Pohan Wu “Intimation”
Gallery 456 in Chinese-American Arts Council
This event has ended.
Chinese America Arts Council / Gallery 456 present Pohan Wu: Intimation, the first solo exhibition of Taiwanese-Canadian artist Pohan Wu in New York. The exhibition will showcase a site-specific installation comprising 14 pieces of 2D digital photographic works.
At the beginning of Márquez’s 《One Hundred Years of Solitude》, Macondo’s patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, wants to move the idyllic yet isolated community he founded to another, more accessible location. And, since no one else wants to go with him, he decides that he and his wife, Úrsula, and their son should leave by themselves.
“We will not leave,” his wife says, reminding him that Macondo was their son’s birthplace.
“We have still not had a death,” he tells her. “A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground.” To which his wife replies, “If I have to die for the rest of you to stay here, I will die.”
We abide by the idea of home as a conviction. So much that home exists in symbiosis with life and death, bestowing upon them superior significance. What is it about home that gives us courage and certainty to face the cyclical transitions between life the death in an equable manner?
I reached Death Valley on my second trip to the US Southwest. After passing the dramatic scenic drive through the Navada-Califlornia border from the east, and crossing the north-eastern peak of Amargosa Range, I stood at the valley’s east entrance Hell’s Gate. With sun overhead tilting west, hot air so aggressive that it stomps. Sweat evaporates in such a speed that it vanishes instantly. Faint noise of cracking sand finds its way piercing through constant violent wind gusts. Besides the mountain ridge in the distance at the valley’s southern border squirming in heat haze, all there left is barren land as far as the eye can see. Being in a foreign and unfriendly place alone, I became aware of an immense, incessant calming energy so familiar that it felt exactly like home should be.
Since 2009 I’ve undertaken several journeys to the desert for this photographic project intended to make manifest the intimations behind that unexpected experience. The project began with not knowing how to shoot before this awe-inspiring land to a place where, after having introspected repetitively in these lone journeys, I began to understand how a certain part of my essence interacts with this immersive wilderness, forming a special bond between this foreign land and I. Being in this place where the scope of time and space in which it exists is so vast that it feels one is in the presence of a higher power, I began to understand how a devoted believer can see the commandments in life after submitting to convictions, and finds peace for life.
Pohan Wu (b. 1976 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan) holds a graduate degree in Business Management from State University of New York, currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Prior to fully devoting to artistic creation, he had 14 years of experiences in marketing and product development. He believes good art should at least do these three things: speak to human experience, play skepticism towards its institutions, and preserving the utmost respect for its subject. Then it may have the ability to resonate and expand our perspectives, and make reference to the society to which the artwork belongs. To this end, how art is received and consumed should be just as important as how it is made.
Media
Schedule
from March 03, 2019 to March 29, 2019
Opening Reception on 2019-03-01 from 18:00 to 20:00