Chunxiao Qu, Art is a washing machine that is washing itself, installation view, 2023. Courtesy: the artist and FUTURES, Melbourne.

FUTURES presents Art is a washing machine that is washing itself by artist and poet Chunxiao Qu, her first solo show with the gallery.

This exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, neons and a print into a conglomerate of comedy, tributes, romance, and truisms. Nothing is sacred, but everything is revered! Highlights include a flower-shaped neon work comprised of phalluses; a suite of text-based paintings; and a slight sculptural tribute to Damien Hirst in which a fly embalmed in resin riffs off his renowned shark in formaldehyde artwork. And much more.

Both Chunxiao’s poetry and art embrace play in language, provoking her audience and testing truisms regarding art and life. Her ‘tributes’ to conceptual artists copy and adapt key works in art history while becoming resolutely hers. She employs humour’s tricks of contrast and surprise with panache, yet irony lives side-by-side with sincerity, a rare feat. And like humour, an attempt to truly explain the joke or art is futile and dissolves the meaning of the thing itself. Art is a washing machine that is washing itself!

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