The Bondage Baggage Togi series is part of Maia Ruth Lee’s solo exhibition Language As Storage, on view at Picture Room from May 13 – July 31, 2022.
These ceramics connect to a previous series of Bondage Baggage sculptures which features large bundles secured with intricate configurations of ropes and knots for transport and security. The Bondage Baggage sculptures speak to migration, family, diaspora, labor, borders and self preservation, and are based on Lee’s documentation of real luggage at the Kathmandu International Airport in Nepal, where she grew up. In the Togi series, ceramic slabs are used as the canvas where Lee imprints the knotted husks of the luggage ropes, creating relics that are fired into fossils of the former sculptures.
Maia Ruth Lee is an artist born in Busan, South Korea. Select solo exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Eli Ping Frances Perkins and Jack Hanley Gallery in New York. Leeʼs upcoming 2022 exhibitions will take place at Francois Ghebaly (LA), Aspen Museum, Champ Lacombe (FR) and ICASF. Lee participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial 2019, CANADA gallery, Studio Museum 127, Salon 94 in New York, and Roberts & Tilton Gallery in Los Angeles. Lee was the recipient of the Gold Art Prize in 2021 and the Rema Hort Mann grant in 2017. Her work is held in the public collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She lives and works in Salida, Colorado.
Glazed stoneware
Approximately 8" diameter with D-ring mounting hooks on reverse
Unique
