Shirley Tse

Vital Organs is a temporary exhibition that features the work of L.A.-based artist, Shirley Tse. The Philip J. Steele Gallery is proud to host this first exhibition of the artist’s new series worldwide, as well as the first exhibition of Tse’s work in Colorado. Vital Organs examines the work of an artist who situates the contemporary individual in a world of advanced globalization and mass-production.

A selection of sculpture, photography, and video from the artist’s collection, Vital Organs spans the past decade of Tse’s career to her most recent work. In her earlier work, Tse weaves a personal narrative through her art in subtle ways, while referencing general topics from movement and globalization, to physics and mapping, to ethnicity and self-portraiture. Her new Vital Organs series (from which the exhibition takes its name) takes a critical look at manufactured materials and their relationship to the human body and contemporary society.

Tse uses materials that are man-made and mass-produced. The sculptures selected for this exhibition are composed of materials such as stryofoam, foam core, insulation foam, plastics of all types, resin, dirt, aluminum, and sulfur crystals. Tse’s deep understanding of our relationship to materials draws attention to neglected everyday objects, and also subtly raises critical sociopolitical issues about how we relate to and engage with the mass-produced materials that permeate our world, locally and globally.

Born in Hong Kong, Shirley Tse relocated to Los Angeles in 1992. Her sculpture, installation and photography explore the flexibility of materials—in particular, plastics—and their relationship to contemporary artistic, environmental and political conditions.

Her work has been exhibited at the 2002 Sydney Biennial, the 2002 Biennial Ceara America in Brazil, the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (MoMA) in New York City. Her work is profiled in the comprehensive overview of contemporary sculpture Sculpture Today (2007). She has been a member of the faculty in the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) since 2001.

All artwork in the exhibition is shown courtesy of the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery.

Opening Reception
Thursday, October 20, 2011
5 – 8 pm
Philip J. Steele Gallery

Public Lecture
Thursday, October 20, 2011
7 pm
Mary Harris Auditorium