Huayu Youth Award: Passage of Sinthome
Dec 13, 2019 - Mar 13, 2020
Sanya Art Museum, Hainan, China
Curator: Liu Tian
Preliminary selection committee: Qu Chang, Li Qi, Sun Dongdong, Wang Weiwei, Yang Zi
Final jury committee: Pi Li, Ying Kwok, Liu Wei, Lu Mingjun, Tang Xin
Pei-Hsuan Wang’s 2019 Huayu Youth Award presentation ‘pleasurable recognition and the love of your life’ is a curation of select pieces from five different projects: Momentary Grace, Anonymous Objects, Dearly Beloved, Made of Star-Stuff, Wolves Shitting. The first attempts to make peace with emotional chaos through object-making, the second explores the autonomy of discrete forms in space, the third contemplates identity formation via examining relations with the artist’s niece Iris, the fourth connects diasporic individuals striving towards the middle class dream in Asia, and the fifth reacts directly to the misogynous and male-centered social norm.
Wang experiments with an installation method that references the wunderkammer as well as religious site. Each art piece is appointed a precise location along a 27 yard (25 meter) corridor, together creating a theatrical passage of personal spectacles that reconsiders the relationship between different projects within the artist’s own practice. In particular Wang gives prominence to her niece Iris, highlighting a portraiture combining her and Iris’ features at the end of the passage flanked by two spirit animal ‘patronuses.’ This near-deifying elevation is an homage to girls, girlhood, and those fearlessly navigating the world.
This work is the winner of the Special Jury Prize of 2019 Huayu Youth Award.
