The Animagnetism of Terence Koh

Photo by Dietmar Busse

In person Koh is excessive and gaudy, often arriving at parties wearing nothing but sunglasses, Balenciaga tights, and an oversized fur wrap (goatskin, some say) draped over his sinewy shoulders. He’s usually surrounded by an entourage of gay twinkie-types who coo over him while he holds court in some dark corner of the room. He’s not afraid to extend a kiss when he meets someone he likes. And it’s taken as a compliment when he comments on what you’re wearing, regardless of what he actually says.

His own flashy outfits aside, his sunken eyes and heroin-chic frame don’t make him particularly striking, but what he lacks in stature, he makes up for in confidence. Asked why his work provokes such a strong response, Koh scoffs. “Please,” he says. “Just because I am beautiful and can get away with it.”

Photo courtesy of Peres Los Angeles Berlin

Koh takes photographs and makes paintings. But recently he’s been fashioning strange objects, building installations, and producing multimedia performances. Some pieces are in the minimalist vein, like his first show in Los Angeles, where he painted an entire room white and filled it with two albino parakeets. Other pieces are jarring and complex, making use of human hair, blood, and even his semen. Most of the work involves pornographic sensibilities, though there are traces of medieval art, neo-realism, and graffiti as well. The motifs are ever changing and the work unpredictable. Koh does whatever he feels like doing, whenever he feels like doing it, all the while holding his audience in the palm of his hand. That is to say, he is a man who constantly gets bored but never fails to get attention.

“Just because I’m beautiful and can get away with it.”

Terence Koh begins our conversation with a terse declaration: “YOU’RE ASIAN LIKE ME!” he writes, in all caps. “I LOVE TALKING TO ASIANS THE MOSTEST.”

Uninhibited with friends but notoriously press-shy, Koh has agreed to an email exchange, provided I send over all the questions at once and not rush him to respond. I finally hear from him two weeks later. “HERE ARE MY ANSWERS,” Koh writes from his Mac. He signs off with the word “HUGS” and then simply, “T.”

As I navigate my way through his responses, I can’t help but wonder which Terence Koh I am going to get. He’s been called everything from a pervert to a genius. The reality is Koh falls somewhere in between.

Though most reports list his place of birth as Beijing, Koh claims he was actually born in Malaysia, moving to Canada when he was 8. As the story goes, he was adopted by a French-Canadian family that shuffled around homes in Montreal before settling in Vancouver when Koh was a teenager. These days, he splits his time between New York and Los Angeles, though he recently did a stint in Germany as well. Koh’s age has been pegged anywhere from 27 to 36, and he could probably pass for either end of the spectrum. In self-portraits found on his website, he resembles a little boy at the height of puberty. In other photographs, he’s weathered and beaten down, his face revealing weary eyes and fine lines.

According to Koh, his parents were both artists and encouraged him in his creative pursuits. After receiving a degree in architecture from the University of Waterloo, he attended graduate school in Vancouver, before landing a job with architect Zaha Hadid in London. A few years later, he left Hadid to go work for himself.

Though he says he can’t recall his “breakthrough” moment, critics will tell you that it was that first show in Los Angeles in 2003. Famed collector Javier Peres offered the opening slot in his new gallery to Koh, then a New-York-based artist known more for his perverse website than his freeform art. The show was considered a small success, though the bewilderment over the artist’s unconventional methods generated more buzz than the installation itself. Soon everyone wanted to know who Terence Koh was.

On the strength of his showing at Peres, Koh booked two gigs in Europe and scored a coveted slot at the Whitney Biennial in 2004. Blogs lit up with talk of the eccentric free-spirit, who was pushing modern art into a new dimension. Magazines declared Koh a “young artist to watch,” and gossip column Page Six even proclaimed the New York art world “gaga” over his work. It wasn’t long before private collectors and gallery owners came calling.

Last year, Koh was invited to build an installation at the Whitney. He affixed a 4,000-watt movie floodlight to a white tripod and sent a beam of light cascading into the museum lobby. It was at once magical and perplexing, trapping visitors in an otherworldly portal and casting them aglow. It was an enormous hit, appealing to both critics and hipsters alike, and it garnered him a slew of opportunities and a surprising new group of fans. Just the other week, Martha Stewart was overheard talking about Koh’s avant-garde pieces at the New Museum. “They are definitely worth seeing,” she said to a friend.

