By Christie Lee /

It must be a strange moment for ektor garcia. The artist, used to a nomadic lifestyle, is, like everyone, on lockdown, in his case in Mexico, his birthplace. Under normal circumstances, he would have flown to Hong Kong for his show Oax.D.F.L.A.N.O.H.K., yet the pandemic left him no option but to direct Empty Gallery where to place each piece through video conferencing, arranging them to mimic his own living space.

On entering the black box exhibition space, visitors encounter ventanal (2020), which means ‘a large window’ in Spanish. Consisting of spider leg-like forms that twist and knot into each other, the work was created with the ancient lost-wax casting process, where molten metal is poured into a wax cast mold. One feels a perverse thrill looking at these slightly menacing forms. From there, the eye is directed towards Portales (2020), a series of hanging curtains fashioned from metals or animal skins. These are intricately latticed, the shadows they cast on the wall behind adding to the frenzy. While the ones crafted from animal skin are tactile and sturdy, the ones weaved from metal are studies in fragility and resistance. Push one and it might collapse, but you might also cut your hand in the act. As the artist said once, “The process of moulding and twisting materials into the shape one desires is part pain, part pleasure”.

At the heart of the gallery is an assortment of pottery. Scattered around the space, these works look at once randomly placed and meticulously arranged, as if garcia is coaxing the viewer down a particular path. At first glance, they look like replicas of ancient artefacts but a closer look reveals that the artist’s hand is very much present on their surfaces. An ink splatter feels half-done, while another features inks of clay fired and glazed together in knotted clusters on its surface, as if a sinister force is corrupting it.

As with the artist’s past exhibitions, there are no pedestals, frames or labels, giving it the feel of a haphazard studio. The fragility of Portales entices the viewer to run their fingers down them, while one has to half kneel to look at the patterns adorning the pottery pieces. On my first visit, I nearly tripped over one piece when backing away from another. This sense of experience and play, coupled with dark surroundings of Empty Gallery, also evokes an archaeological site. Just as the artist is unearthing traditions and systems that go back centuries, we appear to be uncovering the connection between the maker and these objects – how the maker shapes the object, but also how the object, in ever-evolving state, orients the maker’s experience of the world. Far from being finished art pieces, they are suspended in a state of limbo, waiting for a hand to reach out to bend, twist and mould them anew. In inscribing his memory into the works, garcia also explores how art-making confers agency.

These objects also seem to exist in a liminal space between art and craft, and in doing so defiantly question why pottery and weavingdon’t receive the same critical attention as paintings and sculptures. But the artist does not aim to lift these ancient crafts from the realm of domesticity, rejecting such simplistic hierarchies and relishing their slippages and multi-dimensionality. The artist gives few interviews and consciously chooses not to capitalise his name, a “gesture of resistance against the increasing trend towards contemporary artists turning into celebrities”, says the gallery. The notion of thresholds takes on a multi-layered significance in the exhibition. For example, viewers are ushered into the exhibition space via a pair of sliding doors, denoting a clear boundary between the space housing garcia’s art and an exterior place, which hosted a makeshift bar on opening night and a talk on closing night. The skin that an animal wears acts as a sort of threshold between that animal and the outside world. These crocheted leather curtains are purposely located on either side of the gallery, acting as a proxy of sorts for doors to garcia’s actual living space, provoking the question: are we in the living room of the artist or the womb of a beast? Later, as one ascends the stairs from the 18th to 19th floor, passing by various metal objects, there is also the feeling one is leaving a space, an experience, an idea behind. During the curatorial process, the artist crosses from his Mexico home to his home in Empty Gallery. What does this fluidity between the artist’s two homes mean? What does it mean to pass through a portal and step into an unfamiliar space, both physically and psychologically?

Garcia’s exhibition asks not only personal questions but also socioeconomic ones. What does it mean for these objects, crafted and assembled in various locations, to finally land in Hong Kong? What doors, physical and metaphorical, did they pass through? These questions are perhaps succinctly captured in the exhibition title, which is a cryptic neologism for Oaxaca, Mexico City, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hong Kong – the places “inhabited by artist during the gestation of these objects”, laying bare the multitudinal nature of identities and the globalised nature of the art industry. What place does this interconnectedness have in a year when ‘decoupling’ has become a buzzword?

