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Portrait of Miwako Tezuka. Photograph by Elsa Ruiz. Courtesy Miwako Tezuka and Asia Society Hong Kong Center.
New York-based Miwako Tezuka is the curator of “LOVE Long: Robert Indiana and Asia,” a group exhibition at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. The exhibition features the American artist’s most iconic works, and also focuses on the early stages of his career and the dynamic relationship between language and image. “LOVE Long” is a visual conversation with works by contemporary artists and artist groups form across Asia—Kutluğ Ataman, Takuji Kogo, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Chim↑Pom, He An, Hung Keung, Charwei Tsai and Xu Bing. Ahead of the show, Tezuka sat down with ArtAsiaPacific to discuss I-Ching readings, love and a call for peace.
How are you matching “love” with a not-so-love-filled city such as Hong Kong? Why do you think it’s important to see Indiana’s artwork in the port city right now?
In Asian cultures, in general, we don’t publicly proclaim love, there are different ways of saying and expressing it. One of them is by asking if you’ve eaten and if you have had enough food, so Indiana’s iconic signs that read “EAT,” which was in reality his mother’s last spoken word, represents a deep human emotion and connection with how Hong Kong is accustomed to express love. Art may not be able to change the reality, but it can create awareness. I think at this moment in time, with what we are experiencing worldwide, it is urgently needed to call for love. By doing that through art, we can let people feel intimate with the message—as Indiana has been doing for the past six decades.
What was your feeling during the first time you encountered one of Indiana’s artworks?
It’s funny how in this era of information overload, you can still discover a completely new aspect of somebody whom you thought you knew well. This is how I felt: as an art historian, I knew who Indiana was—the guy who made that iconic [LOVE] sculpture—but I didn’t know much more than that. I studied his biography and how he became who he is today. Indiana was an adopted child, growing up as Robert Clark from Indiana State. By changing his name, he was really trying to proclaim himself as an independent artist with an individual voice. At that point, I really understood he was embodying the American dream. Indeed one of the key works from the ’60s is The American Dream 1(1961), which was acquired by MoMA later on. I found that his career is characterized by an amazing narrative.
The exhibition clearly shows that the artist has been influenced by Asia, as we see in his early work Wall of China (1960–61). When and how did this take place?
The title is wordplay, as the materials’ shapes are references to Asian culture. After the Second World War, there was interest in the West in “the other,” as they were facing the Cold War, and at that time Asia was definitely seen as “the other.” In 1957, Indiana encountered the Book of Changes, or the I-Ching, which involves using three coins, six tosses, and altogether using a numerologically oriented way of thinking. This is clearly visible since this meticulous order, discipline, and matching one symbol with one meaning are affinitive to his work, from the beginning to his most recent works. My idea is to take this as a clue to make a connection with Asia.
That would include numbers, but also—by looking at the exhibition at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center—Chinese calligraphy, right?
Yes, Indiana has always been interested in the tradition and etymology in Chinese pictographic representation. There is a series of paintings that the artist began in 2002, when he was preparing for his first retrospective show in China, at the Shanghai Art Museum. They have never been exhibited elsewhere, so it’s quite rare to see them. He started to use the Chinese character for “love,” in both Traditional and Simplified writing. In this case, he incorporated one of his recurring motifs, the ginkgo leaves, knowing that they originated in Asia, combining them in a two-mirror reflection referring to his yin and yang—one side known to himself, and the other part uncontrollable and not fully understood.
In AI (2002), he uses the Simplified Chinese character for “love,” which is missing the radical for heart that is present in Gingko AI (2006). So, Hong Kong-based new media artist Hung Keung came up with the idea of complementing the missing heart by creating an interactive installation titled Control Freak (ver.01) (2018), a calligraphy machine where the visitor is encouraged to draw the Chinese character for “heart,” but under the pressure of hidden magnets that create a uncontrollable force. Maybe one person’s handwriting might not clearly show the character for heart, but as people combine their effort, it will create a composite image of a heart. I find this community-based effort to be a much deeper expression of love.
We see members of Tokyo-based artist group Chim↑Pom climbing on a LOVE sculpture, so the visual connection between this group and Indiana is clear. How did you select the other artists who are included in the show?
One thing I didn’t want to do is to just focus on artists who are merely using images made by Indiana, but Chim↑Pom’s LOVE IS OVER (2014) is the exception. I tried to select artists that are conceptually and formally working with the dynamics of words and images. For example, I was inspired by He An’s work because of this nostalgic feel to it: we still see, especially in Hong Kong, these neon signs, but in China the landscape is changing so quickly and the speed of life is creating these objects that are discarded in big quantities everyday. In the artist’s Do You Think That You Can Help Her, Brother? (2008–09), he is giving the object a second life and I really loved that sense of salvation and giving them new meaning, taking them out of their original context of commercialism to carry a much more poetic emphasis. In this case, it is social commentary as the title refers to a text message randomly received from someone who was involved in prostitution, regarding a young girl who was willing to sell her virginity for a small amount of money. In this short phrase, He An felt the sadness, and projects it for today’s social illness.
Indiana’s works were often meant to be shown in a much more public way—the works are recognizable worldwide. How does this show build upon that recognition?
Indiana defines himself as a people’s painter who wants to communicate with people. That’s why he paints using different languages such as English, Chinese, Spanish and Hebrew. I tried to create as many point of contacts and frames of reference, some people may recognize Indiana only by his sculptures or part of the American counterculture from the ’60s art scene, but at the time he was protesting against war and fighting for peace and sexual freedom. Those kinds of social and political conflicts still continue, and they connect with today’s audience. There are paintings such as The Four Diamond Ping (Yellow/Red/Black) (2002), which was made after America’s invasion of Iraq after 9/11. In fact, Indiana was triggered to go back to the fervor of the ’60s and wanted to call for peace again by creating this piece that everyone could understand.
Sophie von Wunster is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.
“LOVE Long: Robert Indiana and Asia” is on view at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center until July 15, 2018.
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