The Art Gallery of Mississauga is presenting Ed Pien, in its Artists' Talk series in a topic titled: Shadow Land.
The invitation I received through an email newsletter goes like this:
Shadowed Land features new installation and video work in which Pien explores notions of sense memory and the irrepresentability of traumatic histories and loss. Incorporating photography, video, sound, light and kinetic installations, this body of work has grown out of Pien's interest in concepts of disappearance and haunting, and probes ideas of being implicated, bearing witness, loss, mourning, resilience, and empathy.I have gone to two other artists' talks or presentations at the AGM and neither went well, nether for me, nor for the artists when they were confronted with my questions. I don't doubt that I will have something to "ask" of this particular artist as well. But I am tired of rehashing the same old questions and receiving the same old obtuse responses. In fact, I get much more information on theses artists' works and motives through the internet, and surprisingly quite a bit from their personal websites. Pien is no different.
The Art Gallery of Mississauga is pleased to partner with the Thames Art Gallery in the presentation of an exhibition catalogue. An exhibition of Ed Pien's work will be mounted at the Thames Art Gallery in 2018.
Artist talk: Thursday, September 29, 6:30 pm
I have began to decipher a certain orientation toward evil and horror, much more so than those days of "Carrie" horror movies, in popular and more elite art (.e. "high" and "artistic" art, although popular art, I believe these day is much more interesting than what these postmodern presumptives are giving us. That is partly my problem with these "museum/gallery" pieces, but the problem goes far beyond mediocrity, and is now at the level of the gore and horror one sees at the collapse of a building (or at a car accident) where destruction becomes the "artistic" method rather than construction.
I believe important contemporary artists have succumbed to evil, and to the devil. At one time, it was very subversive and no-one talked about it openly (or even showed it openly). I have written about that phenomenon here.
I was curious to see what Pien had to say before I decided to go and listen to his speech, or not. I thought he was gong to spea about Chnatowns snce vaguely remember seeng a photograph of a Toronto Chinatown supermarket the last time went into the gallery.
How wrong I was!
Pen's most extensive statement about his art is at the website The Chinese Canadian Art Communication:
Here is his "arts's statement" from that webste:
Through my work, I reflect upon the convergence of history, beliefs and mythology from diverse cultures. I am interested in the ways different belief systems influence how people negotiate and act in the world. Using drawing and installation, I explore curiosity, wonder and enchantment with a focus on the strange and grotesque thereby facilitating engaged perceptual experiences and opening up spaces for meaningful exchange. Through this work, I aim to challenge preconceptions and celebrate diversity.
Research allows me to work from a solid conceptual base. Combining intuition and imagination, I strive to make complex and multi-layered works: In Une Nuit de lunes, I applied optical arts’ illusions (magic lanterns, shadow theatre) to explore the grotesque and notions of Otherness; in Source, realized for the Sydney Biennale, I pursued the symbolic and mythological richness of water, conflating Taiwanese narratives with those recounted by First Nations’ elders[1]. Water’s political ramifications also potently informed the work: specifically the lack of accessible clean water experienced by many First Nations’ communities.
The recent work, Revel comprises an immersive installation with clear sheets of hand cut mylar suspended from floor-to-ceiling to create the main architectural structure. The spiral configuration forms both a passage and a chamber. Its exterior shell remains shiny and reflective while the entire inside surface has been carefully hand sanded, subtly altering the see-through material with a worked up, drawing-like quality. A handful of mylar constructions of houses sit precariously within this dense netting. A video projection of the shadow of a young woman, making and arranging the houses, is projected through the installation. To further complicate the negotiation within Revel, the video image intermingles with the real shadows cast by the actual installation.As the viewer walks through the installation the mylar sways. As a consequence, the projection of the video on the reflective surface emanates bands of flickering light onto a paper curtain that flanks the inner spiral. The video projection also casts the viewer’s shadow into the installation.
Part of my strong motivation to create Revel derives from workshops I conducted with immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. These intense engagements inspired my research, contemplation and making. Revel’s ghost-like aura traverses effortlessly among real, memory and dream-like imaginary spaces. It has a physical presence that is almost not quite there, further adding to the psychological and emotional impact of a haunting and of how the past always manages to impinge on and speak through the present and future.
