“a” Différances
Luchia Meihua Lee
Curator
“The “a” of Différances, thus, is not heard; it remains silent, secret and discreet as a tomb: Oikōsis.”
—Jacques Derrida [1]
Let us follow Derrida in Margins of Philosophyby pausing for a moment to consider Différances. “Différances differs from differences in only one letter, and not at all in sound, but is completely different because of that one change, just as new art supersedes both existing art and daily life by introducing a small but crucial change. The letter “a” stands for adventure, and this exhibit is an adventure through time and space and conceptions of art and civilization. As a capital, A also resembles the pyramids and recalls Egyptian monuments and the tomb (Oikesis).”[2]
Differences characterize art, differences not only between artists but also and more importantly between any individual artistic vision and the less inspirational life of the non-artist. Thus I have chosen“a” of Différancesto use as the title of the curator’s essay for this exhibition, and will speak of it instead of differences in this essay. I note that the term has been made plural to better indicate the sheaf of differences that can be found here, from those adumbrated above to the Différances among the eight artists in this exhibit: Zhang Hongtu, Yang Mao-Lin, Xu Bing, Lin Ju, Hong Hao, Tu Wei-Cheng, Michael Cherney, and Cui Fei.
If the reader permits, I will yoke together that unlikely pair of partners, Derrida and Lao Tzu. For I put forward the notion that the “a” in “Différances” can be thought of as the “clue” in “Reason’s Clue”, the agent of change dragging the past and driving the present to the future. It is the gravity of the vigorous center. From this origin of Reason, the negative and positive energy forces complement each other, and direct all movement. Creativity is the result of their interplay.[3]Therefore Reason gives birth to the universe, operates the sun and moon, and nourishes all creatures. But it cannot be seen, cannot be named, and cannot be measured. In our attempt to name the nameless, the simile of water has been used.Water always seeks the lowest ground, is soft and has no fixed shape – is in fact the epitome of weakness - yet at the same time is powerful and can accommodate to any situation.
Paul Carus concludes his translation of chapter 14 of Tao Te Chingwith the following passage: “By holding fast to the Reason of the ancients, the present is mastered. And the origin of the past understood. This is called Reason’s clue.”[4]“Reason” here may be understood as “Tao,” thus making “Reason’s clue” the Tao of the sages of ancient China. Tao is constant, but perhaps it is most constant in that it is ever-changing.Of course, we call it Tao, but at the same time Chapter 1 of Tao Te Ching famously proclaims that the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.
All the important ideas of Taoism are addressed in Tao Te Ching.Lao Tzuwas believed to have lived in the SixthCentury B.C. In this essay for “Reason’s Clue” we have not tried to trace the history of religious Taoism, but the origin of Tao, and we find that Tao (interchangeably referred to as “Reason”)is an ocean into which many rivers and streams have flowed. Many of these streams of thoughts can be traced back to the philosophical traditions. Over the long course of its development, the fundamental aspect of Tao has remained constant.
When Reason started to function, all the ten thousand things were created.Like the dual principles of Yin and Yang, true Being (you) and Non-Being (wu)give birth to each other. They are exemplars of the interaction of polar opposites described thusly in the second chapter of Tao Te Ching,” Difficult and easy complete each other; long and short each test one another; high and low determine one another. Pitch and mode give harmony to one another. Front and back give sequence to one another.“[5] This brings us back to the beginning, Chapter one, where it says that “these two things are the same in source, but different in name.”That they are the same is a mystery. And indeed, it is the mystery of mysteries; it is the gate of the Marvelous.
There is an expression about original sources, using simile and parallel statements. The Chinese title of this exhibition, the nameable and unnameable, the beginning of heaven and earth, lack of desire and desire - all those things are the same in source, but different in name, and therein is the door to the most profound virtue.
Good art always involves challenging ideas. The movement of modern art always involves destruction of a portion of the self. This contradicts the notion that this movement is simply a powerful influence for renewal.
Some of these challenges are not readily accepted by the public, and such art is frequently created in industrial spaces with decrepit architecture. This is ironic in that art creation is taken as the acme of achievement of any civilization, yet is devalued at its point of generation. With this realization of the problematic nature of art appreciation in society, we can reflect afresh on the announcement in Tao Te ChingChapter two: “When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises.”[6] It is very appropriate that one approaches Reason by returning, recycling, and rebelling; these contrarian attitudes are the very ones that the best artists hold dear.
