A propositionA statement of support should begin action open to examination, rather than serve as a receipt certifying that action is complete.
White lettering on the black T-shirt clearly reads SUPPORT ART, with an image of eyes printed above it, while my own eyes hide behind dark sunglasses. This clothing transformation associated with Tseng Kwong Chi gives support both a sentence and a gaze. I am willing to separate them first: the printed eyes belong to the garment, and the face behind the sunglasses has not completed any action worth confirming simply by wearing a slogan. Support is a word whose object must keep becoming more specific. Art may mean works, makers, places, a particular risk or simply a style someone likes. These objects need different help. If I gather all of them into one sentence, my attitude looks broad, yet when time, money and attention must actually be allocated, I may still not know where to begin.
The eyes printed on the T-shirt do not turn away, while sunglasses keep the body's gaze withheld. This displacement makes me think that support can announce it sees while avoiding concrete needs. I need not read every silence as indifference, but should allow the person being supported to object: do you see what I am doing, or the correct direction that makes you feel good?
Demanding that all support be quantified immediately would deprive small acts of help of a place. Time willingly spent listening or assistance without a public credit may not translate well into conspicuous numbers. I want to protect such hard-to-display actions, while refusing to use their resistance to measurement to exempt every statement without follow-through from questions. Being specific is not the same as being calculable; vagueness is not automatically trustworthy either.
I continue wearing the black T-shirt, letting its large letters become an entry through which I can be found. When someone actually makes a request, support should leave my chest and enter a promise with a scope, a time limit and the possibility of saying no. The eyes on the garment may stay open forever, but I must decide where to put my own time. That is the part the sentence has not done for me.
- Specificity of Support
- Slogans and Commitment
- Eyes within the Image
Image and writing notes
Visual evidence
- Large white SUPPORT ART lettering appears on the chest of a black crew-neck T-shirt.
- A rectangular image of eyes above the words is part of the garment's print.
- The figure wears dark square-framed sunglasses; He Fa's face is clearly distinct from the garment's print.
Writing notes
The images and texts were developed collaboratively by He Fa and AI. The first-person voice belongs to an experiment in character; costume, posture and props are used to develop creative arguments, not as quotations from or summaries of the thought of the figures referenced.