[Press Release]
The show, titled No Fruit at the Root, presents the latest works by Hu Xiaoyuan. It is composed by three piece: No Fruit at the Root, which is a new extension of the artist “Wood” series, The Drown Dust, a three channel video work, and See, a video installation work. The visual presentation of the three works looks very restrained or even purposely reduced to a very minimalized state. One can feel the enduring struggle of an individual against the hardship hidden in the seeming understated presentation.
No Fruit at the Root(2012) is composed of nine “wood” pieces. The method of making the “wood” is the same: the artist traced, on silk, the lines and the grains of the part of the wood surface beneath with traditional Chinese ink. The silk was taken off after the tracing was finished. That part of the wood surface then was paint white. After the paint totally dried, the artist mounted the traced silk back onto the traced surface. The difference lies with the choice of the wood. In fact, this collective are all made of abandoned wood parts which have totally lost their “function” in everyday life. Taken from various wooden tools, the form of these pieces look bizarre and confusing. An intriguing intension is created between the grotesque appearance of these wood items and the artist’s self-disciplined, meticulous tracing process on their surfaces.
The three-channel video work Drown Dust (2012)was inspired produced when the artist was sorting out her equipment and some remaining things after a location shooting was finished. Hu Xiaoyuan shot with macro-lens the heavily scrubbed and soaked bottom parts of the pants wore by the actress who was asked to perform her anger towards the sea with body movements in the location shooting, the revolving corals she collected from the shooting, and the sharp edge of the blank paper which was a prop of the performer during the shooting.
The video installation See consists of two parts: a video with almost no image at the first glance–only when looking very carefully can the viewer find a white surface is moving on the white background. The other part is a archive video showing how the artist carries, with great difficulty, a heavy white board on her back to move against a bent white wall. However, this archive video is played on a monitor facing the wall, which in fact, is unable to offer any information to the viewer that it is opposite to.
