- In Grand View of Bu Num
- 2008|03.15 - 04.09
- Opening|2008.03.15 3:30pm
- Lin & Keng Gallery
In Grand View of Bu Num ─ Tu Wei-Cheng Solo Exhibition, we seem to have experienced a paradoxical condition of death that transmits to being alive from Tu Wei-Cheng's works.
When one does not know that “Bu Num” is a work of contemporary art and one appears to have walked into a museum displaying objects from an ancient civilization, discovering the truth created both a sense of the absurd and a heightened freshness. Psychologically, this is a transformation from death to life. For Tu Wei-Cheng, who deliberately makes his “Bu-Num” site old, a modern excavation dig site used as an ancient tomb is also a testament to the mystical relationship between life and death.
As part of the fictitious content of the “Bu-Num” work, the sumptuous burial items point to extravagant rituals and a solemn burial ceremony expresses the importance of death in society. As a concrete expression of social relationships, these rituals were considered infused with the magical power necessary to bridge the gap between life and death. All of the specially-shaped animal deities speak to a world that exists beyond death. In this context, the “work content” guides the dead to life, though it is equally clear that this “world beyond death” is not entirely unconnected to the world of the living. According to both Jean Baudrillardand Georges Bataille the two can even interact.
(Excerpted from Tu Wei-cheng's “Bu-Num Strategy” - Welcome to the Earthly Creator and Shared Death, Chien Tzu-chieh)