Anyway...old Than down here is producing positive art. It was great that he and his wife were doing relief work in Burma after a cyclone hit the delta in 2008. The effect upon the viewer, well at least this viewer, is incredible!! The negative space versus positive space provides an interesting asymmetrical balance yet the final composition is harmonious. Also organic shapes of the bread and the hands and their texture almost makes one feel that you a re starving and being handed a very delicious loaf of fresh bread. Bread has sustained humans for centuries...very few people value that today.
I think his experience as a baker was directly involved with the continuity aspect of this installation piece. There are dozens of loaves of bread and as a baker he surely produced dozens of loaves of bread...perhaps a little analogy to Christ feeding the multitudes.
In the Air Force, we conducted dozens of humanitarian missions starting with the Berlin Airlift. (They actually air-dropped candy for German children in Berlin during the airlift. They were called "The Candy Bombers." I feel a personal kinship with Than Htay Maung...Here is his BIO quoted from the mattress factory website.
Oh...and below that is a youtube about the candy bombers...
"Than Htay Maung was born in 1958 in Pathien, Burma. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Khet Mar, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh's writer-in-residence. His installation work, created out of found materials, is politically charged commentary on news and its veracity and dissemination to the public. Whether making an installation about satellite news distribution in Burma or sending SOS bottles filled with commentary down the Irrawaddy River, Than Htay Maung’s work always asks the viewer to question what he or she believes to be the truth. He has previously exhibited in a Gestures exhibition at the Mattress Factory and in New York."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAbEQp1DgAg&feature=related
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