In the 'Twittering' series, the paradox on political issues in the past has receded. Due to the changes in the state of life, I suddenly realise that the problems I face in the past no longer exist. Structures and politics are becoming far more remote and subtle in my life. Relatively speaking, I can then face a true self and truly a self in authenticity. During the past ten years, I was hastily engaged in contemporary art. No matter what kind of splashes or how much ripples had been evoked when the works were thrown into the current of the contemporary art, I knew exactly what it was deep inside. Now, I hope this current of water is in the end still capable of accommodating a sailing boat or a drifting bottle, and in which harbours a souvenir of my own, and the state of mind could flow on and on along with the water. Therefore, I have to face the things and details that belie within the very truth of me.
Read MoreThe works presented this time is a turning over, dissolving 'pan-politicalisation,' which is my ultimate target. Today, there are too many contemporary art works intending to interpret a hypothetical goal, despite the various reasons employed to prove its rationality, yet it is beyond doubt that the initial creativity of art itself is lost, and the viewers have also lost the self discovery that accompanies with the act of perceptive behaviour. Resembling looking at a bamboo, we often only notice the result of the growth but ignore the long process of its growing, from a seed to a seedling and to a bamboo. Art goes the same way. In the past, when we look at art, we would probably notice its ultimate result and declaration, but the process of its growth, is often obliterated. I think, only 'experience' can enable one to perceive the temporality of the art work. I do hope the linguistic intricacies of the work itself can deliver a sense of the growing process, a rhythm or an aesthetic perception, etc., things that are aroused from within, to the viewers. Do not bother so much about the meaning of the work, instead one should concern more on its visual expression and the experience of such perception. This will give us a self-development sense of being.
Now, I feel like a bamboo shoot, and the feeling of self-development is very strong. The works embody an interior experience of self-existence, which is no longer the reaction aroused in the past in response to the outside world. Among the works, one is created on the subject of a bird. A bird’s expression is the most normal and primitive state, neither there is anger nor happiness, or expressions of traumatic extremities. Smoke and Twittering are all about the state of such lucid dreaminess. For a certain period, I became completely obsessed with this—a state of being alive is no longer felt—confronting with such a state, importance should be attached to the process of experience rather than the result.
Actually in this series, I’ve never seen a real rockery; I get the idea from ancient paintings and calligraphy and make the rockery freely. As I compare and contrast my rockery with the real ones, I begin to understand humanity is actually the self-development of a human experience. As richness and complexity are drawn through contrast, I begin to have an expectation on the exhibition: I hope viewers could ultimately experience the complexity that lies within, which is humanistic and poetic.
I did not want to pick up a contemporary problem as the material of my work, or to elevate it to a scale on the viewpoint of the whole of contemporary art. On the contrary, I would like to seek in the process of making, what I might discover through my hands, which is a happening from within, and not anything to do with the society or art history from without. Also, I would like to bid farewell to the method of creation in the past that overly emphasises on the result itself. Therefore, that’s why I call it 'growing.'
Extracted from The Self ‘Development’ of the Work—Hang Chun-Xiao VS Guangci
