Piper Marshall’s debut Hong Kong show Trip of the Tongue has plenty to sink your teeth into
Rising star New York curator’s exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery is a visual presentation of language and communication with a strong dental aspect
The title of the exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery, “Trip of the Tongue”, is a deliberate play on two English expressions. It’s a mash-up between “tip of the tongue” and “slip of the tongue”, a combination of those moments when you can’t quite recall something with those when you say what you shouldn’t. As a result, it’s a little show with bite – a visual presentation of language and communication involving (gruesomely evident in a couple of cases) a strong dental aspect.
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The word trip, of course, also means a journey. The nine works on display have travelled from afar. Two of the five artists are Norwegian, two are from the United States, one is Canadian. “The idea of taking a trip was almost integral in conceiving the show,” says its curator, Piper Marshall, a few hours before its opening.
This is Marshall’s first visit to Asia. In New York, her name is on the tongue of many influencers in the art world, and the language used to describe her – “buzzed-about”, “rising star”, “extraordinary vision” – has the consistent flavour of approval.
In 2014, when she was 29 and working at the city’s Swiss Institute, a non-profit contemporary art organisation, the highly influential gallery owner Mary Boone announced Marshall would curate six shows a year for her over the next three years.
“I think back with fondness to my own relationship with Leo Castelli,” Boone stated at the time, invoking the name of the legendary dealer who’d shaped New York’s contemporary art scene for half a century. “And I hope that Piper and I can enjoy that kind of long-term creative collaboration.”
As art lineages go, that’s impressive. It’s not an exclusive arrangement so for galleries such as Simon Lee there’s a beneficial ripple effect. Marshall has curated Judith Bernstein’s work for several Boone shows, for example, including last year’s “Dicks of Death”. Bernstein, 75 this month, has been creating her feminist graffiti art since the 1960s, when she saw what men were scribbling on toilet doors at Yale. She’s known for her visual puns with particular reference to the male anatomy.