HSU Yunghsu’s Labor in Monumental Scale
by CHEN Kuang-Yi
Ph.D. in Contemporary Art History, Université Paris X- Nanterre, Professor, Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan University of Arts, and Director of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
HSU Yunghsu is a renowned Taiwanese ceramist. He gave up a stable teaching job and his passion for music to dedicate himself fully to ceramics. Since founding his studio in 1987, he has sustained a continuous rhythm of artistic production, residencies, and exhibitions, gradually building an international reputation. The term “ceramist” hardly captures the full scope of his creative work with this magic medium. Over nearly 40 years, his art has constantly evolved, with works growing ever more ambitious in scale. His studio in Tainan Guantian has also expanded into the largest ceramic kiln studio in Taiwan.
Ceramics is among the most ancient technologies in the history of human civilization. The term ceramics is derived from the Greek keramos and keramikos, words that signify both the clay itself and the vessels fashioned from it. This transformation—from raw earth into functional form—embodies the synergy of the four primal elements of life: earth, air, water, and fire. Through this remarkable process of material metamorphosis, clay is elevated from humble matter into enduring object.
In Judeo and Christian tradition, God is likened to a potter, with humans as clay. Pliny the Elder recounts in Naturalis Historia a Greek origin myth of sculpture and painting centered on potter Boutadès de Sicyone, who created a likeness of his daughter’s departing lover, materializing memory and affection in clay.
The terracotta figurines of ancient Egypt and the Etruscan clay sarcophagi reflect the significant role ceramics played in funerary culture. For Taiwan’s Paiwan people, the ceramic jar is regarded as the origin of ancestral life and the dwelling place of ancestral spirits. These examples attest to ceramics as one of humanity’s profound inventions, rich in sacred qualities and lasting cultural significance.
I believe HSU Yunghsu’s devotion to clay is rooted not merely in technique, aesthetics, or function—dimensions often shared with or substituted by other media. What makes this ancient material, especially humble terracotta, truly irreplaceable is its capacity to respond to the diverse needs of the human body, mind, and spirit. It is precisely this quality that has inspired countless artists, and that positions Hsu’s work beyond the conventional scope of ceramics, sparking debate over whether it should be considered ceramic art or sculpture.
A true artist cannot be labeled or defined by disciplinary frameworks or professional boundaries. Paul Gauguin, long regarded primarily as a painter, began studying with ceramist Ernest Chaplet in 1886, initially to increase his future income. Yet this led him to challenge the norms of collaboration between artist and ceramist. He insisted on absolute autonomy across all phases of ceramic production, from shaping to firing, and coined the term sculpture céramique to describe his intricate and unusual works. Gauguin compared the kiln’s flames to the “fires of hell”, fascinated by how plain clay could be transformed through various techniques and the firing process. This vision of hellfire and metamorphosis perfectly resonated with his Symbolist imagination, pushing him to create figures that were both alluring and unsettling.
Another artist equally fascinated by ceramics was the Catalan artist Joan Miró. He referred to fire as “our great friend,” one that offers us “its wealth and beauty.” His final work, Woman and Bird (1982), is installed in Joan Miró Park near Plaça d’Espanya. This 22-meter-tall ceramic sculpture resembles an erect phallus, with a large black fissure at its center evoking female genitalia—an embodiment of the Surrealist belief that artistic creativity is driven by sexual instinct. The ceramic medium itself serves as a metaphor for the origin and regeneration of all things in the cosmos.
Looking back, HSU’s artistic journey evolved from conventional vessel forms to organic structures, then to narrative figuration, and ultimately to a complete rejection of representation in favor of the expressive potential of the raw material itself. The turning point in HSU’s artistic evolution, in my view, lies in his encounter with two significant challenges posed by the shift from ceramics to sculptural form. The first of these is monumentality—a concept I shall refer to in this essay as “monumental scale.” This term not only evokes the primordial functions and typologies of art—such as pyramids, obelisks, and temples—and their relationship to spatial or site-specific contexts, but also signals a quality of force and grandeur derived from scale, proportion, and stylistic intensity.
Beginning in 2000, Hsu encountered the creative challenges of monumental scale through frequent opportunities in outdoor exhibitions and residency projects. These experiences gradually led him to abandon the refined surfaces and glazed techniques associated with conventional ceramics. His Myth 2004 series, produced and exhibited in the United States, marked the introduction of fissures and voids as deliberate aesthetic strategies. After seeing American land art by minimalist artists, he also started thinking about how his sculptures interacted with the space around them and with the scale of the human body. As he solved structural and gravitational problems, he also returned to the essential presence of the clay itself. In the end, HSU drew inspiration from how living things grow and multiply. He used modular forms that responded to each site’s unique features, allowing his structures to expand as needed. This approach fully addressed the challenges of scale and helped him cross traditional boundaries between ceramics and sculpture.
It is important to stress that this is not merely a linear transition from figuration to abstraction. Rather, it constitutes a deliberate subversion of the fragility and refinement traditionally associated with ceramics, in favor of articulating the strength and monumentality of ceramic sculpture—an ethos fully embodied in the artist’s formal and technical choices.
Another major challenge HSU faced, closely related to the notion of monumentality, was labor. From antiquity through the Middle Ages, the making of art, especially large-scale works, required extensive physical effort. One need only imagine the collective labor required to construct a pyramid. During those times, there was no separation between artists and artisans. The Renaissance introduced a clear distinction between intellectual and manual labor in the arts, favoring the former. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, compared sculpture as “not a science but a rather mechanical craft… the sculptor’s sweat mingles with dust and forms into mud.”
Even so, until Duchamp’s intervention in the twentieth century, artistic creation remained tied to bodily labor. As Boris Groys observed, “the traces of this labor remain clearly visible after the work is completed,” and such labor was considered distinct from industrial work because it was not alienated. Few can view images of HSU Yunghsu at work without feeling moved. Photographers often focus on his hands—veined, rough, oversized, and sometimes wrapped in bandages—capturing the physical intensity of his practice. Ultimately, HSU returned to the coiling technique, engaging both hands and body to embed traces of physical labor into the clay. Like Rodin, he inscribed his corporeal presence into the material with deliberate force. His sculptures may be understood as extensions of his body, capable of invoking the artist’s presence even in his absence.
HSU’s persistence may stem, in part, from psychological motivations. As sculptor and critic Sidney Geist observed, “the love of material is a psychological issue, not a sculptural one.” HSU has often noted that working with clay helps relieve his inner anxiety. What I find more compelling, however, is that while Duchamp—following Leonardo da Vinci—sought to liberate the artist from the burdens of manual labor, and while contemporary art increasingly emphasizes the delegation or exchange of bodily labor through outsourcing or audience participation, HSU has taken the opposite path. He fuses the artist’s laboring body with the ancient techniques of ceramic methods, inscribing that union into the very fabric of his work. His sculptures thus stand as testaments to monumental labor.
In an era when virtual bodies have become a dominant mode of human existence, and technological interfaces increasingly sever perception from physical experience, HSU Yunghsu’s sustained bodily labor offers a profound counterpoint. For contemporary viewers, his practice may not only represent an embodiment of the sublime but also offer a rare, tactile solace—a quiet reaffirmation of presence in a world increasingly marked by disembodiment and abstraction.