UngCha (b. 1992) is known for his soft sculptures of penises and also for elegant erotic kirigami (a variation of origami, the Japanese art of folding paper). His art, whose subject is the human body, deals with accepting one's physiology and delivers social messages. Let's examine UngCha's works, which represent modern conceptual art, and see how they are connected with classic oeuvres, including Shunga pictures.
Fig. 1. UngCha with his Wedding Banquet (Instagram.com)
Fig. 2. Release, “Self-exploration” (Instagram.com)
Fig. 3. Release, “Kiss My Ass” (Instagram.com)
Fig. 4. Release (Instagram.com)
Fig. 5. Release (Instagram.com)
Fig. 6. Release (Instagram.com)
Fig. 7. heybaebeart.com
Fig. 8. Sacrifice, 2022 (Instagram.com)
Fig. 9. Kabuki actors as vulvas, Utagawa school (ukiyo-e.org)
Hairless Classic vs. Hairy Modern
According to his interviews, UngCha was born in Kaohsiung (southern Taiwan) and now resides in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. He is a freshman in the art world: his first large-scale solo exhibition was held in 2022 at the Taipei expo center Maison ACME. UngCha's specific approach lies in the aestheticization of physiology — the essence of our existence, ignored or reduced to the minimum in traditional visual art, which can be seen, for instance, in body hair depiction. While the figures of classic European paintings are always hairless (except for the satyrs with goat legs), the conceptual art of UngCha very often uses hair as a leitmotif, e.g. Sacrifice, 2022 (fig. 8). Instead of focusing on the mythopoetic ideal or the outside reality, UngCha shows us the closest yet farthest thing possible – our body. Let's mention that Shunga, though being defined as a realm of sexual utopia, stems from medical treatises and thus contains body realism to some extent, depicting different kinds of genitals with and without public hair (fig. 9).
Fig. 10. Lion Dance, 2022 (Instagram.com)
Fig. 11. Origami amulet (Instagram.com)
Fig. 12. Origami amulet (Instagram.com)
Fig. 13. Instagram.com
The Wedding Banquet
Referring to Taiwanese traditions, UngCha's art promotes the contemporary topic of gender diversity, which is naturally connected with the abovementioned theme of self-acceptance. His Wedding Banquet exposition, which took place at Thomas VanDyke Gallery this year, was devoted to the theme of gay marriage. The show was accompanied by the 1993 Taiwanese romcom of the same name. In the movie, traditionalist parents want their gay son to get married. The son, Wai-Tung, who lives happily in Manhattan with his boyfriend Simon, can't tell them the truth about his sexuality. When they hire a dating service for him, he makes an impossible demand, saying that he needs an opera singer 5'9" tall with two PhDs, speaking five languages. The service finds a Chinese woman matching almost all the criteria (she has only one PhD instead of two). After the fake wedding, they have to stay in one bed, so, the woman gets pregnant. The protagonist can't bear this twist and eventually reveals his orientation to his parents. The woman decides to save the child, so Wai-Tung and Simon can raise him. The parents accept their son, admitting that the only thing they bother about is kids. So, everybody lives happily ever after, probably, except for the Chinese opera singer with a PhD (though, she also has a boyfriend hidden from her parents).
Fig. 14. Wedding Banquet dvd case (ebay.com)
In the exclusive Premium edition of the article you can learn more about the specifics of UngCha's aesthetic approach, how his work as an occupational therapist influenced his artistic career, the "phallic" similarities to shunga art, the dysfunctional nature of UngCha's creations, references to Matisse, Archimboldo and Kuniyoshi, and many additional examples of his soft sculptures, Wedding Banquet series, origami amulets, and more.
Click HERE for the phallic obsession in the homoerotic art of Andrejs Majevskis
Sources: instagram.com/h.ungcha; Interview with UngCha (heybaebeart.com/lost-found/interview-with-ungcha); acmetaipei.com
Let us know your thoughts on the art of UngCha in the comment box below...!!