Unfettered Encompassment — Hsu Yunghsu Solo Exhibition
1. Sculptural form of the Body
Hsu Yunghsu’s work embodies the art of sculpture, the art of thinking as well as the realization of life. Ever since he dived into the creation of ceramic sculptures, he has been steadfastly nurturing the symbiotic union between himself and clay and the depth of their dialogue. After three decades of efforts since he first captured the world’s attention in the 1990s, he has already created his distinctive style of ceramic sculpture. As of today, he enjoys international accolades and has introduced rich and multiple structures and shapes into this art form, expanding it with an unprecedented and magnificent vision.
Hsu was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1955. After graduating from National Pingtung Teachers College in 1975, he worked as an elementary school teacher. He was once a celebrated Chinese zither musician. In 1987, he founded his own ceramic studio; and in 1992, he became a student of ceramic artist Yang Wen-Ni. Eventually in 1998, he gave up his teaching position and twenty-two years of seniority, along with his established music career, and became fully dedicated to the making of art for life. In 2007, under the tutelage of Chang Ching-Yuan, he obtained an MFA from Tainan National University of the Arts.
With exuberant creativity, Hsu soon entered the professional art scene. From 1992 onward, he gradually established his initial style in making art and received much international attention. Not only was he frequently invited for international exhibitions, his works were covered as feature stories and reviewed by international ceramic art journals.
From 1992 to 2012, Hsu’s art demonstrated bountiful sculptural characteristics and aesthetic meanings, displaying vividly recognizable stages of development. Presently, his creative career can be divided into five stages[1]:
(1) The Stage of Vitalism (1992-1997): The theme of this stage is “Drama of Life,” which includes two types of works. The first one refers to his early works derived from a single sculptural element; and the second refers to his series inspired by dance poses and characterized by a sense of musicality.
(2) The Stage of Surrealism (1997-2004): This style was materialized by his Places series. During this stage, his work embodied the Surrealist tradition, exuding a sense of humor from the appearance but conveying social implications.
(3) The Stage of Abstract Expressionism (2004-2005): This style can be observed in his Mythology series and other seemingly fragmented or partial sculptures with simple forms. Although this stage only lasted a brief period of time, during which the artist created a very small number of works, it was nevertheless a crucial stage as Hsu shifted from figural depiction to non-figural representation.
(4) The Stage of Process Art (2005-2012): During this stage, Hsu adopted the approach of installation art to display his works, and subtly incorporated elements of conceptual art and performance art into his creative process. In 2007, his Theatre of Clay series featured “massive yet incredibly thin” clay sculptures that underwent the process of kiln-firing. According to the artist, these works were created in the attempt to surpass his own physical limitations.
(5) The Stage of Metaphysical Aesthetics (2012-present): At this stage, while continuing the creative context of the Theatre of Clay series, he has also entered a transformative period. On the one hand, he has started adding a large amount of small sculptural elements into large structures in the Theatre of Clay series, developing structures reminiscent of the assemblage art. On the other hand, he also uses these small sculptural units individually and extends them into enormous, magnificent sculptures by layering or juxtaposing them.
2. Surpassing Boundaries
Since 2012, Hsu has embarked on a journey of exceeding his own limit. During this time, the works he created have showed changes in sculptural forms and structures, and redefined the aesthetics of his art.
Material-wise, Hsu makes sure the hardness of the clay undergoes precise and careful inspective; meanwhile, he also makes sure that he creates specific techniques for the sculpting and firing procedures based on the stability of the interconnected small sculptural units. In the past, to make his massive, theatrical sculptures, he had to overcome the problems of collapsing during the sculpting process and cracking during the firing process. Now, he has to find a way to avoid the small sculptural units from crowding each other and falling off. The creative process is filled with more unpredictable risks. However, Hsu has had the ability to employ his scientific knowledge to design and produce large vehicles that allow him to move his works around. Combined with his artist instinct in art-making, he has been able to successfully complete these works.
In terms of structure and form, his works have displayed highly complex structures no matter their various sizes, and therefore, revealed forms extended and derived from the overall structures. Some of these sculptures are freestanding within the three-dimensional space, rendering them both sculptures and installations; some can be mounted on two-dimensional walls but demonstrated a visual space of multiple dimensions due to their incredible size and thickness.
Hsu’s ceramic works created during this stage show his transformation from “process art” to another type of artistic thinking. Before 2012, from his Theatre of Clay series, we could see elongated, stretching clay ribbon-like structures that were interconnected to form enormous sculptural forms. During the creative process, his body also extended and stretched along with the massive sculptural forms, as if his body were one with the clay and merged with the sculptures. In other words, the sculptures and his body became interwoven together and shared the same vital force. However, Hsu applied different procedures in the making of his works created after 2012. He would first make all the small sculptural elements, and gradually pile or layer them up into a massive structure, which is reminiscent of the large sculptural forms one sees in assemblage art. It is clear that the creation starts with building smaller structures that gradually expands into large structures. Consequently, the movement of the body also begins with a smaller scope and slowly broaden to a larger scope until the massive sculpture is finalized. Although Hsu still continues in the spirit of process art, he has become freer and livelier in terms of the scale and size of his works as well as the scope of his bodily movement.
As Jackson Pollock’s bodily movements in painting have been described with the term “action painting,” Hsu’s physical movements and postures in ceramic creation can be described as “action art”[2]; and in Hsu’s action art, he has specifically used two sculptural elements: the sculptural elements that look like seashells, and the ribbon-like sculptural element.
