Several sets of small scale fire escape ladders will be installed in Building 5a5b in Nolan Park on Governors Island. When viewers walk close to a ladder, a sensor is triggered and the ladder will move up and down at a slow pace. Each ladder has its own mechanic sound to impart a storyline of the City.
Opening from June 24 through July 24, 2015
Building 5a5b Nolan Park, Governors Island
Several sets of small scale fire escape ladders will be installed in Building 5a5b in Nolan Park on Governors Island. When viewers walk close to a ladder, a sensor is triggered and the ladder will move up and down at a slow pace. Each ladder has its own mechanic sound to impart a storyline of the City.
Artist SHYU Ruey-Shiann was fascinated by the fire escape ladders of New York City upon his arrival in New York. Wandering around the city, he could not help to notice that these fire escape ladders were ubiquitously mounted outside of the buildings, zigzagged and upright. They become unwittingly a decorative element for the buildings, apart from their original function as emergency exit. The iron fire escape is one of New York City’s distinguishing character, made conspicuous in classic films and television series. This kinetic sculpture, at once mobile and static, introduces a type of melody and rhythm to the landscape and claims a spot in one’s consciousness as unmistakably New York. Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan (R.O.C.) and Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York.
BIO
SHYU Ruey-Shiann is one of the pioneering artists in Taiwan’s contemporary kinetic art movement. In the first ten years of his art education, Shyu focused on academic western paintings and sculptures. In 1993, he began his studies at Aix-en-Provence Art College, in the south of France. His interest in man-made objects and mechanical movements in this period led the path to the exploration of non-traditional media and machine-oriented art. When he returned to Taiwan in 1997, endowed with hands-on knowledge of modern art and contemporary theory, kinetic art became the cornerstone of his creativity and the chosen language in expressing his visions on life, memory, and issues on social and political concerns.
Shyu’s work has appeared in museums and galleries worldwide, including The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung; Location One, New York; Stone Villa, Sydney; Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; Hong Kong Arts Center; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia; Eslite Art Gallery, Taipei; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Montbeliard, France; the Bronx Museum of the Arts; the ISE Foundation in New York. Currently, SHYU’s kinetic installation work Eight Drunken Immortals is exhibited at the White Rabbit Galley in Sydney and will travel to Long Beach Museum of Art in California. Shyu has received many awards such as the Taipei Award of Taipei Fine Arts Museum; the Creation Awards of Lee Chung Sheng Art Foundation; the Yageo Tech-Art Award of the Asian Cultural Council of New York.
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