An Interview With Artist Shirley Tse,
Adventuress In the World of Plasticity

by Theresa Herron

            Shirley Tse—artist, philosopher, adventuress into the unknown with creations of  plasticity—thoughtfully tilts her beauteous head to the side as I interview her in Café Rafaella in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Her dark, intelligent eyes reflect a woman who has thought through her artistic weltanschauung quite deeply and intensely. Yet those eyes also sometimes possess a twinkle as she speaks, or breaks into a broad, warm smile or laugh, showing a woman of playful intuitive spontaneity as well. Both of these qualities come across in Tse’s sculptures and photographs. This year she has prolifically produced four solo exhibitions in four different time zones: in Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis and Hong Kong. Focusing primarily on explorations of geometric and architectural-like carvings with various plastic panels, her Los Angeles and New York shows were entitled “Polymathicstyrene.” In the past she has had exhibitions stemming from similar themes entitled “Polyphantasmer.” A series of Cibachrome color photographs she concurrently exhibited this year, entitled “Diaspora? Touristry?” featured pictures of her sculptures set in the mountains of Colorado and Utah during a road trip. She was born in Hong Kong in 1968 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

TH:      What are some of the most important ideas that you wanted to convey with these shows in L.A. and also in New York?

ST:        I guess the most important ideas are about the state of multiples or multiplicity, but I would say I want my work to not only convey ideas, but also invite some sort of experience. So I would like my viewer to have an experience of movement, changes of different states of things and collisions of different scales, different imagery, different representations, different connotations.

TH:      Do you want to do this both with the panel installations as well as with the photographs? Or is it a little bit different you feel with the two of them?

ST:        Well, the sculptures actually are a little bit different than the photographs, because the photographs still remain very much as a representational device, but the sculptures somehow function in both senses. You know, it could be representational of something else, but then at the same time it could be non-representational. What you see, is what you get.

TH:      So you weren’t really thinking of representational with either the panels or the photographs—or the panels you weren’t and the photographs you were to a certain degree?

ST:        No, I wasn’t. No that’s not where I begin.

TH:      Even with the photographs too?

ST:        Even with the photographs too. Yeah.

TH:      So it was more about the idea behind it?

ST:        The photographs are more about…in a way I see them almost as a residue of my performance, because they are my sculptures. I made those sculptures. I took the trip not for the sole purpose of doing an art project. Usually, I will go on a camping trip, a hiking trip, a road trip, and then I’ll just take my sculptures along with me and somehow they kind of kept a life of their own. They decided to go climb some rocks, and then I made a little souvenir picture of them. It looks like they might be staged, and in a sense maybe they are, but I would just like to see them as my travelling partners.

TH:             Travelling partners?

ST:        So, it’s like a journey. It’s more like trying to put the viewer in a different situation to view this object rather than presenting a tableau, so to speak.

TH:      So that the viewer would see it in a very different context from how one would normally see it?

ST:        Yes.

TH:      Your last couple of shows have been a lot about “polyphantasmer.” Do you think you are continuing this theme or are you more into something else? Or what do you call the technique now? Much of what you did before was “polyphantasmic,” I guess you could say, in what you were doing with the plastics. Do you consider this current work something that has developed from that or do you have a new name for it? How do you feel about the connection between your earlier and latter work?

ST:        Well, I would say this new body of work is still very polyphantasmic, but definitely it has a different title. It’s called “Polymathicstyrene.” So, because of the fact that it has a new title, it must mean there is something—maybe not so much a change of idea or the experience of it, but maybe it’s a shift of focus. The name “polyphantasmer” was a combination of “polymer,” which is plastic, and “phantasm,” which means—for me I use it as a loose notion of phantasm, which is a simulacrum. Plastic is used as a simulacrum to imitate nature but very quickly has a life of its own. This is based on that idea. For this new body of work I think the emphasis has shifted from the general nature of plastic being a simulacrum to how individual pieces within the system can function together to create a system that has complications and a system that has certain coding and logic. But then at the same time because of its very intricate working, it defies an easy reading of how they are related. You know they are related. You know they are connected, but then it takes some sort of journey of thinking to figure out the relationship. So, that’s what Polymathicstyrene comes from. “Polymathicstyrene” is a mixture of two words. It’s “polystyrene,” which is commonly known as Styrofoam and also “polymath.” A polymath is an old-fashioned English term for someone who has varied learning, somebody who has encyclopedic learning—who comes from different views, from different disciplines, almost like a Renaissance man.

