Correspondence: A Global Reflection on our Moment

In recent months, the world at large has felt the effects of the global COVID-19 Pandemic. In our lifetimes a crisis of this magnitude is unprecedented. The loss of life itself incomprehensible. Though the virus’ impact has varied from location to location, nothing can assuage the pain that has affected countless people around the world. Our response to this urgency shown us the connectivity of our lives. Where once our minds pictured the globe as a setting for free movement, now each of us has had to contend with the stark realities of quarantines, border closures, isolation, and social distancing. Our international bonds are severed. Turning towards a regional community, our neighborhoods, or even deeper within ourselves, we isolate. In light of this new normal, Each Modern presents “Correspondence” a collection of reports, dispatches, journal entries, works and works in progress, and reflections by artists from around the globe. Many share different aspects of the changes in their lives, or lack thereof. Others share strategies for coping, or express frank acceptances of their circumstances. Grief can also be read in their words, whether on personal, professional, or greater existential levels. Some look towards what the future will bring, cautiously. From New York, Antone Könst shares with us memories of life before the outbreak, and a hope-filled, large-scale sculpture work in progress. In his studio in Tokyo, Hiraku Suzuki adjusts his “antennae” in hopes of receiving a message, or finding the genesis of some new language. His new series captures the fluctuations that formed our cosmic origins. For Chinese artist Xu Jiong, isolation has never been a foreign word. In his poetic reflections, Xu tracks the passing of days in his room, tracing light, feeling the seasons change in his home in Beijing. His abstract shanshui sculptures and collages capture his timeless perspective, with one foot in the contemporary, and one in the traditional. In the relative safety of Taipei, Lan ChungHsuan ponders the sea-changes to come from all this chaos. With a series of paintings of mid-launch missiles, he asks if Taiwan has missed its mark. Wu MeiChi, another Taipei-based artist continues her practice through this period of uncertainty with her photography-based works, offering us new views into her personal and imaginative world. Ling Yong’s experience has been a turn towards interiority. The artist has found a reconnection with her mind and body. A new awareness of this quiet relationship is seen in her recent photographs and paintings. Like many Taiwanese people, artist Huang HaiHsin returned to her native country to avoid the risks of staying in New York City, her usual base of operations. Choosing to address the global crisis in her uncanny style, her recent large panel painting mixes the absurd with the terrifying, the humorous with the dangerous. Berlin-based Taiwanese artist Wu ChuanLun’s recent artistic practice pulls from his urban environment. A familiar train station between his home and studio becomes the central focus of his new works. Others look to great artists of the past to make sense of the present. In Sāo Paulo, Brazil, Lin YiHsuan professes the guidance one can find in the great Klee, or even in a metaphor. As seen in Lin’s new paintings, abstraction has always been a universal language, even in the face of great calamity. In whole, what we get from these disparate voices from across four different continents is a pulse on our present moment. Through their art, their words, and their thoughts, we detect the seismic shifts happening across the planet and within our hearts. July, 2020