The series, “ Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy,” launched at the end of 2008, when the global financial crisis happened. As the commercial art market suffered from the economic downturn, galleries stared to host low-price group exhibitions as a coping measure. When he was asked to participate in an exhibition in which artworks must be priced under 30,000 NTD (940 USD), he took the opportunity to develop a piece of conceptual work, The Cost of CONCEPT. he cut out one quarter of a piece priced at 120,000 NTD, leaving three quarters of the piece intact, and priced the two newly divided pieces at 30,000 NTD and 90,000 NTD, respectively. Similarly, he split the corresponding text in the same manner – one quarter and three quarters. he then proposed that the collector should pay additional 60,000 NTD to purchase the complete text document (The Cost of CONCEPT). Subsequently, both works were sold but the complete text document was not. This is the origin of “Episode One: The Cost of CONCEPT” in the trilogy.
Not long after, Shi was again asked to be part of an under-30,000 NTD-group show. This time he cuts a one dollar coin in half, glued a half coin to canvas, named it “50 Cents,” and priced it at 50 cents. Once again the work was sold. But the gallery was late on paying him his share of the price, 25 cents because Taiwan government does not issue currency worth 25 cents. Consequently, he proposed that the gallery purchase a piece of bread and use an electronic scale to cut out twenty-five cents worth of breadcrumbs to solve this dispute. This is “Episode Two: ART Earnings.”
In Taiwan, one can purchase publicity on the cover of an art magazine. Shi, therefore, decided to convince the publisher of the art magazine to let himself to buy space on the cover in exchange for my works from the Alchemy series. He wrote a proposal that outlined the exchange, which included the magazine cover, an advertisement, and three reviews. The reviewers would be curators, collectors, and critics whom he had worked with or was working with. The publisher eventually agreed to the deal. Thus, this became “Episode Three: Being the Cover Feature.”
“Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy” brings attention to the influence of materialization and of commoditization on the price and value of artwork, the distribution of profit in the art market, and the state of art media and critic system. He hope that with humor and wit, “Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy” can lead to reflection on and concern relating to the system of art.
“Facing this kind of life you actually can't see through it
You long for it and despise it; you detest yourself somewhat
Therefore you become silent; yet your silence is the pen”
"I was studying in the Department of Studio Art at the University of California, Irvine in the autumn of 1994. One day, when I was writing my diary, the pen that had accompanied me everywhere for many years started to make a broken line. I knew that the pen was reaching the end of its days, so I got a piece of writing paper and made some random lines until the ink ran out and the pen stopped working. This was the first piece in my Pen Walking Serial, which I called Life's Last Page. Afterward, I wrote a poem about this experience personifying the pen as a close friend to whom I paid a visit. The pen asked me to hold him and help him to draw out the last page of his life. He wrote about our experiences together, the projects we made and even a few indistinct thoughts only we knew, until the end, which happened to be the beginning, for the pen failed at the place on the paper where we first started drawing. This experience is the source of the poem Life's Last Page.
Next, for my experimental works Pen Walking #2, #3, #4, I used a ball point pen and a charcoal stick to draw on a single sheet or multiple sheets of paper until the pen and stick were used up. The following, fifth experimental piece is Pencil Walker (in progress, started around 1996). This work presents some difficulties; I don't have a location where I can carry it out so it still has not been finished. In 2006 I resumed the Pen Walking Serial in my 100 square foot studio on a winter day, allowing the pencil to make lines again. This activity has expressed and alleviated some of the depression, hardships, and anxiety I encountered, and in some respects has helped me live through some of the most depressing periods of my life. I sometimes experienced the peace and comfort derived from this cathartic activity and found reasons and strength to continue on.
This exhibition includes two parts: Pen Walking Serial and Pencil Walker. Pen Walking Serial is a series of works comprised of two components. The first component is Pen Walking Picture, where I display the traces of a pen or several pens on a piece or multiple pieces of paper; the fragments and lines on the paper are traces left by these pens. In the second, Pen Walking Document, I photograph the walker (the pen) from the Pen Walking piece, and combine text and images in a document format.
Pencil Walker is a personal confession ritual through which I attempt to go beyond the resignation and emptiness of reincarnation represented in Pen Walking Serial. The walker paces back and forth in front of a white wall while drawing a pencil line on the wall. Simultaneously, the walker starts by chanting “All the harm I have ever done, since time immemorial; Are caused by greed, anger, and ignorance; And produced through my body, speech and will; Now I confess and amend all” from the Flower Ornament Sūtra and then recites the Heart Sūtra or the names of all the Buddhist bodhisattvas. The walking, drawing, reciting, and sharpening the pencil are to be continually repeated for about two hours and fifteen minutes for each session. Currently, fifty sessions have been completed over the course of more than twelve years.
Pen Walking Serial and Pencil Walker carry a few metaphorical implications. Each pen represents an individual life cycle; the wall, originally clean and white but now filthy and black, is a symbol of negative karma accumulated from the misdeeds of past lives. In Pen Walking Serial, as we survey life we can't help but sigh in a moment of nihilism, “no matter what we do, it always turns out this way.” In Pencil Walker, the attempt is to meditate on the negative karma we do in lives: “if a pen can stand for a life, then in the eternal cycle of life and death, what kind of line do I leave every time I come into this world? Isn't it always the same: birth, aging, illness and death? Is this suffering meaningful? Do I want to carry on in this fashion? ”
“Facing this kind of life you actually can't see through it
You long for it and despise it; you detest yourself somewhat
Therefore you become silent; yet your silence is the pen”
Shi Jin-Hua
2008/8/8
