For her first institutional solo exhibition, Steph Huang presented a new series of paintings and sculptures exploring food and fortune. Originally from Taiwan and now based in London, Huang is interested in how trade routes and supply chains are informed by colonial legacies. Both an artist and a chef, she looks at food as a ritual, and as one of the oldest forms of exchange between cultures.

Huang has spent time researching markets throughout London – including Ridley Road, Peckham, Deptford and East Street – as well as markets in Paris, Venice and Taiwan. She is interested in the local traditions of each market and in uncovering the social intricacies and “cultural spirits” that inhabit them, as well as how they function as interfaces between consumer and capitalism. The imagery of market signage and architecture is incorporated into Huang’s work, but also the rubbish and detritus produced and discarded as by-products of materialism and trade.

Huang often reuses materials from previous works, recycling offcuts as well as incorporating found objects and real food. This playful combination of materials questions how our collective behaviours and superstitions produce a kind of surreal absurdity and how, in turn, these implicate labour, culture and the economy.

New works made especially for the exhibition bring the formal language of bars, restaurants and markets into the gallery. The entrance featured a curved curtain rail, reminiscent of European restaurants, but hung instead were plastic sheets commonly found in butcher’s shops and industrial fridges. A free-standing sculpture echoed the revolving clothes-hanging structures typically found on
market stalls, but in place of garments was neon writing that cited traders’ hyperbolic language: “finest”, “premium”, “selected”. Snaking centrally through the gallery was an S-shaped wooden structure that echoed a bar. Upon it were offerings from Huang: bottles of Campari; peanuts carved in wood before being cast in bronze; in a fibreglass pudding mould, recycled glass fragments of phones, LED screens, wine bottles and strip lights.

A robotic, fortune-telling pig’s head, Tannakin Skinker, referenced ATM machines and a 17th-century myth of a pig-faced woman, her appearance supposedly a result
of witchcraft. Huang links fable with fortune to reveal the illusion of equal exchange. Pigs are a motif for the artist, and sausages in handblown glass and cardamom-filled silk recurred throughout the exhibition. A formative image from Huang’s childhood was seeing trucks carrying live pigs on the motorway. In Commander, the artist has incorporated a racing car seat with bronze pig trotters, almost seductively poking out from behind a privacy screen.

Exhibition Guide

This exhibition was co-commissioned by Goldsmiths CCA and Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne. A second chapter of the show will open in Eastbourne in November.

A Great Increase In Business Is On Its Way is accompanied by a limited edition publication of the same name, which includes 100 35mm photographs taken by Steph Huang throughout the last few years, taken in various markets around the world, including in London, Leeds, Paris, Venice and Taiwan. It includes new texts by Fuchsia Dunlop, Yvonne Maxwell, Emma McCormick-Goodhart, Alex Rhys-Taylor and Junya Yamasaki, written in response to Huang’s work. Each book features a unique, handmade cover that has been letterpressed and foiled by the artist. Copies can be purchased both at the front desk and online and cost £10 each.

BIOGRAPHY
Steph Huang was born in Taiwan, and lives and works in London. She received her MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 2021. This show coincides with the announcement of Huang’s inclusion in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2022. Previous solo exhibitions include mother’s tankstation, London (2022); ArtWorks Project Space, London (2020); Peak, London (2020); and 4Cose, London (2019). Selected group exhibitions include Belmacz, London (2021); San Mei Gallery, London (2021); Bloc Projects, Sheffield (2021); South London Gallery (2021); Cromwell Place, London (2021); Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy, Lithuania (2020); Bolton Museum (2019); Podium, Luxembourg (2019); Alte Handelsschule, Leipzig (2018); Incheon Art Platform, Seoul (2018); and A.P.T. Gallery, London (2017).

EPISODES
Episodes is an ongoing series of solo presentations that span installations, screenings, discursive events and new commissions. The focus of this programme is to provide an experimental platform for emergent practices. The series has featured work by: Olivia Sterling (17 Sep – 14 Nov 2021), Kobby Adi (21 May – 4 Jul 2021), Sophie Barber (18 Sep – 25 Oct 2020), Roland Carline (16 Nov 2019 – 12 Jan 2020), Corey Hayman (17 Jul – 11 Aug 2019), Adam Christensen (27 Apr – 27 May 2019), and Oisín Byrne (14 Dec 2018 – 3 Feb 2019). Episodes is generously supported by the Episodes Circle: Alexander Petalas, Alison Jacques Gallery, Brian Johnson, Carlos/Ishikawa, Niru Ratnam and Georgie Griffiths, and Olga Ovenden.

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