Reason is empty, but its use is inexhaustible.[7]It is like a fountain and never runs dry, because the source is deep and rooted in heaven and earth. It nourishes the soul, will not die, and nourishes spirituality, and creativities. This type of creativity is more and more apparent among contemporary artists.
Thus, in each era, art’s talent comes to the fore and has been noticed and has endured for centuries. A qualitatively different genius distinguishes this work from others. This is the clue of the différance. “Clue” or this “a” Différancesbrings new phenomena and new perspectives on the changing world.The present eventfully becomes the past.
Civilizations are started; and all actions or facts are filtered by history. To grasp the moment is the way to interpret the past. This principle has been variously thought of as Reason or Tao, the way or the method, the way of life, the universe, or nature. Each of the artists in this exhibition pursues Reason’s clue in his or her own way. Yes, all the artists draw inspiration and methods from the rich tapestry of Chinese culture; yet each of them is a contemporary artist with a goal to see that “the present is mastered” by embracing the philosophy of the ancients.
This treatment of the present through the past is especially appropriate for the eight artists represented in this exhibition. There is prima faciea Différance between these artists, who are all engaged in creating civilizations distant from us in time and space. As is apparent from their descriptions, the artists span the past, the present, and the future. Of course, more fundamentally, there is only a slight Différance between the artists.We may equally well say of creativity that “Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end.”[8]
This Reason’s Clue exhibit contains the work of artists with different vocabularies of expression who create different civilizations. Yet there is an invisible thread drawing them together from different directions until they meet in our time-space. Two (Xu Bing and Tu Wei-Cheng) are drawn back from ancient times, and twomore (Michael Cherney and Cui Fei) bounce back and forth between ancient and modern times, and two more (Lin Ju and Yang Mao-Lin) are lifted out of a fantasia of religions and popular icons, and the seven and eighth (Zhang Hongtu and Hong Hao) must be recalled from reinterpreting masters of various cultures.They are separated by a Différance, at once inescapable and superficial. Yet it should not be considered that any of these artists has confined himself or herself to a particular dimension of time.All are contemporary artists lovingly re-imagining or reinventing some aspect of the past.
Multiple trajectories also characterize these artists, whose work sometimes travels along different paths and sometimes intersects in a way that produces tensions. This exhibition attempts to lead the audience into an adventure in distant cultures. This blockbuster exhibit is also an exercise in self-referential mockery.
Did the artists of Reason’s Cluetell the secret of an era? Yes, in the sense that they have all, to some extent, decrypted the past by reading both sides - ancient ideas and current language.
According to the vision of Tao cosmogonists, the creative interaction of universal forcesreplacethe primal energy into patterns of movement and transformation, which is turn generated the motion of the universe. There was a center of Tao, which is Wu Ji, and primal, numinous energy swirled in a state of chaos and generated the forces known as Yin and Yang. These two forces are expressed through the shifting patterns of energy characterized as the five elements or five phases (wood, metal, fire, water, and earth). The five elements are also related to the human body and various ideas such as five directions, five colors, five guidance, five organs, and five virtues. Lin Ju[9]createsmythologicalpaintings that capture and convey the dynamic movement of vital energy that animated the early forms of the earth. He also pays homage to the mysterious mountains which play such a prominent role in Chinese legend and are gateways to the spirit world. Different types of figures direct the several levels of the sacred space.
A central tenet of Tao is that to be content as a human being is to accept that change is the only reality. As I Chingindicates, the most basic principle is change itself. All transformations are unified in Tao.In the works of Hong Hao, hereorganizes the world according to different principles. For example one map, New World Order, shows the world rearranged geographically and the names of large corporations used to name the countries. Another redistributes land mass according to military and economic strength. Another replaces the names of capital cities with popular expressions or words, yet another shows nuclear arms stationed in selected sites the world over. Hong Hao's intent is to confuse and thus challenge orthodox perceptions.
The structure of the human body corresponds to the structure of Nature or landscape. The traditional Taoist concept of the natural landscape finds it sacred and reflecting the inherently divine structure of both the cosmos and the inner human body.[10]
The artist Cui Fei uses the calligraphic format to suggest language, but employs natural forms as universal elements that transcend nationality, culture, and race.
