PRETTY BOYS, YOU OWE ME / ROSELINA HUNG / S TACY LUN

PRETTY
BOYS, YOU
OWE ME /
ROSELINA
HUNG / S
TACY LUN
DEEN
Pretty Boys, You Owe Me
© 2014 The New Gallery Press
Printed in Canada
Designed and edited by Steven Cottingham, featuring
contributions from Roselina Hung, Stacy Lundeen,
and Su Ying Strang. All photos courtesy the artists
and the gallery.
ISBN 978-1-895284-20-1
208 Centre St S, Calgary, AB, T2G 2B6
thenewgallery.org/
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
Steven Cottingham has worked as Programming Coordinator at The New Gallery since 2012.
photographs that explore themes such as failed ideology,
awkward social interactions and provocative double
entendre.
Roselina Hung (b. 1980, Vancouver, BC) lives and
works in Vancouver. She received her MFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London, UK
and her BFA from the University of British Columbia.
She also spent a year abroad at L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, France. She has been
an artist-in-residence at SIM, Reykjavik (2012); The
Banff Centre, Banff (2011); and Ox-Bow School of Art,
Saugatuck (2011). Solo exhibitions include Of Myth and
Men, Initial Gallery (2014) and pretty boys kill me (2013),
Gallery FUKAI. Recent group exhibitions include Small is
Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London, UK (2013), Scenes
of Selves, Occasions for Ruses, Surrey Art Gallery,
Surrey (2012); FLOE: New Work, SIM, Reykjavik (2012);
The Kingston Prize, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
(2011). Upcoming exhibitions include a group show, Now
and Then, Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver (2015) and a
public art piece at Banff Town Hall (2015).
Su Ying Strang has worked as Administrative Director at
The New Gallery since 2012.
Pretty Boys, You Owe Me by Roselina Hung and Stacy
Lundeen was on view at The New Gallery’s Main Space
(208 Centre St SE) from October 17 to November 15,
2014.
Stacy Lundeen (b. 1979, Lethbridge, AB) is a
Vancouver-based visual artist. He studied Photography
at Concordia University and spent the last ten years
living and working in Montréal until his very recent
move to BC. His work has been widely exhibited
across Canada, including a recent solo exhibition at
the Kyber Centre for the Arts in Halifax. Lundeen’s
work encompasses a wide variety of mediums but he
is probably best known for his humorous large-scale
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3
BEAUTY A
ND REPETI
TION / K
ARLY MOR
TIMER
KARLY MORTIMER
The Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo is of a forest
nymph known for her voice
and a young man admired
for his beauty. When the
goddess Hera became jealous of Echo, Hera cursed
Echo so she is only able
to repeat the words said
to her, never being able to
say anything on her own.
Echo fell in love with the
handsome hunter Narcissus
as he wandered through
the woods. Echo repeated
Narcissus’s words back
to him, speaking in a way
that his words become her
own. She appropriated his
language and in repeating
she responded. But Narcissus quickly tires of her and
Echo subsumes to the grief
of his rejection. She pines
for him until all that is left is
her voice.
public and personal histories
While drinking from a pond
Narcissus caught a glimpse
of his reflection and falls
hopelessly in love with what
deleterious effect of obsessive desire
9
reflections on past wrongs
perpetrated on me by others; often close friends or
relatives, for which I feel I
am owed
formulaic repetition
an aesthetic ideal of
beauty with soft-featured
young men serving as
muse
text messages sent
and received during my
romantic relationships
public declaration of that
debt to me
interested in whether my
drawing capability and the
quality of the work would
suffer because of the
intense repetition
subtle distinction between
BEAUTY AND REPETITION
he saw. Upon the realization
that it was himself that he
was in love with and that he
could never obtain the object of his desire, he wastes
away.
Hands and eyes are the
sites of recognition. These
are also the parts of ourselves that we see the least
easily. It is difficult to hold
an image of our own act of
looking or our own hands
as they are moving. It is
the Other who knows what
our looking and our hands
look like. Derrida argues
that there is narcissism
and non-narcissism, and
that non-narcissism is just
a more welcoming form of
narcissism. This welcoming non-narcissism is more
open to the experience of
Other as Other. The attempt
at narcissistic reappropriation allows us to have a
relationship with the Other.
