Water pipes, lipstick, paper,
mirror, C-print, shining gems and two-channel video
Dimension variable
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In Lower Legs, the artist transforms the mundane infrastructure of urban order into sculptural forms that critique the invisible systems shaping daily life in Hong Kong. Using water pipes, lipstick, paper, mirrors, C-prints, shining gems, and a two-channel video, the artist reconstructs the lower portions of street objects — traffic barriers, signposts, and cylindrical markers — that populate our sidewalks and roads.
Daily routines of commuting — walking the same paths, riding the same transport at the same hours — turn the street into a transitional stage of modern existence. These public objects embody collective constraints turned into law: traffic lights, barriers, and signposts that enforce order while becoming surfaces for endless layers of flyers, advertisements, and propaganda. Tang abstracts and reinterprets their messages, turning functional urban furniture into ambiguous symbols that hover between authority and absurdity.
Due to the height limitations of the exhibition space, the reconstructed columns stand upright, pressing against the ceiling and revealing only their lower legs — a deliberate visual metaphor for how we experience the regulatory systems of the city: fragmented, partial, and often only visible from below. By relocating these emblems of public authority into a private, gallery setting, Tang creates a space where suppressed anxieties about conformity, free will, and standardization can surface and be confronted.
