art journalism

Pause, Rewind, “Play and Loop” at Blindspot Gallery

September 02, 2022

TT TAKEMOTO, Looking for Jiro, 2011, still from single-channel digital video with sound, performance, and found footage: 5 min 45 sec.

TT Takemoto’s Looking for Jiro (2011)

The spirit of queer seclusion and flamboyancy is prominent in TT Takemoto’s Looking for Jiro (2011), a performance video where Takemoto embodies fellow Japanese-American Jiro Onuma in drag. Onuma was a gay man incarcerated in an American concentration camp during the Second World War; in the beginning of the video is a text that reads “A Queer Meditation on Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II,” accompanied by a slowed down version of Madonna’s “Hung Up.”

Forsaking the usual trauma-based historical documentary, historical footage from the camps are layered against an upbeat mash-up of Madonna’s and ABBA’s hits. We then see Takemoto as Jiro jamming to ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” while cleaning the prison’s empty mess hall. Later scenes of Jiro performing his tasks in the camp are riddled with homoerotic questioning. For example, while baking, the protagonist performs rhythmic innuendos such as lubricating his arms with Crisco and inserting his fists into ready-made bread as pulsating muscular men flex in the background.

Interspersed with archival clips of the camps and old videos of men flexing their muscles, Jiro’s suggestive performance of his chores when no one is watching explores the hidden dimensions of incarcerated immigrants’ sexualities. Has queer sexuality been fully accepted and embraced since then? Certainly, the world has come a long way since the 1940s and ’50s in terms of queer acceptance, however Takemoto’s comically entertaining approach leaves viewers wondering about those who still jive solitude.

Source: https://artasiapacific.com/shows/pause-rewind-play-and-loop-at-blindspot-gallery

“Retrograde”: A Revival of Care

August 03, 2022

“Queer” is not just a signifier of one’s sexuality but also a way of thinking. Exploring this notion for the celebratory Pride Month, curator Cusson Cheng invited 11 local and international artists to participate in the LGBTQ-themed exhibition “Retrograde,” hosted by Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong. Instead of circulating the mainstream queer image, which boosts visibility often through performativity, Cheng chose a more subtle approach to reveal the sensibilities and injuries of the queer experience through works that blur the lines between nature and nurture, public and private.

At the entrance, Brooklyn-based artist Jes Fan’s wall-mounted installation Mother Is A Woman (Cream) (2019) comprises an unassuming tube of cream. Made from a cultured estrogen extraction from Fan’s mother’s urine sample, the cosmetic cream was applied onto the visitors during Fan’s previous show at Hong Kong’s Empty Gallery, as an attempt to explore the possibility of kinship formed between the visitors and Fan’s mother. Here, encased in an open silicone chest, the handmade cosmetic cream invited the visitors to delve into the idea of gender fluidity while affirming the mother’s own individual boundary. Alongside Fan’s work, Xu Guanyu’s Opened Closets (2019) from the Temporarily Censored Home series (2018– ) also negotiates personal boundaries within the family. The photograph features an array of magazine cutouts and printed pictures stuck around the bedroom of his family home in Beijing. Out of his urge to express his sexuality, Xu temporarily staged these printed materials across the domestic space during the absence of his family members, but he soon cleared them away after taking the photo. As a result, each photo exemplifies an intimate account experienced by members of the Asian queer community, whose childhood home is often infused with secrecy and apprehension. 

A shared and all-too-real circumstance of costly familial aspirations of success is comparable to Korean-American artist Rachel Youn’s kinetic installations, where artificial flowers are inserted into repurposed secondhand massagers. For example, Insatiable (2020) features crane flowers, spiraling from the massagers and clumsily bumping into one another, while in Punch-drunk (2022), two branches of mugunghwa, Korea’s national flower, constantly hit each other in a repetitive, intertwining dance. These awkward movements signal trials, errors, failures, and even trauma in the Korean family’s pursuit of the American dream, but by reviving these dysfunctional items, the installation is a rejection to conform. Akin to revealing the fallacies of societal expectations, Green Mok echoes a similar narrative in his series of photographs, Dancing in the dark: a certain time at certain places (2019–20), which positions a male nude in public spaces. In the fifth image, the man falls sideways into a spiral slide, evoking the image of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Through this naïve posture, exposed in the darkness of a public playground, the image delves into the sense of being squeezed into an illusory private space.

Demonstrating a perception of invasion through their subject matters, several works stressed on the neglect experienced by the marginalized members of queer communities. In Naraphat Sakarthornsap’s photography series Ignorant Bond (2017–19), native Thai flowers envelop themselves around common household goods, symbolizing the omnipresence of queerness in even the most unnoticeable corners. Walking across the gallery, one could not ignore the overwhelming scent from Floryan Varennes’s installations La Meute and Millefleurs (both 2020). Situated at the center of the show, the former’s transparent medical PVC armors suspended from the ceiling were coupled with the latter’s massive amount of French lavender seeds strewn across the floor. While lavender is known for its relaxative aroma and frequently seen in stress relief products, it irritates these senses in large quantities. The harsh scent inaudibly highlights how superficial, perfunctory types of “care” could perpetuate violence and silence the pain of others.  