TH:      When you mention systems and how it shows coding of different systems, you’re thinking not only in terms of the materials? What are the ramifications for or reflections on the society or the bigger picture of what’s happening in our society today in terms of your work?

ST:        That’s an excellent question. By system I mean pretty much everything that we live with in this world. We live in a world that has a lot of order to it even though we see chaos everywhere. But there is a lot of order. By that I mean that there is the standard dimension of everything. A chair comes in a certain size. Matches come in a certain size. Fabric comes in certain sizes. That’s one kind of system and also when you look at different views or different areas of interest, like architecture or landscape or tools—they are all little different cosmos within themselves. The work is done with a router and the router bits come in very specific sizes. They only come in a certain size, like a quarter inch or a half inch. So that’s the limitation of that system and I like to explore that system.

TH:      The materials you work with are very malleable. Do you also see that as reflecting a whole lot of what’s happening in the world, in society as it’s being much more globalized and international and cultures meld, particularly in America, but also with the internet it brings people closer worldwide? Do you see your work as tying into that too?

ST:             Absolutely. I think my desire to present this malleability stems from the fact of how I have a different worldview than I use to when I was younger. I guess when I was younger, when I was studying in school, I was always asking the big question. Why are things so? Why do they have to be? Is there some sort of answer to it? What is the ultimate truth of everything? I was into religion and all that. But very soon the more I would seek this truth, this truth became more fleeting. It’s not there. And I realized that the very process of seeking this truth is the truth in itself. So, I guess that’s where the malleability comes from. If there isn’t really one truth, so to speak, then you have to move around and look at things from different angles and that’s the only way you get closer to what we call the “truth.” It’s almost like a misnomer. It’s misleading to have a single thing, to have a limited thing. It’s this kind of meandering thing that interests me.

TH:      Did this search for truth start as early as childhood or more when you started becoming an artist?

ST:        I would say it started about teenage time. I was educated in a Christian school in Hong Kong, which is predominantly Chinese society. I think there is a certain identity crisis, because I know that the knowledge we got in school was what we call “Western tradition” and somehow has supremacy over what we call the “Chinese tradition.” I didn’t really question that. I always thought that whatever comes from the West, be it consumer goods, knowledge or information, it must be more true than what we have already, otherwise we wouldn’t be dominated by those people. I guess the seeking for truth, what is good and what is better started from there.

TH:      What were some of the alternate religions or alternate philosophies which you explored in the early phases of this, that started this?

ST:        Well, before I get into that, I’d like to say I don’t think I’m religious now. But religion did play a role in my…

TH:      Would you say philosophical?

ST:        I would rather say I’m philosophical. I am a very philosophical person. I tend to philosophize too much—that’s what my friends have said. But I don’t think I am religious right now, because religion, by virtue of it, it’s about faith. It’s about faith in something you have to stick to. But back to your earlier question, I went from Christianity to, not so much religion, but a Chinese philosophy, like Confucian thought. I was really into that and studied a great deal. And then to Zen Buddhism, definitely. And some Taoism too.

TH:      You studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, then you went on to study at the University of California at Berkeley, then lived in New York City for awhile, then lived in Los Angeles. How has your philosophy changed or been influenced you feel by the different places you’ve lived and moved along your path?

ST:        Let’s see. My philosophy changed from when I was in Hong Kong—as I mentioned earlier, I was very much in a state of seeking for the truth, the one truth. When I was in Berkeley I was really challenged by the many ideas that were going on in the university. I was a fine arts student, but I mainly took German philosophy and sociology classes at Berkeley. So, that had an influence on me. I started to get really interested in Nietzsche and to some extent Marx. So, I was really thinking about, not so much the one truth, but how does one come up with the criteria for what is good or what is moral. And I think Nietzsche was a big influence on me, in how things in themselves are beyond good and evil. It’s a matter of how…I think he said something like “the world can be justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon.” That was almost like my motto of that time then. So, I truly believe in art beyond good and evil. Then when I moved to New York, I was bombarded with a lot of art, and I think then my philosophy was still very much in the seeking of how does one decide… Well, especially in New York, since there are so many different people, different cultures, and different cultures have different values—then you have to understand that they are just very different. There is no one that is better than another. So, I guess that remains today as what I think about in terms of value, how one places value on certain things.

