Fine, industrial-looking sculptures that burn with a cold beauty
Steph Huang | There is nothing old under the sun | esea contemporary
Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
To betray any sense of geographical inferiority is, for a resident of the north of the UK, taboo. Even if you reject the neoliberal, Tory-constructed notion of the Northern Powerhouse, per-capita we have significant amounts of cultural heft. In Manchester alone are many fine independent publishers, magnificent music venues, and a vibrant art scene. I know this to be true. I love Manchester, but also know that, sadly, we just can’t compete with London for scale and clout. To admit this is, for me, to access a deeply partisan feeling: I want the best for the city like I want the best for a close friend.
Which is why it’s refreshing when an artist like Steph Huang exhibits in Manchester. Huang is a mixed media artist, originally from Taiwan. An alumna of the Royal College of Art, she is currently being exhibited at Tate Britain, and has been the recipient of several prestigious prizes including the 2022 Henry Moore Foundation award. In other words: she’s already a big name, and is rising higher still at rapid speed. Her solo exhibition There is nothing old under the sun is at the esea contemporary gallery on Thomas St in the Northern Quarter until the 8th December.
The pieces of which the exhibition is composed are strange, finely-made objects. Some are sculptural, while others appear more like obscure machinery. They seem to invite the viewer to wonder what purpose they serve, even while being aesthetically self-sufficient. I think of Fabergé eggs, if they were made in a factory by a machine intelligence. And – like those bejewelled Russian objects – nothing here looks edible, even though Huang has a culinary background and experience of working as a chef. This connection is made in the exhibition notes, which state that, for the artist, ‘cooking and art-making are delightfully entwined.’ One piece – stacked cans of prawns – references food but in a pop-art fashion, playfully. Other works allude to food, such as a large slatted box curled with green leaves that looks as if it could be used to make some sort of high-end molecular gastronomy dish.
At the curving entrance to the main gallery space, a long spur of metal like the outline of a long ear hangs on the wall – a striking, simple shape. Other pieces are more intricate: a wooden box, each end bracketed by elegant latticing, the top surface of which is dark glass containing photographic imagery of wild mushrooms that appear etched. Other mounted glass slides also show natural imagery such as leaves or cross-sections of trees. The latter piece brings to mind John Cage’s watercolours made with the assistance of his collection of smooth rocks, which he placed on the paper and traced. Huang’s glass photo-etchings look more like slides for an overhead projector, are lit from inside by cool, blue-white light. Another table-sized box is smothered over by a sheer cloth, the minutely rippled texture of which evokes topographical lines: a mountain range seen from a great height.
Elsewhere, light is the main feature and not just an ingredient. Some of the pieces are wall lamps, essentially. Huang’s process involves observing objects in the world during field trips, and then creating sculptural versions of them in the studio. In the case of the lamps, I could easily imagine this found/re-found art making its way back into the ‘real’ world, perhaps lighting a restaurant at which it’s impossible to get a reservation. Interestingly, the pieces that involve light do not bring warmth; the light is functional, the fixtures and cables highly prominent. As a whole, the exhibition does not seem designed to spark joy, but rather to burn pleasurably cold. This is a glazed, opaque beauty.
One piece, ‘The Gone Room’, is an exception. The last I viewed, it drew me in. An apple-shaped, wall-mounted sculpture like interlocking tiles, pale green and yellow. It appears to consist of a complex repeating pattern, but on closer inspection I realise that the repeated pattern is an illusion that does not complete but instead gestures towards breakdown somewhere beyond the ‘canvas’. Its industrial surface only looks so from a distance. Up close, the human and unique nature of it is apparent in its imperfection. Other visitors were also drawn to this sculpture, so I had to view it at first by peering over bent heads. Like the city I love, you have to get close to it to see its true qualities.
There is nothing old under the sun is at esea contemporary until the 8th December.
Reviewed by Joseph Hunter