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Aucky Hinting: Assisted reproductive technology as contemporary art
Vials of the Female Sacrifice (2011)When one attends an art exhibition, one usually hopes to find a number of things: it may be beauty, the unfolding of an imaginary world or the expression of social commentary or political protest
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Vials of the Female Sacrifice (2011) (2011)
Vials of the Female Sacrifice (2011)
When one attends an art exhibition, one usually hopes to find a number of things: it may be beauty, the unfolding of an imaginary world or the expression of social commentary or political protest.
It might even be, in our days of polymorphic transformations, the 'conceptual' questioning of 'gender', 'historical construction', 'identity' or whatever else.
Too often alas, our expectations end in disappointment: beauty is too perfect and the imaginary world of little interest; political statements are banal and 'concepts' too abstruse to be naturally enjoyed. In short, novelty is lacking. There is little to take us out of the unexpected.
This is why the Dr. Aucky Hinting exhibition, held at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta until March 28, comes as a good surprise. In fact, not only good but also a real surprise.
Just read the artist's title ' Aucky the artist is a medical doctor. And not an ordinary one. He is a specialist in assisted reproductive technology, which is assisted pregnancy for infertile couples.
His art works do not rest on artistic knowledge, but are artistic extensions of his scientific medical approach as a specialist doctor dealing in his job with assisted embryo formation or pregnancy. Surprising, isn't it?
His paintings and installations are thus at the crossroads of science, the imaginary and the most fundamental reality of all: the birth process with, beyond it, the mystery of life itself.
It is not the first time indeed that science has met art when it comes to representation of the problematic nature of Man.
Western classical art was born out of the 'knowledge process' on the workings of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci practiced dissection of male and female corpses both for knowledge and artistic purposes, which were to him indistinguishable. He articulated his feelings into art through an analytical process.
Nowadays the order of things has been reversed; subjectivity comes to the fore. When, in Moses, Frida Kahlo represents the meeting of male semen and ovum at the core of human love, she obeys her own subjective interpretation of it, with little heed for the actual ovulation process.
Aucky's approach lies between these two poles. He started his creative process by outgrowing the various graphs and illustrations he had to make as part of his scientific and educational work: the theme was thus given.
He only had to develop its visual form and broaden its thematic meaning. If some of his early works are little more than illustrations of the physical process of embryo formation, as he goes on, they turn into paintings, then installations; at the same time, they delve increasingly into matters of philosophical and spiritual significance.
Thus, in Trans-Vaginal Sono-graphy (2008) and Clinical Embryologist, even though what Aucky seemingly 'talks' about are only techniques, a thinking process is clearly at work, as shown in the representation of human heads.
In Human Life Cycle, his reflection takes a deeper, more spiritual turn: it is what Man is all about, in the course of his life.
Throughout this evolution, even though the artist remains keen to ground his work in medical reality, we see him increasingly questioning what lies beyond this reality, perhaps at first unwittingly.
In Nothing is Free (2009), a woman is thus shown, her ear shaped like a vagina, listening to the 'messages' sent ' no one knows how or from where ' by potential sexual partners.
In some works, Aucky may add a whiff of humor: Sperm Night Race illustrates the race of sperm to reach the ovum. His masterpiece though, is probably Vials of the Male Sacrifice (2011): the fiberglass body of a woman, legs spread out in the 'birth-giving' and 'love-making' position. Made of an accumulation of vials each containing an ovum, she is the Mother par excellence.
Aucky is contemporary in an interestingly novel sense. Unlike most contemporary artists, whose questioning is situated 'downstream', in the social issues raised by the whirlwind of global change, Aucky's questioning is ultimately located 'upstream', in the issue of the origin and meaning of life. New and interesting. So take it further forward, Aucky.
