Body‧Forms－The Unstrained Forms in Hsu, Yung-Hsu’s Works of Art
Am I a pure creature without thinking? I am absolutely not. I do have thinking and have educational training. But I hope I am not thinking when I am creating works. Like a creature knitting a net, that is how my works dealing the questions.[1]
— by Hsu, Yung-Hsu
In the simple but also complicated works of Hsu, Yung-Hsu, “body” and “forms” are the primary elements that forms are produced by constant repetition and interactions between his body and clay. However, the forms of his works are not the same as the beginning of the setting and not the real point. Hsu emphasized, “Forms are not my point when I am creating my works. The forms in my works are produced by constant repetition of movement through the neatest structure of clay.”[2] Like a silkworm spinning silk, a bee building a hive, and a spider knitting a net, he unconsciously repeats the interaction in a creature-similar figure with clay to produce the forms of his artwork, which explains that his works always have atmospheres as real as natural things. The work forms of Hsu come from liberating his existing knowledge and educational training that liberate his body to produce the forms freely by the so-call “removing” by his definition. In other words, the point of his works is not at the form constructed through the creative consciousness of the artist. Instead, by the contact process of his body and clay to represent the “unstrained forms” that bond his body with clay and the nature. Although these are hard work, his spirit is free and the free body is his ultimate desire of art.
Returning to Prototype
The concept of returning-to-prototype is the fundamental of his artwork. His works are to return his body to prototype as well as to return his works to prototypes, which is the same ideal in his exhibition of “Prototype” in 2014 that the works represented the finest and natural characteristics to resume to the primary relationships between human and the earth and between human and the nature.
The two basic elements that Hsu manipulates in his works are the repetition of his body and the characteristics of clay, and the tool he uses to produce forms is only an iron wire to cut clay. He described his process of creation, “I used to return the form language to simple movement and language structure. When I am making the works of art, the tool I used is this iron wire only to cut clay. Then, there are only my bare hands and clay to process the concept without any other tools.”[3] This means that he expects to represent the pure interaction relationships between his body and clay by the almost unconscious repetitive movement to create his works. Through his biological body figure, the interaction between his body and clay create the form of clay. Since the invention of tools is the accumulation of knowledge, he chooses not to use tools to eliminate the reason and knowledge as much as possible during the creation process, so that his body can face the clay directly, and this is the concept that he wants to express that “there are only my bare hands and clay.”
He returns his works to the primary type of clay and his body and continuously repeats the process of kneading and cementing clay to stack small-sized clay by using his fingers and to combine large-sized clay by using his body. Hsu’s artwork can be visually classified into the three forms of basic elements. The first form is like cocoons or oyster shells that cut in half, and when the half opens, it looks like flower blossoms or bushy leaves. The second form is like twisted and intertwined seaweed. And the third form is large-sized flaky structure with flows penetrating through. The three series of works exhibit the forms constituted by Hsu’s primary body movement and the existence of mechanic structure. The works express the various “unstrained forms” produced by the basic element of structural functions that the biological body existed in the natural environmental space of Hsu’s fingers, palms and body.
Repetition
The repetitive visual form gives a sense of order, simplicity and regularity. The form of Hsu’s works may not be organic form, but it can bring a feeling of simplicity to the viewers. In fact, when we watch Hsu’s works, viewers would first see a certain high similarity of repetitive pattern that is order and simple, giving us the smooth and tranquil following. He said his artwork is like a spider knitting a net, “I was like (a spider) knitting the net every day. The language is so simple as the way I made my artwork.”[4] With the repetition, we can easily sense he had used a lot of traces of his body by a close observation, which are Hsu’s physical trances to bring the physical impact to the majority of the audience. For Hsu, the constant repetition is liberation of his mind. As for me, the regular trace prints that he left by his fingers reminds us the rhythm of wooden clappers that enables the people chanting put their minds on the rhythm of wooden clappers instead of their own minds. In other words, regular rhythm can help people liberate their body and enter into meditation by following the rhythm, just like the heart would beat faster when the mood is high and would beat slower and more stable when the mind is calm.
In addition, the repetitive form in Hsu’s artwork represents the prevalence of the diversified body and also expresses the universality of synchronicity. These repetitive forms show the respective differences in various natural variables. However, the same production process exhibits the general regularity of the nature. Therefore, the two repetitive factors make the audience sense the difference and the universality of Hsu’s artwork.