Taoism is indigenous to Chinese culture, spanning more than two millennia, and its influence is clear in such diverse realms of Chinese culture as political theory, medicine, painting and calligraphy, and Zen Buddhism. Much less is known, however, about the relationship between Taoism and Chinese art.[11]Certainly, Buddhism and Confucianism – the other two major strands of Chinese culture – have been more thoroughly explored.
Yang Mao-Lin’s[12]sculpture must be viewed in light of the temple shrines from the Taiwanese countryside which furnish the playground of his work. His sculpture is populated with toys such as a Buddhist god riding on the back of an insect. Yang shows another kingdom, a self-absorbed and self-content world. Yang Mao-Lin createsdifferent deities for these temples, deities that people might visit in order to pray for a child, to gain fortune, to succeed in business, for safe travel, to win a bet, etc. In this temple, various god or immortals happily co-exist with pop culture images and toys for popular worship in the Taoist pantheon.
There is an understanding of Tao as a universal order that gave structure to the world, society, and the people’s daily life. This is expressed in Tao Te Chingas “Tao gave rise to the one, the one give rise to the two, the two gave rise to the three, the three rise to all the ten thousand things.[13]Looking at this another way, according to Joseph Campbell, the initial big bang poured transcendent energy into and throughout the field of time, and broke into pairs of opposite. Out of three manners of relationship that all things within the four quarters of space were derived.[14]Tu Wei-Chengmixes images, including murals, stone reliefs, tablets, carvings and other forms common to ancient civilizations. The collage of shapes and patterns from different civilizations and eras, create an absurd sense of displacement in time and space. All these images cover familiar geography, including Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Mayan, and ancient Chinese civilizations. These various images are conflated into the archaeology of a new civilization.[15]
Michael Cherney[16]creates books that – externally, at least – recreate in precise detail famous volumes of Chinese history.An accordion-style page structure is folded inside a case with a silk brocade wrap. The covers are constructed of Chinese rosewood and red sandalwood
A Journey across Time and Space.
In the martial arts books that most Chinese read when they are young, the following scenario unfolds. A person with a heavenly mandate goes into the mountains to find a hermit master. Instead of finding a master, in a cave the protagonist finds a book from heaven, which only the person with the heavenly mandate of a special mission can read. The book normally contains words or characters that invisible to a person without affinity. Therefore we get an idea about the culture and the important role of secret learning.Each work in Reason’s Clueis like a page from such a book, a page that in a modern installation is miraculously open to the public, even though, we normal people are still not able to speak these secrets.[17][18]
The artists in Reason’s Clue are neither cynical nor trying to break with tradition; they wish to reflect the controversy and conflict of contemporary society, and try to represent and continue the progression of the ancient tradition in light of contemporary expression.
The goal is not merely to provide commentary on tradition, customs and culture, by using different perspectives to view them.Works in this exhibit might subvert the traditional relationship between the represented and representative.It is an international cultural odyssey.The purpose is to raise questions that lead to rethinking history and debating existential problems. The core idea is that real processes can lead to fake results, and this is demonstrated by the contradictions between reality and virtual reality.
There is a great visual variation between the artists, and the juxtaposition of their works creates a conflict, and thus I have taken pains above to underline their similarities. The temporary cohabitation of these works embodies the connection between these artistic styles, and lends this exhibit a necessary coherence. The visitor to Reason’s Cluewill find a cornucopia of different methods of mining the past. Each of these artists is unique in the way that he or she relates his or her portion of Chinese tradition to contemporary art and life.
[1] Jacques Derrida, translated, with additional notes by Alan Bass,Margins of Philosophy(Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1982) pp.4.
[2] Jacques Derrida, translated, with additional notes by Alan Bass,Margins of Philosophy(The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1982) pp.11 notes 2 “’Tomb’; in Greek is oikesis, which is akin to the Greek oikos- house- from the word ‘ economy’ derives.
“Differánce is the non-full, non-simple, structured and differentiating origin of differences. Thus the name “origin” no longer suits it.In some way, we would like to return to origin, but at the same time, we would like to dismiss with it. Therefore, we will have a new aspects.
[3] I Ching, known also as the Book of Changes. The two benches of Chinese philosophy, Taoism and Confucianism, have their common roots here. And change is conceived of partly as continuous transformation of the one force into the other and partly as a cycle of complex phenomena. In another formulation, “change is subject to the universal law, Tao.
