2020.11.21-2021.01.11
Artists: Han Wuzhou
Physical perception being the fundamental, Han Wuzhou's consistent pattern of behavior is to live down to earth and create with a prostrate gesture. Unlike previous exhibitions, this time, the artist tried to exceed to the surreal field, where it is higher than ideal and lower than life.
In the corner of the space, an "escape pod", Pagoda 3, 2020, that can accommodate one person connects reality and another imaginary universe. The material of this "dimension door" is hundreds of white medicine bottles that have been emptied.
On the farther side of the "escape pod" is the eerie alien wilderness in the Eternally Immutable series of photography. The soil here is noticeably distinct from the one on earth and looks more florid and tranquil. The miniature "aircraft" standing in the center of the picture is almost hidden in the rough gravel, seeming to be swallowed by the storm at any time. Their owner may have been away for a long time or even have abandoned them in this eternal wasteland. The powder particles and the coloured glass marbles are scattered on the floor, echoing the Eternally Immutable series. It seems to bring the audience back to childhood game time. Due to problematic health, the artist was unable to squat and run. Pinball has become a childhood dream that he has never touched.
Under the sluggish, lengthened, and intermittent pain, how will a human's body, spirit, and life be affected? This is a situation that Han has long learned, and it has become the origin of his survival and thinking. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has mentioned, when the barbarian lashed his whip on himself, pain, restraint, and endurance became necessary qualities, which full of wisdom and transcendence. This pain also makes survival itself more appalling and real, causing all beings to find the origin of life and the source of energy accordingly. The pain emphasizes physical affections. Though the pain has imprisoned the artist's body, his spirit is cruising through creating. The Pagoda series carries the spiritual intention related to pain, healing, and hope, leading to divinity. The Stupa exists as Buddhist Pagoda and vice versa. The accumulation of medicine bottles and pills guides the viewers to explore the miracles in the Pagoda.
Contrary to the weight of life, Han Wuzhou is a person with a unique sense of humor. He keeps his countenance and tells anti-humor jokes to fool himself and entertain others. Like thousands of fellows in his hometown Anyang, life has squeezed out of their ability of making fun of it. They have also accumulated the wisdom to deal with pain because there is always faith.
Although he has taken medicine all the year-round since he was young and has tried various remedies, in February 2015, Han still entrusted a "prophet” by mistake and began another arduous journey of recovery. In the meantime, he made Dr. Deng's Table, 2015, and the Hive of Hope, 2016. These two pieces are considered as the continuation of Ten Years, 2003-2013. The materials are thousands of capsule shells and medicine packaging boxes of what he had taken and accumulated over many years. Each tablet had broken down and absorbed by the body, where it turned into a hope of recovery at the bottom of the tummy.
Listening to the prophet’s prescription, during the five months of isolation for treatment, Han must take the medicine strictly according to the hour, and the cooking time and temperature of the medicine must not be sloppy. The daily dietary and sleep pattern was also made rigid in order to support the treatment and updated frequently following the changes of the prescription. The patient has almost eliminated social interaction, entertainment, desire, and slack. Under such strict medication discipline, one is reduced to a tool of medicine adversely. The cumbersome process of taking medicine is more like a ritual, bit by bit accumulating convictional energy in the heart. It does not seem like a treatment but a spiritual discipline. The psychokinesis has dominant the prescription, and sincerity has become an ingredient. They build up a network and intertwine with each other.
Illness has also metamorphosed into the ontology of a specified metaphor, pointing to the expectation of simple life. Medicine is not just a material for healing the body, but a hope, a kind of spiritual comfort and sustenance. Taking medication has become a practice, a part of the artist, and an anchor point connecting the body with the external world. Medication as a center is emitting the things, the interpersonal, the milieu, world, and earth. All these matters have formed a field, which pushes the artist towards a particularized result. It might be the place in the Eternally Immutable series – an unmanned state, where transcends the flesh and the spirit. Where is no god, and everything is in its original state; perhaps it is the tiny hopes that broke out of the shell densely in The Hive of Hope. It depends on how the artist modulates the relationship between himself and the external world through art making.
The three series Pagoda, The Hive of Hope, and Eternally Immutable exhibited at Mocube this time are the means for the artist to remedy defects and to avoid the pain. They are the comfort, and they have also created a new life form and way of thinking. As Edvard Munch once confessed that he could not get rid of his sickness, because a lot of his art existed only because of them.
Unsurprisingly, Han's wish for recovery was still in vain under the painstaking care of the prophet. On the contrary, taking plenty of medications as well as the extreme diet has exhausted his body. Han’s physical strength is even worse than before. He felt remorseful and angry. But when he turned his head and saw the medication bag. It said, "Made with affections, wish you health!" He felt somehow relieved.