I have not loved (enough or worked)

An exhibition on love and loss by contemporary Asian artists. The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) presents I have not loved (enough or worked), the first exhibition from the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art (SLF ICAA), a new curatorial initiative at AGWA, supported by the Simon Lee Foundation.

The exhibition brings together works in video, photography, painting and sculpture by Hai-Hsin Huang (Taiwan), Daisuke Kosugi (Japan/Norway), Pixy Liao (China), Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223) (China), Rinko Kawauchi (Japan), Sejin Kim (South Korea), Lieko Shiga (Japan), and Tao Hui (China), to reveal how deeply enmeshed our bodies, and the subjective forces of love and desire, are within the fantasies of ‘the good life’.

Within the exhibition, the work of each artist exists almost like an experiential, literary tale – one that opens out our experience of love and longing, loneliness, and loss. We are invited to contemplate how our understanding of these tangled, at times tortuous notions shape our relationships to the world as collectives, as pairs and as other social assemblies.

I have not loved (enough or worked) rethinks the value of work amidst the various crises which increasingly define this present moment. Each artist pulls focus to feelings of anxiety and fear, loneliness and alienation, conflict and confusion, which we all endure on a daily basis.

Image – Lin Zhipeng (aka No. 223) 花床 Kiss on Flower Bed 2011. Archival pigment print, 67 x 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist. © Lin Zhipeng (aka No. 223).