[1] First Nations are one of three aboriginal groups native to Canada. The First Nations elders are the most respected members and leaders of their communities.
It is a clever convergence of multiculturalism, a nod at the "First Nations" as the Indian groups are deferentially called in Canada, a subtle put-down of whites and white "art," and finally, the truth of the matter: a direct invocation of "the strange and grotesque":
Revel's ghost-like aura traverses effortlessly among real, memory and dream-like imaginary spaces.
One commentary especially captures Pien's art, and his intent.
This suite of drawings began during Pien's four-month Canada Council's Paris residency in 1998. During that time period the artist researched into the depiction of Western Hell and martyrdom. His interest was, and still is, in the visual representation of the discipline of the body, power relationships and the sense of vulnerabilities. Engendered by notions of Hell, fear is a tool many societies use for controlling and shaping ethical and moral behaviors and judgements. Since Pien see most treatment, discipline, punishment and torture as aspects of social and political control, in this suite of drawings he attempts to collapse the boundary among these different realities of Hell. Ultimately, awareness, self-empowerment and change can only begin from confronting one's fears as well as the forces that instigate power and control.[ Source: edpien.com]
In 1998 (thirteen years ago) Pien was given a Canadian government grant (the full title of that government body is Canada Council for the Arts) to study "Western" Hell
And with further investigation (not at all difficult, since Pien is very productive and has his material exhibited all over the word and posted in dozens of art websites and blogs) I found these:
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Pen camouflages his works n a couple of ways. First he states that he is following the tradition of Bosch..... and other western artists and their concepts and depictions of hell.
It is interesting that he doesn't reference Dante and then that is for a specific reason.
He s not interested in the Christian Hell where sinners are sent for their rebellion against God which Dante clearly portrays, but in a horror-filled hell of debauchery and human will.
His second entryway into the western psyche is by referencing the "immigrant" tale. Here he says about his work Memento, a creepy installation which, is titled Psycho, like that horror movie by the same name:
Memento is a large walk-through installation and consists of ropes, cut silhouettes, sound and video.
Memento has been developed out of research into the plight of illegal immigrants who often take great risks in the hope of living a more significant and meaningful life. Examples include snakes or ghosts, those Chinese who remain hidden in society (the tragedy that beset the cockle pickers), the Faujis from India as well as the burnt ones, young Moroccans, who perish while attempting to cross the Straight of Gibraltar. Memento is a walk-through installation and consists of ropes, cut silhouettes, sound and video. The hand tied configuration alludes to fishing nets, traps, security fences and engulfing waves. The network of patterns is also reminiscent of the human circulatory system, passageways and maps. The video shown within the structure depicts the artist negotiating the might of churning waves emphasizing human beings vulnerability as well as celebrating the strengths to confront and overcome difficulty. Memento is a continuation of Pien's ongoing interest in the otherworldly, invisibility, disappearance, and journeys. It poignantly reflects on the displaced, forgotten and unseen yet remains poetically open-ended, embracing multiple interpretations.His Chinese outreach is beyond the North American borders, venturing as far out as Manchester England. What do Chinese immigrants in England have to complain about? Well, to make his case stick, he has made it into an "immigrant's experience" including such disparate groups as Moroccans and of course, those Asian co-conspirators, Indians.
Special thanks
Special thanks goes to The Chinese Arts Centre, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for their support in realizing this work. Chinese Arts Centre is grateful for support from Arts Council of England, North West and AGMA.
Psycho popular culture simply means somebody who is so mentally deranged as to be dangerous even
Here Pen describes how he created the installation Psycho which was installed at the Tree Museum in Ontario:
These 9 digital prints began as images taken from a speeding train traveling across the English countryside shortly after a winter storm. The whiteness of the snow, combined with the bleak, grayness of the land, created seemingly endless and highly contrasted scenes evocative of charcoal smudged drawings. What also fascinated me, aside from the drawing quality, was the play between relativity of speed and motion. The elements closest to the train appear to be moving so fast that they became transparent blurs, while objects the furthest away, seemed to be in near stillness. The insertion of an image within the central circular form, is based on the play with mirror reflections from my outdoor installation entitled Psycho, that is installed at the Tree Museum, in Ontario.Walking through the woods like Little Red Riding Hood, we may encounter the big bad Psycho Wolf hiding and lurking behind the trees.
