Enlightening Materials
Meiing Hsu, the metalsmithing instructor, told me that while her students’ schooling includes intensive craft training–skills not required of most art-school graduates in the U.S.–she pushes them to “master both techniques and concepts.” With the exception of some elegantly crafted hairpins by Hsiao-Meng Su, the objects are not functional, though many allude to usable objects. The muted or monochromatic colors reminded me of the thousand-year tradition of Chinese ink painting, in which color was considered superfluous and line was the basis of expression. Some pieces show an assured use of line as rhythm, while others use the repeated forms of mass manufacture, alluding to the industrial age and Taiwan’s place in it. None display the self-assertiveness found in the work of many U.S. art students. Hsu says Westerners who see this work find a “quietness” that some characterize as “oriental.” And much of the work seeks to reconcile dualisms–handmade and manufactured objects, form and emptiness, time experienced as distinct moments and as a continuous flow.
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Lien’s It’s Not Inside the Body has a long row of hanging metal pieces copied from paper or cardboard patterns used to make clothing. The shapes are based on parts of children’s shirts and pants, suggesting without exactly resembling the clothes. Each piece is repeated several times before a new pattern begins, referring to the manufacturing process while retaining an allusiveness that goes beyond such references. The title suggests that clothing is our superficial outside, but as with Kang’s bottles there is a sense here of clothing being opened up, its inner structure revealed.
