Hu Yun: Writing Toward “Mount Analogue”
Written by Sara Yuan
Edit by Simone Chen
Hu Yun's artistic creation is neither research nor field investigation. Although he may employ methodologies similar to these, he is not driven by a thematic hypothesis nor fixed subjects that he seeks to clarify. The historical fragments and peripheral characters that appear in his works serve as the foundation and entry points for his writing. Bypassing the rigid formal definitions of research and field investigation, his creation can broadly be categorized as a form of writing that does not "re-present" history and its meanings but rather produces a new creation—a creation of both the object itself and a new mode of expression/viewing the world.
The exhibition “Mount Analogue" marks Hu Yun's first solo museum exhibition in China. Held in the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, a building constructed in 1931, opened to the public in 1933, and that once housed China's earliest natural history museum—the Royal Asiatic Society (R.A.S.), it presents this continual act of writing over a span of more than a decade. Positioned within the dual context of its past as a museum and its present status as a contemporary art museum, the exhibition showcases 23 of his works, addressing historical events, personal narratives, and natural elements. Hu acts like a "detective," piecing together fragments to form a new mosaic, thoroughly exposing the "disorder" of these puzzles. Through exploring the exhibition, we gradually discover that this very act of writing is indeed moving toward the “Mount Analogue.”
「The Construction and Narration of the Other」
The installation work The Secret Garden: Reeves's Pheasant (2012-2015) could perhaps be regarded as the initial puzzle piece. In 2010, Hu Yun was invited to partake in a residency at London's Gasworks, where he engaged in a three-month study of the Asian collections at the British Museum of Natural History. During this period, the archives of John Reeves garnered his interest. His investigation revealed that "as a tea inspector for the British East India Company, Reeves was among the first group of Britons to live in Guangzhou, China, for an extended period. Additionally, as an amateur naturalist, he collected many animal and plant specimens from Guangzhou. He then assembled a team of local artists to illustrate these specimens, which he subsequently brought back to Britain, thereby forming the John Reeves Collection." Consequently, we observe in the artwork elements such as animal feathers "preserved" in wire cages, painted illustrations on paper, and archival photographs resting on a metal desk, which pair with wallpaper crafted from pheasant feather patterns. This ensemble enables us to imagine the colonial era Western colonizers' display of "trophies" and their construction and narrative of the Eastern world or the Other through such acts of collection.
Hu Yun, "Mount Analogue", installation view
The Secret Garden: Reeves's Pheasant, 2012-2015, Iron desk, feather, drawings on paper, archival photos, wood and plastic toy in iron cage, wooden crate, wallpaper, color video, with sound, 5 min, 36 sec, overall dimensions variable
As Thomas Kaufmann points out, "In forming their encyclopedic collections, rulers might have sought not merely to establish their exceptional status through the display of wealth. By possessing a miniature form of the world, they symbolically reproduced their mastery over a larger world... They might believe that by having a microcosmic theater of the universe in their collections, they could gain control over a greater world." (Thomas Kaufmann, Courts, Cloisters and Cities, p. 179)
At the same time, when these collections are placed in wire cages, they inevitably resonate with the skepticism held by museum critics: "They are items behind glass, unrelated to the surrounding social life—art separated from life" (David Carrillo, Museum Skepticism, p. 66). Consequently, as these collections are relocated, they lack the support of cultural context, memory, and traditional customs associated with them, transforming into isolated, inanimate objects. However, in a large wooden crate next to the desk, through gaps formed by missing slats, we observe a segment of Jin opera playing on the screen, where the actor's hat is adorned precisely with a pheasant feather plume. Thus, in this work, Hu Yun assumes the role identified by Spivak as the "Native Informant," providing a supplementation or contrast to the isolated objects in the cage, partially reinstating the life associated with these artifacts. This invites us to consider a contemporary perspective on viewing history.
「Drifting and Dispersed Destinies」
From The Secret Garden: Reeves's Pheasant, two crucial elements become the threads extending through the work. The first is the movement and transformation of non-human elements, represented by plants; the second is the dispersion and drifting of populations, epitomized by the anonymous individuals.
In the series of paintings Palm (2018-2019), Hu Yun focuses solely on palm leaves as the subject of his artwork. Palms, often seen as trophies of imperial colonization, frequently appear in museums, black and white photographs, and book illustrations. They are also widely cultivated against a backdrop of globalization. The artist meticulously observes and depicts various forms of palm leaves, and by omitting the trunks, he alludes to the state of these palms as drifting entities.
The artwork Unregistered (2024), composed of 18 watercolor blocks, extracts its hues from stems and leaves of what scientists call “Super Plants." Unlike the visual symbolism of palm leaves, these plants are 'enslaved' by humans due to their ability to absorb heavy metals from the soil, effectively turning them into a labor force for the future. In presenting these “Super Plants", the artist even strips away their physical form, leaving only mineral pigments that symbolize their functionality, thus pointing to their thoroughly instrumentalized "destiny".
