The Wake

Cultures meet. Sometimes they clash, sometimes they find common ground, and sometimes they form hybrids. House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective has elements of each of these potential encounters. This exhibit, the latest at the Walker Art Center, occupies three galleries and speaks volumes to the simultaneous universality and cultural specificity of art.

Huang Yong Ping was born in the city of Xiamen, China, and studied at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts before moving to Paris in 1989. When I toured the galleries, Huang was present. I watched him stand apart from myself and the others, observing our reactions with humility and grace.

Instead of viewing the art in chronological order, visitors at the Walker see Huang Yong Ping’s work divided into three motifs, one theme in each of the three galleries. The first of these rooms centers on issues of the Colonial and post-Colonial Far East. A statue of a tiger leaping towards a carriage atop an elephant’s back, titled “The Nightmare of George V,” is one of the first pieces visitors encounter in the retrospective, and leaves a lasting impression.

Universal symbols of Colonialism as tigers and palanquins are balanced by more subtle cultural references, such as a photograph of an expiration date which reads, “Best Before 01-Jul-1997.”

“Does anyone know what happened on July 1, 1997?” asked curator Doryun Chong. I was unaware of the reference, which is the date that Hong Kong was returned to the People’s Republic of China. Suddenly, the expiration date had tantamount meaning to the rest of the gallery’s pieces.

In the second gallery of the retrospective, visitors will find the exhibit’s figurative backbone — a giant, wooden replica of a snake’s skeletal structure. Hanging overhead and traversing the gallery, the sculpture is stunning and iconographic. The snake, combined with a turtle-shaped “Theater of the World” underneath it, form a symbol in ancient Chinese culture known as the Dark Warrior. Such symbols, many of which could be lost on a Western audience without proper explanation, add a new dimension to the work of Huang Yong Ping, which combines 20th Century aesthetic concepts–largely censored in his native country for many years–with Chinese mythology.

The focal point of the third room on the tour, which has the most contemporary theme, is the artist’s “Bat Project IV.” For this installation, the museum helped him track down the nose to a Lockheed EP-3 airplane to recreate a spy plane shot down in China in 2001. Visitors can climb into the nose of the airplane; the fuselage has been fashioned out of bamboo.

Having lived for so long in a country whose government was wary of permitting its citizens to see art, Huang Yong Ping is definitely someone who takes the power and importance of artistic expression very seriously. His work is methodical, insightful, and visually stunning. His interpretations of Eastern and Western cultures are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and this premiere retrospective of his work is not to be missed.

House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective can be seen at the Walker Art Center from Oct. 16 through Jan. 15.