Tishan Hsu
Image courtesy of Empty Gallery
Becoming Fish, 1996, ink and acrylic on linen, 59 3/4” x 72”, Image courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery
Outer Banks of Memory, 1984, acrylic, concrete, styrofoam, oil, enamel on wood, 90” x 96”. Image courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery
Cordless 2.0, 2018, ink and acrylic on linen, 71” x 71″. Image courtesy of Empty Gallery
Toxic Rain, 1990, ink, acrylic on linen, 71” x 71’’. Image courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery
Suture, 1997, ink, acrylic on linen, 95” x 71”. Image courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery
Born in Boston, Massachusetts , Hsu spent his very early years in Zurich, Switzerland. He grew up in Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and New York. Hsu had his first one-person show as a teenager in Virginia, where his paintings were exhibited throughout the region. He studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his B.S.A.D. in 1973 and M.Arch. in 1975. While at MIT, he studied film at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University. He moved to New York in 1979, where he currently resides. Hsu first showed in New York at the Pat Hearn Gallery. Since 1985, Hsu has shown extensively in the US, Europe and Mexico with works in many public and private collections. From 1988-90, Hsu lived and worked in Cologne, Germany.
From 2013-2016, Hsu maintained a studio in Shanghai, China, where he has been working on a project using historical photographs discovered in photo albums of his extended family. Much of the artist’s work has attempted to convey 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 paintings, digital media projections and sculpture.
Selected public collections include MetropolitanMuseum, NewYork, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, High Museum, Atlanta, Terra Museum, Mexico City, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and the Weisman Museum, Minneapolis. Hsu has served as a Member of the Board of White Columns and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has been a Professor of Visual Arts at Sarah Lawrence College, and a visiting professor at Pratt Institute and Harvard University.