Daily Sucks/150 Meters of LoveHomePeace
7/14 (Tue) - 8/22/2020 (Sat)
Tsui Kuang-Yu
Opening reception:2020.07.18 (Sat.) 15.00
Exhibition venue: Double Square Gallery
So long as illusions are treated as reality, there will be no need in making sense of absurdities. ––Tsui Kuang-Yu
Double Square Gallery is pleased to present Tsui Kuang-Yu’s solo exhibition, entitled Daily Sucks/150 Meters of LoveHomePeace, which will run from July 14 to August 22, 2020. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery since his Exercise Living in 2018. Through the context of biology, the exhibition serves as a response to the adaptive relationship between humans and society, discussing various phenomena in contemporary society with a series of videos. On view in the exhibition are video works filmed in the last three years. Tsui combines the experience of living in New York, San Francisco and Taipei during 2018 to 2020, and employs the approach of street action experiment and “micro theater” to question the crises and challenges of values found in daily life. Also, in continuation of “Light Year Project,” a collaboration between Double Square Gallery and Samsung Taiwan, the works will be shown on multiple 82-inch flat screen TVs in the gallery, leading the audience into the witty, humorous world of fantasies through Samsung’s TV.
Two works from Exercise Living series and the short film, 150 Meters of LoveHomePeace, are showcased in this exhibition. Exercise Living: New York Clipping, Exercise Living: The Beautiful Scenery and Exercise Living: Stay Calm are the latest video works, which continue the creative concept and quotidian background of the series. The artist converts everyday objects into props and uses urban elements available in daily life to create a micro theater, reshaping everyday coincidences and phenomena into his personal critique of such phenomena. Tsui employs “action graffiti” as a means of intervention and returns disposed objects found in street corners back to the streets as the main characters, exploring the change of and interaction between social media and people’s behavior.
150 Meters of LoveHomePeace, on the other hand, is a short film collaboratively created by Tsui and director Leading Lee. Using social housing as a point of departure, the short film discusses the concept of “home” and ethical issues in housing. The work begins with “an unfair starting line” and unfolds a series of dialogue about life through various twists and turns in life, both sad and joyous. According to Tsui, “we clearly see contrasting differences around us, but we do not know how to react anymore. When contradictions become the new normal, absurdities no longer seem strange.” With his characteristic sense of humor and wit, the artist has personally experienced the collision with life to produce seemingly nonsensical and absurd works that prompt deep reflection.