Hung Hsuan: Properly Addressed
2024.3.2 - 2024.7.21 ｜ 1-2F, Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art
Introduction
Properly Addressed is an exhibition created by Hung Hsuan using construction materials and paintings on silk and paper. Through imbricating and revolving around these three aspects, the artist overlaps and unfurls the viewing of different mediums to delineate and properly address the cultural context that she has perceived. However, what does it mean to“properly address”? In this exhibition, Hung inquires into topics about identity and status, as well as specifications and standards. An example would be the inscribed board hanging in the gallery room, which reads“hong xuan,”just like the artist’s name but written in different Mandarin characters. Utilizing her signature approach comprising double engenders and semantic slippages, the installation serves as a lighthearted joke that greets the audience entering the exhibition.
I believe that names are magical. They connect two strangers, creating an entanglement between them. They also give things a certain contour. However, we often alter“names”as time or status changes—a love nest that was once filled with loving memories can instantaneously become a place that floods you with heart-breaking sadness. The once endearing appellations can also turn into the you-know-whos that shall not be named anymore. —Hung Hsuan
To Hung, the point about how to properly address does not lie in finding solutions, but is more importantly about how to avoid falling into irreversible paradigms. Consequently, she attempts to shatter the framework of artistic creation, and employs irrelevant methods to remove labels of taste inherited from the past to create the format and aesthetics characteristic of her own, hoping to break the ground in the current situation of art. The works featured in this exhibition are inspired by the artist’s observations of and thoughts about living. From mediums to methods of framing, her endeavor in making changes or experimenting for refinement can be detected. Through such effort, Hung has put into practice certain openness, building new connections between street objects, construction procedures, formats of calligraphy and ink painting, while extending and expanding our imagination of the material. Properly Addressed is perhaps more about“the improper”or the way of seeing things in a blurry manner, through which destabilization and questioning become possible to further prompt the audience’s reflection.
Artists' Profile
Hung Hsuan
Hung Hsuan (b. 1992 , Kaohsiung) received her BFA in 2015 and her MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts in 2018. She is currently based in Kaohsiung. Hung is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Selected Prize of the 2nd CTBC Painting Prize (2023), the First Prize of the Kaohsiung Award (2023), the Silver Prize of the TDCC Contemporary Arts Award (2022), the 7th Grand View Emerging Artists Award (2019), and the Selected Award of the Taipei Art Awards (2017). Her works have been included in the collections of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.
Hung has presented solo exhibitions at various art institutions in recent years, including the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art (Nantou, 2024), Red Gold Fine Art (Taipei, 2022), CANS Tea and Books House (Taipei, 2022). She has also been showcased in group exhibitions at various art institutions, among which are the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taipei, 2024), AKI Gallery (Taipei, 2023), Mind Set Art Center (Taipei, 2023), the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (2023), Our Museum of the National Taiwan University of Arts (New Taipei City, 2022), and Galerie Pierre (Taichung, 2022).
Hung works with painting on silk, industrial material, and paper. Fascinated with the Eastern imagery of ink painting, she began studying the space in two-dimensional painting on silk in college, combining ink, techniques of line drawing, Eastern gouache, and fluorescent paint made by herself to create silhouettes characterized by a fuzzy, semi-transparent quality. Sometimes, she also appropriates folk images and traditional symbols in her work. Gong Di Ju, featured in the Taipei Art Awards of 2017, on the other hand, differs from her previous works, and reveals an installation made of mixed media, such as architectural materials, to deal with the corresponding forms between traditional ink painting and construction process—for instance, painting scroll and caution tape, screen and construction site fences, etc. Since then, materials such as cement and bricks enter the artist’s creative horizon, which she has used to create works resembling a reception hall or a study. Transforming the literati imagination by incorporating the context of construction sites, Hung also reverses the conventional, standardized method of framing. In her work, she often embeds humorous semantic slippage, and plays with the device of double entendre, with the hope to reconsider the situation and position of traditional art of calligraphy and ink painting in this era, while formulating her response to and reinvention of the art.
Photos
-
Hung Hsuan│Discard the Weeds│2023│84.7 x 44.7 x 3.2 cm each│Ceramic tile, mortar, sealant, brick, wood
-
Hung Hsuan│Polished Edges (a set of 12 works)│2023│34.5 x 28.5 x 4 cm│Sandpaper
-
Hung Hsuan│Misty│2023│56 x 126 cm│Ink, mineral pigments, cotton thread, paper
-
Hung Hsuan│Longitude Erected│2024│190 x 96 x 30 cm│Ink and colors on silk
-
Hung Hsuan│Pious People│2021│131.5 x 152 cm│Ink and colors on silk│Private collection
-
Hung Hsuan│Ne Zha│2021│86 x 146 cm│Ink and colors on silk
-
Hung Hsuan│Her Sheen Sway│2020│31.5 x 31.5 cm│Ink and colors on silk