Relation to the Other, even
asymmetrical, and open
10
desire and obsession
a reflection on my past
experiences
a labour of regret
I injured my right hand
and was unable to draw
for several months
an earnest look
I know it’s obsessive to
make this kind of work. It
feels like being in junior
high and going over what
I should have said to my
grade 7 Social Studies
teacher when he made
me feel like an asshole
(by the way Fuck you Mr.
Frederic)
KARLY MORTIMER
without reciprocation must
trace a movement of re-appropriation in the image of
oneself for love to be possible. Love is narcissistic.
you personally, but that
other person who I know
you know.
WORKS CITED
Cavendish, Richard, ed. Mythology: an Illustrated Encyclopedia. London: Orbis Publishing Limited, 1980.
Print.
Derrida. Dir. Kirby Dick. Zeitgeist Films, 2003. Film.
Hung, Roselina. pretty boys kill me, exhibition proposal,
2013.
Lundeen, Stacy. U Owe Me, exhibition proposal, 2013.
Schmidt, Joël, Larousse Greek and Roman Mythology.
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980. Print.
Love becomes
in pursuit
I haven’t forgotten it, oh
no, you still owe me. Not
11
OWING ME
SOFTLY / A
CONVERSA
TION
STACY LUNDEEN / ROSELINA HUNG
Steven Cottingham So one of the first things I wanted
to ask is, who are the pretty boys? Last night we were
sort of talking about, how, in a world where the majority
of the media we consumed was produced by male
novelists, musicians, directors, etc.: what do the pretty
boys owe you?
Roselina Hung I think part of it was a joke to myself that
the guys I liked were pretty boys. I was trying to figure
out where this attraction came from so I was thinking
back to my past. When I was about four or five I had the
biggest crush on Michael Jackson…
Stacy Lundeen MJ!
Su Ying Strang Those curly locks and delicate features!
Roselina Yeah, I watched one of his music videos
recently and then it kind of clicked. He has this really
weird androgynous quality to him, and more and more
I see androgyneity being accepted as a “sex symbol” in
fashion and in the media. So, I’m kind of offering them
as a different type of masculinity. But also, in art history,
a lot of the men in classical paintings that were saints or
angels were pretty boys and angelic, young, with pink
lips. Portrayed by other men but not so much by women.
So I wanted to take over and add my own voice to how I
think men should be attractive.
Su With that title, which is an amalgamation of both of
your bodies of work (Pretty Boys Kill Me and U Owe Me),
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OWING ME SOFTLY
when you put that together how do you feel that change
in the title influences your individual works in the show?
Roselina I think it definitely changes how you read the
text works then, it seems more aggressive and takes
more ownership over the relationship with these boys.
Su Taking power back.
Roselina Yeah.
Stacy It’s really about the conversation and different
approaches but I like that whoever walks into the gallery
gets to feel like they’re being antagonized or made to
feel something. I’m kind of hoping that people will say
“fuck you” to the artwork a little bit. That’s what I would
hope. I’ve said before, I really like Roselina’s work.
[To Roselina] I like your drawings, they’re really good.
And it’s kind of nice to see a really focused, intense,
beautiful technique next to my sloppy renderings but the
intention and outward message is similar. Just different
approaches.
Steven Thinking about it in the context of being a
teenager, I’ve felt both things in equal measures
about the same thing. Like, staying in for weeks at a
time thinking about some crush and then moments of
drunken rowdiness were I end up really spontaneously
expelling something.
Stacy I think I’ve felt that a lot. I mean, it’s funny, as
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STACY LUNDEEN / ROSELINA HUNG
a teenager I didn’t really have an outlet for that other
than swearing or maybe being mean to my siblings. I
felt really powerless, which is something you feel a lot
when you’re younger. You have no agency. But now,
I feel as an adult, or at least perceived as an adult to
some extent, I can throw that back at people. Artwork
is something I can do at home but is always a constant
voice to others if they choose to see it or not.
Steven In terms of taking power, I like the idea of
coming from the title and reading the work in the gallery
and calling out this demographic or whatever that’s been
idolized and made distant. They’re free to write their
books and make their art and strike their poses and
you’re calling them out.