TH:      Then how about L.A.?

ST:        L.A. was a big change. Well, I spent some time [there] in 1992 and then I moved to L.A. in 1993 and have stayed there since then. I think being in L.A., because of the climate, which is always nice, and also the landscape—you see a lot of sky—it really literally opened up my sense of this dichotomy between deep and shallow. In the past I was taught to believe some things do have depth and then there are some things that are very superficial. But now I don’t know if that distinction is so automatic anymore. It almost seems very arbitrary to me, because in L.A. I know people who were born and always were carefree, and they are happy. I don’t see any point of accusing them of being superficial just because they are happy. So, I guess that in a certain way I changed my philosophy. My work tremendously lightened up, and I don’t always dwell on the past, the suffering, the pain that I had growing up. I started to see humor. I started to see things that were more fun. I started to see new possibilities rather than some sort of autobiographical material. So that tremendously changed my art. So my art [now] is not so much about the autobiographical than about exploring the world, exploring possibilities of what I can do to make myself happy or content.

TH:      Do you think also because you’re right near Hollywood and that’s so much about making people and images into something other than what they really are and then projecting something else—and L.A. has a reputation for being that way anyway with bodybuilders and everything else on Venice Beach—that some of that influenced the malleability factor that you incorporate into your work? And the changeability?

ST:        This cliché about L.A., interesting, I don’t really live in the middle of Hollywood or Venice. I live in Pasadena, which is very ordinary suburbia. It does not really contribute to my art.

TH:      Also, you’ve done teaching both of children and adults. You’ve taught at Northwestern University. Do you think that also has caused you to have different viewpoints within your own work or how you approach your own work when having to teach others, both with children and adults?

ST:        Yes. This is still very new to me. For the last three, four years, I’ve been teaching a lot of children, less adults. But this last year when I was over at Northwestern I started to deal with college students. The differences I find—for children they really have amazing imaginations. They are so unformed. They don’t have any preconception of things, so in a way they are really fun to work with because they make me wonder why I make those assumptions. So that’s really refreshing. But then, on the other hand, I enjoyed my college students too, even though some of them did have very strong opinions about certain things. They might have some prejudices about certain things and that was kind of hard to work with. But most of them came from a non-art major background. It’s a liberal arts college and they mostly took my sculpture class as an elective. So they came from different disciplines. They brought in new perspectives. They didn’t get to do much art in high school, because in America we are phasing out the art education in the high schools. So they got really excited to take art classes after grade school experience. They were highly motivated and I didn’t have problems. I didn’t need to motivate them. So that was really nice. With little children, no matter how imaginative they are, there is some sort of motivational problem to deal with too.

TH:      Also, you’re scheduled to teach a class this coming year. Where is that going to be? I also heard you are going to incorporate some—what is the title of it—incorporating something about Nietzsche and Marx? Is that happening yet or did you someday want to teach a course incorporating Nietzsche’s and Marx’ philosophies?

ST:        Yeah, I’m going to be teaching a few classes at California Institute for the Arts, sometimes known as Cal Arts, in the spring. I’d like to do a class that incorporates perhaps more Nietzsche than Marx, because I think a lot of the thinking about how we look at the world right now is really based on a kind of economics. We talk about how the internet functions in our world and we’ve got a lot of money being thrown in. All this talk, if you really look at it, be it Marxist, or right wing, or left wing, the basis is that they are all theories of economics. Which is fine, but as an artist I’d like to see the world in a more philosophical way. I’d like to organize thoughts or things or images according to their being. I know it sounds very abstract—but not according to what they’re worth—[but] according to how they look, what they are, what their beings are as a phenomenon, rather than as something that has value. So I’d like to incorporate Nietzschean philosophy with sculpture.

TH:      Are you going to suggest any particular materials or basically encourage your students to explore any type of materials or installation?

