Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
To apply to the Registry, click here. Join our mailing list here to receive our open call announcement and other programming updates. For any further questions about the Registry, please contact us at registry@whitecolumns.org.
Videos
Forbidden City
2022Integrating the traditional Chinese paper cutting medium with digital animation techniques, Forbidden City evokes an air that is uniquely thought-provoking. The dynamics between the imagery and sentiments of the atmosphere call upon the audience to contemplate about the sociocultural position of the individual in contemporary China. The scene is set in the interior of an antique tea-house near the Forbidden City in Beijing, where a cup of tea casts its mist into sun-lit space. A window serves as a major element both in the visual composition and in the poetic construction of the work; it is a metaphor of the boundary between one’s social surroundings and introspective world. The nearest panel is adorned with an inversed Prosperity (福) ideogram, a popular traditional Chinese decorative motif that both calls for and celebrates golden times. This emblem of optimism, however, proves itself to be no more than a flimsy facade. As serene as the atmosphere appears to be, a less veneer and much grimmer layer of reality is revealed when the ideogram falls apart. Towards the end of the film, the blood-red substance left from the calamitous vision becomes condensed into steam once again while the Prosperity motif is set back in place. An apparent tranquility reigns over the setting once more and the unnerving truth is removed from sight.
Added on: June 29, 2024
The Butterfly Lovers
2021Reinterpreting Asian folktales and traditional operas, The Butterfly Lovers visualizes the psychological isolation, family separation and spiritual struggle with a hyper commercial environment that have been experienced by Asian immigrants. The characters, emerging in traditional Chinese opera costumes, roam through empty Times Square, a desolate shopping center and subway rail in New York City. The female falls into the dream realm and ascends to the sky above the metropolis, while the male character, carrying two toddlers with a shoulder pole, appears walking into the air through a bridge formed by kind-hearted magpies… when the music turns more vibrant, the characters are back to Times Square with fireworks bursting out and coalescing into the flow of vivid color and patterns embodying revivals. Composed of a series of oil paintings on paper, the animated film starts from the depiction of the rootlessness of Asian diaspora, before morphing into transitions in life, resilience and hope.
Added on: June 29, 2024