Sopheap Pich


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sopheap Pich is widely considered to be Cambodia’s most internationally prominent contemporary artist. Born in Battambang, Cambodia, in 1971, he moved with his family to the United States in 1984. After receiving his BFA (University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1995) and MFA (The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1999), he returned to Cambodia in 2002, where he began working with local materials – bamboo, rattan, burlap, beeswax and earth pigments gathered from around Cambodia – to make sculptures inspired by bodily organs, vegetal forms, and abstract geometric structures. Pich’s childhood experiences during the genocidal conditions of late 1970s Cambodia had a lasting impact on his work, informing its themes of time, memory, and the body. His sculptures stand out for their subtlety and power, combining refinement of form with a visceral, emotive force.

In 2013, Pich presented a highly acclaimed solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, entitled Cambodian Rattan: The Sculptures of Sopheap Pich. The museum’s first solo show given to a contemporary Southeast Asian artist, the exhibition “can be regarded as a cameo retrospective, since its 10 works accurately reflect the range of the artist’s motifs from 2005 to late 2012,” according to Art in America. It included several large bio-morphic rattan sculptures which had been shown in the artist’s two previous solo exhibitions at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, The Pulse Within (2009) and Morning Glory (2011).  Also featured were works from Pich’s geometric series, Wall Reliefs, which were debuted in a room sized installation at Documenta (13) in Kassel, Germany (2012), and subsequently shown in Reliefs, his third exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art (2013). While using the same locally sourced materials seen in his earlier, more free-flowing works, Pich’s grid-based Wall Reliefs reflect the artist’s increasing interest in abstraction and conceptualization. They consist of bamboo grids covered with strips of burlap salvaged from used rice bags that had been patched by previous owners with old fabrics and colorful bits of plastic twine, with added layers of encaustic. Pich explains: “These grid works, reduced to their bare materials and shapes, represent for me a kind of distillation of emotion, of remembrance, of reflections on what has influenced me, or the places I have been.” Works from this series have been acquired by numerous major museums, including: the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and M+, Hong Kong.

For the 2017 Venice Biennale’s main exhibition Viva Arte Viva, Pich presented a new body of works on paper alongside a floor-standing sculpture. Each of these “drawings” was created by dipping a stick of bamboo in a mixture of earth pigments and gum Arabic, then repeatedly pressing it on watercolor paper. The passage of time is recorded as the ink slowly fades from the sticks after repeated pressings. A subtle tension exists between the precise linearity of the impressions of the sticks and the irregularities caused by the natural texture of the bamboo, variations in the surface of the work table, and changes in pressure of the artist’s hand. New, larger format works on paper were featured in Expanses (2018), the first of a two-part solo exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, where they were shown together with Ordeal, a large-scale sculpture recently exhibited at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. This was followed by The World Outside (2019), an exhibition of floor-standing and wall-hanging sculptures, mainly organic in form, that make use of a diverse array of natural materials, including goat hide, stone, antler, and naturally curved bamboo stalks, as well as Pich’s characteristic strips of rattan and bamboo. Each of the works in some way embodies a sense of a hidden mystery that is revealed through an intimate encounter with a physical object in the natural world. Recently on view at the National Gallery Singapore was Cargo, two shipping container sized sculptures that were included in the recent landmark global survey exhibition, Minimalism: Space.Light.Object.

COBO Social, Explore the “Exapanse” of Minimalism with Sopheap Pich

December, 2018


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The Straits Times, Art from Angkor Wat at Asian Civilisations Museum

April, 2018


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Orientations, Sopheap Pich: Inspirations and Reflections

January, 2018


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NBCDFW, Sopheap Pich’s ‘Rang Phnom Flower’ Flourishes at the Crow Collection of Asian Art

July, 2017


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Dallas Observer, Cambodian Artist Sopheap Pich Teaches Us the Language of His Giant Rattan Sculptures

July, 2017


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Fort Worth Business Press, Cambodia artist Sopheap Pich to display at the Crow Collection Of Asian Art

May, 2017


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Art Asia Pacific, Carpe Veneto: The 57th Venice Biennale & National Pavilions

May, 2017


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The Crow Collection Of Asian Art, Hidden Nature: Sopheap Pich

2017


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Sleek, Venice Biennale: 10 Artists Everyone Will Be Talking About and Why

February, 2017


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The Cambodia Daily Sopheap Pich

February, 2017


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The Phnom Penh Post, In the studio with Sopheap Pich

February, 2017


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Ackland Art Museum Press Release, Ackland Art Museum Reimagines – and Reinstalls – Galleries of Asian Art

December, 2016


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Bloomberg Brilliant Ideas: Sopheap Pich

December, 2016


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Art Asia Pacific, Animate Bodies of Work

March, 2016


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The New Yorker, Sopheap Pich

December, 2015


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Artinfo, Sopheap Pich’s “Structures” at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

November, 2015


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Art Basel Year 46

2015


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Art Loft, Why Southeast Asian Art Now?