The Unknown Clouds (2021-2024) stems from Hu Yun’s empathy towards the anonymous painters in the Rivers Collection. He perceives a kinship between his own relationship with the museum and that of these painters who were commissioned by Rivers to illustrate plant and animal specimens. However, these painters were not allowed to credit their names on their works; they remained anonymous, identified only by code-like nicknames noted in Rivers' notebooks. Similarly, Chinese laborers in the Australian goldfields were documented only by their nicknames, articulated in dialect or Anglicized phonetics. Subsequently, 376 rice grains engraved with these nicknames were placed in a half blue and white porcelain cup found at a mining site and embedded into the museum's wall. The title’s reference to a "cloud" mirrors the gathering of rice grains while simultaneously pointing to the dispersal of these individuals. The embedded blue and white porcelain cup on one hand hints at their unalterable history from China, and on the other reveals their perpetually restricted fate. Meanwhile, the artist once again becomes a conveyor of local lore, having invited an elder from Taishan, Pan Jingming, to read the names on the rice grains in dialect. This oral presentation blends with the local accents in the gallery, blurring the lines between the past and the present.
「Erasure for Revelation」
In contrast to acting as a native information provider that supplements and contrasts within the artwork, Hu Yun also engages in the act of erasing and obscuring within his works. However, this erasure and obscuring can be considered a simultaneous, dual-contradictory motion of revelation.
Untitled (from the narrative of a five years expedition) (2016-2017) sources its material from illustrations by William Blake for the memoirs of John Gabriel Stedman, a Dutch-British soldier and writer. Hu Yun has strategically erased specific elements from Blake's original illustrations, revealing through his interpretation of the novel that such erasure is in fact a form of revelation. "The historical accounts of the expedition in Suriname involve a very complex individual, who was a Dutch soldier representing the colonizers stationed in Suriname. During his years in Suriname, his relationships with the local slaves and indigenous people evoked complex emotions in him, emotions that are difficult to concretize or separate. Therefore, I re-edited these images trying to dissolve the simple binary oppositions by fragmenting the imagery." Consequently, the figures in the images, previously distinct with skin color, are almost concealed and replaced with non-specific objects and natural elements. Here, the artist raises his question: who, in truth, is the 'other'? Meanwhile, by employing erasure, he reminds us of the brutality of viewing colonial issues through a simplistic binary lens.
As Homi K. Bhabha states in The Location of Culture, "In choosing to traverse a path through human debris, I retraced an ambiguous route, viewing contradiction and ambiguity as emerging from a complex global ethic and cultural character." This advances the view of marginalization and globalization as quasi-colonial, representing a hybrid condition of old and new, a dynamic and dialectical relationship that transcends binaries such as local versus global, center versus periphery, or 'citizen' versus 'outsider.' Indeed, such contradictions and ambiguities truly originate from within ourselves and from our own placement within these contexts.
At the onset of his creation, Hu Yun believed that his engagement and intervention came from a third perspective, attempting to view these historical events from the standpoint of an observer. However, he gradually realized that such a third perspective does not exist. Each individual's way of viewing or understanding history, and reflecting on the current state from there, inevitably connects to one's own circumstances. This is all closely related to the chosen lifestyle and modes of communication; all perspectives are complex. How we, as humans, view the world and the non-human world, could also signify that in some ways, we are all colonizers, incessantly expanding the spaces needed for our demands, 'invading' these environments. Therefore, who really is the 'other'? Could it also be each one of us?
Similarly, in the work Everything Is Possible in the Darkness (2016), photos taken at ten important stages of Hu Yun’s grandfather's life were rephotographed by Hu Yun using a film camera, from which the fixation step in the development process was omitted. Consequently, as time progresses and light exposes the photo, the human figures gradually fade and eventually manifest in varying shades of brown. Herein, Hu Yun erases the image of his grandfather, yet paradoxically, it intensifies the presence of him, a presence that might forever dwell in obscurity, much like every ordinary individual.
Hence, Hu Yun himself never vanishes from these works. He places himself within the gaps between past and present, resembling the "hollow men" described by René Daumal in his novel Mount Analogue — specifically Ho, the twin brother who strikes the hollow man formed by Mo, enters it, and gains Mo’s memories. At that point, the hollow man is neither Mo nor Ho, but a new individual.
Similarly, the artist leaves the positions in the exhibition hall where six specimen cabinets from the Asian Society Shanghai Museum once stood to accommodate the work The Hollow Men. This piece consists of a hollow structure made of gray elastic tulle, shaped like a tree canopy passing through the floors, seemingly inviting the audience to step inside the form of the hollow man trapped in an iceberg.
The past constantly approaches us, awaiting rebirth, and we may choose to regard it as a hollow man, to leap, strike, and enter its form. Hence, we do not return to an unchanged past but shift the dimensions of our thoughts and feelings, opening a passage to the present and the future, and embark on an expedition to the “Mount Analogue."
