Portfolio
No entry No progress
Olfactory installation, incident, film
a transparent tent, Nerium oleander, mud, lighter
Variable sizes
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, still images
cigarettes, bis-Dehyde alcohol, secondhand smoke, container
variable sizes
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.
The photographic work presented here is in two parts: the first follows the perfume's advertising to 'commodify' the scent, while the second is an extension of the performance part of the act, which invites the actor to use the perfume in a club while capturing the reactions of the surrounding crowd.
Process of Huker no.5
video installation/performance art
9'11"
2024
(still image)
(still image)
(still image)
@ART POLYGON, Gwangju, South Korea
In 2014, the Chinese government enacted regulations banning smoking in indoor public spaces, effective in 2015. However, this regulation has had limited impact in public social settings, where smoking remains prevalent.
In late 2023, Smug Huker introduced *Huker No. 5 eau de parfum*, a provocative olfactory artwork critiquing the pervasive power dynamics in social spaces, focusing specifically on non-smokers subjected to secondhand smoke. The perfume captures the scent of secondhand smoke, satirizing the invisible yet omnipresent rules of public interactions where smokers dominate and force others to passively partake in their habit.
The fragrance highlights the overlooked consequences of secondhand and third-hand smoke. It serves as a "shield" for those reclaiming control over the air they breathe. By wearing “Huker No. 5”—unlike the famous and luxurious “Chanel no.5”—the wearer becomes a self-declared "air refugee," rejecting the shared burden of toxic smoke. This olfactory intervention , in both its conception and execution, engages broader discussions on environmental control, personal freedom, and social dynamics in public spaces.
In the process, "air refugees" are invited to silently approach smokers and collect their secondhand smoke, filmed by a police monitor camera. The use of surveillance camera highlights a power shift—those behind the camera, like unjust law enforcement, act without consent, becoming dominant. This ironic layer critiques the systems that control public spaces, reflecting on compliance and social power structures.
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20240316
iron wires, thread, peppers
100cm*130cm*220cm (before destroy)
@Third Street Gallery, Shanghai, China
2024
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.
The works presented here are shaped sculptures made of chilli peppers,
the largest of which "once" was about 130cm wide and 220cm high.
When destroyed, the molecules of the chilli peppers will gradually spread into the air, and their presence can be felt by the mucous membranes of human beings —— as if we, as the viewers of the art, have
been actively touched by the art at the same time.
The artist challenged the viewer’s comfort with traditional modes of art appreciation and provoke new forms of engagement.
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230120wood, peppers
38cm*127cm*17cm (before destroy)
@Elevator Shanghai
2023
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--also making it a very "anti-gallery" project.
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230502clay, shells, abs
@Elevator Shanghai
2023
㗊/0 (ji divided zero) 20230502
durians，cottons，mycete，wax，plastics (before destroy)
100cm*130cm*220cm (before destroy)
@Elevator Shanghai
2023
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 」is a cross-disciplinary art project launched in 2022, inspired by the Chinese idiom of “Yóu Yú Chū Tīng”, which means “the music is so good that the fish swims out of the water”, and is intended to explore the cross-sensory experience of music and visual art. In this project, different music performers are invited to some ‘unconventional art venues’ (e.g. rooftops, bookstores, construction sites, etc.) to inspire artistic creation through sound. In each event, the artist creates a fibre-based sculpture in the form of a fish, incorporating a mix of materials, based on the qualities of the sound and the sensory experience guided by the site (including the ambient soundscape).
Unlike traditional museum exhibitions where the viewer is confronted with a “finished” work, “Yóu Yú Chū Tīng” focuses on the process of art creation, allowing the viewer to experience the dynamic process of the gradual creation of the work — even if the work is the process itself, with its endless changes and unknown sensory experiences. In this project, sound and music are not only the subject matter of the creation, but also the core medium that guides the creation of the work: the artist pays homage to music and sound itself by capturing abstract neural perceptions through the sense of hearing, and then transforming them into a visual representation of the physicality of the work. The “completion” of the work is not based on the completeness of the visual form, but rather on the end of the music.
「Yóu Yú Chū Tīng 」also explores how an individual's cultural background and life experiences influence their visual associations with music. The experience of music varies from person to person, and each individual is able to construct their own image of the fish based on their own experience. This is one of the few projects in which Smug Huker presents an “artist's image” in the presentation of their work, with anonymity as the main context of their work — the visual perception of music as a way to understand the being in front of you, after rejecting the usual way of thinking that the majority of the population understands the others(e.g. age, religion, gender identity, etc.). The distance between the viewers and the ‘anonymous being’ in front of us becomes very ambiguous.
In addition, the project returns to the original artistic impulse of mankind by unlocking the technical constraints of the sculptor's approach and stimulating a more instinctive and intuitive expression.
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
15/09/2024 featruing MartinGoyaBusiness, Huizit, people underline
location: Tank Shanghai
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.
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.
ON AIR
Light installation in a DiDi(Chinese ride-hailing platform)
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. We’ve invited 16 artists including myself from China,Japan, Korea, Switzerland, the US to create site-specific artworks in the car: including writings, paintings, films, sculptures, algorithms , space projects and installations.
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. Didi drivers in China are a huge neglected population. They seem to have a freelance job but their maximum wage is under the control of the calculation of the Didi algorithm . And the surveillance during the rides is always on which works not only for the Didi company but also for the Communist Party. 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
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.
Heavenly Beating
multimedia space project
Wax, speakers, diffuser, beer，sands, abs
Music produced by Cocoonics
variable size
2024
Before you stands a stark white tower. Its spiral staircase clings to the surface, fractured and crumbling, as if once ravaged by an unseen force. Bombed, perhaps. The windows, set into the walls, are foggy, obscuring the view inside as if guarding a secret you’re not quite meant to see.
As you walk around the tower, you begin to notice a faint, muffled sound—almost imperceptible at first, but growing into strong treads. It reminds you of that moment outside a club, when music hums beneath your feet or your head, reverberating through walls, floors, ceilings—surrounding you without fully revealing itself. But you know you’ll get there soon. This music goes on a perpetual loop.Its end can always fit perfectly with the beginning, just like the structure of this tower.
And then, there's the smell lingering in the air——beer——a very accessible alcoholic beverage that contrasts with the mythological tower.
During this art practice, Smug Huker has fused these elements——sculpture, sound, scent——drawing inspirations from the Tower of Babel and the hidden warmth of underground music scene “embraces”. You’re gathered here for a purpose, or for no purposes? After all, why must there be a reason to enter a space, to be with anybody, to do something? In the end, we all find ourselves entering the same final place, sharing the same fate, doing the same things with same creatures——it’s all or nothing.
