Wu Shanzhuan's Grammar (III)
Duration: 29 JULY12:00 AM
- 28 AUGUST 11:59 AM (CST), 2023
Like his friend, the cigarette smuggler in Dinghai, Wu Shanzhuan never stops smuggling inappropriate deficit (red) characters into both the rational planned economy and the market economy. Just like the ancient Chan monks who relentlessly startled people to death with their Words, Wu indefatigably digs out the creative power of his erroneous grammatology, scribbling it all over the hubristic facade of ideology. Used excessively, used exhaustedly, used separately, used in fusion, used to the point of overdraft, used to the point where language undergoes a cancerous mutation, Userism turns Wu Shanzhuan into a methodological artist. Userism's sophistry is spreading everywhere, building bridges, adding water pipes. All this results from the fear of “Today No Water” and “Today Water Pipe Under Reparation”.
Wu Shanzhuan's Sub-Proposition
“Deficit (red) character” = times zero — adding brackets = establishing thing's right(s) =Userism =free and open person — adding water pipes = democracy.
Consequently, underlying all of Wu Shanzhuan's work is the sub-proposition: How is democracy possible?
Once, I asked Wu Shanzhuan: “Is it possible to have a personal ideology?'” He said: “It's possible.”
And then I asked him: “Are you a practical joker?” He said: “No.”
--Excerpted from Qiu Zhijie's Wu Shanzhuan's subjects and systems.
About Wu Shanzhuan
Wu Shanzhuan (b. 1960, China). One of the key figures of the '85 New Wave Art Movement in China, Wu Shanzhuan's practice defies use of conventional visual art terms such as "watch", "stare" and "experience" to engage with. Instead, pulling together street smartness, intellectual experimentation and the spirit of the absurd in contemporary art, Wu Shanzhuan and his collaborator Inga Svala Thorsdottir draw you into a world where "read" becomes the key term. They are not creators of visual spectacles, but rather overthrowers and discoverers of truths and propositions, as well as counterfeiters of ideology and interpreters of everyday theology.
Wu Shanzhuan defines himself as criminal, intermediary, tourist and labor. The works Wu Shanzhuan creates are not the granted artworks but rather "Wu's Things". From the large number of "Wu's Things" made in the early 1990s, we see a desire for full opening and "transcending the boundaries" and his obsession with mathematics and logic which brings a strange sense of truth to his works. For a society dictated by a variety of faiths and customs, this is an "adulterated" truth. Wu never tires of quoting from Sartre: "People are a bundle of useless passion." The use for his useless passion is to find "useless truths." For more than 20 years, Wu Shanzhuan has used the forumulas "pseudo-words," "thing's right(s)," "parthenogenesis," "secondhand water," "tourist information," "perfect bracket," and "bird before peace," all of which are "useless truths", to weave his personal ideology. This ideology constitutes a profound critique to the system of concepts and experiences that we are accustomed to.
In the era when conceptual art generally faces a rethink, the works attest a vibrancy of concept and the power of thoughts. It is a rich collection of intriguing humor and sharp wit, spontaneous anti-metaphysical actions, insights into everyday politics, sensitivity to invisible workings of power systems and adherence to the fundamental state of democracy.
Wu Shanzhuan's Grammar (III)
Duration: 29 JULY12:00 AM
- 28 AUGUST 11:59 AM (CST), 2023
Like his friend, the cigarette smuggler in Dinghai, Wu Shanzhuan never stops smuggling inappropriate deficit (red) characters into both the rational planned economy and the market economy. Just like the ancient Chan monks who relentlessly startled people to death with their Words, Wu indefatigably digs out the creative power of his erroneous grammatology, scribbling it all over the hubristic facade of ideology. Used excessively, used exhaustedly, used separately, used in fusion, used to the point of overdraft, used to the point where language undergoes a cancerous mutation, Userism turns Wu Shanzhuan into a methodological artist. Userism's sophistry is spreading everywhere, building bridges, adding water pipes. All this results from the fear of “Today No Water” and “Today Water Pipe Under Reparation”.
Wu Shanzhuan's Sub-Proposition
“Deficit (red) character” = times zero — adding brackets = establishing thing's right(s) =Userism =free and open person — adding water pipes = democracy.
Consequently, underlying all of Wu Shanzhuan's work is the sub-proposition: How is democracy possible?
Once, I asked Wu Shanzhuan: “Is it possible to have a personal ideology?'” He said: “It's possible.”
And then I asked him: “Are you a practical joker?” He said: “No.”
--Excerpted from Qiu Zhijie's Wu Shanzhuan's subjects and systems
.
About Wu Shanzhuan
Wu Shanzhuan (b. 1960, China). One of the key figures of the '85 New Wave Art Movement in China, Wu Shanzhuan's practice defies use of conventional visual art terms such as "watch", "stare" and "experience" to engage with. Instead, pulling together street smartness, intellectual experimentation and the spirit of the absurd in contemporary art, Wu Shanzhuan and his collaborator Inga Svala Thorsdottir draw you into a world where "read" becomes the key term. They are not creators of visual spectacles, but rather overthrowers and discoverers of truths and propositions, as well as counterfeiters of ideology and interpreters of everyday theology.
Wu Shanzhuan defines himself as criminal, intermediary, tourist and labor. The works Wu Shanzhuan creates are not the granted artworks but rather "Wu's Things". From the large number of "Wu's Things" made in the early 1990s, we see a desire for full opening and "transcending the boundaries" and his obsession with mathematics and logic which brings a strange sense of truth to his works. For a society dictated by a variety of faiths and customs, this is an "adulterated" truth. Wu never tires of quoting from Sartre: "People are a bundle of useless passion." The use for his useless passion is to find "useless truths." For more than 20 years, Wu Shanzhuan has used the forumulas "pseudo-words," "thing's right(s)," "parthenogenesis," "secondhand water," "tourist information," "perfect bracket," and "bird before peace," all of which are "useless truths", to weave his personal ideology. This ideology constitutes a profound critique to the system of concepts and experiences that we are accustomed to.
In the era when conceptual art generally faces a rethink, the works attest a vibrancy of concept and the power of thoughts. It is a rich collection of intriguing humor and sharp wit, spontaneous anti-metaphysical actions, insights into everyday politics, sensitivity to invisible workings of power systems and adherence to the fundamental state of democracy.
