Huidi Xiang: when held properly,

March 31, 2023 – June 1, 2023
Tutu Gallery

Willoughby and Stuyvesant Avenues
Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NY
(contact the gallery for the exact address and to schedule a visit)

Huidi Xiang, hare come the glitches, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

Huidi Xiang, hare come the glitches, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

when held properly,

Huidi Xiang

Tutu Gallery

March 31 – May 14, 2023

Opening Reception: Mach 31, Friday, 6 to 9 PM.

Please contact the gallery for the exact address and to schedule a visit. (tutugallery.meow@gmail.com)

Tutu Gallery announces sculptor Huidi Xiang’s first solo exhibition in New York: when held properly, opening Friday, March 31, 2023, with 6 new sculptures made this year tailored for the gallery’s home base. Charting the journey of her ongoing immigration and introspection on her role as a minority female in late capitalism, Huidi uses a mixture of symbols from video games and popular culture as her language to describe how affective labor metamorphoses into physical and internal harm by the larger system we exist under.

In this body of work, Huidi draws parallels between game simulation, animation, and immigrant assimilation as analogies for many survival strategies around the vicious cycle of personal caretaking, growth, and the eventual weaponization of a person. These sculptures were initially conceived from Huidi’s preoccupation with Shoe Goomba, a shoe-wearing, mushroom-shaped monster character in Super Mario Bros. A late addition to the game, Shoe Goomba can be defeated by the standard jump move, or, a stealth attack from below which then grants Mario possession of A Goomba’s Shoe (also known as The Shoe), allowing him to safely move through spiked grounds and monsters. Extended to real-life living in New York, putting on a good pair of shoes prompts a mental switch from nesting to facing the outside world, provides comfort on the go, and can even be used to deceive others about the wearer’s socio-economic class.

Huidi Xiang (b. 1995. Chengdu, China) is a sculptor based in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Huidi received her MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University in 2021 and her BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University in 2018. In her practice, Huidi makes sculptural objects, installations, and systems to cultivate alternative narratives, speculating and investigating the usually invisible working mechanism, rules, and power structure hidden behind pop cultural symbols and scenarios. Huidi’s works have been exhibited internationally, including OCAT Biennale at OCT Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China; KAJE in Brooklyn, NY, USA; Lydian Stater in Long Island City, NY, USA; LATITUDE Gallery in New York, NY, USA; Contemporary Calgary in Calgary, Canada; Hive Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China; Miller ICA in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and more. Huidi has also participated in some artist residencies, including NARS Foundation International Residency Program (2022), ACRE Residency Program (2021), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2020), and Project Row Houses Summer Studios (2016). She is currently an AIM fellow at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

Tutu Gallery is a DIY space located in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, founded in July 2019 by Tutu (cat) and her human assistant April. Tutu’s aim is to show art slightly “off the wall”, in the space, and with its humans, prioritizing immigrants and women with exhibitions and programs. As of March 2023, the gallery has presented 25 projects, mostly first solo or two-person shows of emerging artists. The gallery is featured in the Hyperallergic Spring 2023 Art Guide and has been written by Harper’s BAZAAR China, Whitehot Magazine, BOMB Magazine, and more.