Tattfoo Tan’s installation in a box. Click image to see it bigger (and to read the words).
The big box was very light weight, and when I opened it there it was — a kind of mail-art installation. A stack of industrial-sized coffee filters with a statement about PONDering set in the middle. The package came from Malaysian-born Staten Island artist Tattfoo Tan who has shown in Phiiladelphia at Peng Gallery and I suspected my gift box was announcing an upcoming show or event although the words didn’t tell me that.
So I hunted around and found that indeed, Tan is coming to Philly for a show at Peng June 2-July 16. Peng’s website says the artist will perform at the opening — a piece involving scrolls of fax paper (which is heat sensitive). He will apply a heat gun to the fax paper to create the new work. There will also be an installation on the floor using coffee filters — 100 bundles of them arranged like flowers on the surface of a pond. Tan is all about his, ours and everyone’s east-west connections and the materials here do a lot of the talking.
I loved the last show and am eager to see this one–especially the fax/heat gun performance, which sounds like the First Friday event next month.
