XIANGYIN TOM GU - A SPACE BETWEEN THE CORNER AND THE CORNER.
M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) meet emergent artist Xiangyin Tom Gu, LONDON.
‘Entangled Past’ by Xiangyin Tom Gu 2022. Image: Xiangyin Tom Gu
‘Have you read much Yukio Mishima?’ Xiangyin Tom Gu asks while reaching for a copy of ‘The Sound of Waves’ from the cloth-covered shelves of ‘Hatchards of Piccadilly - ‘the translation in English loses little of the power of the original.’
Tom Gu is an elegant bespectacled gentleman, born to another age, whose fluency in language - both spoken and visual is impressive. Eyes that dart and focus on the horizon while he rhythmically crafts his hypotheses - from a flow of cross-referenced texts, theories, and exhibitions. I realise quickly that I am listening to the audacious soul of an artist.
Currently studying for a masters in psychology after graduating from The Royal College of Art in 2022 - choosing photography as a medium to explore trauma in an installation titled ‘Entangled Past’. An imposing layering of printed Japanese papers - dominated the end-of-year show at the art school’s freshly built Herzog & de Mourn designed Battersea building.
A box of photographs were found in Tom Gu’s grandfather’s attic, ‘in the corner of the corner’. Image: Xiangyin Tom Gu
Please describe your graduation installation ‘Entangled Past’?
My graduation installation 'Entangled Past' showcased a triptych of an old archival image from my own family, in which my grandfather was standing before the Tiananmen Square supporting the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The triptych consists of three large pieces of prints, each sized 1.2 by 2.4 meters, intending to create an immersive space for the audience. The image came from a poorly preserved 5x7 black and white negative with clear traits of mold and stains. The anterior future, which one may call fate, laid in front of the protagonists in the image. Not to mention how contentious those times were in today's perspective, the elderly like my grandfather who went through the revolution refrained from bringing it up as a topic until their death. Drifting between memory and fantasy, photographs of the political events now serve as the mise-en-scène for us to travel through time and space.
The relationship with your grandfather is fascinating - in life and afterlife - please can you discuss his influence on your work?
My grandfather was the most important figure in my own family, both his presence during his lifetime and his absence after his passing played a significant role in my own growth. Before he died of pancreatic cancer, ironically, he mostly kept reticent concerning his own feelings and we rarely had much conversation. Yet afterwards, when my family was organising his heritage, a large number of old images were rediscovered. It is through careful reading of these archives that I came to know him in a non-verbal manner. Such abstract conversations which took place after death separated the living and the dead proved to be extremely deep and open. Thus, from then on, I put much emphasis on archival materials.
The wish to have serious conversations with the prominent figure within the family, in this case my grandfather, was never fulfilled. Such regret became the primary reason for my giving up on pharmaceutical science and pursuing fine art photography. Yet the division between life and death made the process of such wish-fulfilling a never ending dream through the reminiscence of photography.
There are many symbolic elements within your practice - including the ocean - please can you discuss some in detail?
The element of the ocean is for me the most important in this whole installation space. The ocean represents the fluid and the omnipresent. I wanted to express a sense of futility by fragmenting the frame of the ocean into hundreds of tiny segments. The nature that is also hinted at by this universal symbol then constantly reminds me of a piece written by Louise Glück in 'March':
‘Nothing can be forced to live.
The earth is like a drug now, like a voice from far away,
a lover or master. In the end, you do what the voice tells you.
It says forget, you forget.
It says begin again, you begin again.’
I deployed the ocean as an opportunity to blur the political aura given by the triptych work. Hence, in some respects, my space is also about conflicts and balance between polarised elements clashing together. The battleground between these seemingly unrelated elements is in the middle where the audience are standing, the gap, the grey area or the conflicted zone.
Roland Barthes ‘The Death of the Author’ is a reference point - what is your response to this critical essay and how has it influenced your thinking?
During the exhibiting process of ‘Fragmented Ocean’, I made the decision to allow the audience to bring with them back home one piece of the hundred fragments hanging in the air. Each piece was an individual segment which together with the others could form a whole oceanic frame shot with my camera. Through this act, the presentation of the installation thus constantly reformed and changed into various shapes and resulted in different chemistry within the space, along with the other work 'Entangled Past'.
Gradually, as a natural selection unfolds, the triptych behind the ocean installation was unveiled yet the fragments of the ocean slowly disappeared. This, for me, represents an analogy with how memory works. There is only a facade of being in control for the protagonist, in reality all perceptions remain in the end subjective. The way Roland Barthes inspired me through 'The Death of the Author' is manifested in here how I willingly gave up all authority as to how one should interpret or understand the piece. Between the author and the audience there exists a gap, namely 間 (ma), and it is more than enough to be with my audience together in this gap of limbo.
Time as a concept seems to be important to the work as a whole, can you describe how time has effected the creation and curation of the installation?
Back in 1966, when the great cultural revolution broke out and the relationship between the USSR and China froze, my grandfather was 25 years old. Today, as the artist standing in front of the life-size triptych portrait piece, I am 25 years old. The event occurred 57 years ago, which is exactly the age difference between me and my grandfather. There clearly is a sense of reminiscence and melancholy. Such striking coincidence lured me further to imaginatively impersonate and blend into the mise-en-scène.
Layers of time also could unfold in terms of the anterior nature of documentary photography. The unfortunate ignorance of our own fate which deeply cursed all us human beings could also be indicated by these harmless images. To look back on the photographs which could signify key moments in history, from this point of view, is another gesture of ironic salute towards time and space.
Tom Gu will present work as part of Hot Sheet 2023.
14 April 2023: 18:00 – 21:00 BST - 248 Ferndale Road London SW9 8FR