Plastic Love

Curatorial Statement

Plastic Love is RNH Space’s first online programme, presenting art practitioner and zine maker Hou Lam Tsui’s new body of art. Loosely using her own personal experiences as a point of departure, Tsui reimagines unrequited, sick love through a series of drawings, moving images, and poetry, to unfold and explore lovelornness and obsession from the perspective of female gaze. As a social-media-based virtual exhibition, this programme not only practises visualisation in cyberspace, but also challenges psychological boundaries in this realm that often restrict the expression of unorthodox sentiments.

The legendary Japanese ero-guro singer Jun Togawa is well known for challenging the societal expectations of gender, femininity and idols, through her exaggerated, tortured and erotic interpretation of love in her music. Being influenced by a female figure as such, Tsui Hou Lam, as an female artist, takes an extreme and unruly stance whilst introduces the conventionalised hyperfeminine approaches in her artistic practice, in an attempt of reweaving the net that connects twisted love, masochism, female gaze, sexual desire and the most basic emotions of love. The body of exhibits, to be presented in the pattern of a drawing, a moving image and a poem every series of three series, intentionally strikes a chord with those venturous romanticists in the audience.

Interestingly, the Chinese title of the programme chosen by the artist is borrowing the prominent subculture, namely ‘MK Culture’, prevalent amongst Hong Kong local youth since early 2000s, with the terms often loosely related to marginalised social groups in a negative way. ‘MK’ is also extensively used to define the trendy love expressions created and used by the advocates of such culture, characterised as posturing, tacky, warped and even rebellious in terms of both the languages and the emotions. Nowadays as the farcical and awkward MK Culture came to decline, or extremely transformed, it lives on in the form of alternative classics and nostalgic aesthetics. Given that Tsui is intrigued by MK Culture and its vulgar aesthetics, she demonstrates these elements in the theme and the works of this programme, including appropriation of fashionable memes, trying to transcend the so-called inferior and inelegant philosophy then praise the unshameful human emotions of dysfunctional infatuation.

Artworks will be posted with a series of prose fiction written by the curator Yang Jiang and a playlist of the ’80s/’90s cheesy pop songs co-curated by Tsui and Jiang.

「我迷失在.＊ 這場﹍×°愛情遊戲」為RNH Space首個線上展覽，呈獻藝術創作人兼小誌創作人徐皓霖的最新作品。取材自個人經歷，徐氏以繪畫、流動影像和詩作重新想像不求回報的、扭曲且卑微的愛，並以女性凝視的角度抽絲剝繭，探索種種單戀和癡戀。是次計劃以社交媒體展覽的形式呈現，在網絡邏輯體系下實踐視覺傳遞的同時，亦試圖挑戰網絡世界話語權失衡的格局，與社會對情感表達的約束。

日本女歌手戸川純風格離經叛道，作品主題多與女性情慾與情感折磨有關，她的音樂挑戰社會對女性、偶像和陰柔特質概念的既有框架，亦啟發了作為女性藝術家的徐皓霖，嘗試以極端、失控的姿態和約定俗成的極女性化方式創作，重構痴狂、自虐、女性凝視、情色與情愛之間的關係。是次展覽將會呈現三個迷你系列，每個系列都由一份畫作、一張動態影像、一首詩組成，希望能引起大無畏的浪漫主義者的共鳴。

值得一提的是，藝術家為是次展覽選取的中文名稱借用了「MK文化」的流行句子。「MK」一詞與「MK文化」於千禧年代開始冒起，定義廣闊、比較含混不清，並帶貶義，泛指不倫不類的非主流文化潮流。「MK」甚至可以延伸至一些與愛情相關的自創潮語，以一種矯情、俗氣、不入流甚至裝作叛逆的方式表達傷春悲秋。而隨著「MK文化」的沒落（或是轉化成我們現在難以辨認的樣貌），那種笨拙滑稽的「文化」反而成為另類的新經典和美學。徐氏對「MK文化」和惡俗美學很感興趣，亦嘗試於是次主題和作品中展現這些元素，揉合現在流行的「迷因」(meme)，為所謂次等、品味惡俗的哲學和「MK文化」中的矯情平反，高舉步向失控、失態的癡情。

在展示藝術品的同時，是次展覽亦會連載由策展人江小陽撰寫的一部短篇小說，及一份由策展人和藝術家共同編選的八十、九十年代情歌歌單，希望能引起大無畏的浪漫主義者的共鳴。


About Hou Lam Tsui 徐皓霖

Hou Lam Tsui is a Hong Kong-based art practitioner and zine maker. Her practice centres on personal experience and feminism. She received a BA in Fine Art and History of Art at the University of Leeds, UK.
Selected consignment stores and reading places of her zines include Printed Matter (New York), Motto (Berlin), Pon Ding (Taipei), Book B (Hong Kong), and Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong).

徐皓霖是一位藝術創作人和小誌創作人，現居香港。她的創作圍繞私密經歷及女性主義。畢業於英國列斯大學獲藝術及藝術史（Fine Art and History of Art）文學士。
部分寄賣點以及閱覽點包括：Printed Matter（紐約）、Motto（柏林）、朋丁（台北）、Book B（香港）和亞洲藝術文獻庫（香港）。

𝗧𝘀𝘂𝗶 𝗛𝗼𝘂 𝗟𝗮𝗺, 𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙙, 2021, graphite on paper

Honey, this is a book about lovelornness and obsession. The drawings, moving images, poetry, songs and prose fiction will show you it is ok if love hurts you.

Actually, this is perhaps the best way to get hurt.

𝗧𝘀𝘂𝗶 𝗛𝗼𝘂 𝗟𝗮𝗺, 𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙙, 2021, Graphite On Paper



Here’s a joke:

My Medieval moonish lover, you’re allowed to do anything to me.

When you murdered me out of sheer boredom, I feel nothing.

I separated from my flesh and blood. Yawn.

這輩子我立志成為一個偶像歌手
穿起桃紅色的泡泡裙，套上黑色肘長手套，我背
縫上塑料大蜻蜓翅膀，沙啞的嘶吼
女聲還需多過一百年才會流行
我很傻，我忘記癡心早已過時
那是我下一個為你而做的定點行為藝術
你卻說叫我學學中森明菜

I aspire, in this life, to become an idol singer
Wearing candy pink bubble skirt, and elbow-length black gloves, my back
Being sewn on massive plastic dragonfly wings, my raspy girly voice
when I belt out won’t become trendy until a hundred years later
Foolish as I am, I don’t think of infatuation as out of fashion
I plan it as my next performance art, for you exclusively, site-specific
But you said why I can’t just be like Akina Nakamori