Suzhou Museum: I.M. Pei and a pair of chopsticks

Using a pair of chopsticks can be an art form. A very basic understanding together with a little creative maneuvering the pair of parallel form is essential. Especially those made of polycarbonate, a pair of timber or metal chopsticks is still not my best device in delivering table manner.

Food, if greasy and slick, could be slip sliding away. The hearty round table rendezvous is always coupled with struggling and giggling in attempting the feeding frenzy, and some brutish or primeval fingers alternative is always readily ensuing but practical. To many, an attempt could spell helplessly disastrous, and ending with some embarrassing acrobatic feats. Many horrific if not personal experiences are always some hilarious sequences tirelessly depicted in many comedies.

When turned around and used on the other end, a pair of chopsticks takes on some very subtle and amusing dimension of table manner or social etiquette. Besides acoustic drumming, and to name a few, prying, stirring, slicing, beating, tapping, pressing are some ingenious patterns in maximizing to best use of a pair of chopsticks.

Reading from I.M. Pei's biography many years ago, if not erroneous in recalling some specific details at this moment, Pei was greatly inspired by the structural strength of a pair of chopsticks. In this case, when designing the Bank of China in Hong Kong, a pair of chopstick has served more than food picking or food sweeping.

To I.M. Pei, and now the Suzhou Museum, using chopstick in parallel with architectural design is an art form elevated to another art form. In fact, a pair of chopsticks is more than a primeval innovation by itself and most architectural or structural engineers would comprehend this better.

Without much sunshine during visitation hours, the whitewashed and slate colored framing Suzhou Museum was shrouded all over in monochromatic gloom, diminishing its structural bearing for equilibrium and kaleidoscopic geometric bracing. This is more revealing when the series of shots were later displayed on computer screen. On Saturday, May 12th, 2007, it was a day with heavy over cast.


Jeremy
Hai Shanghai
May 17th, 207

Upwardly mobile: 2007.4.14

Never mind the solo installation with a dated title 2007.4.14 that was open to the public on the same April 14th, 2007, the experience to take a walk and pick up some easy and slow moving paces all over the installation was definitely an upwardly mobile experience. The upwardly or downwardly walk was not particularly tardy even if defying gravity and weight or structure.

Departing from the entrance threshold and running several meters in length, the precast concrete floor is gradually and levelly elevated, tilted or raised to the height of window sills on the other side of the fairly large gallery. At the entrance, the human scale or human experience is real, whereas, at the far end at the highest elevation and right by the windows, the human scale relatively remains the same optically. But the human scale seems to meld into the sky beyond the windows - assuming a dramatic perspective view over the Bund and across the River Pu and the Lujiazui Financial District beyond - literally closer to heaven, or a celestial fusion of diminishing human sense that embraces the vast and magnificent sky. Essentially, the sensurround environment is a device to halt the viewer with some experiential moment coupled with certain optical illusion.

Speaking in visual language, it is not meant to be celestial but only to contexualize a place or a setting. The installation intends to reestablish the relationship between the subject and object, i.e. the viewer with respect to his or her context, and more specifically, the sensual presence of the viewer and the physical presence of an urban environment.

In fact, Gu Dexin's upwardly elevated street scene also includes a cesspool full of dead flies. Relegated towards another side of the gallery, for Gu, the cesspool must have weighted equal significance in his methodical installation while it takes on an extraordinary form of urban documentary. Nevertheless, it is an unnecessary and meaningless aspect of visual narrative.

Just like those talkative show presenters who dominate in their flashy night gowns and suits in those gaudy stage sets, and all in the form of visual and sound pollutions, Gu's installation also droops for the trap of the currently popular gothic form so commonly seen on those ubiquitous TV programs and concerts; Gu's solo suffers from trying to say too much.

This unfortunate part of cesspool installation should be scrapped. The artist has failed to solve its spatial presence; it is not a well integrated visual form. It is none other than some burdensome visual weight that only amounts to taint the overall installation. Indeed, it should simply be an elevated street scene with nothing more beyond its pure and original narrative form.

2007.4.14 is a pseudo-theatrical set. It is an enacted installation and it is an enacted sensual as well as physical presence. The realistic context is raised to become a surrealistic stage, well, nearly surrealistic. 2007.4.14 is literally a transplant from the world outside. It is an exterior street revisited but found within an interior context.

In reality, a street is a dramatic stage. The installation is more than a stage, however, it is but a concept. It does not intend to allude or evade reality. It has no set reason to confuse visually or it tries not to diffuse one's thinking about it, but to gracefully lead a viewer away from reality and into a pseudo-theatrical environment, and further into some surrealistic narrative form.

The pseudo-theatrical environment is perpetually in its monochromatic touch due to its intolerable grayish tone of the ever-present tough concrete floor. The afternoon light brightly pierced through the large windows and into the interior.


To Floria, the very congenial receptionist at Three of the Bund Gallery, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for her most receptive hospitality and in permitting me taking pictures of Gu Dexin's installation.


Art Explication
Jeremy Tew
Hai Shanghai
May 14th, 2007

Lawrence Ku Septet Original Jazz Concert

at Two Cities Gallery on May 13th, 2007

From Ohio, Barbara Niepsuj, an American friend forever...since 1983.

The Loft

Dedicated to Barbara



Retrospect Please retrospect

Please look at me one more time

To see you in retrospective

You are the big bird
Flying here and there, flying here and there

In the cloud, in the wind

To see you in the sky

Flying here and there again, flying here and there again

In the cloud, in the wind

It is you flying, it is your home country

Finally one day

You are the bid bird, flying here and there

In the cloud, in the wind, in the dream

But one day, I am waiting

Please retrospect

Please look at me, to see you in retrospective

In the cloud, in the wind, in the dream



Lighthouse

Look at the blue sky and white cloud
Look at the still wind and bright sunlight
Look at the green grass on the ground
Look at those ships sailing in and out of the bay

If forgotten
Please - ask the white cloud
Ask the blue sky
Ask me again



The Door

A leave of door
Long opened for you
Come in, please!
Please have the seat

This leave of heart door
It is opened for you
Please come inside
Please speak



Still Life

The shadow is moving
The daylight is moving
The lines are moving
The colors are moving
The feeling is moving



Appointment

Lingering outside the doorway
Waiting for the movement of time and space

From sunrise till midday
From midday till sunset

Lingering inside the doorway
Waiting for the disappearance of light and shadow

Waiting for you on time for appointment
Waiting for your most beautiful look



The above is a batch of selected poems translated from The Loft, Part 3 of the Chinese poetry book Courtyard, published in June, 1999 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Kelvin & son Brian Koong, Selina, Kammisah, Azlina & May Ng

Junior school classmate and family: when they grow up