Danh Vo
2018
Wooden table
Table (design by Enzo Mari): 27 x 114 x 75 cm
Winsing Arts Collection
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Danh Vo
2018
Wooden table
Table (design by Enzo Mari): 27 x 114 x 75 cm
Winsing Arts Collection
The 1,600 pink candles were made by artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico. To fabricate the candles, the wax was left in the sun for a few days to bleach its natural yellow color and then dyed with different concentrations of carmines. The work looks into the interaction between materials and environment, while the change of time implies the history of carmines. These pink candles would burn themselves out, a visual metaphor for the fragility of material history.
Carmines are made from cochineal insects, which originated in Mexico and Central and South America, and were introduced into Europe in the 14th-15th century when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. At that time, the Spanish found that cochineal insects could be crushed and filtered to produce such beautiful and bloody crimson pigments, which became the reddest dye at that time and was extremely expensive. The Spanish kept the secret for more than 200 years before others found out how to make it. This artwork ponders on colonization, globalization, and the redefinition of objects when they are moved from one environment to another.
