A Few Yards: Mit Jai Inn, Chou Yu-Cheng, Joyce Ho, Chiu Chen-Hung

Dates

8 MAY - 3 AUGUST 2024

Reception

11 MAY (SAT.) 4:30 P.M.

Venue

TKG+ Projects 2F, No. 15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei 11492, Taiwan

Artist

Mit Jai Inn, Chou Yu-Cheng, Joyce Ho, Chiu Chen-Hung

Wherever there are works of art, there almost always exists a unit of space. All the works linger in our mind as they occupy our gaze, forming a scale of the exhibition. Unintentionally, each stroll through the exhibition space conjures meaning. We feel rejuvenated by the connection between our body and the works through our movement. A Few Yards redefines the unit “yard” as a symbol within a space measured in square meters, mapping one fantastic yard after another across varying distances and mediums.

For more than 30 years, the work of Mit Jai Inn has always been characterized by abstract representation. From the intervention of performance in his early days, to the reshaping of everyday spaces, and the integration of Buddhist teachings and social practice, his scrupulous practice now shifts toward a vivid palette evocative of tropical climate, rendered within exuberant painting, sculpture, installation, and participatory work.

What could be more fitting than a vow exchanged for a stone to create a gathering of people? Originally a participatory project, Marking Stones (2022) draws inspiration from bai sema, boundary stones of Thai Buddhist temples that define sacred spaces, and serve as measuring instruments before construction. The artist transforms bai sema into colorful papier-mâché baskets, lamps, and stools, delineating an imaginary realm within the exhibition space.

Imbued with a sense of dispassionate observation, Chou Yu-Cheng’s practice amalgamates elements of pollution and household stains. Perhaps, these pieces of information can be reinterpreted through the language of art, where scouring pads and rags turn into painting tools, transmuting the concept of hygiene in Refresh, Sacrifice, New Hygiene, Home, Washing, Chou Yu-Cheng, Acrylic, Rag, Scouring Pad, Canvas, Image, Album #4 (2018).

In Electroplating, Flowing, Soil, Fusion, Rice, Malformation, Toxins, Care, Regulations (2019), the artist integrates electroplated zinc plates commonly found in affordable housing, along with large-scale rice grain sculptures, a gradient painting, and an iOS blue file folder on the wall. Pivoting on the idea of environmental pollution, the work translates a series of terms into visual icons, and examines how opposing elements mutate into new imagery in the age of the Internet, while unfolding the complex relationship between language, visual art, and space.

A continuation of her interest in calibration and counting, Joyce Ho’s Momentum (2023) is a roll casting of multiple pairs of denim trousers, instantiating the act of standing up and sitting down, each moment frozen in time. The semi-arc resembles a quarter of an hour, where time is reimagined through mundane physical movements. Spanning thousands of years of chronometry and casting technology, the work encapsulates the memory of the body. Exploring the nuanced perceptual boundaries, the artist delves into the fleeting, trivial aspects of the everyday.

As time inches forward, window views and ruins are rendered in exquisite silhouettes through Chiu Chen-Hung’s craftmanship. His recent body of sculptural work limns the obscure corners of the world, foregrounding what is abandoned, transient, out-of-the-way through materiality and volume. Inspired by the hydraulic engineering technique of daylighting, where the gentle flow of a river hidden beneath the city is revealed by removing the concrete and asphalt above, the “Daylighting” series (2021–2024) captures flora against light and shadow in intaglio on concrete, putty, and minerals. Together ten distinctive landscapes on view form a vista of serenity.

Comprising a diverse array of works rendered in minerals, wood, cement, metal, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, fiber-reinforced plastic, and electroplated zinc plates, A Few Yards dwells in a courtyard of imagination where the body and the works on view become engaged in an open-ended dialogue, while footsteps echo between walls, space ultimately warped through experience.