In the history of mankind, the birth of past, present, and future civilizations were mostly or would possibly be accompanied with wars and victories enabled by newly invented weaponry. When could humanity venture into a new civilization without plundering?
In the exhibition, the artist delineates human being's desire and imagination of the things that are yet to come and gradually reveals our hope and expectation for a better future through presenting a suspended moment in time when the future has not arrived yet. This approach creates a pure and unknown force that fuels our anticipation for the next civilization to come. To achieve his goal, the artist creates a curious space-time in the exhibition that captures "the future after future wars," and the artworks on view, whether paintings, kinetic machinery, spatial or video installation, show robotic forms. However, these robots that are supposed to win the future for mankind are no longer fighting for mankind in battlefields. Instead, they are significant artefacts that document and speak the history of future wars.
In The Future That Never Comes, Huang illustrates his thinking of meta-narratives and depicts a different space-time and position by juxtaposing the virtual and the real and interweaving the future and the present. As we are transported to and immersed in the future, Huang creates an opportunity for us to detect the absent body and vision in the progress of civilization when we wonder how we should imagine and take on the risk of the unknown. Perhaps, the future will never come.