Wednesday, May 9, 2012

A Topographic Type Town

Fascinating. Some people look at cold metal type and see words to print on paper. New York artist Hong Seon Jang looks at metal type and sees a miniature cityscape. Labyrinth, a current exhibition of Jang's installations is on view at the David B Gallery in Denver through June 16th. Among his contemporary works on display, Type City is Jang's sprawling metalopolis seaport made of tall lead type buildings and boulevards bisecting the city into a topographic and typographic landscape. With the patience of a skilled hand typesetter, he set the tall buildings of metal type upright so they are capped with individual letters. Long lead piers stretch out to the sea, and empty city blocks and sidewalks of spacing material frame the city center. Jang enjoys manipulating ordinary materials in order to create new contexts, and I'm quite happy to momentarily suspend my beliefs and go along for a ride to Type City with him. Next stop: Baskerville... 
::A hat tip to my good friend Bonnie for bringing Hong Seon Jang's exhibit to my attention. Click on images for greater detail.






3 comments:

  1. Oh how I love this. Thanks for a great post!

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  2. Your welcome MP!

    I still find it quite amazing as well.



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  3. You make everyone else look retarded!!!!

    WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL THESE YEARS!!!!

    I am dead serious. You read my mind like a Haiku. This is what I would pay a billion yen for. Really.

    I work in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and so already I am looking at the globe in a different way. I also shoot pool, maybe too much, but this involves various perspectives on spherical objects on a green felted plane. I have written a ton of poetry taken from these observations, and what you are doing, with your textures, your surfaces, your perspectives, is exactly in the same vein from where I draw inspiration.

    One of my favorite sayings is "Consider the Unconsidered." YOU HAVE DONE THAT AND THEN SOME. Get out to San Francisco...NOW!

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