Wilhelm/ Baynes, The I Ching: or Book of Changes.(Princeton University Press: New Jersey, Third Edition, reset in New format, with a preface by Hellmut Wilhelm, and an index, 1967)
[4] Paul Carus, The Teaching of Lao-Tsu: The Tao Te Ching (St. Martin Press: New York, 2000) pp.48
Chapter 14: “We look at Reason and do not see it; Its name is Colorless. We listen to Reason and so not hear it; its name is Soundless. We grope for Reason and do not grasp it; its name is Bodiless. These three things cannot further be analyzed. Thus they are combined and conceived as a unity, which on its surface is not clear, and in its depth not obscure.Forever and always Reason remains unnamable, and again and again it returns home to non-existence.This is called the form of the formless, the image of the imageless. This is called the transcendentally abstruse.In front its beginning is not seen. In the rear its end is not seen.By holding fast to the Reason of the ancients, the present is mastered and the origin of the past understood. This is called Reason’s clue.”
[5]Stephen Little with Shawn Eichaman, Taoism; and the Arts of China ( the Art institute of Chicago: Chicago ,in associated with University of California press: Berkeley, 2000) pp 16
[6] www.Taoism.net and Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths in 2006.
[7] Paul Carus, The Teaching of Lao-Tsu: The Tao Te Ching(St. Martin Press: New York, 2000) pp.48 TaoTe Ching, chapter 4.
[8] Tao Te Ching, chapter 14.
[9]Lin Ju frequently takes classical renaissance images, deconstructs them, and then uses the resulting inspiration to paint in a realistic method. He also uses surrealist images, reassembling the parts to form collages. In sum, he has long used illusion as a foundation to create his work - sometimes through the distorting lens of memory, sometimes as a voyage towards a non-existent past.
[10] Stephen Little with Shawn Eichaman, Taoism; and the Arts of China ( the Art institute of Chicago: Chicago ,in associated with University of California press: Berkeley, 2000) pp 13. pp. 357
[11].Stephen Little with Shawn Eichaman, Taoism; and the Arts of China ( the Art institute of Chicago: Chicago ,in associated with University of California press: Berkeley, 2000) pp 13.
[12]Yang Mao-Lin: “Art is my method to subvert, a tool to prove my existence and my language.Art is my language. Always, I hope that I can introduce the public to my point of view about life, including culture, environment, society, history and politics.”
[13] Stephen Little with Shawn Eichaman, Taoism; and the Arts of China ( the Art institute of Chicago: Chicago ,in associated with University of California press: Berkeley, 2000) pp.14
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42
[14] Ed. Betty Sue Flowers, Joseph Campbell the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers(Anchor Books Boubleday:New York, 1904) pp34.
[15]Tu Wei-Cheng: “By creating an imitation civilization I have constructed new idols and a new system of myths, using these to highlight an absurd but rational process that refers to the present, or to a future civilization. By choosing a virtual representation and systemizing disorder, the process of rationalization reveals a meaning that is contradictory.”
[16]Michael Cherney’s participation in the show is in some sense like the “a” in the title. He is the lone Westerner among seven Asian artists, and in that sense stands out from them. Yet on the surface, his work follows the most traditional Chinese format. His chosen media are the Chinese scroll and the Chinese album as artist books. Yet the pages of these books are entirely non-traditional. Thus his pieces set up an internal conversation between the revered past and the fractured present, and we return to the theme of Reason’s Clue.
[17] XuBing::“I treat it [art] in a wild way, not in a fixed way. This is good--you can bring something special, something new into contemporary art. If you can find a correct way to face your background, your tradition, maybe you can change that background in a good way." Xu has not only changed the background, he has given the future a new voice and a new language.He also remarks, "I worked for many years to create something that said nothing." His way of saying nothing speaks very powerfully indeed.
[18]Zhang Hongtu: “For this repainting Chinese Shan Shui landscape project, I go back to tradition. Actually I never broke from tradition, but these paintings are extremely traditional. The colors and brush work are impressionist and post-impressionist; the images are from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties; and the media are oil and canvas. To recycle an old style is considered a good thing today. To copy a master piece was an old fashion in China. It is fun to face the past as I move toward the future.”
