Vanguard Gallery is pleased to present Hu Jiayi’s solo project “Her Mustache,” opening on September 12, 2024. The exhibition features new works titled after the project, alongside representative pieces from the “Dalí’s Mustache” series. During the exhibition, the gallery’s project space is transformed into rooms adorned with maroon and gold, evoking the traditional museum settings used to display old master paintings. This carefully curated environment serves as a meaningful backdrop, heightening the impact of Hu Jiayi’s powerful and provocative works.
Hu Jiayi’s practice delves deeply into the intricacies of personal experience and the environments she encounters. Utilising an array of mediums, including video, performance, painting, installation, and sculpture, she constructs narratives that intertwine metaphor, intimacy, and alienation through the lens of the physical body.
In this project, Hu Jiayi directs her focus towards human hair as a site of identity formation. Whether highly groomed and public or concealed and laden with societal taboos, hair operates as both a marker of physical identity and a symbol of self-expression. In particular, Hu examines the complex relationship between women and their hair, with its cultural and social weight transforming what is typically the body’s outermost layer into a subject of control and conformity. In this way, hair becomes a powerful metaphor for the blurred boundaries between individual autonomy and societal expectations, challenging the viewer to reconsider notions of gender, identity, and power.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hu Jiayi
Hu Jiayi was born in Xinjiang in 1993 and earned her Master’s degree in New Media Art from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2018. She currently works and lives between Chongqing and Xinjiang. Hu Jiayi’s works have been exhibited and awarded in various locations across the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Recent solo exhibitions: “Her Mustache”, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China (2024); “Caltrops”, Ox Warehouse, Macao, China (2023); “Who is Right”, Museum of Contemporary Art Chengdu, Chengdu, China (2017). Selected group exhibitions: “Living in the New Century: Chinese Media Arts since 1989”, Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, Korea (2022); “The Good Life”, Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2022); “Unnamed River”, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China (2022).
