《The Journey to the West－Chu Chun Teng Solo Exhibition》

展覽相關出版發表於《Dialogues》，倫敦：金匠學院策展學研究碩士出版，P. 12-13

A CONVERSATION

I. KEYWORDS (Date: 5/ Apr/ 2010)

INTERLOCUTOR 1:
Outtake, frustration, endless, power relationship, mute, subaltern issue, impossibility.
INTERLOCUTOR 2:
Endeavour, repeater, in vain, crucial laughter, hierarchy, lesson, aim.
INTERLOCUTOR 1:
Mimicry, circus, ridiculous, massive, noise, mocking, helpless, secondary, Asian or
non-Western countries.
INTERLOCUTOR 2:
Mute, stereotype, isolation, repeating, lifeless, watch, antiquarian.
INTERLOCUTOR 1:
Embarrassment, oscillation, the political contest, foreign affairs, dependent.
INTERLOCUTOR 2:
Pretending, in-between, dualism, dilemma, grievance, misery.
INTERLOCUTOR 1:
Asian students' shared memory, the dependence on rice, home, adapt, root, endless.
INTERLOCUTOR 2:
Rice, Taiwan, warm, family, memory, hungry, expectation, sharing, modernity, reliance, automatic, distinguish, travel, nomad, modify, boundary, electricity.
INTERLOCUTOR 1:
Missing, vacuous, superficially, history, protection, invasion, corpse.
INTERLOCUTOR 2:
Imprison, memory, absence, synthetic, boundary, the Ching Dynasty.

II. SENTENCES (Date: 4/ May/ 2010)
INTERLOCUTOR 1:
It starts from the degree show… At the beginning, I had a very vague imagination of the show.
It seems that the final presentation supposes to be a massive spectacle, yet I have never
come up with a satisfactory idea. After some discussion with the curator, we have decided to
make an exhibition that presents the concern of my artistic practice in the past two years.
The whole conversation has been going well and the direction of the show is quite realistic
and appropriate. However, the only problem may be that I haven't done/ produced my works
yet. Well, I don't have any certainty about how the exhibition will be eventually. Maybe, there
will be no definite format until the last minute, I think.

INTERLOCUTOR 2:
I don't remember exactly when we stared the conversation and am not sure if we will end it.
We are friends and the discussions about our practices are always part of our routines. For
some reason those discussions sometimes look more like arguments rather than usual
conversations. Nevertheless, no matter how much 'conversation/ arguments' we have had,
working together as an artist and a curator for a solo show is a huge task. We will see, we
will see…

III. PASSAGES (Date: 26/ May/ 2010)

INTERLOCUTOR 1:
There is always a very intense relationship between my practice and my life. The actual
experience and problematic in my everyday life has been the inspiration and core of my
artworks since my first 16mm short film.

In this exhibition, all works indicate the transformation of my thoughts in the past two years
when I left Taiwan to come to London. The subject of each work is different, yet in a way
corresponds to each other. I think Ming-Jiun provides a very interesting perspective in looking
at and considering these works. They are indeed initiated or inspired by an object or my
experience, and this is the first time that someone understands and analyses my practice
with this approach. However, what I am obsessed with is not only the object, but also the
history and emotion. I see the connection between these objects and me. Additionally, I
see myself.

I suppose I am a born paranoid.

INTERLOCUTOR 2:
I believe everyone has obsessions, more or less, with certain objects or subjects, and I
think everyone has collections, actual or abstract, of items or memories. Chu ChunTeng's
practice is based on his collection of obsessions and his obsession of collections, which is
how this CONVERSATION of his solo exhibition The Journey to the West begins.

Any conversation or discussion about his practice always starts with one of his obsessions.
It is not that easy to encounter a person who is so enthusiastically obsessed with such
diverse objects and subjects; for example, life, death, ageing, vintage, nomad, nostalgia,
language, fragments, animal, specimen, skeleton, frustration, justification, colonialism,
stereotype, laughter, irony, uncanny, irritation, narration and collection. His obsession of
collection reveals and enhances his collection of obsessions, which initiates his practice
and then is translated into his works. These passions are basically associated with one
element – his life experience – and may alter through different periods of time in his
voyage of life.

This CONVERSATION shows the process of Chu's practice as well as the making of the solo
show. This solo exhibition includes five works that are developed while he has lived in London
for the past two years. These works present exactly how crucially the two years' experience
has been affecting and directing the central concern in his practice and has been transformed
into the elements of his artworks becoming 'his' journey to the West.

How kind of you to let me come (2009) borrows Audrey Hepburn's line from the film 'My Fair
Lady' (1964). He relates himself to the situation of the character in the film as a subject who
attempts to make herself suit her surrounding to practice speaking English. The Journey to
the West (2010) is motivated by one of his personal collection – a monkey toy. This object/
work reflects his position as a foreigner coming from Asia who performs a stereotype and
cannot get rid of it. Aesop's Bat (2010) is stimulated by Aesop's fable 'The Bat, the Birds,
and the Beasts' as well as his passion for skeleton. The foaming weariness (working title)
(2010) combines two objects that closely associate his life – eating and travel – and this
combination reveals a contemporary condition that one has to fit in the global village
without giving one's root away. Rescue Mission No. 2 (2010) has a simple format but
has been through a complex process from forming the thoughts to the final presentation
of the work. It discloses his continuous struggle of living in London in relation to the
differences and difficulties in language, custom, culture and so on.

Everyone has certain obsessions and collections that are part of his/ her life, especially
artists. Instead of a theoretical examination, the CONVERSATION intends to offer a
different comprehension of Chu's practice via this conversation between two individuals;
an artist and a curator; a creator and a responder; an initiator and an observer; two
interlocutors.

• 對話
• 觀點
• 創作
• 東方
• 西方
• 物件
• 執迷