Lot 450: Anne Chu , Guardian and House

signed and dated 1999 on the underside of the house cast iron and cast urethane, in 2 parts

measurements guardian: 29 1/2 by 14 1/2 by 10 1/4 in. 74.9 by 36.8 by 26 cm. alternate measurements house: 39 1/2 by 22 by 20 in. 100.3 by 55.9 by 50.8 cm.

New York, AC Project Room, Anne Chu , December 1999 - January 2000
North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Anne Chu , April - July 2005

Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Anne Chu�s sculpture borrows freely from the rich and varied traditions of art history with a fluidity of reference that implies a global and chronological breadth. Evoking the rituals of storytelling and mythology in the way she works, she combines forms from a range of sources from Tang Dynasty ceramics and Velázquez paintings to characters from eighteenth-century operas and Edgar Allan Poe. Her wide-ranging vocabulary of motifs is employed more for its capacity to trigger the imagination than for their particular references, and by reworking familiar forms in new and unconventional materials such as salt and sugar, her sculptures come across as both shockingly raw and old-fashioned whilst being assertively contemporary. They function like fissures between historical epochs and aesthetic categories providing an insightful commentary upon the outdated notions of culture, style and authenticity in today�s global village.