Naturally-made Form
Since Hsu has the attempt to create his artwork in a way of “removal,” how does the form of his artwork come from? Maybe we can use the perspective of function-oriented aesthetics of “form ever follows function” proposed by Louis Henri Sullivan (1856-1924)[5] to view the form of Hsu’s artwork. The so-called “form ever follows function” means that forms will always ever exist along with functions. For Louis Henri Sullivan, function to produce form is the only rule and he also pointed that form would never change as long as function remains unchanged. This perspective enables us to view the trace of artist’s body. As a naturalistic aesthetician, he believes that function-oriented aesthetics can be certified by the nature, such as a flying eagle and a bee hive. The aesthetic form of the natural creatures is originated from their requirement function to survive, which is a process of evolution that enables them to form the appearance to satisfy the functions. The perspective of his artwork is corresponded with that of Sullivan that he said “When I am making works of art, I am like building a net. I have my body follow the instinct, like an animal, the instinct to build a nest.”[6] This kind of function-oriented aesthetics is the origin of his artwork of repetitive similarity form, which means the high functional requirement of the structure of works makes the representation of Hsu’s creation to be closed to some certain of repetition. However, with the variables of body liberation, environments and materials, the repetition highlights the individuality, thereby exhibiting the naturally-made form.
The Unstrained Form Returning to the Simple Body
The subject of creative consciousness exists and also does not exist within Hsu’s artwork. In fact, the contradictory statement concludes the function-oriented aesthetics and nature-oriented aesthetics of Hsu’s works of art. During the process of creation, he attempted to abandon the rational and even emotional output constructed in his body. When we discussed his process of creation in respect of the body, he mentioned:
I do hope I were an animal when I am making my artwork that I do neither think nor do anything, even nor be asked to do it, just using my hands to process the object. I do ask myself to think in this way. But when you actually do it, when you do it purposely, like in theoretically say that I want to remove knowledge. In fact, “remove” is an instruction, so it is kind of dilemma when I want to “remove.” So these works are the output production of my dilemma.[7]
In respect of existence, to remain the most original structural form, Hsu keeps pushing his fingers and palms onto the works to make the prints of his bare hands and the size of his body within the works. This is corresponded to how he describes his works, “…took out from my body. The material recorded the time I spent with it…”[8] In respect of non-existence, he did not purposely set up the form during the creation process. Instead, the form of his works was produced along with the contact process of clay that he used his body to freely build up the “unstrained form” of his works of art. The word “unstrained” is “free of outside impacts and not consider his-own gain and loss, pros and cons.”[9] So the meaning of “free of outside impacts” means the knowledge and even the emotions, and to use an unimpeded mind to see the world is unstrained. The attempt to dissociate from the creation, the unstrained form for Hsu is to empty his body and let the nature fill in to show the intertwined form of Hsu, form and the nature. Jian, Tzu-Chieh had described Hsu’s works, “there was an uncertain status between body and media,”[10] and for Jian, such status is “…’the artist – body – clay’ has formed a linked axis of heterogeneous isomorphism that they change into each in turns and the art become a form of life…”[11] This presents that the penetration of Hsu’s body and materials have combined and become one and each other.
Hsu’s works do not “follow” the nature in a rational way. His works do not imitate or reproduce the form of the nature. Instead, the forms are “inherited” from the nature. He attempts to dissociate the main consciousness in the way of “removal” and empty the body to inherit the nature. “When I am making the works, I am in another mood. I am like allowing a spirit to enter my body when I am making a big project which enables me to use my body to fight against the environment and materials.”[12] The process of “allowing a spirit to enter my body” described by him is that he empties his main consciousness and let the nature introduce into his works during the constantly repetitive process. Gong, Jow Jiun expressed that the chaotic infiltration among Hsu’s body, environments and materials, “…such as the infiltration of materials and the climate and microclimate environments, involves the time of works and the change of materials, such as humidity, clay material, wind, pressure, air pressure, and space state.”[13] These environmental and material variables are introduced to Hsu’s emptied body and return by the liberation of the body and the function-oriented aesthetics to emerge the naturally-made “unstrained form.”
[1] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[2] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[3] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[4] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[5] Sullivan, Louis H. (1896). “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered". Lippincott’s Magazine (March 1896): p408.
[6] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[7] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[8] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[9] Chan Master Sheng Yeh, “Commentaries on the Heart Sutra,” Dharma Drum Publishing Corp., New Taipei City (1997).
[10] Jian, Tzu-Chieh, “From Singular to Plural: Before the 2015 Solo Exhibition “Helios HiOK” of Hsu, Yung-Hsu.” Hsu, Yung-Hsu, “Helios HiOK,” Double Square, Taipei City (2015).
[11] Jian, Tzu-Chieh, “From Singular to Plural: Before the 2015 Solo Exhibition “Helios HiOK” of Hsu, Yung-Hsu.” Hsu, Yung-Hsu, “Helios HiOK,” Double Square, Taipei City (2015).
[12] The material is extracted from the interview with Hsu, Yung-Hsu on 21 Feb. 2017.
[13] Gong, Jow Jiun, “Aesthetic Dialectics of Transcendence and Chaotic Infiltration on the “1992-2014 Enlightened Solo Exhibition of Yunghsu,” “1992-2014 Enlightened Solo Exhibition of Yuanghsu.”