|
Hung-Chih
Peng : Canine Monk-Virgil de Voldere Gallery
“10
Commandments and Islamic Exegesis”, 2007, 2 channel HD
video, 05 min 34 s, Edition of 8
Dates : May 24th - June 23rd
, 2007
Opening
: Thursday, May 24th 6-9 pm Location
: 526 West 26th Street 4th Floor Room 416
Gallery Hours :
Tuesday to Saturday 11 am - 6 pm and by appointment
Web :
http://www.virgilgallery.com/v2/?ikDirId=1891
PRESS
RELEASE:
Virgil de Voldere Gallery is pleased to present
Canine Monk, our first solo show with the Taiwanese artist
Hung-Chih Peng. A white dog appears mid-screen and begins to
lick a white wall. With each lick, words emerge and a sentence
becomes clear: And God said. Once the sentence is completed
with pacing and rapid tongue movement, the dog bows his head
and recoils backwards out of the frame only to reappear a
moment later and write: Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness. In the Canine Monk series, Peng writes words
from religious texts in oil and covers each letter with ground
dog food. After the dog licks the wall clean, the process is
repeated. The act of writing is non-linear, sometimes fervent,
but the methodical repetition fosters an almost pensive
tranquility. These works are intimately bound to the
technology of video; when the common feature of rewind is
used, the role of the dog changes from instinctive creature to
creative agent. The videos also thematize another 'rewind';
god is dog in reverse. Peng began the series with Buddhist,
Taoist and Hindi religious scriptures. Several of these pieces
address the unity of human kind and nature. Since these texts
are inscribed in their language of origin, the Western viewer
is left to first contemplate them on formal terms alone. Only
when the sentence is completed do the English subtitles
appear. In this way, the videos often nimbly shift from the
exasperation of incomprehension to the great satisfaction that
occurs when understanding is finally achieved. Upon living
temporarily in New York, Peng became interested in exploring
the foundational texts of Western religions. He was especially
struck by the many linguistic and thematic commonalities
between Islam and Christianity. “Ten Commandments and
Islamic Exegesis” is a dual-screen projection. On the left,
the dog marks the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, while, on the
right, almost identical quotes are excerpted from the Koran -
only here, they are written out in English. The English
writing makes the Islamic text seem the most familiar and
readable of the two for the average American audience. Using
the most unbiased of arbitrators, Peng continually aspires to
create a medium for cultural translation. At once innocent
creature, inferior species as well as trusted companion, the
dog holds an ambivalent position as conveyer of sacred texts.
While the artist William Wegman often dresses up his dogs and
positions them in anthropomorphic scenarios, Peng's
four-legged companion is elevated to performing subject,
thereby displacing its human counterpart. The dog intervenes
between reader and text, thereby defamiliarizing its content
and raising issues that often otherwise remain opaque: Who is
the writer behind these scriptures and to whom are they
addressed? When delivered via the mouth of the dog, these
words, strangely, seem all the more human.
For further
information, please contact the gallery + 1 212 343 969
|