ST:        Well, that’s my dilemma. I’m fascinated with plastic. All my work all somehow has to do with plastic, with its materiality, also with its philosophical implications. I don’t want to railroad my students. I don’t want to limit the choice of materials they have. So I’d like to offer a lot of options for them. So, I guess as a teacher you don’t really teach them anything. You’re just kind of like a facilitator. You’re some sort of agent. You show them what their options can be, and then they are the ones who have to choose. So I’m only doing the job of, “look, you can do this and that.”

TH:      I actually want to jump back to one question I meant to ask you about the past. You were involved to a certain degree in the student protests in Beijing. If you want to speak about that, I was wondering if that also shifted your philosophy in Hong Kong in the early days, or the direction you wanted to take for the future at that point?

ST:        May I ask you if you are a member of the CIA? [Laugh]

TH:      If I was I wouldn’t be able to tell.

ST:        Well, that was a life and death experience for me. I don’t usually talk about it because—this is kind of a sidetrack, but I just don’t like how some of the student leaders, not all of them, were using the history as part of their…they’re using it as a token for part of their importance or something. I don’t like to glorify that part of me. Although I would say that was a very important learning experience for me. I think I matured and grew up a lot just during that year. I became disillusioned with politics, and that’s the turning point when I decided I’m committed to being an artist rather than a politician. I would like to participate as a responsible citizen, do whatever duty I need and voice my opinion, but I think that culture or art in general seem to be such a long process. You don’t see the results immediately but I think this is the thing that really fundamentally changes people’s consciousness or people’s way of seeing. So, the political actions are kind of like a pill. You know you take a pill, then you get rid of the symptoms, but you don’t really change the cause. In order for society to have a fundamental change, you really need culture. Or let me put it this way, I think culture plays the part that fundamentally shapes people’s beliefs and their value system and the way they look at things.

TH:      You have a show coming up in Hong Kong also this autumn?

ST:        Yes.

TH:      Is that also going to be with the panels and the photographs or are you doing new work?

ST:        I am indeed having a show in Hong Kong in a not-for-profit space, an artists-run space called Para-Site and I’m going to do all new work. My plan for this show is to use plastic that can be found locally, and I will construct a series of installations.

TH:      Could you tell me a little bit about what you’ve written about art and criticism? You started writing in Hong Kong and then continued in the States, and you’ve also done several conferences and lectures. Also, I heard you wrote a poem, as well, about art. Could you tell me a little bit about your work in that area?

ST:        Yeah, I’m kind of a pseudo-writer. I really wouldn’t call myself a writer, but I’ve been trying. I started out writing art criticism and reviews in Hong Kong.

TH:      For what publications?

ST:        I wrote for “Hong Kong Economic Journal” and also this little magazine called “Artist” from Taiwan actually, but it’s a Chinese-language magazine. Then, it was a way for me to—I felt a sense of mission to promote contemporary art, because in Hong Kong or Taiwan the installation or contemporary art is still very new. So not a lot of people know about it. And, definitely they don’t really teach it in the university because those people are really educated from a different era. Ever since I came to the States and started graduate school, I started getting interested, not so much in art criticism or reviews, but in writing about ideas. Naturally with my involvement with plastic I wasn’t satisfied with staying on the material level of plastic. So I started researching the history of plastic and to find out very interesting things about it, and I continue to do so in my post-graduate school conferences and presentations. I’d just like to add though, my writing by no means illustrates my art or the other way around. They are really two separate things. I believe that visual art, being visual art, has to be visual. It cannot be translated into words. When it is, then it ceases to be art. It becomes something else. It is no longer visual art anymore. So, it is very important that it remain visual. So, my writing is only a way for me to express my opinion as an individual living in a society. Part of my responsibility as a citizen is to voice my opinion, my view, and hopefully share with others. In terms of conveying such a message or opinion, it can be done much better in a writing form than in a visual form.

TH:      You wrote a poem about art that was published?

ST:        I wrote a poem about Robert Irwin’s garden, the central garden at the Getty Center, and it was published in this magazine called “Extra.” It’s a magazine based in L.A. It’s a poem about space and how he uses both natural and unnatural materials to create a sense of changes throughout the day and throughout the seasons.

TH:      Any last words you want to add?

ST:        No.

TH:      Thank you very much, Shirley.

ST:        You’re welcome.