The exhibition took author Wang Anyi\u2019s lecture as a point of departure.<\/p>\n
Wang Anyi spoke about the three tools in Ah Cheng\u2019s novels at the online lecture \u201cThe History of Civilization in Contemporary Chinese Fiction – on Ah Cheng’s Three Kings\u201d this May. The three tools in Ah Cheng\u2019s novels – namely, The King of Trees, The King of Children and The King of Chess – refer to knife, literature, and art-mathematics respectively. While Wang considered each tool a symbol of civilization, he also examined the true rationale behind Ah Cheng\u2019s creation of the works and the self-positioning within an author who led the marching of the X\u00fang\u0113n, or root-searching movement. Ah Cheng\u2019s writings is a witness of the \u201csent-down\u201d which was also part of Wang\u2019s bodily memories of Down to the Countryside Movement. Yet what could explain Ah Cheng\u2019s obsession over the three tools in his books? Wang found his answer in \u201cY\u00ecw\u00e9nzh\u00ec\u201d, or the Treatise on Art and Letters, \u201clost etiquette may be found in the wilderness.\u201d In times of undue chaos, the wilderness and wilderness alone electrifies the homo sapiens out of the centre,returning to the uncharted territories and hoping to encounter civilization again.<\/p>\n
The exhibition, instead of merely recycling Wang Anyi\u2019s thoughts, is an extension of his perspective, calling upon an inquiry into the proliferation, if not contamination, of the tools\u2019 presence. While math, diction and knife are manifested as symbols of civilization, they also became instruments of violence. Zh\u016by\u011b is an assemblage of such seemingly conflicting yet parallel conditions. Zh\u016b not only stands for variety and togetherness, but also a state of in-betweeness and in-betwixtness. Y\u011b also transcends its original meaning, beholding both the traces of civilization and the quality of violence. Therefore, zh\u016by\u011b has been translated as violence at the exceptional moment, for the fine line between salvation and its opposite is another fragile earthly frame.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The exhibition took author Wang Anyi\u2019s lecture as a point of departure. Wang Anyi spoke about the three tools in Ah Cheng\u2019s novels at the online lecture \u201cThe History of Civilization in Contemporary Chinese Fiction – on Ah Cheng’s Three Kings\u201d this May. The three tools in Ah Cheng\u2019s novels – namely, The King of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}