Bad, the disobedient, the non-conforming, the challenging, the transgressive – not substandard, not of poor quality.
A gold-clad spirit desecrates a lotus pond with beer. A ‘Pondan’ Muslim revels in a genderless neverland. Eyelashes poke teary eyeballs. Trans-housewives concoct hormone cocktails. Older men cruise in the open sea. Counterfeit Snow Whites perform princess rituals. However disparate in form, geography, race and ethnicity, gender, and age, these works – by Ip Wai Lung, Samak Kosem, Isaac Chong Wai, Mary Maggic, Rob Crosse, and Eisa Jocson – respectively iterate on their own terms how bodies can be bad.
Being good means acting the same perfect way — but there are so many ways to be bad. Creativity and genius can be bad. Fluidity and queerness can be bad. Enjoyment and exuberance can be bad. For Father and Mother, even autonomy and independence can be bad.
Society normalizes our bodies to make sure we are good. We’d rather take flight in being bad. Just as the mechanisms of life have evolved by hacking our genetics with bad copies, we will use our bad bodies to hack the hegemonic systems of patriarchy, hetero-, and homo-normativity.
Exhibition dates 展覽日期：13.5-30.6.2019
【About Nick Yu】
Nick Yu (b. 1990, Hong Kong) works at Blindspot Gallery, a Hong Kong-based art gallery that began with a primary focus on contemporary photography and lens-based media. “Bad Bodies” is his debut independent curatorial project. Previously, he was a curatorial and research fellow at Slought Foundation in Philadelphia. He contributes regularly to Art Asia Pacific. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in the History of Art and a BSc in Economics from the Wharton School.