In Practice: Covey Gong

Opening Reception
Tue, May 7, 2024, 6–8pm

Covey Gong’s work is attuned to “fluctuating relationships between material goods, passing from novelty to familiarity,” in the artist’s words. His recent sculpture has intricately taken stock of such transformations of the everyday via abstract metal armatures, disused fabrics, and extra lengths of thread. Building on an artistic interest in the life cycles of objects, Gong’s work at SculptureCenter expands to a broader perspective on global cultural artifacts and the transpositions of difference achieved through scenography, architecture, decoration, and the costumed body. His new sculptures take as their subject the 1924-26 Giacomo Puccini opera Turandot and the worldwide manifestations of its ornamented, imaginary imperial China over the last century.