Portfolio
Mimosa Ward
Soft sculpture
pvc, soil, mimosas, white cotton thread
(the patient) 350mm*500mm*1600mm
2020
These were all started from a boring joke about "vegetable people". I grew mimosas in a patient robe, a plant that produces "violent" mechanical movements in response to external stimuli —— in this way, my "plants" are moving. However, even in the case of medically defined "plants," they are incapable of executing what we can see with our eyes, but they are still breathing, sweating, excreting, and carrying out the basic cycles of a life. They are never "immobile," as are many other underestimated aspects of nature.
No entry No progress
Olfactory installation, incident, film
a transparent tent, Nerium oleander, mud, lighter
Variable sizes
full video:https://youtu.be/8xAYEZ4JrwY?si=6LKA3UOaJULKiDDG
2023
Nerium oleander is a very ornamental plant.
It can be found planted in the streets of the city easily.
It is also a highly poisonous plant.
By lighting it, it can release poisonous gas.
The transparent tent will collect poisonous gases when sealed.
As a piece of work, it offers more than just visual spectacle.
It can be perceived by the sense of smell, but is aggressive.
Smug Huker aims to create an exhibition
that no one can enter (no entry),
and also as a way to allude to the situation that
most people see art as a "fine" being or to take photos with,
but neglecting the real atists' existencial delimmas are still(no progress).
Huker no.5 EAU DE PARFUM
Olfactory installation
cigarettes, bis-Dehyde alcohol, secondhand smoke, container
100ml
2023
I use this everyday. Audiences can try the smell on site.
In social situations, smokers always seem to have the hegemony, forcing non-smokers to share the air with everyone else while sharing the second-hand smoke. The result of this passive smoking also leaves a lot of third-hand smoke on human surfaces, clothings and furnitures. Now we produce it as a perfume for every “air refugee” to protect themselves: I use this perfume every day (please don't smoke in front of me anymore).
In this way, it satirises the many invisible 'rules' in society.
Yóu Yú Chū Tīng (the music is so good that the fish swims out of water)
sculpture,landart,live-performance
various sizes and genres
2022-now
27/3/2022 featuring xiaolaba
location: rooftop of shanghai community radio
「 Yóu Yú Chū Tīng 」(a Chinese idiom meaning "the music is so good that the fish swims out of the water") invites sound performers and djs to play sounds in some "unconventional art venues" (e.g. rooftops, bookstores, construction sites, etc.) -- the live is also including the ambient soundscape -- and the artist will make fibre sculptures that resemble "fish" based on the feeling induced by each different sound or fields.
At the same time, there will be a live broadcast of the whole process. Most of the time when exhibition viewers come into contact with an artwork, it is in its completed state. In the「Yóu Yú Chū Tīng 」project, the audience can experience the slow realisation of the work together with the artist. The whole project is dominated by the sense of hearing, which in turn transforms the abstract information in the brain's nerves into vision, paying homage to the music and sound of the human world.
Due to the different life experiences and cultural backgrounds of individuals, people will have different pictures when they hear a certain kind of music. It is possible that the feeling in the audience's mind is also different from the artist's, but that is its most interesting state.
At the same time, this project can also liberate a sculptor's hands to the maximum extent, letting them be controlled only by simple instincts. Back to the "most basic" of human beings.
15/4/2023 featruing 2G
location:a construntion site
11/11/2023 featruing.breakfast club
location:an underground club
19/07/2024 featruing QiuQiu, Vusu, Öil Nature
location: car wash garage at Cedar
Engraft roadside trees
Landart,sculpture
Dead home-bred plants, roadside trees, knives, wires, electric drilling machine
2022-now
Possibilities：
A.get to grow;
B.got cleaned by the road cleaners;
C. continue this circumstance where the alive and the dead stay in commensalism;
D. .......
In 2022, the artist launched a street project called Engraft Roadside Trees to rebel against the world's stereotypes and the government's regulatory system.
Roadside Trees epitomizes what the government/persons in charge want this place to become,
and a dead houseplant is a sign of intolerance to the human ecology in which it lives.
ON AIR
Light installation in a DiDi(Chinese Uber)
35.5*14.5*2.5cm
2023
This is a "mobile group show" that Smug Huker joined and organised together, initiated by a DiDi driver: a long running project that aims to turn a DiDi car into a mobile exhibition, with different works added from time to time…
The car is in Shanghai every week for regular orders.
If you need to visit the exhibition, please take a DiDi. And the ticket for the exhibit is the fare for that ride.
ON AIR is about didi software that is listening and monitoring everything inside the car.It makes the space feel like it is being broadcast in real time. Although the car is a relatively small and enclosed space, it is not at all private. The person in the car is always in a situation of “passive sharing". It is about the safety space at their disposal.
