To be and not to be 21

作品賞析

Through his works, Hwang Yue-Sheng raises the issue of “whether it is possible to let the viewer feel the strong presence of the ‘master’ through a place where human figures are removed,” and he constantly explores the concept of “existence.” In To Be or Not to Be 21, he uses copperplate mezzotint, which can handle various layers of black-and-white contrasts with meticulous detail. We see here a faintly lit space where time seems still; the windows beyond the sliding glass doors are shielded with iron grills. The work overalls hung in the foreground are rendered in thick black tonalities. In this space with only slight differences of shading, the wrinkled overalls are hard to ignore, and the pair of glasses inexplicably dropped on the floor imply the “absence of the owner.” Even so, there is a certain quality of the space that evokes the presence of a certain “existence.”