HONG KONG.- Tao Hui (b. 1987, Chongqing) constructs an absurdist, surreal landscape that focuses on struggles from the margins. Through include painting, sculpture, video, sound, installation, and set design, the artist invites viewers to reconsider the lives and spiritual states of ordinary people as they navigate the ebb and flow of social development in China—from north to south, inland to coast, urban to rural, industrial to natural.
In the Land Beyond Living features five newly commissioned works. Visitors are greeted by hyper-realistic, yet vibrantly coloured glass chicken feet: this eerily enchanting work, Money Grab Hand, guides viewers into an alternate realm “beyond living”. In the middle of the space, the key work, a multisensorial video installation entitled Chilling Terror Sweeps the North, revolves around a love story imbued with innuendoes. The work tackles contemporary social disparities and divisions, and the choices, compromises, confrontations, and escapes they provoke. Flowing in a stream-of-consciousness manner, the work connects different timelines and spaces, blending reality with dreams.
Debuting in Asia for the first time, Tao Hui’s latest piece Hardworking (2023) features a specially commissioned wooden sculpture resembling a melting human shape; it stands with its back against a slumped screen almost three metres tall that depicts a livestream host crushed by the pressure of e-commerce. This reflection on the increasingly dominant role of social media and mobile screen culture asks viewers to contemplate the codependent relationships between the screen and reality, livelihood and hardship, and the self and imagery in an increasingly digitised and isolated world.
Elsewhere, the sculpture Cuddle marks Tao Hui’s first experimentation with stone and ceramic materials. Perched atop undulating hills, a petrified serpent coils tightly around a ceramic toilet, squeezing it to near breaking. The tension in the piece, although absurdist on the surface, feels oddly familiar. A sense of suffocation pervades the atmosphere of In the Land Beyond Living: the pressures of everyday life are hard to describe and to release, though viewers may find resonance in the artworks and experience a sense of relief.
The exhibition showcases Tao Hui’s artistic exploration of individual struggles and hardships that are often overlooked, such as those of ethnic minorities inhabiting the Hexi Corridor in the western province of Gansu, migrant workers eking out survival in rapidly developing cities, and new elites pursuing spiritual fulfilment. Probing our relentless quest for a better life, Tao Hui weaves together tales of harsh conditions, migration waves, and regional disparities, proposing surreal imagery and new perspectives that reveal a reality more absurd than fiction.
