Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Different from previous exhibitions, this exhibition features a wider range of works. Being Question comprises of an installation of ten hanging paintings, seven two-dimensional paintings, two videos (one features an impromptu dance collaborated with body and vocal artist Mia Hsieh; the other one shows photographic images of daily life captured by the artist and questions he proposes), and a rather unique treatment bed, with which the artist will organize a “treatment program” available to the public during the exhibition. Although the exhibition includes different art forms, the core artistic viewpoint and intention that the artist has been exploring are ingeniously incorporated and revealed in this exhibition. When a pure, habitual way of expression (such as works that look like two-dimensional abstract paintings) becomes stereotypically recognized, the more serious or alternative possibilities behind it are often easily overlooked even though George Ho has never cared too much about this situation. On the other hand, when diversity emerges, the combination of different art forms contrarily allows us to more effectively observe the central idea that “strings/connects” these art forms together. This entire exhibition serves a big question, which is “how to become a question.” In the meantime, the artist also offers partial answers to the question he proposes. George Ho has been making art with the approach of self-questioning. A major motive is to weaken our habitual use of the previously prioritized “rationality/self/knowledge system” as much as possible. By doing so, it facilitates the connection of every present moment, forming the unpredictable flow of consciousness, transforming professional control into creative action or beckoning agency. What George Ho cares about is not the interpretation or review of an artwork after it is completed. He has always been open about this aspect; and such an open attitude allows a more diverse way of viewing to be incorporated into the “interface” constituted of different viewers’ life experience as well as the reading of objects and forms, serving as a starting point of making dialogue or re-creation. Similar to the artistic viewpoint of “Support-Surface,” which pays attention to construct the material foundation of the “painting surface” or formulate a new relation between the “painting frame/structure” and the artist’s “behavior and action,” Ho cares more about the question—what potentiality does art have in addition to these aspects? The “big question” is about how to generate the alternative possibility of art through different production mechanisms. The title of the exhibition, Being Question, is an affirmation for all audience, and can perhaps be read as the artist’s sharing of his practice as he gains the insight into “the joy of questioning.