MM Yu’s Thoughts Collected, Recollected challenges the boundaries between artwork and book, gallery and library. The work-a collection of photographs taken by the artist-is not installed on the walls of the gallery as expected. Rather , the artist has chosen the structure of books on a shelf, encouraging extended contemplation and exploration that only a library offers.
Each hand-made photographic book is thematic without text, the viewer is asked to engage with the images to construct a narrative and meaning.
Like sitting through a library one finds books on various subjects like, kodakan, the neighbor, beliefs, stories, itch, xs, pulling someone’s hair back among others. However, while each book tells a story, this extended library also pays homage to the long standing artistic tradition of self portraiture. Each book reveals a little more about the artist: what interests her, what amuses her, where she finds inspiration, how she works.
Thoughts Collected, Recollected asks the viewer to probe, to consider, to investigate and to participate.