Back to the Garden

Back to the Garden

By Luchia Meihua Lee

One might suppose that an exhibition entitled Back to the Garden must be a collection of beautiful landscape paintings. Instead of this literal reading of the title, let us give free rein to the imagination and choose an interpretation that reverses the intuitive direction and contemplates more than the beautiful view. Namely, we prefer to start from spiritual needs and thence return to the demands of routine life. The material world might be the arena in which our daily life unfolds, yet it is inevitable that no matter how much we pursue surface desires, a preoccupation with them will lead us to a loss of feeling and a meaningless life. Viewed from this perspective, these eight artists together cover a plethora of human needs and have explored the theme Back to the Garden in an astonishing variety of modes, from food and fashion to artificial versions of the natural world to a time-space shimmer.

     A Utopian thread runs through this exhibition. Unknown lost paradises – such as the Chinese Peach Blossom Source Village² or Shangri-la - date from the origins of human civilization. All cultures give us myths of earlier Golden Eras, and enrich the content of recent art. From Plato in The Republic to Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, we have never stopped constructing idealistic political philosophies – despite Mao’s manipulation of the ideal in the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s heritage has been addressed at length in the Asian contemporary art world.

     The vision represented in the phrase “back to the garden” is essentially a prioritization of needs and a statement about the human condition. Not only does it discount mundane concerns and give precedence to simplicity and spiritual values, but also it finds echoes in the ideas of numerous thinkers in disparate traditions. For example, psychologist Abraham Maslow³ attributed self-actualization to the instinctual desire of humans to make the most of their abilities and to strive to be the best they can. Most people take his ideas as an organization of human aspirations. In Maslow’s scheme, the final stage of psychological development comes when the individual feels assured that his requirements for homeostasis in physiology, security, affiliation and affection, self-respect, and recognition have been satisfied. For then he can reach the Utopian stage of devoting himself to self-actualization.

Zhang Hontu, Last Banquet, 2003

Zhang Hongtu, A Complete set of Chinese Zodiac
 Figures in Tang Dynasty-Three Colors Glaze ceramic style
2002

     Before applying his ideas to the art field, we must note that Maslow’s hierarchy is set forth as a general proposition and does not imply that everyone’s needs follow the same rigid pattern. For some people, self-esteem seems to be a stronger motivator than love. For others, the drive to create is stronger than the needs for food and safety. The artist living in poverty is a classic example of reversing the standard hierarchy of needs. Vincent van Gogh, like many other artists and writers, lived from hand to mouth in order to indulge his creative impulses.

     To examine the exhibition in these terms, note that two artists have chosen topics related to eating. Zhang Hongtu’s Last Banquet reformulates Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous depiction of the Last Supper. Where Da Vinci showed Christ plus 12 disciples, Zhang shows 13 images of Mao Tse-tung, so in one canvas he addresses the need for food, the politics of the Maoist era, and religious tradition. Of course communism is self-consciously Utopian, and even if the Maoist experiment failed in that respect, much Maoist rhetoric was expended in that direction. Ironically, Mao did his best to suppress Christianity, the source of the Garden of Eden myth.

Eun Young Choi, Apple Juice and Champagne Farts, 2008

     A different approach to the subject of Mao and the Cultural Revolution is used by Chee Wang Ng, who has installed a table covered by a red tablecloth with the cake stand in the middle bearing five five-pointed stars. This recalls of course the flag of China, commonly referred to as the “five star flag.” This is surrounded by bowls of rice and place settings. The focal point of the tablecloth is the hem of Chinese characters taken from a book containing the hundred most common Chinese family names, such as Chao, Chien, Sun, Lee, Lin, Chen, and Zhang. Pronounced, these names yield a veritable symphony. Viewed another way, these hundred names recall the large groups of people that ate from the same wok, such as on people’s communes during the Cultural Revolution in China. At the same time, the round table is also typical of Asian family style, and is also a symbol of gathering and harmony.

     Playing with various sources from ancient philosophy, Eastern artistic techniques, and Western masterpieces, Zhang in another series sets up reflections and refractions among and between multiple traditions, giving himself the opportunity to comment on all of them with each work. For example, he combines the colors and brush strokes of Impressionism and Chinese ink painting techniques to create a new genre. In a similar fashion, he contributes to this exhibition a version of a McDonald’s French fries box, and a six pack of Coca-Cola bottles. They are treated like traditional Chinese cultural objects – for example, the Coca-Cola bottles are covered with blue and white Ming dynasty floral patterned glaze – in a satirical statement that comments both on our fast food life style and on the reverence paid to artifacts from earlier times.

     Continuing in this vein, Ng’s rice bowls contain cultural treasures. In various arrangements, these rice bowls focus attention on food as the one of the most elemental human needs. Ng has continuously concentrated on contemporary art related to Asian food for over 15 years. Ng has arranged 108 bowls, collected from all over the world into the shape of an I Ching hexagram. The hexagram that he has chosen is number 61 or “Inner Truth” which is composed of two yin lines surrounded by two yang lines on top and bottom. The center of the hexagram is empty, and this is its determining feature. One must keep in mind that whole empires are transformed by the strength of inner truth. The entire structure of the hexagram is very harmonious and symmetrical. The yielding lines are within and the firm ones without. These are all highly favorable circumstances.⁴

     Inevitably, talking about this exhibition’s content leads to curiosity about the exhibition’s location in Flushing, one of the most vibrant neighborhoods of Queens. Flushing is a community largely populated by new Asian immigrants yet still encompassing a full spectrum of other nationalities and races. As in other cities, increasing population and a proliferation of first generation immigrant work habits have transformed the existing city fabric into a much denser commercial area. After establishing their financial footing, citizens started to address higher spiritual needs. Queens Crossing, a new and modern building, was designed to lead the way in effecting this transformation in Flushing to a modern urban center. Crossing Art, the venue for the exhibition, is not located inside a white cube but within a commercial complex;

This agrees with an important recent movement in contemporary art towards greater intimacy with larger audiences. After eating and shopping, filling the stomach and wrapping the body in beautiful garb, a visitor follows his curiosity to look for food to fill the soul. He will find an interesting art fashion show with provocative content in Back to the Garden.

Shannon Plume, Paper Collection, 2007

     A cynical fashion show reveals the real material world. Shannon Plumb has assembled a video, a funky and cynical fair in which she plays all the various characters. She wears paper clothes and paper hair to produce an intentionally theatrical effect. Outside the video room, a wig made of paper has been installed and paper clothing hangs beside the video to indicate that models in fashion shows change dresses all too frequently.

     Each character in the film acts directly without shame or guilt about their human nature, with its shortcomings and frailties. They present themselves as honest, open, and without pose or facade. Of course, Plumb’s work satirizes these poses. Her characters seek fame or glory to improve their view of themselves. But they must first accept themselves internally. These people need to gain recognition and have activities that give a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued.

     The fashion world may be characterized as art in the service of marketing. The challenge to art organizations today is to reverse the formula and place marketing at the service of art. To the extent that this goal is achieved by innovative organizations such as Crossing Art, contemporary art will enter the consciousness of and enrich the lives of a far larger proportion of the population.

     Thus I propose a manifesto for Crossing Art: “Do not yield the city to commercial advertisements alone; yet do not scorn Pop-Art, for it is the art most frequently presented to the people. Do not let art live solely in the museums, and do not let high art be absent from public spaces in the city. Let the mall turn out to be an art museum, and the entire city a museum without walls.”⁵

Jeremiah Taipen, Lithium, 2008

     Back to the Garden attempts to extract art from its customary confines. Instead of using a stereotypical exhibition space as in a gallery or museum, Jeremiah Teipen has placed his site-specific LED and video installation in the atrium of Queens Crossing, where it attracts attention from passersby. There he pays homage to the flag image of 20^th century American artist Jasper Johns with a projection on the wall. At the same time, he makes reference to the ubiquity of the American flag, for example on Fox News.

     One way he does this is by use of new materials, such as LEDs and innovative lighting that recently have been used to create fascinating art work - illusions and atmospheres beyond our conception. Teipen has arranged fans and other electrical and mechanical devices to build the shimmering image of a virtual jungle in the art tube, a hallway leading to the Crossing Art gallery. Inspired by shadows of trees on the wall of his home, it of course resonates with the botanical theme of this exhibition, yet at the same time as images of shadows are removed from Nature and recall even Plato’s shadows.

     Site-specific art work is always a big challenge for an artist. To manage a space and a function and the aura of the environment is very important, and sometimes a brilliant piece can change the entire feeling of an area. Ming Fay has made a new site-specific installation, entitled Jungle Tango, for Queens Crossing’s glass-and-steel atrium, which rises four floors from street level. This newly created work shows its organic character in moving objects and tangled branches. In this art jungle inside the city jungle, insects crawl on the plants and dance to a mystical, exotic, and erotic rhythm. Like this busy shopping center, it recalls the street crowded with people jammed together shoulder to shoulder, and towers above this exotic community.

Ming Fay, Jungle Tangle, 2008

     Fay likes to take a worldly issue such as Qian (money) and represent it by a tree to give an Asian atmosphere; yet his work always draws upon another vision. He has created an outsized inventory of fruits, seeds, herbs and hybrid objects, as the elements for magical gardens of abundance that he installs – frequently as public commissions. In Fay’s hanging nature piece, he makes the connection between people and the botanical world. His works, here as elsewhere, specifically refer to gardens.

Chee Wang, The Community Gather for Dinner, 2008

     Common to much of his work is the money tree vine, flourishing with an abundance of golden leaves imbedded with coins. For example, he updates the traditional Chinese Money God by equipping him with an MBA and other modern trappings, yet places him in a garden. As the artist states, in keeping with the Taoist tradition of the ever-changing yin yang world, the deities continually reincarnate to the present moment. Fay’s gardens speak to our desire to control our destiny while also reminding us of the need to be in harmony with Nature.

     Thousands of stickers and pieces of mylar lead to endless reflection and re-reflection of images, which generates a new scenery that surrounds and interacts with the viewer. Eun Young Choi has thus created a children’s dream world, a fairy tale inhabited by many fantastic characters. The work forms a world where pop idioms are superimposed on a surreal structure.

En Young Choi, Apple juice and Champagne Farts, 2008

     Choi’s sticker installations can flexibly fly up and down, left and right and flutter around like butterflies. They fit the stairwell perfectly, and lead visitors with a childish curiosity into a type of Alice’s Wonderland, from the lobby up to the gallery on the fourth floor. Colorful in the extreme, her work is filled with, flowers, Superman images, candy, blue sky, green grass, ants, rabbits, butterflies, cartoon characters, hello kitty figures, and other denizens of the dreamscape.

     The lyrics of the song Woodstock refers to a “child of God” and Utopian visions by their very nature take a pure, innocent – even naïve - view of the universe. This agrees well with the mood of Choi’s art. While some of the other artists take their subject matter from daily life, Choi’s work must be classified as a playful pleasure Pure Land.

     People commonly have mystical experiences or times of intense emotion in which they transcend the self. During such a peak experience, they experience feelings of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, feelings of unlimited power and at the same time feelings of being more helpless than ever before. YoYo Xiao had a near-death experience; the twisted images that appeared to him then are ever-present in his art. As so often happens, it ended with the conviction that something extremely important and valuable has happened so that he was transformed and strengthened by the experience. Thus in Xiao’s piece he emphasizes the contingency of human existence, even putting forth the notion of humans as aliens, and points the viewer to the impermanence of the material world and the importance of spiritual values – and the need to get ourselves back to the garden.

YoYo Xiao, An Inopportune Moment, 2008

     Xiao characteristically starts with a single digital photograph, which he subjects to countless repeated distortions to yield a strange contorted image whose relationship with the original taxes the viewer’s imagination. This process makes the city’s high rises look like groaning animals in an organic world, and reflects the artist’s own image through the thousand facets of a shattered mirror.

     He was trained in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy - the time-honored calligraphy using free lines and brush ink. While Xiao no longer adheres to the strictures of his tradition, he lets his mind dance with it so it recurs repeatedly in his work. Nowadays, the virtual world of computers is his rest and refuge. He mixes his calligraphic skill with digital techniques that transform the images into unknown objects.

     Lin Pey Chwen is always concerned about the environment. Her series entitled Artificial Nature shows what we should care about the most after taking care of our bodily needs. Of course, this brings us back from the life of the mind to the concerns of the body, since environmentalists have forceful comments to make about mass agriculture and popular culture. Lin uses a digital installation in a darkened room in order to invite audience participation in her work.

Lin Peychwen, Virtual Creation, 2008

     To understand her work, we cannot ignore the background and life of the artist. She cares deeply about persons and Nature. Reflecting her religious consciousness and humanist thought, Lin’s work expresses her prophetic character as a modern Cassandra. Through art, she achieves realization of her own mission, and contributes passionately on a spiritual level. Lin has direct, frank ideas along with a keen awareness of the world.

     The physical body can easily contented by feeding it well and wrapping it in costly fabric. However the petty pleasures of daily life cannot satisfy our deep heart, and the five senses are only a illusion; our higher aspirations cannot be met by the use of external materials. That is, as it says in the Heart Sutra, “no, eye, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind; no sight, sound, smells, tastes, touches, and dharmas.”⁶ A gap easily arises between people when low level needs dominate, and the demands of our desires control us and tear us down. That is when the jealousy, evil, suffering, and struggle overwhelm us. At such times, we can do no better than to step back and calmly assess the situation.  Recall that Socrates is said to have concluded that he was wiser than others but only in that he acknowledged his own ignorance, while most men do not. Most people don’t understand that they are stuck in the trap of the senses. It is vital to realize that spiritual vision – not input from the senses - actually directs our mind and behavior, and our profound virtue controls our future. Thus, creativity and self-realization can surpass everything else. This is the mysticism in which attitude of heart is considered superior to comprehension. Lao Tzu said “To know the unknowable, that is elevating. Not to know the knowable, this is sickness.”⁷ It is in this sense that intuition becomes superior to knowledge.

-- for 2008 curatorial essay for the exhibition:
Back to the Garden: Daily life to the Spiritual Vision