That he promised to burn himself up and die like a legendary genius at the age of 37.
But when I met with this self-indulgent artist -- who just turned 37 -- he seemed very ... normal. No despair. No flames of martyred glory. His birthday had just passed. Ostensibly, there was little apparent of the controversy that once surrounded the satirical artist.
More than a decade ago, when Hou was out on the art scene, he was one of the bad boys. He overruled traditional aesthetics, dared to be provocative and experimented with new ways of creating art. When conceptual art was still new in Taiwan, his conceptual installations were in the galleries right after he graduated from the National Institute of the Art in 1988.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG
In the early 1990s, he started his infamous, high-profile black-and-white prints. They were presented in a new format, using words to simulate pages from a classical Chinese text. His pictures were also overtly sexual and his lines satirical and critical, hinting at various moral lessons.
At first it was hard to attribute such a background to the shy, soft-spoken guy in front of me. As Hou wound his way through the narrow streets of Yuanli, a small town near Taichung, and then drove into his farmhouse-cum-studio, I realized everything started from this quiet, unknown countryside, the origin of Hou's works that have been sent to major cities all over the world.
Hou's installations and prints were selected to participate in the Venice Biennale in 1995 with four other artists in Taiwan. The next year, he was among contributors from nearly 100 cities to send in his artwork for the "Art Across Ocean-Container 96" project being exhibited in Copenhagen. In 1997, together with three other Taiwanese artists, he was chosen for the "Tracing Taiwan" exhibition that toured the US and ended last year at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG
Soon after we arrived at his farmhouse, the artist in Hou resurfaced again. As I crossed the threshold to his house, I was slightly taken aback by what I saw. On the wall directly facing the door were three pictures of Hou, two black-and-white and one color. Tatami covered the floor.
"This is a mourning hall," Hou said. I nodded, with a puzzled look, thinking that maybe this is the time to ask about the mysterious rumors surrounding him. Did you really go through three years of therapy because your wife left you? Did you really want to die at 37?
We sat down for tea. And Hou began talking.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG
"I used to read biographies of the great talents. Many of them die at the age of 37," he said, pointing to Van Gogh and Mozart as examples. "And so I said to myself that when I reach that age, I want to end all of my endeavors. Let them die and start a new life. I want a rebirth."
But what would he do as a person reborn? Be a different type of artist? He simply replied: "Be a normal person."
And this is why he went to therapy, in part. "I went to the therapy seminars because I want to be a father."
The homebound, reformed artist has attended therapy seminars all over the island offered by various private foundations. One of the seminars he went to focused on music as a healing property and he was spell bound by the music into imagining himself as a seagull.
"I didn't like it at all. I did not like flying around. I did not enjoy the freedom. I was looking for the harbor. I want a home."
In 1997, Hou's wife left him to study in the US. A year later they divorced. The separation was far from easy, dragging on with letters to his ex-wife until he almost reached 37 in January. Then he did some free writing. He also began to draw, creating whatever surfaced in his stream of consciousness -- using crayons, pencils, ballpoint pens, brushes and watercolors.
Upon reaching his 37th birthday, he shut off his connection and communications to the outside world for 10 days to transform himself. "I am feeling a lot more peaceful now," said Hou, who decided to show an exhibition at Hanart to draw him out of a life of doodling and dwelling.
The writings and drawings since 1997 are what Hou will exhibit in Taipei next week. According to Hou, there will be 300 wooden boxes at the show. Each box is shallow with four panels, of which two are made into cabinet-like doors. Hou's writings are inscribed on the panel doors and inside there are four drawings.
Hou showed me some of the works being prepared and it became clear that he is at ease with revealing a most private and turbulent experiences. One reads: "Dear, please do not deny our journey in the past according to our current situation. In this relationship, I have tried my best. I am just not good enough."
Another reads: "Dear, for a divorcee, the hardest thing to tackle is how to recover his own confidence from the failure of `not fitting in.' Dear, I am still working on how to let this thing of divorce become a gift, a blessing, a celebration."
Hou is quite casual when asked about how he feels about a public airing of his private failures. "It's to share, as I say goodbye to all that."
When I left Hou for Taipei, I could see that he had climbed out of the cave he'd dwelled deep within for so long. In a journal entry about the coming exhibition, he aptly describes how his art has helped soothe a troubled and unsettled past.
"Our bodies have become supple, not hurting anymore, even in this chilly weather when it should hurt even more. It's because you made the right decision."
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