Love Hotel
Rice
10 x 6 x 3 in
25 x 15 x 7.5 cm
2012
Richard Humann • Love Hotel • Rice • 10 x 6 x 3 in • 2012
Much of the Korean culture is one strongly based on old tradition, formality and discretion. Yet throughout the country, in every city and village are “Love Hotels.” Many times these hotels are the tallest building in a small village, are always brightly lighted, and often with pulsating neon trimming its edges. In contrast, guests enter through a low-hanging entranceway that serves to hide cars during the arrival at check-in. The windows have shutters so that from the outside, day or night, the hotels always appear to be empty—which they never are.
For Love Hotel, Richard Humann casts a small monolith entirely from rice. Over the course of time, the rice monolith continues to dry and the interior undergoes structural changes. Eventually the exterior begins to show signs of the transformation in the form of cracking and fissures, as the rice also begins to yellow. Love Hotel speaks of a country, and an ancient society propelled into the modern world, and the metamorphosis it is undergoing from within.
Richard Humann • Love Hotel • Rice • 10 x 6 x 3 in • 2012
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Love Hotel was created during Richard Humann’s three-month-long artist residency at the Gyeonggi Creation Center on Daebudo, South Korea. It premiered at his solo exhibition, The Aesthetic of Lostness.
Photo credits: Rizwan Mirza / Richard Humann Studio