2017 Babalogic in the Desert, Las Vegas, USA
The exhibit, "FIT: Babalogic in the Desert," appears through Sept. 1, 2017, in the Rotunda Gallery at the Clark County Government Center in downtown Las Vegas at 500 S. Grand Central Parkway. Laurens Tan is an Australian sculptor and transdisciplinary artist with works that consist of both 2D and 3D components. In "FIT: Babalogic in the Desert," his featured sculpture,`Babalogic Two', is modeled after the Tower of Babel and comments on the global problems of linguistic barriers and communication. As stated in the Bible, Babel was the first city to be built after the Great Flood; all of its citizens spoke one language. As punishment for attempting to build a tower high enough to reach heaven, God confounds their speech so they can no longer communicate with each other and scatters them throughout the globe. In each level of the tower are Chinese characters depicting the evolution of Mandarin as it was influenced by Western culture and language, allowing the artist to ask the following question to society: Has ongoing globalization brought a solution to the traditional language barrier? Tan's art practice is rooted in an idiosyncratic adaptation of language being a catwalk to different cultures. Born into a Dutch home in 1950, English became his second language when they migrated to Australia. An extended visit to China had the artist aspire to learn Mandarin, where he connected to his internationalism by experimenting with the letterform of Chinese characters as sculpture. His knowledge of Chinese comes out in his art, says Tan. And the linguistics element is a key to understanding Chinese Culture.” His work links sculpture, architectural and animated narrative space, graphics, industrial design, video and music, with 3D being a critical tool for his expression. Tan's current and recent work considers shifts in cultural identity, language and customs, and focuses primarily on the connection between design and culture. For more information, please visit ClarkCountyNV.gov.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Vo4_KCf_Q
2016
2015