Installation
Glasses, rug, egg yolk, string, tissue, tissue box
Luo Jr-shin An Afternoon, 2013 Glasses, rug, egg yolk, string, tissue, tissue box First solo show in Art Basel Hong Kong, LUO presents three works in section Insight: An Afternoon, Hanging Man and Shadow. All the three works carry a particular ambiance. With their ambiguous quality and feel of suspension, the works allow the viewer to sense the messages and narrativity within them without being able to articulate which are the elements that provoke such an unusual feeling. Seen from the aspect of materiality, the utilization of abundant fragile and unstable materials is also one of the characteristics of LUO Jr-shin’s work. Egg yolk, broken eyeglasses, tree branches, plastic bags and feathers: all kinds of materials are juxtaposed in a strange equilibrium through the artist’s manipulation, becoming installations of found objects that seem simple and quotidian yet implicitly give forth a weird feeling. According to the artist’s statement, by using the unconventional materials which even deteriorate over time, he aims at finding a certain ‘dynamism’. The generation of energy can be further considered through two points. The first point is derived from the materials’ qualities: while they deteriorate and decline, they also obtain productive power by chance. The second point is related to the fact that at the first glance, the viewer faces familiar quotidian objects but asks: “What is that?” In the face of the impossibility to identify the quotidian, LUO, however, manages to alienate the materials through his works and pulls the regime of inquiry back into the scenes of our real life, asking whether if the world we live in remains stable and credible. The feel of suspension is not only expressed through the content delivered by these works but also incarnated in their physical appearances: the suspended eyeglasses, a belt hung over a tree branch in an unusually straight form, a plastic bag accidentally stuck in an bird spike. The states reflected by the objects are not enduring and constant but temporary and provisory. Furthermore, they are even captured within an instant.