Poyen Wang: Endearing Insanity

Please join us for the opening of Poyen Wang: Endearing Insanity at Gallery 456 on Friday, February 24th, 2023, 5-7pm.

Endearing Insanity features Poyen Wang’s latest video work of the same title, a 9-minute film using 3D Computer graphics, alongside a series of still images derived from the film.

The centerpiece film is punctuated by mundane words of self-introduction, sensual but eerie bodily gestures, and dramatic sound effects, reflecting the longing for connection and the desire for visibility within a displaced environment.

The film takes place in a small apartment kitchen which references where the artist once lived in Brooklyn, New York. A seemingly ragged protagonist constrained in various enclosed spaces such as a cabinet, microwave, and sink, performs a monologue waiting for someone to visit. The spoken words are composed of found text from online message boards, hovering between sincerity and absurdity. A collage of sounds including liquid, wind, and drums suggests an unstable state and enhances the theatrical tension of everyday life.

Employing the genres of horror and erotica, Endearing Insanity navigates the threshold where sensuality and terror meet. By utilizing the sensual as a tool, the protagonist calls the viewer to enter their intimate realm, gaining agency in the displaced environment. The work embraces contradictory ideas, dissolving boundaries and oscillating between the seductive and the repellant, the private and the public, and the self and the other.

Gallery 456
456 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013
Elevator Accessible

Chinese American Arts Council’s Gallery 456 Visual Arts Exhibition Series is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.