Koh seems blasé about his success. “I hate everything I do,” he says. He’s equally vague when asked about his work process. “I always read a poem as the first thing I do when I wake up,” he offers. “That is all you need.”

Until recently, Koh says his proudest accomplishment was being chosen to show at the Whitney. But he says he was recently asked to design a handbag for Versace and that has become his favorite project. The collaboration is set to be unveiled later this year. Though no prices have been announced, it’s safe to say fans of Koh’s work will be willing to shell out for the collection, as recent reports have listed six-figure price tags for many of Koh’s pieces. And though much of his work is perishable—how long does feces last, anyway?—buyers are lining up to bid on his work. Conservative estimates have put his earnings at well over one million dollars a year.

Part of the challenge in understanding Koh’s work is trying to decipher his intentions. He rarely explains what he does, nor does he talk about the meaning behind his work. Viewers are often left reading an artist statement that’s been prepared by the gallery owner or curator, and Koh is happy to let it be.

Still, critics have been quick to try and categorize the work. The Village Voice described his Whitney exhibition has having “weird Marxist dashes of alienation and disassociation.” The New York Times wondered if it had anything to do with fame or race, “by virtue of the white light,” though the same reviewer ultimately proclaimed the work annoying and called it “all light but no heat.” When asked about his style and the themes behind his work, Koh will only describe his work as being “like a pomegranate,” adding “I try to be universal.” Then he moves on to the next question.

From this vantage point, Koh’s work is both calculated and random. The “Big White Cock” piece speaks to issues of culture and sexuality. The Chinese word for “chicken” can be used as slang to describe a prostitute, but the actual neon sign itself could just as easily denote a fast-food chain. Similarly, the “cokehead” bust could be a treatise about excess and indulgence. And the light installation at the Whitney could indeed be a commentary on race relations. Or it could just be a bright light in a room.

Later, Koh emails me with another answer. “Canada completely influenced everything I make,” he says. “I am influenced by the silence of Canada; of wolves walking in the snow, moose crossing rivers in the moon, [and] beavers swimming in ice cold rivers under a sea of red maple leaves. It is the most beautiful country of the mind in the world.”

It is the longest response that Koh provides. Subsequent emails are filled with one-word answers and non-sequiturs. Where do your ideas come from? “Shopping.” What pisses you off? “Piss.” Who are you trying to reach with your work? “WILD RABBITS OF THE WORLD UNITE!”

“Wild Rabbits of the World Unite!!!!”

Many critics have labeled Koh as nothing more than a shock artist; someone with no intentions other than to push the boundaries of reception and taste. When questioned, Koh is surprisingly articulate and defensive. “I don’t think art functions like that today anymore,” he says. “It’s not that we no longer have boundaries to push. It’s just that in our moment today, we all know what the horizon is.”

The horizon looks bright for Koh. In addition to his solo work, he is busy promoting the Asia Song Society (ASS), a Warhol-style gathering of young artists and musicians. He’s also resumed regular posts on his website, after a brief retirement of the “asianpunkboy” moniker (“He’s an old friend I thought I lost but he came back to surprise me a month ago,” Koh says).

As he says this, the mystery that is Terence Koh continues to deepen. It’s not clear where the line is drawn, separating artist from art. And perhaps that’s exactly the point. What Koh wants you to know about him is nothing at all. The monikers, the photographs, the sculptures, all serve as mere foils for a fictionalized character rather than providing glimpses into his soul.

Maybe then, the thing to take away from Koh’s work is not his use of bodily fluids or his perverse metaphors or even his unorthodox technique. Rather, it is an appreciation of his bold attempts to be inventive and a realization that the life he is living is perhaps his ultimate art piece. By being loud but not telling, clever but immature, Koh has managed to capture the collective attention of the art world without pandering to its whims. He’s managed to create an entire career out of being explicit and invited thousands of people to see him in the nude, without ever really exposing a thing.