Tishan Hsu

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Installation view, *Tishan Hsu: recent work*, Secession, Austria, December 1, 2023 – February 11, 2024. Photography: Oliver Ottenschlaeger. © Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view, Tishan Hsu, MAMCO Genève, March 5 – June 9, 2024. Photo © Annik Wetter, MAMCO Genève, 2024. © Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view, *Tishan Hsu: screen-skins*, Empty Gallery, 2023

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Tishan Hsu, *breath 9*, 2023

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view at 59th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale: ‘The Milk of Dreams,’ curated by Cecilia Alemani at Arsenale, 2022

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

(Left) *It’s Not the Bullet but the Hole 2*, 1991. (Front) *Virtual Flow*, 1990-2018. (Right) *Fingerpainting*, 1994
Installation view at ‘Liquid Circuit,’ Hammer Museum; Los Angeles, 2020
Photo: Jeff McLane

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

*Cellular-Automata*, 1989
Installation view at ‘Tishan Hsu,’ Pat Hearn Gallery; New York, 1989
Private collection

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view at ‘Glow Like That’, K11 Art Foundation, 2019

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view, *Tishan Hsu: delete*, Empty Gallery, 2019 (L) *Dread-Fog*, 2013; (R) *Boating Scene 1.1.3*, 2019

Courtesy the artist; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, Miguel Abreu Gallery; New York
© Tishan Hsu / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Hsu’s early years were in Zurich, Switzerland, and Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and New York, U.S. Hsu had his first one-person show as a teenager in Roanoke, Virginia, where his paintings were exhibited in museums throughout the region. He received his B.S.A.D in 1973 and M.Arch in 1975 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he also studied film and photography at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University. Hsu has resided in New York since 1979. Hsu first showed in New York at the Pat Hearn Gallery. Since 1985, Hsu has shown extensively in the US, Europe, Mexico and Asia, with works in many public and private collections. From 1988-90, Hsu lived and worked in Cologne, Germany and from 2014-16 in Shanghai, China.

Much of the artist’s work has attempted to convey the changing cognitive and physical effects of an embodied technology. Hsu’s interest in technology has not been in the use of a particular apparatus but the perception of a technological affect. His work has included drawings, paintings, interactive digital media projections, and sculpture.

Hsu has held solo exhibitions at institutions including Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2024); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2023/2024); MAMCO Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland (2024); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2021); Sculpture Center, New York, New York (2020/2021); MIT. List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1988); and Carnegie University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1987).

His work has been included in recent group exhibitions, including Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2023); Day Jobs, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas (2023) and Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (2024); Human Is, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany (2023); In the Balance: Between Painting and Sculpture, 1965–1985, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2022); Cloud Walkers, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2022); A Gateway to Possible Worlds: Art & Science-Fiction, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2022); and Zeros + Ones, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2021). He has participated in major international group exhibitions and biennials, including The Milk of Dreams, the 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2022); and Is it morning for you yet?, 58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (2022).

Selected public and private collections include Metropolitan Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum fur Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main; High Museum, Atlanta; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Weisman Museum, Minneapolis; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Hsu has served as a Member of the Board of White Columns and a Governor for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He was a Professor of Sculpture at Sarah Lawrence College and a visiting professor at Pratt Institute and Harvard University.

In 2019, Hsu opened a solo exhibition delete at Empty Gallery. skin-screen-grass, his first solo show with Miguel Abreu Gallery, was held in 2021. He opened a second solo exhibition with Empty Gallery, screen-skins, in March 2023.

Hsu is co-represented by Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.

CURRENT:

The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970–2020
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Nov 9, 2024 – Apr 13, 2025

Post Human
Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles
September 12 – December 21, 2024

Interface Remix
Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto
September 8, 2024 – January 26, 2025

High Line Commission, New York City
Curated by Cecilia Alemani
May 2024 – April 2025


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2024-11-01	Doris Guo, The Jar at K4, Oslo
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2024-10-26	Cici Wu, Travel Star Between Ceasing and Arising, Scheusal Berlin
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2024-10-25	Jes Fan, Sites of Wounding: Interchapter, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
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2024-09-22	Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork in Slipper, Personal Space, Vallejo, California
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2024-09-20	Vunkwan Tam in Improvisation at Inside Out Museum, Beijing, curated by Carol Yinghua Lu
	Improvisation is on view through January 19th, 2025 at the Inside Out Museum in Beijing. It was curated by Carol Yinghua Lu with Na Rongkun, Sining Zhu, Cao Liyao, Li Huiyi and Sun Yuhan. Participating artists and collectives include Cang Xin, Chen Liang, Chen Zhou, Ergao (He Qiwo), Gao Fu, He Liping, He Ruijun, Hu Yiyao, Liu Zhan, Luo Lin, M Art Group, Ma Liuming, Pak Sheung Chuen, Peng Xueying, Rong Rong, The Cement Park, Song Xiaohong, Song Dong, Vunkwan Tam, Tong Tianqing, Wang Shihua, Wang Sishun, Yorkson, Zhang Huan, Zhang Wei, Zhang Zhihui, Zhong Yunshu, Zhou Bin, Zhu Fadong, Zuoxiao Zuzhou. Improvisation is one of the characteristics of art, as well as a method of creative practice. It highlights an artistic process where the artist finishes their work immediately and swiftly, using everything at hand, when the inspiration, provoked by an external stimulus or an internal impulse, hits unpreparedly and uncontrollably. In the context of traditional Chinese music culture, due to its unique system of notation and inheritance, improvisation was once a ubiquitous technique in musical practice. Improvisation is a cross-cultural phenomenon that is probably as old as the human race. This is the reason why we encounter improvisation frequently throughout different historical moments and creative activities in the long history of art. From the Dada’s rejection of logic and introduction of chaos and irrationality into their creative practice, to the Situationists who, out of an ideal to fight against Capitalism’s alienation of the individual, advocated the pursuit of genuine desires, the experience of life, and the sense of adventure. People can see that improvisation is the method, the idea, the principle, and the real life itself. Read more …

Marilena Borriello, ‘Tishan Hsu, MAMCO / Genève,’ Flash Art