Psycho s also short for Psychopath - a dangerous evil murder who picks his victims and relentlessly stalks them until the day he commtis his murder. Until he murders them.
Who is the psychopath - Pen or some personality (whites?) who threaten his (Pen's) livelihood?
He enters our psyche through his psycho....
< Greek, combining form of psȳchḗ breath, spirit, soul, mind; akin to psȳ́chein to blow (see psykter ) dictionary... from Greek psukhē spirit, breath... Once again Pen s reference western stores to interject his artistic demons into our psyche. Here is Pen describing his work Invisible Sightings #1, #2, #3 now available n the Canada Counsil for the Arts Art Database:
I explore curiosity, wonder and enchantment with a particular focus on the strange and grotesque, deploying these as a means to challenge preconceptions and celebrate diversity…”.He has to add n the "diversity" This is Canada and that ultra-liberal/leftist Canada Council for the Arts after all! He depends on thousands of dollars from the CCA as documented here...
His installation invokes uses the popular and well-known (and loved) tale of Little Red Riding Hood in a Chinese context calling his work.
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But Pen came to Canada as a young and malleable 11-year-old. What happened during those decades where he still identifies himself as an immigrant. Why wasn't he able to go over those hurdles to finally find himself in the midst of "Canadians" rather than immigrants? And why isn't he able to over the hurts and rejections now in this super-positive-immigrant world that is Canada?
Thus this "immigrant" story boils down to the finally obvious conclusion that Asians come from a culture so different and so alien from Canada's the they mature into embittered adults who feel that they have lost out on the immigrant "pie." My personal observation has also been that Asians actually do not achieve those expectations and see themselves (without illusions) as not matching up to the standards of their white compatriots.
Therefore even a long-time resident of Canada brought up under the "Canadian culture" will always feel inferior and bitterly so to his fellow Canadians.
And we get art like this.....
But his "alieness" s even bigger than mere rejection. He has found a way to introduce not just a political (and cultural) dimension to his grievance but a spiritual one as well. By invoking hell and its demons he is also subverting our Christian God. He has found a hole through which he can introduce his spirits and gods. Modern (or modernist/postmodern) art allows for this gateway partly because modern and postmodern artists, by denying God into their art have destroyed a fundamental element of Western art even nto.
The other weakness (or postmodern development) he is using is the glorification and even deification of the "other" which literally means anyone that is not white.
It is in museums and galleries funded and maintained by whites where he shows his horrifically alien material and gets their blessing with hundreds of thousands of dollars of "artist" grants money.
Thus his "immigrant" status allows him to do just what astute whites have said all along: he introduces his own gods, ideologies, languages and culture.
One small interesting note: for all of Pen's three decade long Canadian residency he still speaks with (albeit imperceptible) grammatical errors. It seems that he stays within his Asian enclave and even his "Canadian born" or like him "Almost-Canadian-Born" Chinese still haven't fully mastered the English language even if it (English) is clearly their "first language.
We have seen influxes of immigrants adding their own variation to the English language. One could say that Pen is simply following in that tradition.
But the Italians, Greeks Germans and Scandinavians, although they leave behind a nostalgic reference to their immigrant voices have become fully integrated in the North American society. Any of them who may demonstrate deep discontent do so in a political/ideological manner and not in this cultural and artistic one.
I believe we have reached a new level of:
Spirituality - where alien gods are now elbowing their way into our psyches
Cultural identification - where "immigrant" now means people who have no intention (and no ability given their deeply foreign roots) to integrate into our western societies.
Pen evokes the "ghosts" of various immigrant "experiences" which translated means immigrants who died while working under whites - in his case he
It is more apparent with Muslims but Asians are now more subtly and more intelligently beginning to build this new society in our coutnries.