To begin with, the small seashell-like sculptural elements remind people of cup-like dumpling wrappers with dents in the middle. They sometimes also look similar to peanut shells, oyster shells or rice husks. Nevertheless, they are not symbols of things mentioned above, but material units the artist uses to construct structures embedded in his massive sculptures. On the one hand, they give the works volume on the physical level; and on the other hand, they also produce a contrast between the concrete and the void, brightness and darkness as well as a dynamic visuality from the uneven surface. Secondly, the ribbon-like sculptural elements make people think of handmade noodles or gigantic seaweed. However, they are not symbolic of those things, either. Contrarily, they are elements of movement fabricated to transform the spatial dimension. In other words, they are the lineal element that enlivens the stillness and introduces the element of temporality into the works.
However, the change that has taken place in Hsu’s artistic creation this time is not merely a transformation in sculptural form and visual aesthetics but a transubstantiation of his aesthetic thinking that has taken place on a philosophical level. His art is shifting from his previous exploration of the physical boundaries toward the spiritual aesthetics emblematic of Eastern metaphysics.
3. Unfettered and Encompassing
Taking a retrospective look at Hsu’s creative journey, his art has already stopped being figural, symbolic or serving as objects since his stage of abstract expressionism in 2004. From his Theatre of Clay series in 2007, it has become quite obvious that his work embodies the spirit of process art, placing a greater emphasis on exploring the boundaries of the body. During this stage, his artistic creation also departed from the material level and entered a philosophical level.
When discussing the development of Hsu’s creative philosophy, the following passage from “The Great Treatise I” in Book of Changes can illustrate how the artist is expressing his aesthetic thinking rooted in Eastern philosophy: “That which is antecedent to the material form exists as an ideal method, and that which is subsequent to the material form exists as a definite thing.” In other words, Hsu’s art does not aim to create a definite thing or a material object but to explore an ideal method or the Way. We must pay attention to the fundamental disparity between Eastern and Western metaphysics here. Whereas Western metaphysics looks at phenomena on the physical, material plane to formulate corresponding abstract, metaphysical principles, the Confucian and Taoist metaphysics encompasses two realms embodied by one thing at the same time—when addressing the physical plane, the thing becomes an object or a vessel; but when adopting a metaphysical viewpoint, the thing is a representation of the Way. Therefore, a definite thing refers to the physical object; yet, the ideal method, unlike the definite thing, possesses no definite form and boundary. It is, in short, the metaphysical Way. A similar perspective can be found in “Chapter 41” of Laozi, in which it is stated, “Its largest square shows no corner. A vessel great is the slowest made. Loud is its sound, but no word uttered. The great form embodies no shape. The Tao is hidden and has no name.” In this passage, “A vessel great is the slowest made” has often been mistakenly interpreted as a delayed success. In truth, following the context of the text, the correct explanation should be that a great vessel possesses no real function. Neither is it meant for visual pleasure. On the contrary, it is a vessel of the Tao and remains nameless and hidden. Hsu’s works from this current stage often have titles or names that do not signify any meaning. Perhaps, it is also a manifestation of the statement, “The Tao is hidden and has no name.”
Naturally, it is not entirely appropriate to interpret the artist’s art-making through philosophical theories. However, we can detect the evolution from sculptural art to intellectual art in his work; and from the latter, he has expanded it into an art of the realization of life. Therefore, it is possible to understand his aesthetic achievement through the coined phrase, “unfettered encompassment.”
The phrase “unfettered encompassment” denotes the profoundness of Hsu’s realization of life and the loftiness of his creative thinking because his art has revealed the aesthetic height of Eastern metaphysics. It also beckons at the fact that his works have surpassed mundane points of view and unfolded a spiritual realm that Hsu longs for. In “Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease” of Zhuangzi, a passage reads, “You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use – why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild? There you might saunter idly by its side, or in the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep beneath it.” The large tree in this passage might not be functional, but if one sheds the mundane, secular perspective and re-contextualizes the large tree in the wide and encompassing world between heaven and earth, it can be a place where one can feel unfettered and dwell freely.
From this perspective, we can also notice that Hsu has never really abandoned music in his creative mind. It is only that his music in the past belonged to the auditory sense and was delivered through musical instruments. After he became a dedicated artist, his music has seeped into his entire body. When he develops a ceramic structure and form every time, music is composed and orchestrated through the work. This music transcends the senses of hearing and sight and flows through the site where his sculpture and the world co-exist, expressing a type of metaphysical music that delineates the spiritual realm and corresponding to the expression, “Loud is its sound, but no word uttered.”
Unfettered Encompassment shows the depth and height of Hsu’s art in the present stage of his career. It epitomizes his art practice that is moving towards the aesthetic exploration of spirituality as well as what he has achieved through his realization of life. Not only has the artist expanded the vision and form of art but also the spiritual aspect of contemporary art.
[1]In an essay written in 2012, I have organized and divided Hsu Yunghsu’s creative career into four stages. However, after these years, his art has entered a fifth stage. Liao Jen-I, “From Lowly Dust to the Grandeur of the Universe: The Aesthetics Significance of Hsu Yunghsu’s Clay Sculptures.” Becoming．Refrain – Hsu Yunghsu. Taipei: Tina Keng Gallery, 2012.
[2] The term refers to the method American modern artist Jackson Pollock adopted. The artist would paint standing up and let the paint drip freely to form trails on the canvas. With this approach, the artist not only used his hands to paint, but employed his entire body in the art-making process; hence, painting became an action of the body.