Smug Huker(they), who focus on making art anonymously, try to escape from, celebrate or argue with the world by using their own signatures.
They make art attempts in the open field and also leave distinguishing smell in the exhibitions. They believe in the spirit of “art is an incident not an object”.Also recons remaining artworks in the studio makes a total waste.
㗊 / 0
ji divided by zero
Tinder of Legacy
果 盤
The Plate
風 塵 僕 僕
féng chén pú pú
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
Project <游魚出聽 Yóu Yú Chū Tīng>(it's a Chinese ancient saying meaning "the music is so good that the fish swims out of the water")has invited music players and musicians joining the open field to play the sounds——or sometimes simply just the environment soundscapes, and I would do the "fish" sculptures by following the feeling created by the sounds or the fields every time differently. Also the whole process would be live-streaming on Shanghai community radio every time.
This whole project is for combining hearing and imaginations to be transformed into visions, and for making a tribute to music and sounds in the human world. Along my way growing up, music has always been a guide and company in my life--sometimes it's almost like a religion to me. Due to different cultural backgrounds, people would be related to different feelings when hearing certain kinds of music. And this is my version of "what I see"--by doing so, it would be interesting to show the local culture what I could have received from them. Meanwhile I hope that this project can free a sculptor’s hands and could make myself controlled by just simple instincts . This is what "basic" human beings have in us.
Until very recently, we have tried ambient, worldwide, shamanic, or gabber to be the “bait”. We have made it to the rooftop, the yard, the bookstore or the construction site….
15/4/2023 featruing 2G
location:a construntion site
11/11/2023 featruing.breakfast club
location:an underground club
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.
In 2022 I started a street project named as a way of being a rebel against the world's stereotypes and the regulatory system of the governments. Roadside trees stand for what people in charge want the city or even the world to be——the same, easy to grow, easy to manage; and all i wanted to do is to add a little whimsy into the normal .
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 recently joined,
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.
The didi app is constantly listening and monitoring everything
inside the car, making the space feel like it's being broadcast in real time.
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.
it means people travel a long way that they look exhausted or dust covered.
“风” fēng, in chinese means wind.
the phrase originally came from an anti-misogyny and anti-feudalism myth novel
written in Tang dynasty by Li Chaowei.
“I’ve arrived at Beijing from such a long way
and I wish for the encounter of other beings
by the wind of Beijing.”
The Plate
sculpture
Made by fruits and vegetables
《the shaping world》by Antony Gormley
Variable tastes and sizes
2022
The shaping world taught me 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 change it bite by bite. Each second takes
on a new shape which makes whatever happens on the
plate a sculpture..At the same time, the viewer who sees
the art gets their hands on the piece and tastes it,
which is kind of a challenge for how to treat the artwork.
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. In the background is a river that re-
sembles 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 meeting place for the underground communities in Shanghai.
Light up the Tinder of Legacy as long as we live on, spiritually or electrically.
Exhibitions & Features
Solo exhibitions:
“㗊/0”
Third Street Gallery,
Shanghai, China
2024.3.16-5.16
"will present you:'loiter about and do nothing...' "
FAS project,
Mianyang, China
2024.1.1-2024.1.31
"My endorphins decline",
DWart space,
Shanghai, China
2020.12.25-2021.1.31
Group exhibitions:
"No Limit Koenji"
Dig a hole zines
Tokyo, Japan
2023.9.22-10.1
“J_a_in”
Project Z,
Dongguan, China
2023.7.15-9.3
“The Great Mother——
a response to 59th Venice biennial”
no space gallery,
London, UK
2022.9-now
"Zhen Dang"
Feichuan,
Wuhan, China
2022.3.5-2022.3.13
"Yellow box open exhibition"
Yellow box art museum,
Qingdao, China
2021.8.28-2022.8
“independence and coexistence”
art meets ideas space, Shanghai, China
2022.11.25-12.15
Online features:
Tofu Collective,Denmark
2023.9.26 https://tofucollective.com/feature/smug-huker/
To collaborate or purchase :
Contacts
Mail: smugsmuggler.0@gmail.com
Social medias
Instagram: @smugh.uker
Telegram: @smugswims
WeChat:@SmugHuker ppt
RED: @SmugHuker ing
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