Physical Tapas-The First Visit to Hsu Yung-hsu’s Clay Sculpting
Hsu Yung-hsu is an artist whose works strike a chord in the heart of people viewing them at first sight. This is not only due to the aesthetic implication peculiar to the works of Hsu but also due to every arduous trial which he has gone through to explore and surmount his own vitality and creativity. It is even appropriate to say that Hsu took infinite pains to complete every work.
Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1955, Hsu Yung-hsu started to be engaged in art creation after graduating from Tainan National University of Arts in 1975. In 2006, he obtained his Master’s Degree of Applied Arts from Tainan National University of Arts. In respect of related experiences and activities, Hsu began to actively participate in exhibitions from 1990; however, in terms of the exploration process of art, he started to step into the filed of fine arts even earlier. In other words, Hsu had actually obtained a rather mature way of thinking when he intensively took part in exhibitions in 1990; hence, in 1990s when Taiwanese modern art was in full bloom yet seduction and snares were everywhere, Hsu still stood firm in his faith and represent his modern way of thinking in art creation with the application of clay, the material with long history.
In addition, Hsu Yung-hsu is an exceptional artist who has a clear mind and prudent thinking. Even when he concentrates on his creation, he still possesses the ability to express all his physical experiences as well as his state of mind in detail. Such ability, on one hand, indicates that although his thinking does not rule over his body in the creation process, he can transfer physical activities into thinking activities in a subtle way and thus develop his bodily contemplation. On the other hand, such ability denotes that his thinking derives from the reflection upon his creation activities rather than from other people’s thinking. In the process of learning, he must study all kinds of theories of contemporary art; these theories can only be turned into referential materials of his own thinking through the “practice of tapas”. Hence, during the year of 2003 when Hsu went back to college to pursue further education, even more theories baptized him; however, instead of stumbling into the snare of those theories, he used them to obtain a further understanding and reflection upon himself.
Hsu Yung-hsu, as we can see today, not only has mature thinking of life but also has entered a stage where he is able to bring his creation into full play without giving strained interpretations of theories, which can be witnessed in the “Theater of Clay-Solo Exhibition of Hsu Yung-hsu” in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2008. The exhibits were “high and thin” works which he had created with clay through kilning over recent years. According to Hsu, these works were the ones he created to exceed his limits. He intended to exceed not only physical limits but the feeling and sensation of his own body. Most importantly, as an artist, by means of trying to make bodies follow the sculptures and depart from inertia, he has developed originality in art beyond the limit of inertia.
It is repeatedly mentioned that the objective of Hsu Yung-hsu’s works is to explore the limits of body; however, in his latest works, we can not find bodies in the narrow sense, such as bodily images, symbols, or signs, including the concrete bodily expressions of the artist himself. What we can see are clay sculptures completed through kneading and kilning.
In the process of creating these works, Hsu chose not to use any tools but use his own palms and fingers to stack and connect clay strips with repeated kneading, compressing, and molding. He extended and raised the thinner part at some critical point with the intention to put the sculpture to the test of weight increase and thus the fortuitous structure can be determined. These movements are like spring silkworms which continually produce silk from their bodies, making a space which is originally nonexistent. The objective of spring silkworms’ instinct is to make an oval-shaped cocoon and wrap themselves inside the cocoon. The works of Hsu Yung-hsu are not produced by unconscious instinct but by the instinct released from a state in which the objective is not specified. On one hand, this association can be applied to describe Hsu’s creation as physical tapas; on the other hand, this association can remind us of the kinship existing between the materials of fine arts and the body of the artist.
From the appreciation of Hsu’s works, we can discover that his body has been integrated into his works along with materials. Through his hands, he moves his whole body with clay strips extended and stacked on a large-scale worktable. During the process of repeated physical movements and finger kneading, his body has been merged into the clay; meanwhile, loaded with the artist’s body, the materials has entered an agonized journey which is even unknown to the artist. Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggested in L’oeil et l’esprit that “in fact, a spirit can not be seen to paint. A painter actually puts his own body into a world so that he can turn the world into a painting. In order to perceive such bodily transformation, we should recover our real bodies in motion and such bodies are neither pieces of space nor combinations of functions but a state in which vision and motion are interwoven.” Similarly, Hsu Yung-hsu transfers the clay into sculptures by putting his body into the clay. In his creation, his hands and bodily motion are situated and interwoven in a state which enables him to enter a journey alien to himself; however, he can still sense that his body is developing a vigorous state beyond his own experiences via the contact and interpenetration between hands and the clay. Consisting of sorrow and joy, this state is a journey full of uncertainties.
Despite that this journey seems to be filled with ventures, it is the source of artistic originality for a body equipped with explosive force in creating sculptures.
In contemporary art, numerous great classic masterpieces originated from uncertainties; the reason why these works are soul-stirring is that the uncertainty lying in the creation process reveals the figure of the artist moving towards the unknown. Although Jackson Pollock creates his works on a canvas whose range is definite, his action painting by means of “dropping” is still full of uncertainties with body replacing visual logic and entering the world where his bodily activities are spontaneously occurring.
Eva Hesse, a well-noted contemporary female artist, once used glass fiber, a material which makes it unpredictable to turn gas into solid, to represent irregular shapes randomly and to transfer the spatial state of the place where she creates her works; her works are affecting since they faithfully recorded the creation process and her manner of life taken on through materials.
In Passages in Modern Sculpture, Rosalind Krauss named this kind of art “process art”. Indicated by her, “process art” concerns the shape transformation process in which the shape is refined through dissolution and rebuilt via stacking; in the process of rebuilding, the completed artistic items or sculptures are endowed with an image of anthropology; while concentrating on the material transformation process, an artist gets into a seemingly original sculptural space which he creates on his own.
We can also notice the spirit of process art in the works of Hsu Yung-hsu. In the shape transformation process, the artist furnishes us with a whole-new experience of the appreciation of beauty which no longer abides by the original visual logic but moves toward a direction of the original visual logic, leading us to repropose an attitude towards appreciation of beauty under the situation that no rules can be followed. That is, when it comes to Hsu Yung-hsu’s works, we can only appreciate with our eyes if we merely focus on their shapes; however, if we can move from the superficial shape to the artistic conception, our bodies will enter an undefined world along with the works. In other words, the artist grants us the space and time taking place in his works.
Perhaps we have been in a space provided by the work, but we may not be able to take part in its creation process. Although the works of Hsu Yung-hsu establish themselves in an existing space, this space is redefined and developed into a new space where people can live in solitude. These clay sculptures lead us into a space which we can redefine via our own bodies.
Probably we have long been drifting along in a determined time; however, once we come into the world of Hsu’s works, we will discover another definition of time. Through every repeated movement of his palms and fingers kneading the clay stripes, the artist stores the affection of fingers and the timing of the affection. His creations reserves the physical time blended with sorrow and joy. This “time”, which is defined by the artist via his own body, brings us into the time experience totally different from the reality.
For the reason that Hsu Yung-hsu’s artistic creations not only exceed the limits of his own body but also take us into a state of life in which space and time can be redefined and physical creativity can be regained, we reckon his works as clay forming, a physical labor, and a manner of life which can be named “physical tapas”.