Terence Koh takes a break while walking around salt pyramid on his knees at Mary Boone Gallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Mary Boone Gallery
541 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through March 19, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-397-0669
www.maryboonegallery.com
www.asianpunkboy.com
nothingtoodoo slideshow
Born in Beijing and raised in China, Terence Koh has staged such events as “Buddha Fly Earth,” in which he marched through Chinatown covered in a red sheet, “The Voyage of Lady Midnight Snowdrops Through Double Star Death,” a musical experience by the Kohbunny Beiijing Opera Company, and “Koh & 50 Most Beautiful Boy,” in which the artist formerly known as Asian Punk Boy performed in an all-white Peres Projects space in Los Angeles with a white sheet over his head, accompanied by a young white man banging away at a white drum kit. For his latest installation, “nothingtoodoo,” now in its final week at Mary Boone, Koh has been slowly circling a forty-seven-ton, eight-foot-high, twenty-four-foot-wide mound of salt eight hours a day, five days a week since February 12. Dressed in white pajama-like clothing, Koh makes his way around the salt on his knees, occasionally stopping to lie down flat on his stomach before continuing. His eyes staring straight ahead, the emotionless and silent Koh appears to be deep in meditation and prayer, a call for peace throughout the world. One press release offers a reason why he’s doing this to his knees: “dear friend / peace iz non-violence / peace is now / a perfect mountain of salt at the beginning of the show / a perfect field of salt at the end of the show / peace iz nothingtoodoo.” The floors and walls of the gallery have been turned white as well; be warned that if you lean against the wall, you’ll get covered in a white dust. Visitors are allowed to interact with the installation, which recalls the work of Marina Abramovic and Tehching Hsieh. Try not to view the piece merely as spectacle, getting in Koh’s face with your camera or blocking his path; instead, hang back, sit on the floor, and let yourself be taken away by his intense, mesmerizing concentration and dedication, allowing your mind to wander where it may.
Takashi Miike, who about ten few years ago had New York filmgoers rushing to Film Forum to see Audition — and then rushing to get out because of the violent torture scenes — did it again with Ichi the Killer, a faithful adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto’s hit manga. When Boss Anjo goes missing while beating the hell out of a prostitute, his gang, led by Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), a multipierced blond sadomasochist, tries to find him by threatening and torturing members of other gangs. As the violence continues to grow — including faces torn and sliced off, numerous decapitations, innards splattered on walls and ceilings, body parts cut off, and self-mutilation — the killer turns out to be a young man named Ichi (Nao Omori), whose memory of a long-ago brutal rape turns him into a costumed avenger, crying like a baby as he leaves bloody mess after bloody mess on his mission to rid the world of bullies. This psychosexual S&M gorefest, which is certainly not for the squeamish, comes courtesy of the endlessly imaginative Miike, who trained with master filmmaker Shohei Imamura and seems to love really sharp objects. The excellent — and brave — cast also includes directors Sabu and Shinya Tsukamoto and Hong Kong starlet Alien Sun. The film is screening as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Shinjuku Outlaw: 13 from Takashi Miike,” being held March 16-20 in conjunction with Subway Cinema and also including such Miike films as Fudoh: The New Generation (1996), Agitator (2001), Crows Zero II (2009), and the awesome new 13 Assassins (2010). Miike was originally scheduled to appear at the Walter Reade Theater to introduce several screenings but has had to cancel because of the catastrophic events occurring in Japan.
