Garbage/Lese 樂色
樂色 Lese/Garbage isn’t a typical exhibition in a legitimate gallery or museum, it is in an abandoned building located nearby where I and my partner, Jiajun Song, used to live. We don’t have an opening, an intro, labels that explain the works, or even electricity. It is the first project co-curated by me and my partner Jiajun Song. This exhibition isn't out of rebellion, but love and passion.
樂 色 in Chinese, in literal, means Happy and Color separately. However, 色 also has profound and complex meanings in the context of traditional Chinese culture, including Buddhism. To simplify, 色 means exist and reality. Combined, the pronunciation of 樂色 in the Taiwan region is the same as 垃圾 which means Garbage.
Naming it so, on one hand, is self-deprecating humor indicating our not-yet-successful artistic careers, on another hand, is a response to the focus of Jiajun’s works on Chinese traditional cultures and Buddhism, as well as my focus on the status of existence in my artworks.
Game of Life
2021-2022
Xuan paper
The name of this project is inspired by the famous Conway’s Game of
Life. This is a one-year-long project. Chinese traditional landscape paintings are usually painted on Xuan paper. By only laying the Xuan paper on the floor, I created a square of landscape in the middle of an abandoned building, as I imagine this action as the Creation of a microcosmos, where natural organisms thrive in a factitious environment while the brush is handed to the all elements in the building to paint.
Mountains
2021-2022
Wool, stones
In Game of Life, the evolution of life is shown by microorganisms engraving the Xuan paper. It is a process of consumption and a process of "death"; while Mountains is a process regarding the stones covered by felt are as a petri dish for moss and other microorganisms, as mountains waiting for life to climb, showing a process of growth and a process of "life". However, while the microorganisms are eroding the Xuan paper, they themselves are growing; while the moss is growing, the felt will also be consumed as nutrients. Life and death alternate, the game of life runs in this microcosmos.