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對於過慣遊牧般生活的ektor garcia來說，這真是一個不尋常的時刻。由於疫情封城，他待在自己的出生地墨西哥出不去。正常情況下，他應該已飛抵香港參加個展「Oax.D.F.L.A.N.O.H.K.」。然而他別無選擇，只能通過視像會議遠端指導Empty畫廊逐個擺放作品來仿傚他的居住空間。

走進黑箱式的展龐，迎面擺放的是作品《ventanal》（2020年），即西班牙語中大窗戶的意思。類似蜘蛛腿般的架構相互纏繞，作品採用古老脫蠟鑄造的手法，將融化的金屬倒入蠟鑄模具裡製成。看著這些略帶敵意的形狀令人不禁感到緊張而興奮。站在此處，視線自然被引向作品《Portales》（2020）。那是一系列以金屬或動物皮革製成的帷幕，交織得錯綜複雜，其投在牆上的陰影更添紛亂。以動物皮革製成的部份手感很好很結實，而金屬製成的部份則是個對脆弱和抵抗的探索。你若推其中一件，它可能會倒下，但同時你也會傷到自己的手。誠如藝術家曾經所說：「將材料鑄模扭轉為理想形狀的過程中，一半是痛苦，一般是喜悅。」

畫廊正中間放著一些陶瓷。這些作品，既看似隨機放置在各處，又看似精心擺放，就像是誘導觀者跟隨某條特定路線前行。乍看這些作品像是文物的複製品，細究才發現藝術家在表面用了諸多心思：感覺像是才完成一半的墨漬，還有一堆突出集結在表面的燒釉，就彷彿遭到一股邪惡力量入侵。

沿襲藝術家以往的展覽風格，展廳裡沒有任何基座、架構或是標籤，給人一種非常偶然和隨性的工作室氣氛。《Portales》所呈現的脆弱感讓觀眾不自覺想要用手指觸摸，而觀者要半蹲著才能看到陶器上的圖案。第一次觀展時，我差點為著避開另一件作品而被一個作品絆倒。這種觀展體驗再配合著畫廊本身黑漆漆的環境，有種瀕臨考古現場的感覺。循著藝術家的軌跡去追溯和發掘數百年前的傳統和體系，觀眾漸漸開始找到造物者和這些物件之間的聯繫：物件是未完成的藝術品，處於一個游離狀態，等待有能的手去重新彎曲、扭轉和塑形。憑把他的回憶注入作品之尬，藝術家同時探索創造藝術所帶來的主動權。

這些物件像是介於藝術和工藝品的閾限空間內，大膽質問為何陶器和織物不如油畫和雕塑那麼受重視。然而藝術家並沒有打算將這些古代工藝品脫離家用領域。他摒棄了簡單的層次結構，樂忠於其不規整和多維感。他很少接受採訪並且刻意在名字中使用細楷，「是對當代藝術家越來越明星化的趨勢所作出的抗拒。」Empty畫廊如此說道。

門檻這一概念在是次展覽中有著多層意義。例如，觀眾進入展場時通過的一組移門是一條明顯的地域線，清晰地分隔開garcia的藝術空間和外面舉辦開幕夜酒會和閉幕夜演講的地方。動物的皮革是一道將動物和外界分隔的門檻。鉤編的皮革窗簾有意地置於畫廊的兩邊，如同一扇扇豎在garcia實際居住空間前的門，令人不禁發問：我們究竟是在藝術家的客廳裡還是在野獸的子宮內？之後，當觀眾從18樓走向19樓，經過沿途各式各樣的金屬物件時，便有種離開一個空間，忘卻一段體驗和理念的感覺。在策展過程中，藝術家從墨西哥的家轉移到了Empty畫廊的家中。他在這兩個家之間的流動意味著什麼？從傳送門進入某個陌生領域在生理和心理上又意味著什麼？

是次garcia的個展不僅向個人也向社會經濟層面發出疑問：這些物件在不同場地裡精心製作、集結最後來到香港，這對它們究竟有什麼意思？它們通過了哪些實質上以及無形的門？或許展覽的題目《Oax.D.F.L.A.N.O.H.K.》已經簡要概括了這些問題，它代表瓦哈卡、墨西哥城、洛杉磯、新奧爾良、香港，是「藝術家創作期間曾居住城市的縮寫」，顯露出藝術領域的多重身份和全球化本質。 在「脫鉤」成為熱門詞的一年，這樣的互聯性又有什麼位置？