 Tran T. Kim-Trang and Karl Mihail's public art installation Gene Genies Worldwide (1998) [shown right and below] created a seductive retail space for a fictitious company offering to custom design clients' genetic codes. Behind an immaculate red brick facade, Plexiglas display cases presented the various bio-related components of the installation with formality and great attention to aesthetics. One pristine display case contained a row of literary classics updated by the artists ("Eugenic America"; "Genetic Scarlet Letter"); a single text lay open to reveal grinning images of artists/providers peering into microscopes. Another display labeled "One Step Closer to God", a radiant light-box displayed eight dazzling close-ups of genetic elements that glistened like mineral samples. Another display held an offering of petri dishes arranged like purses in a boutique. Elsewhere, human and animal skulls were grouped against a satin backdrop --- and a mini DNA strand, a model of molecules, and a row of pristine test tubes completed the depiction of science as art and retail. The presentation, presided over by life-size images of the two scientist/artists, was an ironic evocation of a viable future scenario that raises provocative ethical, economic, and social issues. More recently, the artists produced The Creative Gene
Harvest Archive (1999), a display of hair samples from creative individuals, which was similarly presented in an austere laboratory-like display. Donors included James Watson, the biochemist who codiscovered the DNA double helix; Ian Wilmut, the embryologist who cloned "Dolly" the Sheep; Stanley R. Prusiner, the neurologist who discovered prions; Mary-Claire King, the U.C. Berkeley professor who located the breast cancer gene; Damian Hurst, the vanguard British artist; I.M. Pei, the architect; and Jeremy Rifkin, the author of "The Biotech Revolution." The professed goal of these and all similar projects was "to be an incubator for cultural and scientific experiments, bringing in a new age of value production and commodity exchange."--Barbara Lee Williams, Leonardo/ISAST Awards Committee chairperson
Karl Mihail
6034 Compton Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90001 Tran T. Kim-Trang. 2820 Griffith Park, Blvd. #9. Los Angeles, CA 90027. tktran@igc.org |
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| past exhibitions |
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