Ritual Spirit: White Rabbit Gallery

I'm a little late posting this, Ritual Spirit is now finished at the White Rabbit Gallery as they prepare for their next exhibit. But I find their exhibitions so stimulating and interesting that I want to keep a record of what I see (and how I see it).

A trip to the White Rabbit Gallery is not complete without 

1. a walk through the new Central Park development and

2. a leisurely dumpling and green tea afterwards in the attached cafe

Nonexistence (2009) by Jun T Lai

This work was inspired by a verse of the Buddhist Heart Sutra: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” 

Swinging a hammer with all her might, the artist transformed a 150-kg sheet of steel into a pockmarked moonscape; a video of the process accompanies the work. Her battered “mirror” dissolves everything reflected in its surface into a shimmer of colour and light that shifts as the viewer moves. “I wanted to express the flow between real and unreal,” she says. 

The dents made by the hammer evoke the wounds life inflicts on our bodies and souls; the distorted reflections are a reminder of the unreliability of appearances. Reality vanishes as we pursue it; the only thing certain is change.

(all author bio blurbs are from the White Rabbit website)

Geng Xue, Mr Sea (2014)

Geng Xue is not content with making realistic sculptures; she wants them to live. 

In Mr Sea, exquisite porcelain puppets and scenery revitalise a 17th-century Chinese ghost story in which a scholar seeking peace on a remote island meets a beautiful woman who turns out to be a sea monster.

Xu Zhen, Play 201301 (2013)

A Cathedral constructed from the spikes, belts, whips and shackles of sadomasochistic "play". 

It's a two-faced metaphor in black: Christianity, the artists suggests, is a form of bondage, and religious exaltation has overtones of erotic pleasure. By linking them, he raises some dark questions. Does relentless self-indulgence harden us to joy? Can the cult of sexual pleasure satisfy our souls?

  

Tianzhou Chen, OM (2016)

One of the things I loved about OM was how it was reflected in the nearby ceramics, so that the man with the fancy moustache, had the word MO lit up in red, depending on where I stood.

Tianzhuo Chen, Marble Painting 4 (2016)

Luxury Logico, Scripting (2011)

Luxury Logico consists of the Chang twins and two friends, who pool their diverse skills—in mechanics, computing, music, theatre design, lighting and photography—and often enlist further help for specific works. They liken their group to a Transformer, a playful entity whose shape can be changed with a few folds and twists. 

Scripting uses intricately choreographed lights to paint in darkness—a hypnotically moving echo of traditional Chinese calligraphy generated by a computer script.

I loved this piece.

It was like watching piano keys come to life.

The light rods danced and moved in time to the music.
It was mesmerising.

I can't wait to see what the White Rabbit Gallery

pulls out of it's hat next!

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot.