Unlike some people who like to dig things up from their inside world, my works have always responded to stimuli from the outside world. I have always chosen to express my concept in an easy, simple, but tricky way, because I liked to deliberately associate things with my works. This is how I get my pleasure in the creative process.
In "Collective Dreams", for example, which was part of the "Out
of the White Space" activity during the Hong Kong Art Festival in
February 1996, this work actively emphasised the relationship between
society, environment and the masses. It reminded me of the close relation
between boats and Hong Kong. Boats could be the logo of Hong Kong. Another
reason was the close connection of boats to one of the most notorious
personnel in the Hong Kong history, Bou Dzai Dzoeng the pirate. As 1997 is
approaching, it would be about time for the Hong Kong residents to think
about where to go and what to do. Spring would be the right season for
dreaming. Therefore, I worked out a plan: inviting everybody to fold paper
boats, write down their dreams, or draw pictures of their dreams.
The activity of collecting paper boats lasted about a week, some 4000 to 5000 paper boats came in. The large amount of paper boats of a great variety and diversity were shown in the Art Centre and made it look most magnificent. I enjoyed the feeling that viewers came here to find their own dreams, their own boats, or even to peep at other people's dreams.
One day we hired fishermen to carry those paper boats in a fishing boat cruising in the Victoria Harbour of Wanchai area where the Art Centre was located. The purpose was twofold: to relieve the pressure suffered in the dreams and to wish the dreams to be well blessed. After the cruising ceremony was done, we resumed the paper boat show at the art centre.
These little boats could simply be a symbol of the romantic fantasies,
which we all more or less had experienced.
Drifting freely on the sea, the boats seemed so carefree and so
individual.
But here in Wanchai, only large ships are seen. This is where the
handing-over ceremony site will be when Hong Kong is reverted to China in
1997, and where the British Admiralty still stands in the neighbourhood.
Thus, having those paper boats cruising in Wanchai suggested a contrast
between individuals and the nation.
Does my work have too much to do with politics? No.
Because of the geographical connection, the Hong Kong people always had
dreams involving boats.
A friend told me that a star singer, Sam Hui, once had a popular love
song about the boat.
At a corner of Mong Kok, an old lady idler who had a slight mental
disorder was seen sitting on the curbside folding paper boats for more
than a year. The old lady always threw the paper boats onto the street,
and let the cars run over them or let the wind blow them away.
According to the old lady, the street was like the sea, and the paper
boats might just bring her husband back, who deserted her years ago. That
the old lady turned dreams into a solid form and ritual of life.
This became the best interpretation of Collective Dreams; for the paper
folding, dreaming, and cruising on the sea were all rituals.
Paper folding could be a wordless process, in which silence was written
onto every fold. Alternatively, it can be a constantly murmuring process
of subconscious activity. Whichever it might be, the paper folding process
was both reflective and anxiety-relieving.
When the boats undulated with the waves out on the sea, they appeared
just like cradles, sending out gentle kisses of blessing to the dreams.
From this piece of work, I saw some new possibilities for working away
from the land and on the sea or water.
Especially, as Taiwan is an island,
I thought I might actually develop something with a "marine"
flavour.
The creator (I) would step back, then let the masses (the collective
they) take over and finish the collaboration.
This was also a solution to what I had been seeking for years:
to the question of how to escape from a stereotypical art collection
system, which always saw the route of art museum-gallery-collector.
Some of my works were intended to criticise this system.
In 1993, I had a solo exhibition at Yellow River Art Centre in Taichung.
The title theme was When Mini Van Meets Super Mali, with some "cars"
playing the major roles in the show.
The silver one with a shape borrowed from a Mercedes-Benz model was
called Proletarian Car; the golden one called Pink News (Sex
Scandal), whose name was inspired by propaganda vehicle used in street
conflict.
Those "cars" were actually made by wooden boards and would not
move.
The only movable "car" was made with two wheels plus some
electronic devices. I called it Super Mali. The name came from a
combination of a video game, Super Mario, and my own name.
The idea of this exhibition was like this.
Our galleries are so beautiful, even far too beautiful, whereas more and
more car shows have come to be like art galleries for me.
If a car show could be like an art gallery, it would be natural to make
an art gallery like a car show.
Perhaps only some viewers sensed the mockery within the work.
However, I thought it was full of fairy tale's delight, because it was so
straightforward, so beautiful, and because its implication was planted
deeply into an absolutely modern space.
After this exhibition, my friends often switched to calling me Super
Mali.
The name would sound like somebody that belonged to fairy tales. While I
was in college, I was nicknamed Little Mali due to my petite build. As
such, I felt that the change of my name was a kind of hypocrisy and
over-inflation. On the other hand, the name Super Mali sounded like a
cartoon character and for this reason I liked it.
In 1994, I presented three pieces of works of the more serious kind, all
titled with different name of Disguise (Camouflage, Fake, etc..)
The first one called Camouflage made public in Promenade in
Asia exhibited at the Shisheido Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.
It was an electric toy excavator, which kept knocking a hole on a wall.
Dust and broken pieces of the wall materials fell out of the hole after
the hole was made. Actually, it was I that had made the hole earlier. As
the toy excavator could not possibly damage the wall, it was indeed a
disguise.
The walls of the gallery suggested the art collection system which many
artists attempted to change but eventually had to fall in upon itself.
Therefore I used a toy to make a mockery of myself.
