An oneiric fascination with the terror and awe implicit to scientific discovery informs Yong Ho Ji's sculptural practice, for which the artist plays dual roles of skilled artisan and mad doctor. Meticulously layering cut strips of tire as the flesh for his "mutants," Yong Ho Ji models his creatures after endangered animals, mythological beings, and humanoids akin to his favorite superheroes. Underlying his unique brand of science fiction monster making is a startlingly specific, poetically lucid, ethical critique of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), based on his skepticism towards those "who seek to challenge nature by creating an entirely new form of life through modifying genes of animals, plants, and human beings." Scientifically speaking, Ji's mutants are emblematic of Darwin's evolutionary theory, which states that mutations may evolve species better adapted to their environments.

The pop icon images are tired and Warhol’s time capsules have had their fifteen minutes of fame. These boxes reek of stale superstardom, copies of copies that once shook institutions. These are a rehash, if not a reboot. Against all odds, we are taken back to where it all started, the 16th century European development that is the Wunderkummer - the cabinet of curiosities. These artist’s cabinets of curiosities - fragments of a culture he has lived in and within - consist of plaster casts of idiot boxes and soda bottles, and copies of popular culture at their kitschiest, packed together tight under the guiding principle of a personal aesthetic. In between the public spectacles are ritual boxes full of thingamajigs - from amulets, to feathers, to rice grain and dried up bladder, to betel nut - used for rituals of the Northern tribes of the Philippines.

Suzhou Art College, founded in September 1922, is one of the oldest art schools. It was founded by Suzhou painters Yan Wenliang, Hu Zhongzhong and Zhu Shijie. It is known as the "Three Masters of Surging waves".Yan Wen-liang, founder and principal, was born in 1893 and died in 1988 at the age of 95.During his stay in China, he purchased a large number of nearly 500 plaster models of famous sculptures.At that time, the school was in the society with strong feudal ideology in Suzhou, which was the first precedent for male and female students, which was a great event in the early 1920s...

In this exhibition Mythical Roots, Tapaya ventures as a bard, part Carlos Francisco, part Brenda Fajardo, that remembers and recounts the myths of creation: the great flood, the first woman, the primordial fire, the genesis of the banana plant, and other foundational fictions of the universe. And what makes Tapaya's work important and valuable is a certain flair in speaking to a folk aesthetic, which is not to be mistaken for a forced provincial, vernacular style. It might be part of his own humble sensibility, a particular homespun attitude toward the everyday life of his milieu as can be gleaned in a previous series.