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Terence Koh — These Decades that We Never Sleep
Terence Koh

These Decades that We Never Sleep

A ghostly white drum kit, encrusted with black wax, plaster, and organic matter, sits bound and entangled in thick maritime ropes, suggesting both ritual and ruin. Koh's addition of crushed insect parts, vegetable matter, and his own bodily fluids — blood and semen — transforms the work into a deeply personal and visceral relic, blurring the boundaries between the body, time, and decay. The piece pulses with a quiet, obsessive energy, evoking sleepless nights, mortality, and the haunting residue of lived experience.

Medium
drum kit, paint, ropes from a ship found after midnight, black wax, plaster, vegetable matter, crushed insect parts, artist’s blood and semen

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Under the Influence

December 10, 2014

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About this work

Terence Koh, These Decades that We Never Sleep

A ghostly white drum kit, encrusted with black wax, plaster, and organic matter, sits bound and entangled in thick maritime ropes, suggesting both ritual and ruin. Koh's addition of crushed insect parts, vegetable matter, and his own bodily fluids — blood and semen — transforms the work into a deeply personal and visceral relic, blurring the boundaries between the body, time, and decay. The piece pulses with a quiet, obsessive energy, evoking sleepless nights, mortality, and the haunting residue of lived experience.

Medium
drum kit, paint, ropes from a ship found after midnight, black wax, plaster, vegetable matter, crushed insect parts, artist’s blood and semen
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Dark And Macabre, Contemporary American Artist, Nocturnal Themes, Body Fluids, Male Artist, Avant-Garde, Black Monochromatic, Ritual And Ceremony, Installation Art, Organic Materials, Transgressive Art, Mixed Media Sculpture

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