Because during the time when destruction/reconstruction was emphasised,
criticism could act as some kind of flattering in disguise.
Therefore, I interpreted this piece work as an "opposition to the
opposition", a hopeless mockery.
In June, I had an exhibition at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, whose theme was
another Disguise--Fake.
I used an "empty-city strategy" to present an exhibition space
of nothingness.
On the wall near the entrance it was read:
"I am the FAKE author, you are the FAKE audience,
Let's stroll through the FAKE museum."
Obviously, the not only revealed the critique of the system but also
was a metaphor of the king's new clothes, which is better known as the
game of with or without clothes.
Since the show room was so open and so deserted, it could be, without
lights and writings, filled with such an emptiness that made me feel
regardless of the rest of the world. This feeling could be described, in
King Yung's words, as "Stalking in the universe" (The Smiling,
Proud Wanderer) because I felt that it had the characteristics of a
banquet.
What made the opening day spcial was that art critic Haiming Huang, who
is male but dressed in woman's clothes did a terrific job in guiding the
viewers to a better understanding of the work and making them delighted.
In July 1996, I had exhibition with a theme titled Wrapping Apollo
Building, which was curated by Fan-Marvin Minto's Museum Nomad.
I changed the gallery into a Pawn Shop intending to continue to
think from the critical point of view.
In this simple, clean, and inexpensive piece of work, I borrowed symbols
from pawn shop, so that the gallery look exactly the same like an usual
pawn shop.
The viewers might think that they would not see any pictures, but
actually they got instead words as mortgage items to read, such as cars,
mansions, curios, calligraphy and paintings etc.
My works are always connected with language. Last year, I presented The
Library at Art Taiwan in Venice Biennale. This piece of work
was originally a creation titled
Gnawing Texts,
Reaming Words which was presented at the IT Park Gallery in 1993.
In this piece of work, I collected some influential books from the past,
then put them in a paper shredder and let the machine grind up /destroy /
chew up them. Later, I filled acrylic boxes with the shredded paper and
affixed labels gilded in its original book title on the boxes.
The books had a wild variety of fields, including the Four Books,
the Five Classics, Three Principles of the People, Das
Kapital, Der Traumanalyse, the Bible, the Sutras
etc.
Seriously, shredding paper was like breaking the original written
structure, which implied rewriting the books.
However, after the books were shredded, the broken pieces of shredded
paper instead emerged as a beautiful, well-structured pattern and turned
itself into an art with an eternal value.
Try and imagine this,
How marvellous it would be, when you had turned characters into grains of
monosodium glutamate!
I was happy with this piece of work, because it helped me clear my
already- crowded bookcases. Besides, the books could go to the right
places.
It was during the period that I was working on Library I had a
dream. In this dream, I saw a coffin shop, which kind of resembled a
Chinese herbal medicine shop in a gloomy darkness. In order to explain the
material, the decoration and other things about the coffins, the owner of
the coffin shop pulled out every coffin as if he were pulling out the
drawers from the medicine cabinet.
Some people had said to me my works were full of tough and aggressive
characters, whereas in the exhibition place Palazzo Delle Prigioni in
Venice, a place better known for having detained loverboy Casanova, my
works had appeared gruesome because the Library smelt of the last vestiges
of ancient civilisations.
The books in the Library were classified into six groups:
(1) the World of Art, (2) Encyclopaedia, (3) Chinese Classics, (4)
Science and Civilisation in China, (5) Nobel Prize in Literature, and (6)
Godfather (books on or by great men).
This exhibition in Venice meant a lot to me.
Firstly, because of the lure of the Venice Biennale and secondly through
the help from the Eslite Bookstore and friends from the galleries I was
able to finish this expensive work.
It also seemed to open the door for me to reach out to the outside world,
which resulted in exhibition invitations from several countries.
At the end of last year, I accepted an invitation from Persano Gallery of
Turin in Italy and had my very first solo exhibition in Europe.
The title of the exhibition was Scriptura, which, in Latin, meant
both writing and classics. As there were four show rooms available, I
worked out a plan to present four themes related to writing and written
words. Under the theme of The Library, sixty-three books of
Literature in Sex, published by the E. S. Books of Italy were displayed.
For the theme of The Time Space, crumpled pieces of paper torn
off coloured magazines were hung from the ceiling.
For the theme of The Alchemistic Room, I made Zero Point of
Literature, the tapping of a typewriter out of a heap of shredded
books was heard, which suggested the writers were allegorised as
alchemists.
As for the last theme The Archives, fifty childhood pictures of
celebrities, good or bad, from different times and of different
characters, were hung on the walls, making the room a nostalgic archive.
Little Sweethearts(The Sweeties) was the title of this section,
which was sort of a recent creation but not absolutely new. It was
inspired by a clipping in which I cut pictures of two little boys and
jokingly put the names of a teacher and an classmate beside the boys next
to the title When They were young.
It had a dramatic but not satiric effect.
In I tried to rewrite the stories of the celebrities where the adorable
childhood pictures of the late political figures from three different
eras--Adolph Hitler (Nazi), Rosa Luxemburg (Left-wing), and Petra Kelly
(Green Party)--were displayed side by side....; they were so unhistorical
and nonhistorical.
This was done in Europe.
Now, let me think about how to write our own history.
Copyright © : Mali Wu, 1996
N.Paradoxa : Issue No. 5, November 1997