Referencing the astrological concept of the seemingly backward planetary movement in the sky and the resulting period of chaos, the show “Retrograde” reminds us of the need to reflect on unresolved issues from the past and our upbringing. Through celebrating a queer way of thinking, “Retrograde” introduced an alternative perspective for us to pause and examine the pain and emotions drowned by mainstream smile-inducing imageries.

Source: https://artasiapacific.com/shows/retrograde-a-revival-of-care

Highlights at Art Basel Hong Kong 2022 

May 27, 2022

EBRU UYGUN, Untitled, 2022, mixed media on canvas, 138 × 100 cm. Courtesy the artist and Dirimart, Istanbul. 

ABHK’s private view on May 25 saw crowds of businessmen and women in smart or flamboyant attire flock to the HKCEC’s expansive first floor. At the booths of established local and international galleries placed in the center of the fair, crowds impatiently yearned to glance at and take selfies with the works of big names in the art world.

On the outskirts however, small booths carry less widely recognized artists. Presented by Istanbul’s Dirimart are the awe-inspiring works of Ebru Uygun, both carrying identical titles, Untitled (2022). These mixed-media-on-canvas pieces widened my eyes and halted my footsteps as I strolled through representational paintings and large sculptures. Indexing the artist’s gestures as she shifted plaster around the canvas, the paintings evoke chaos and destruction. Blackened and shattered roses and rubble litter the surface, where the artist crushed the elements with her feet. Although Uygun aims to explore materiality and form in her works, one can’t help but infer allusions to the political and socioeconomical conditions of Turkey, which reverberate with the state of Hong Kong.

Another artist who’s making noise is Gallerie Urs Meile Beijing’s Cao Yu. Art as a form of personal expression is taken literally with Cao, who used her own hair as threads to sew Chinese characters into the canvases of her two works Everything is Left Behind XI (2020) and Everything is Left Behind XII (2020). The diary-like entries describe boys poking fun at a girl for being stupid for getting hurt and feeling pain. Cao challenges gender stereotypes and the prejudices of Chinese society with her works, making her a must see in today’s tense climate. 

Source: https://artasiapacific.com/market/highlights-at-art-basel-hong-kong-2022

Color Change of Installation Sparks Controversy in the Philippines

May 11, 2022

On May 9, the Visual Arts and Museum Division (VAMD) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) released a statement on its official Facebook page in support of Jinggoy Buensuceso’s artistic intent to convert the color of the ribbons from red to pink for his installation KAINGIN (2022), currently displayed on the CCP’s front lawn. The post countered a previous address released on the CCP’s own Facebook page just two days prior, which had called the alteration an “unauthorized action” that violated election rules during the country’s 2022 presidential election, as the color pink is associated with the candidate Leni Robredo’s political campaign.

Backed by Chris Millado, vice president and artistic director of the CCP, VAMD’s latest statement clarifies that the change was made by the artist himself through a proposal, which has been approved by Millado. For his installation, Buensuceso transformed the front lawn of the CCP with over 1,000 sculpted bululs, which are figures made of molded fiberglass infused with soil, burned debris, and dust collected from areas in the Philippines that have encountered serious environmental strife. During their debut on April 30, the figures were intertwined by red ribbons, but a week later, the artist decided to convert the color to pink to celebrate “flame of renewal, hope, and love for Motherland,” according to his proposal. The statement also stresses on the “responsibility of curators and arts administrators . . . to defend [the artist’s freedom of expression] and ensure a safe space for artistic creation, development and appreciation.”

In an earlier Facebook post dated May 7 on the CCP’s official page, the Center proclaimed that it “disavows responsibility for the unauthorized action taken to deck the front with ribbons donning the color associated with one the presidential candidates” and accused it as a “blatant and brazen violation of election rules.” The CCP also stated that as a government institution, it “will never engage in any partisan activities specially during elections.”

While the artist did not express any political opinions, and the VAMD insisted that the change was “without prejudice to the election campaign,” the act led to speculations that it was made to support Robredo's campaign, since the ribbons were replaced on the last day of the arduous presidential election season in the Philippines.

Owned and controlled by the government, the CCP must adhere to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) under which civil servants are forbidden “to engage in electioneering and partisan political activity.” Acts that display materials designed to “support or oppose the election of any candidate or party” are therefore considered prohibited under the 1987 Constitution and other laws and statutes.

The color transition was executed on May 7 but was soon dismantled before midnight that same day “in keeping with the [Comission on Elections] rules,” said Buensuceso in a now-expired Instagram story. The installation, stripped of any ribbons, is on view on the CCP’s front lawn until May 30, 2022.

Source: https://artasiapacific.com/news/color-change-of-installation-sparks-controversy-in-the-philippines