Kah Bee Chow (SQUARE2)

Attempt

Kah Bee Chow’s video Attempt (2006) documents the artist playing the piano in her family home in Malaysia. The scene is set in the family’s living room where her father lounges on an armchair watching television with a drink at arm’s reach. Through a screen door, potted plants gently sway in the breeze emphasizing a sense of enclosure (although whether it’s comforting or stifling is unclear). We see the artist setting up the camera to play and see her taking up her place on the piano bench where she begins to play, her melodic tune underscoring the hyped voices of the advertisements and TV programmes. There is a sense of something strived for, but not quite realised in this work, both in the piano playing with its occasional missed notes, and in a daughter’s attempt to connect with her father going completely unnoticed. It is a scene familiar to so many of us, yet its ‘ordinariness’ does not diminish its poignancy.

Sarah Farrar

Kah Bee Chow artist bio:

Born 1980, Malaysia
Lives and works in Auckland

Bachelor of Visual Arts, AUT, Auckland

Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘Fallout’, Special Gallery, Auckland (2006); ‘Chow-Browne’, Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland (2005)

Selected group exhibitions include: ‘Turbulence, 3rd Auckland Triennial 2007’, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2007); 'Recovered Memory: The Fourth Goodman-Suter Contemporary Art Project', The Suter, Nelson (2006); ‘Mostly Harmless’, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth (2006); ‘SCAPE 2006 Biennial of Art in Public Space’, Christchurch (2006); 'The Bed You Lie In', Artspace, Auckland (2004); ‘Break Shift’, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2004); ‘New New Zealand Art’, MOP PROJECTS Gallery, Sydney (2004).

Image credits:

Kah Bee Chow
Stills from Attempt 2006
DVD
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland