Before this year, it might have seemed like Michael Joo was hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n
The multimedia artist, who might be best considered a conceptual sculptor and installation maker, has been a respected figure on the New York art scene for 30 years, just under fame\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n
But now \u2014 with a recent solo exhibition in New York; a presence at this week\u2019s fair Frieze New York; a 2025 work on view at Google\u2019s Gradient Canopy campus;<\/a> a group show<\/a> appearance coming up at Hauser & Wirth Menorca this summer; and, most significantly, two pieces at the just-opened Venice Biennale \u2014 any hint of hiding is over.<\/p>\n James Rondeau, the president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, said in an email that he was thrilled to see Joo \u201cgain the recognition he has long deserved\u201d \u2014 and his museum does not even have any of Joo\u2019s works in its collection. He is just a fan.<\/p>\n In his Bushwick studio at the end of March (he has multiple New York spaces and one in Seoul), Joo talked about his process and his works, which were often animated by hard data and science; it is not a surprise that both his parents were agricultural scientists.<\/p>\n Joo, 60, said that his works were at once \u201canchored by some kind of physical identity or material\u201d but also \u201clifting off the ground and aspiring to go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n The works have layer upon layer of complexity as far as how they are made \u2014 sometimes it is hard to keep all the inputs straight \u2014 but the resulting pieces always have an intriguing presence that invites the viewer to pause first, and then consider. They take a moment to digest.<\/p>\n Both his pieces in the invited group exhibition at the Venice Biennale \u2014 \u201cIn Minor Keys,\u201d running until Nov. 22 \u2014 have a strong grounding in nature, the environment and science.<\/p>\n One, \u201cThat Which Evaporates All Around Us,\u201d is like a huge Calder mobile merged with a multi-arm, scales-of-justice form; the hanging platforms are made of ancient fossil slabs (some 400 million years old). The piece moves slightly from its own weight and produces sound, too. Joo has been collecting fossils since he was a child.<\/p>\n In his proposal for the work, Joo wrote that it \u201cbridges geologic and human histories, resonating with Venice\u2019s layered identity shaped by water, migration, trade and shifting territories.\u201d (Joo was selected by the curator Koyo Kouoh, who died last year.)<\/p>\n The other work, \u201cNoospheres (OG:GR Venice),\u201d builds on a long-term project of Joo\u2019s, \u201cOrganic Growth: Crystal Reef,\u201d and this iteration has images of reefs on LED screens and some coral-like sculptures.<\/p>\n Among its ingredients and methods it manages to combine A.I., the blockchain, 3-D printing, marine research and a collaboration with some 10,000 users from Discord \u2014 a typical stew of complexity for Joo.<\/p>\n \u201cNoosphere\u201d refers to the philosophical-scientific idea of a \u201cring or encompassing layer of thought and communication,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Joo said both works fit with the \u201cminor key” theme, hitting notes that evoked \u201cnot the overt melody, but tone and flavor, and the humanism within structure.\u201d<\/p>\n For artists, exploring the theme of humanism often involves depicting the figure. Much of Joo\u2019s art has evoked the body, but usually indirectly, as seen in his show earlier this year at Space ZeroOne in Manhattan, a nonprofit exhibition space run by the Hanwha Foundation of Culture.<\/p>\n Bodily fluids were everywhere. More than one work involved a concoction he calls \u201csynthetic sweat,\u201d and stacks of salt blocks referred to sweat elsewhere.<\/p>\n