EXHIBITED:
Hung Tung Lu's Solo Exhibition, Art Seasons, Beijing, August 6 – September 4, 2006
Hung Tung Lu's Solo Exhibition, Art Seasons, Singapore, October, 2006
Hung Tunglu, Huang Zhiyang Art Exhibition, Times Square 2F, Hong Kong, March 27 – June 10, 2008

As an artist who grew up in the 1990s after the lifting of martial law, Hung Tung-lu utilizes photography as one of the most important mediums with which he demonstrates artistic thought. Unlike other contemporary artists of his era, in terms of spiritual conceptualization, Hung incontestably rejects the pervasive attitude of cynical nihilism adopted by so many of his peers. The many theoretical problems derived from his artworks must be duly noted by observers of the contemporary art scene. Hung sees the hypocrisy of Taiwanese society, therefore chooses to focus his attention on the younger generations. He explores how youths, in a society of excessive fetishization and consumption, seek corporeal and sensual stimulation through the pursuit of trends, new media and substances in order to obtain temporary psychological satisfaction and spiritual fulfillment.

This lot features a doll seated upon a water droplet shaped like a lotus, the symbol of rebirth and renewal. The image shows a new virtual idol emerging from classic settings and celestial light in its mockery of the fetishizing, psychedelic trance of the younger generation. Hung often claims to be part of this younger generation, and in comparison with older artists who reached adulthood under the influence of Martial Law, Hung is especially adept at observing the consumerism and the pursuit of pleasure of the youth, and giving voice to these contemporary cultural phenomena. In this work, the process from birth to rebirth is accompanied by frigid electronic music and artificial colors as the traditional Chinese figurine is enveloped in a state of trance symbolized by the lotus imagery of nirvana. The artist employs new digital techniques to compare and superimpose images in his incorporation of photography with contemporary art, resulting in much more multi-faceted perspectives of observation than other forms of contemporary image art currently practiced in Taiwan. Through his creative process, Hung attempts to identity the transformative role that images play within the realm of visual art, and persists in his search of a new direction of thought for Taiwan’s image art amidst the all the emerging cognitive theories and new aesthetics of this obscure digital era