December, 2014


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Sopheap Pich on Rattan, Sculpture, and Abstraction

April, 2014


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Indianapolis Museum of Art, A Contemporary Spring at the IMA

2014


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Sopheap Pich on Morning Glory as Food and Artwork

March, 2014


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Bird, Sopheap Pich

2014


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Art Asia Pacific, No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia

2014


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Blouin Art Info, Rattan to Revolutionary: “Collection+ Sopheap Pich” at SCAF Sydney

October, 2013


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ABC Radio Australia, Cambodian sculptor draws on rural influences in Australian exhibition

October, 2013


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Dojima River Biennale 2013

July, 2013


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The Boston Globe, Showcasing a continent’s art at Smith College

May, 2013


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The New York Times, Cambodian Rattan: The Sculptures of Sopheap Pich

May, 2013


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Art in America, Woven into History

May, 2013


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Time Out New York, Ten sculpture exhibitions you should see

May, 2013


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Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cambodian Rattan: The sculptures of Sopheap Pich

May, 2013


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Orientations, Cambodian Rattan: Memory and Place in the Art of Sopheap Pich

May, 2013


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The Economist, Out of adversity

April, 2013


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The Wall Street Journal, Cambodian Art Rises From the Ashes

April, 2013


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The New York Times, Dancing Well Is the Best Revenge

April, 2013


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Gallery Guide, Cambodian Rattan: The Sculptures of Sopheap Pich

April, 2013


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Asian Art Newspaper, Sopheap Pich

April, 2013


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The New Yorker, Metropolitan Museum

March, 2013


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Blouin Art Info, Asia-NYC

March, 2013


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Smith College Museum of Art – New Acquisitions

February, 2013


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Sculpture Now, Handmade

2013


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Documenta (13) The Guidebook

June, 2012


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Art Asia Pacific, Where I Work

May, 2012


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Invisible Cities exhibition at Mass MOCA

April, 2012


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Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, Of Trans(national) Subjects and Translation: The Art and Body Language of Sopheap Pich

2012


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The Seattle Times, Cambodian artist evokes tumult of his homeland

November, 2011


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The Stranger, A Weightless Series of Cages

November, 2011


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Compound at the Henry Art Gallery

November, 2011


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Meditation: Asian Art Biennial 2011 catalogue

November, 2011


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The Art Newspaper, The rebuilding of Cambodian art

October, 2011


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The Examiner, San Francisco, Modern ‘Buddha Presence’ at Asian Art Museum

September, 2011


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Sculpture, Sopheap Pich: Return to Cambodia

September, 2011


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Thailand Tatler, Woven Narrative

July, 2011


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Art Journal, Art without History? Southeast Asian Artists and Their Communities in the Face of Geography

July, 2011


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The Wall Street Journal – Icons, A River View Reshapes a Sculptor’s Work

April, 2011


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The Wall Street Journal – Scene Asia, A Dream Weaver Goes Global

April, 2011


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Artforum, Singapore Biennale 2011: Open House

April, 2011


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The New York Times, Definitions of Home at the Singapore Biennale

March, 2011


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The Wall Street Journal – Scene Asia, Open House at the Singapore Biennale

March, 2011


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Singapore Biennale 2011: Open House

March, 2011


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Treasures (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco magazine), Here/Not Here

January, 2011


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International Herald Tribune, Cambodian Art Emerges From Horrors of a Murderous Past

December, 2010


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Artforum, Best of 2010

December, 2010


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bob, Sopheap Pich

April, 2010


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Art News, Review of “The Pulse Within” at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

February, 2010


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Artforum, Sopheap Pich

February, 2010


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The Luxury channel, 8 Asian artists to watch

February, 2010


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Classic Contemporary: Contemporary Southeast Asian Art from the Singapore Art Museum Collection

January, 2010


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Art Asia Pacific, The Pulse Within

January, 2010


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Flash Art, Sopheap Pich

January, 2010


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Classic Contemporary Catalogue

January, 2010


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The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

December, 2009


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Truly Truthful exhibition (Miami)

December, 2009


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examiner.com, Sopheap Pich’s “The Pulse Within”

December, 2009


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Artforum.com, Sopheap Pich at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

December, 2009


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Dossier Journal, The Pulse Within – Sopheap Pich at Tyler Rollins

November, 2009


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The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Sopheap Pich

September, 2009


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Asia Art Archive, Interview with Sopheap Pich

April, 2009


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International Herald Tribune, A coming of age for Cambodian artists

March, 2009


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Sphere Asia, The New Weave

March, 2009


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C-Arts, Cambodian Art: Opening the Box

March, 2009


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Art Asia Pacific, Tidal, Sopheap Pich

March, 2008


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Strategies from Within

January, 2008


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Flash Art, Reviews: Sopheap Pich at the H Gallery in Bangkok

November, 2007


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World Sculpture News, Speaking To The Past And The Present

September, 2007


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Frieze, Sopheap Pich

September, 2007


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Real Time, New art, new Cambodia

April, 2006


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Art Asia Pacific, Sopheap Pich: Rotin/Pdow

March, 2005


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