Cover image of the review

Jason Phu: My Parents Met at the Fish Market
  • Anna Parlane


4 Nov 2017
Westspace 27 Oct - 9 Dec 2017

Jason Phu’s My Parents Met at the Fish Market is the latest in Westspace’s series of solo commissions, in which all four galleries are given over to one artist. While he is younger and less experienced than previously commissioned artists, Phu is clearly up to the task of filling the space. His irrepressible style is immediately manifested in the fact that to enter the exhibition’s second room viewers must bend double and shuttle awkwardly through a tunnel made in the shape of an enormous fish. Like a ludicrously overblown school project or a remnant of a low-budget parade float, this chicken wire and crushed velvet monstrosity clearly signals that Phu is not averse to a bit of silliness. However, the fact that there is more going on in Phu’s work than simple levity makes this a show worth visiting. Upon entering the belly of the beast, the exhibition moves sequentially through several increasingly immersive environments. While Phu’s aesthetic approach is reminiscent of the ‘slacker’ art of the 1990s, his deployment of this style and his choice of materials is sophisticated.

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