Tishan Hsu is an artist whose practice has attempted to convey an embodied technology. Hsu’s interest in technology has not been in the use of a particular apparatus but the perception of a technological affect. His work has included paintings, digital media projections and sculpture.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Hsu spent his first years in Zurich, Switzerland. He grew up in Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and New York. Hsu studied architecture and environmental design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his B.S.A.D. in 1973 and M.Arch. in 1975. While at MIT, he studied film at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University. He moved to New York in 1979, where he currently resides in Brooklyn. Hsu first showed in New York at the Pat Hearn Gallery. Since 1985, Hsu has shown extensively in the US, Europe, Mexico and recently Asia, with works in numerous public and private collections. From 1988-90, Hsu lived and worked in Cologne, Germany. From 2013-2016, Hsu maintained a studio in Shanghai, China, where he developed a project using historical family photographs and evidence of their absence, discovered in photo albums of extended family living in Shanghai.
Hsu recently had a solo exhibition at Empty Gallery, Hong Kong. He also participated in exhibitions at the CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C., and the K11 Art Foundation and Tai Kwun Centre, both in Hong Kong. A survey exhibition of Hsu's work from 1982-2005, will be shown at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Sculpture Center, New York, in Spring, 2020.
Selected public collections include Metropolitan Museum, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, High Museum, Atlanta, Terra Museum, Mexico City, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Rose Art Museum, Boston, and the Weisman Museum, Minneapolis. Hsu has served as a Member of the Board of White Columns and as a Governor of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Hsu has been a Professor of Visual Arts at Sarah Lawrence College from 1994-2018, and a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute and Harvard University. While at Sarah Lawrence, Hsu taught Sculpture. Hsu introduced Architectural Design and assisted in the development New Media in the Visual Arts Department at SLC.