More info:https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6t3oyxvkGmsILw-zRJYpbg
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230502
clay, shells, abs
venue：Elevator Shanghai
2023
㗊, pronounced as jí, is a rare Chinese character.
It has a lot of mouths in it, which means hubbub.
To divide 㗊 by zero (㗊/0) is a meaningless being in mathematics.
Many works of art in the history are created to be preserved,
while the works that appear on 㗊/0 are created to be
destroyed. As viewers of art, the audience has been conditioned or trained to treat art in a certain way. That, we hope will break the mould.
㗊/0's previous appearances have been in the form of parties, where people have destroyed artworks in the dark,
perhaps with some sense of guilt, and danced amongst their ruins. The project was described by Copenhagen-based art organisation Tofu Collective in 2023 as 「this event challenges conventional artistic reasoning」.
In this project, the artists have created works that are more in line with the public's aesthetic of "beautiful" sculpture, but the materials are extremely fragile.
However, the material is very easy to be destroyed, making it a very "anti-gallery" existence.
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230120
wood, peppers
38cm*127cm*17cm (before destroy)
venue：Elevator Shanghai
2023
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20240316
iron wires, thread, peppers
100cm*130cm*220cm (before destroy)
venue：Third Street Gallery
2024
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230502
durians，cottons，mycete，wax，plastics (before destroy)
100cm*130cm*220cm (before destroy)
venue：Elevator Shanghai
2023
Feng Chen Pu Pu
fiber sculpture, film
tree branches from Ditan park Beijing,white cloth from Shanghai, threads, rubber bands.
80cm*105cm*160cm / 2’36’’
2022
“风尘仆仆” fēng chén pú pú , adj.
is a Chinese idiom meaning travelling from one place to another, describing a tiring and arduous journey. Beijing is usually very windy in winter and spring. As Smug Huker is based in the south of China, they travelled more than 1000km to reach Beijing, hoping to wait for other existences to be blown by the wind in Beijing. The artist carried this sculpture, which looks like an ancient tribal tent, around the second ring road of Beijing and tried to capture something with it.
In the end, it was the shape of the wind on the white cloth and the sound of the surroundings that I recorded the most.
The Plate
sculpture
Made by fruits and vegetables
《the shaping world》by Antony Gormley
Variable tastes and sizes
2022
The Shaping World taught us the history of sculptures
and the ways of looking at it. So in the spirit of this book—— the plate is also a sculpture contributed by both the chef and the guest.
The cook use the edible materials to build up and the guest can change it bite by bite.
Each second takes on a new shape which makes whatever happens in the plate a process of sculpture or just a sculpture itself..
At the same time, an ordinary plate indicates nothing more than just a welcoming dish which challenges audiences in the asian culture the idea of art today.
Outgrow
Sculpture
fishbones collected in tokyo, wood stick, some trash, acrylic,unknown bugs
1.5*1*2m approx
2023 at No Limit Koenji
Smug Huker was invited to participate in the No Limit festival in Koenji, Tokyo, a music/art/rebellion event that brings together anarchists from all over the world. In response to the main theme of the event, the artist made this work based on an observation on the event of Japan's nuclear waste water discharge into the ocean in 2023.
The artist has simulated the traditional symbol of Japanese Children's Day, the "Koinobori", flying in the wind on the famous Asakusabashi Bridge in Tokyo. Fish bones collected in Tokyo were hung on wooden sticks. And the background is a river that resembles the Japanese flag. Koinobori often symbolises the goodwill of a family.
However, the artist believes that human existence is the pollution of the earth, and that the protection of the earth is a kind of delusion of the human race itself, but more for the comfort of the individuals who still have the benefit of life.
Tinder of Legacy
30*40*100cm approx
found objects from the
disappeared underground communities, resin
2024
These objects once existed in the underground communities that we loved deeply but now disappeared:
Elevator, House of Lazy people, Shanghai community radio….etc.
Though the physical forms of those communities no longer exist, the spirit and the members of those were
still inflaming their energy into the world. Just like a natural 「eternal flame」 hidden in the creeks, it goes
on by its own mysterious and the most possible way. Our generation of people have tried their ways to
reduce the burdens of social life: Tinder is definitely one of those things that makes it easier. For us who don’t really belong to the majority of the society, our gathering of community is just like a real life Tinder application.
We match here, no elsewhere.
The bonds people shared in these communities were never easy to break,but are in a state of 'flow'..
Communities are wherever people are.Now we put this installation in Cedar Shanghai to celebrate its being.
It has become a spot for the underground communities in Shanghai.
Light up the Tinder of Legacy as long as we live on, spiritually or electrically.
