and bold depictions, ZHAO’s work encourages us to look beneath the outward appearance to the underlying human-nature relationship. His aesthetic and poetic images critique the scientific methodology and order established by humans over millennia in order to objectify all non-human beings, and the fundamentally anthropocentric thought and knowledge systems that undergird such an approach. ZHAO’s A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World (2018) exposes the various ways in which human action and intervention are slowly altering the natural world. The diverse plants and animals featured in this book are as fantastic as their appearances are extraordinary: as fascinating and captivating as they are, these are all fictional creatures dreamed up by ZHAO. This catalog of exquisitely compiled images and texts invite us to pay closer attention to what we deem to be true.