Everyday Hypothesis: Joyce HO + LEE Kit｜Curated by HSU Fong-Ray
- This is an exhibition space.
- Anything that is present in this exhibition is a work of art.
- So is this text.
Naturally, when elements such as a space, an exhibition period, two artists, and one curator all come together, an exhibition is born. We all know for a fact that exhibitions are held in this space, but we rarely confront a question: What is art in this space? As long as there is an exhibition schedule to follow, exhibitions happen, just like that. Intuitively we assume the subject of an exhibition, determined by artists and/or curators, guarantees the existence of the exhibition as a harmonious whole to be read and viewed. This assumption comforts us in knowing that art exists, and exhibitions are organized accordingly. Therefore, another relative assumption is: in a contemporary context, is it through the structuralization of an artwork that art comes into tangible, perceptible existence? We don’t think about, nor do we want to know, the answer to this natural assumption, because in a gallery space, it is routine to hold exhibitions, a self-evident fact.
Influenced by our human inclination to assume, how we interpret and understand life derives from a network of meanings governed by strong predictability. This network, consisting of all the trivialities in life, such as an action, a glance, a ray of light, or a found object, sheds light on how an assumption is formed, where key words and the familiarity with a particular person, matter, or object, allow the next action to be anticipated. This is where our strong dependence on structural correlations comes from. How we perceive and interpret information is inadvertently influenced by this powerful logic that ties in fragments of phenomena with fragments of behaviors, all of which turns into correlated structures and explanations, where emotions, feelings, and attitudes are neglected in between messages of information. The process of structuralization establishes boundaries around baffling, leaping consciousness, banishing existence and self-evidence that is so palpable in volatility.
The normalcy of the accustomed conditions in life belies the inherent tremendous absurdity. This fictitious order formed by productivity brings the everyday and truth further apart, little by little filling in the gaps with self-told lies and nothingness. Just as a so-called art exhibition is presented to us, it never seems to be in a diurnal context. Such unrealness is flawed, where art exists outside our daily life while colliding with the quotidian. This feeling of uncanniness reveals the absurdities cloaked by assumptions we make in our ordinary life. Art is meant to expose lunacy of the prosaic, not to highlight a daily life consisting of insanities. Perhaps that is the essence of art practice in this everyday hypothesis.
