ZHANG QIKAI’s The Years of Entropy
Kim Mi-Ryoung(Creative Art Director of The Parkview Museum)
In the Orient,temporal existence is considered a type of representational existence,requiring an artist to become a statement maker. This is because the main function of art is to expose, notto record. Zhang Qikai’s exhibition “The Years of Entropy” is actually aphilosophical reminder of the present state of the world as well as artisticattitudes and pursuits. What are the years of entropy? In fact, there are noboundaries in time. It just flows. Thus, the words “definite” and “indefinite”cannot help but be highly contradictory. If so, in what kind of state are the years of entropy that Zhang Qikai talksabout? Here, the artist is asking uswhat time means to human beings. To humans, time is finite. That is, onlylimited time is given to humans. Thus, toexisting humans, the time functions as order, purpose, desire and knowledge andit is not different from trivial things and possessive and deficient thingsthat cannot be said in infinite life. Artist Zhang Qikai defines such situation in reality asindefinite; that is, an unpredictable state.
If so, what is the cause of the unpredictablesituation (the time of entropy) that at present plays the greatest role inhuman life? Perhaps it is not exaggeration to say that terrifying violence andoppression comes from capital. It is more so in countries that enter the “information capitalism” stage. As thespeed and feedback of information is directly connected to the creation ofsurplus values of capital, the society and companies in this world enforce forits members faster “speed” and greater “efficiency.” Thus, “restriction” in theeconomic sector is not an exception but a very ordinary process. It is becausecapital today is an “absolute and infinite will” to make existing objects aswell as the unknown and undetermined as the target of “research anddevelopment” and “domination and value proliferation.”Reality capitalism has been causingserious side effects by penetrating into the mental and cultural dimensions ofhuman. It reached the point where languages that humans use revert to“information” that can be coded. That is, it has become natural to make everything uniform as “tools and goods”with effective values. Moreover, the power of anachronistic and reactionaryanachronisms is prominent. The present society’s illogical and collectivediscourse, extreme relativistic and cynical discourses and mystic and escapistdiscourses are still alive. They are threatening the discourses that pursuesituational justice from moment to moment. In an age when such cruel entropiesare rampant, the notion of “temporal existence being a shell” mentioned earlierbecomes very obvious.
Zhang Qikai named the incidents and facts of the present situation that aremanipulated and controlled for the usefulness and efficiency of such purpose asindeterminate and unpredictable time (years). These remind us of the freedom ofhuman existence by summoning the past time to the work as a critical view andexpanding the concept of finite time. That is, theartist’s aim is to show the course for freedom and truth by looking at presentissues from the past ones and imagining the future. The artist’s attempt is to propose the problems that the presentsociety faces in a roundabout way by calling attention to the fact that thecreation of art is not the based on the world seen by the hurried eye to thephenomenon and purpose unfolded in front of the eye. Rather, the world is thatwhich is read with the mind and is not a temporal being but a spiritual being. Rhythmof time and the objects of the past aremixed– Mencius’s good nature principle, lacquerware (大漆) used from theShangzhou age, the shards of Ru ware（汝窑）, luxurypottery from Song Dynasty, the shards of pottery unearthed in the ancient cityof Loulan, the column and plinthfrom the TangDynasty and the stake for tying horses from the Qing Dynasty.
In this exhibition, Zhang Qikai’s main works are as follows: <Loudspeaker>,<One CubicMeter>,<Column andPlinth>, <At Birth…> and <To Live>. Through these works, the artist presentsthe problems of this age to propose specific details on the present world,where we live in, and its state.
In <Loudspeaker>, the artist presents the currentworld’s loss of subject and isolation, the suspension of thoughts and the stateof incapable communication without hesitation. There are chairsfacing each other, on which someone may have been seated, but on these chairs,two monitors like automatic machines are placed absently, instead of people. Inthe place where a table should be placed, there is a microphone franticallygoing back and forth delivering dialogue that does not seem like a dialoguebetween the two monitors. This distorted situation that cannot be a dialogue orconversation, where even the participants cannot understand each other’sopinions, eventually becomes nothing even with the use of a loudspeaker.
The artist shows the change in values, the fall of tradition and unstableresidential status, making it impossible to choose a place to live in <One CubicMeter> and <Column andPlinth>. In One CubicMeter, a horse tied to a stake barely shows its head and tail from a block ofcement. This symbolizes the loss of traditional aesthetics, which used to beresidents’ mark that safeguards the residents’ stability and peace in the pastwith the convenience provided by cement. As the representative invention of theindustrial revolution and modern convenience, efficiency and usefulness, cementserves as a symbol of the sedentary life that forever sinks into the past.Column and Plinth shows a column majestically laying across the exhibition hallwith its foundation stone pulled out. It seems this column, which used to be akey part in human life amid changing values and worldview, is being rememberedonly by a mynah.
Lastly in <At Birth…>, the artist proposes theother side of this world’s law of the jungle, a glorified worldview andeducational view of the taming of the ruling class through powerful irony byengraving Mencius’s Good Nature Principle. Moreover, in <To Live>, the artist paradoxically asks back, “What arelife, time and human being?” by revivifying a hammer, which is therepresentative traditional tool of purpose and usefulness made of steel oriron, as fragile and easy-to-break ceramic. In other words, the artistallusively suggests in thisexhibition that what we have forgotten in this time is not the begging and pleadingfor desire and purpose, but an infinite course to be near the world of essencewithin the infinite time of <Sky>, <A Wait-and-See>, <The Signs of Aging>, <TheDignity of Years> and <The Dignity of Years >, and the years of<Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter>, <Passing of Years> and <TheYears of Extinction>.