Roselina I was just thinking I like the notepad Stacy
uses. When you’re a kid you write notes and pass them
along and throw them out. You’ve taken this throwaway
medium and glorified it. Keeping the notes, scanning
them, printing them large on silver paper.
Stacy I think I almost feel the same way about these
paintings. A first step in my adulthood, a first step in
taking power, was learning to smoke even though my
parents didn’t want me to do it. It was being bad in a
powerful way. It was something I got to choose and do
sort of as a rebellion.
Steven Evading from what your parents or society wants
you to do.
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STACY LUNDEEN / ROSELINA HUNG
Su This is a little half-baked but when we were walking
back from dinner last night, we were talking about being
smokers and people always asking to bum smokes.
Cigarettes became social currency and these built
up histories and favours with people, and now you’re
making these implicit IOUs explicit, sort of challenging
social roles and currencies. And Roselina, you’re
taking private text messages and making them public
in your work. Do you think any of these works would be
catalysts for remittance? Like, a lost lover will call up for
closure and you’ll start a new friendship?
Roselina I doubt it. (Laughter.)
Stacy I’m kind of feeling the same way on that one.
Roselina I think with the text messages, I purposefully
chose text that seems generic despite coming from
intimate occasions. But the words are so simple and
featureless that I don’t know if even the authors would
be able identify their texts. I kind of purposefully wanted
it to be texts that someone could say, “Oh, I’ve said that
before, too.”
Steven Are these people aware that they had such
an impact in your life and that you then spent months
making things about them?
Roselina Maybe, I don’t know. Possibly.
Steven Do you imagine that any of them did something
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STACY LUNDEEN / ROSELINA HUNG
similar thinking about you?
Roselina No. (Laughter.)
Stacy Really? That’s too bad.
Roselina Yeah.
Stacy I know my work in the show is applicable to
anyone at any point in time. I had specific people in mind
when I was making a lot of the work but I think anybody
can walk in and feel like they owe me something.
Su Or maybe they owe someone else something and will
feel pushed to follow up on a forgotten promise.
Steven Yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunities in this
show to commiserate with the artists, like, “Oh, I’ve felt
that!” But also to feel convicted, like, “Oh, shit, I should
make that phone call,” or whatever.
Roselina I think everyone can relate to that kind of
obsession and stuff like that feels unrequited. Especially
when you’re a teenager. Everyone’s been through that.
Su I was thinking of something you said at your artist
talk, Roselina. Are self-portraits accurate representations
of oneself?
Roselina No, I don’t think they can be, really. Even here,
I’ve edited through selection and that creates a bias.
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OWING ME SOFTLY
It’s my side of the story. Distorted. Because you want to
remember things so that you’re a victim and they’re a
villain. You don’t want to think about who you owe.
Steven It’s comforting to assume the role of the victim,
because that gives you the moral high ground.
Stacy Exactly.
Steven You can do whatever you want because you
were wronged first.
Stacy I really think of these works as self-portraits, even
if they’re about U Owe Me. I have a skewed version of
myself you know, I only experience me from me.
Steven Roselina, during your artist talk the other day it
was clear that you have tons of different works and ways
of working, and I was wondering if you still had things
you wanted to say to the pretty boys or if this felt final?
Roselina This felt pretty final. I might do something
similar to the Phantasmagoria drawings, with the
layering.
STACY LUNDEEN / ROSELINA HUNG
Stacy That’s been a major bonus.
Su Our new tagline: “The New Gallery has been
facilitating friendships since 1975.”
Stacy I mean I feel like your work was strong and solid
and complete the moment you were done with it. I like
that a dialogue gets to happen between the work and
I enjoyed the process of hanging things, collaborating
and trying to find a way to complement one another.
One of the conversations I had at the opening last night,
I think with the awkward guy, he was like, “So how long
have you been collaborating?” And I was like, “Since
Wednesday?” He was like “No way, you really didn’t
work together on this?” I was like “No man, we’re just
two different people in the world doing separate but alike
things.” Right?
Steven Sometimes a collaborative relationship is just
two strong independent people.
Stacy Yeah, definitely!
Su Was there anything that was uncovered by working
together, as two artists who hadn’t previously met?
Stacy I would say friendship.
Roselina Friendship!
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