What can we do in the face of the unfamiliar? Instead of escaping, AznGothBoy's latest exhibition, Violin Makers and Seamstresses I: The Caveman, The Literati, The Iconoclast, forces you to confront your fears.
Chen Pin-tao - aka AznGothBoy - is the fifth annual resident artist of de Sarthe in Wong Chuk Hang. His solo exhibition leads its audience into a world taken to the extreme.
Designed to appear artificial, the works explore how society has reproduced, recycled and consumed images and objects until their original meanings have been reduced to nothing. The exhibition is not only a response to capitalism in the 21st century, but it also serves as a space in which the artist explores his relationship with his surroundings.
The Australia-born artist who divides his time between Shanghai and Hong Kong noted that "the show is not necessarily a product of me living in Hong Kong" although aspects of the city have made its way into his work.
Unlike a traditional space where all the exhibits are laid out to be seen at a glance, he has designed the gallery as an intricate labyrinth filled with paintings and sculptures.
Visitors are immersed in an imagined post-apocalyptic wasteland where the only thing they can do is to walk blindly forward.
Placed along the path are humanoid sculptures made up of items such as bike helmets, boxing gloves and drum kits. Helmethead and Drumheads 001 take shape through displacing common items and using them to challenge ideas of the human form.
More familiar items are also found in the labyrinth, with their images displaced to create further tension between reality and artificiality. Labels such as Monster Energy and man-made creations are contrasted with primitive and natural imagery. The finger-painted series, Caveman, shows creatures exhibiting primal behavior, symbolic of the raw state of mind before the external influences of adulthood.
The juxtaposition of consumerist labels and the darker elements in his art is a commentary on how aesthetic production is commodified.
In his schizophrenic hyper-reality, AznGothBoy blends religious with medical imagery to explore the craze surrounding health as a lifestyle. Material Prosthetics is a series of sculptural and canvas works that explore this cult-like obsession.
At the end of the labyrinth, viewers will face a series of towering, totemic installations titled Seraph. Their monstrous appearance, true to the depiction of biblical angels, prompts self-reflection from viewers regarding materialism, spirituality and the body in this artificial space.
The creative process behind producing the exhibit itself also explores the role of art in contemporary life. The transformation of the art gallery into a labyrinth serves as a confrontational response to its normally sterile environment. "It's not institutional critique, where I'm critiquing the white cube space," AznGothBoy said, "But I'm transforming the space into something that's never been done. I'm doing something radical in a conventional white cube in response to hyper-capitalism and how that operates in the art world."
He said of his experience in working in a commercial space: "There is a strong desire to fill up the space because it's so large in scale. I have to think of ways to fill up the gallery without ending up with too much junk space.
"The residency forced me to build up this discipline to come in and make progress and finish the works in a limited time frame."
This leads to AznGothBoy's contemplation on the overlap between physical labor and art, challenging common perceptions of the process. "Making art is not glamorous. It's labor intensive and very hands-on and technical."
Referring to the hands on the labyrinth walls, he references the act of construction and destruction as the way the art world operates.
Violin Makers and Seamstresses I: The Caveman, The Literati, The Iconoclast will run at de Sarthe until October 2.