ZHANG QIKAI’s The Years of Entropy
Kim Mi-Ryoung(Creative Art Director of The Parkview Museum)
In the Orient,temporal existence is considered a type of representational existence,requiring an artist to become a statement maker. This is because the main function of art is to expose, notto record. Zhang Qikai’s exhibition “The Years of Entropy” is actually aphilosophical reminder of the present state of the world as well as artisticattitudes and pursuits. What are the years of entropy? In fact, there are noboundaries in time. It just flows. Thus, the words “definite” and “indefinite”cannot help but be highly contradictory. If so, in what kind of state are the years of entropy that Zhang Qikai talksabout? Here, the artist is asking uswhat time means to human beings. To humans, time is finite. That is, onlylimited time is given to humans. Thus, toexisting humans, the time functions as order, purpose, desire and knowledge andit is not different from trivial things and possessive and deficient thingsthat cannot be said in infinite life. Artist Zhang Qikai defines such situation in reality asindefinite; that is, an unpredictable state.
If so, what is the cause of the unpredictablesituation (the time of entropy) that at present plays the greatest role inhuman life? Perhaps it is not exaggeration to say that terrifying violence andoppression comes from capital. It is more so in countries that enter the “information capitalism” stage. As thespeed and feedback of information is directly connected to the creation ofsurplus values of capital, the society and companies in this world enforce forits members faster “speed” and greater “efficiency.” Thus, “restriction” in theeconomic sector is not an exception but a very ordinary process. It is becausecapital today is an “absolute and infinite will” to make existing objects aswell as the unknown and undetermined as the target of “research anddevelopment” and “domination and value proliferation.”Reality capitalism has been causingserious side effects by penetrating into the mental and cultural dimensions ofhuman. It reached the point where languages that humans use revert to“information” that can be coded. That is, it has become natural to make everything uniform as “tools and goods”with effective values. Moreover, the power of anachronistic and reactionaryanachronisms is prominent. The present society’s illogical and collectivediscourse, extreme relativistic and cynical discourses and mystic and escapistdiscourses are still alive. They are threatening the discourses that pursuesituational justice from moment to moment. In an age when such cruel entropiesare rampant, the notion of “temporal existence being a shell” mentioned earlierbecomes very obvious.
Zhang Qikai named the incidents and facts of the present situation that aremanipulated and controlled for the usefulness and efficiency of such purpose asindeterminate and unpredictable time (years). These remind us of the freedom ofhuman existence by summoning the past time to the work as a critical view andexpanding the concept of finite time. That is, theartist’s aim is to show the course for freedom and truth by looking at presentissues from the past ones and imagining the future. The artist’s attempt is to propose the problems that the presentsociety faces in a roundabout way by calling attention to the fact that thecreation of art is not the based on the world seen by the hurried eye to thephenomenon and purpose unfolded in front of the eye. Rather, the world is thatwhich is read with the mind and is not a temporal being but a spiritual being. Rhythmof time and the objects of the past aremixed– Mencius’s good nature principle, lacquerware (大漆) used from theShangzhou age, the shards of Ru ware（汝窑）, luxurypottery from Song Dynasty, the shards of pottery unearthed in the ancient cityof Loulan, the column and plinthfrom the TangDynasty and the stake for tying horses from the Qing Dynasty.
In this exhibition, Zhang Qikai’s main works are as follows: <Loudspeaker>,<One CubicMeter>,<Column andPlinth>, <At Birth…> and <To Live>. Through these works, the artist presentsthe problems of this age to propose specific details on the present world,where we live in, and its state.
In <Loudspeaker>, the artist presents the currentworld’s loss of subject and isolation, the suspension of thoughts and the stateof incapable communication without hesitation. There are chairsfacing each other, on which someone may have been seated, but on these chairs,two monitors like automatic machines are placed absently, instead of people. Inthe place where a table should be placed, there is a microphone franticallygoing back and forth delivering dialogue that does not seem like a dialoguebetween the two monitors. This distorted situation that cannot be a dialogue orconversation, where even the participants cannot understand each other’sopinions, eventually becomes nothing even with the use of a loudspeaker.
The artist shows the change in values, the fall of tradition and unstableresidential status, making it impossible to choose a place to live in <One CubicMeter> and <Column andPlinth>. In One CubicMeter, a horse tied to a stake barely shows its head and tail from a block ofcement. This symbolizes the loss of traditional aesthetics, which used to beresidents’ mark that safeguards the residents’ stability and peace in the pastwith the convenience provided by cement. As the representative invention of theindustrial revolution and modern convenience, efficiency and usefulness, cementserves as a symbol of the sedentary life that forever sinks into the past.Column and Plinth shows a column majestically laying across the exhibition hallwith its foundation stone pulled out. It seems this column, which used to be akey part in human life amid changing values and worldview, is being rememberedonly by a mynah.
Lastly in <At Birth…>, the artist proposes theother side of this world’s law of the jungle, a glorified worldview andeducational view of the taming of the ruling class through powerful irony byengraving Mencius’s Good Nature Principle. Moreover, in <To Live>, the artist paradoxically asks back, “What arelife, time and human being?” by revivifying a hammer, which is therepresentative traditional tool of purpose and usefulness made of steel oriron, as fragile and easy-to-break ceramic. In other words, the artistallusively suggests in thisexhibition that what we have forgotten in this time is not the begging and pleadingfor desire and purpose, but an infinite course to be near the world of essencewithin the infinite time of <Sky>, <A Wait-and-See>, <The Signs of Aging>, <TheDignity of Years> and <The Dignity of Years >, and the years of<Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter>, <Passing of Years> and <TheYears of Extinction>.