[A Gallery : Fictional archaeology] discovering you and me under the ground

Daniel Arsham, a New York based artist,  his work straddle art, architecture. He is famous on his sculp creations. Following his two previous solo shows at Galerie Perrotin, Paris and Hong Kong - "The Future is Always Now" and "#FUTUREARCHIVE" in 2014 and 2013 respectively, a new exhibition "Fictional Archaeology" is held at Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong again.

The concept "Fictional Archaeology" is inspired by his travels to Easter Island in 2010 where he observed archaeologists at work in a dig site. Though observing their works, he found that archaeology is a work of fiction. After the archaeologists pulled out the past artifacts out of the ground, they need to invent (at least a part but off course they are based on some history facts) a story to reconstruct a plausible truth for their discoveries. Yet who knows for certain what really happen?

Inspired by this experience, Daniel infused his works with the fictional dimension of archaeology. He made use of the geological materials that he has begun using four years ago like selenite, volcanic ash, chalk and sand, in order to convey the mysterious archaeological aura. He wants us to imagine that we are travel to the future and look back at his cast relics of the present from a dislocated, curious point of view, so all the statuses appear as if they had been buried in the ground for a number of years.

At the center of the gallery, a huge wall of chalkboard is placed there. A desk in front of it, depositing with numbers of casts that made out of chalk including body parts like hands and legs, telephones, camera, cassette tapes, joysticks, keyboards, calculators etc. which is a collaboration with the students of the School of Arts, Singapore (SOTA). Again, to response to the theme, visitors can pick up the casts to draw or write on the chalkboard expressing anything related to future and time. Consequently, the casts are damaged in a certain level and even destroyed, making they are almost as if an archaeologist had just unearthed them. 

 

欲往未來懼違願

Wanna go to the future but afraid that it does not like what I expected.

切改故時恨難返

Wanna change the pass but sadly it is impossible to come back on time

Truly enjoy this visit to the gallery, all the sculptures are so mysterious like they are unburied from the ground, but they are something we see in our present life so they give me a kind of weird yet fun feeling.  Moreover, the human and body parts sculptures are really sad in some ways. They are made with the same material and they are broken are damaged severely. Can you imagine, a man or a woman, or a hand or a leg, they were meat and blood and warm but then they were buried for hundred of years, now we discovered them, their face, fingers bodies are still there, some even holding each others hand, but they are now ashy, muddy, cold and in to parts, you know, in to parts! What if some of them are us in the future? Will we be like them, in to parts? And when the archaeologists try to combine those parts together, some are missing, just like those statuses hanging on the wall unbalanced with an empty space on their waists or between their hands and arms. At the same time, the archaeologists are guessing who are we, where we from, how we die or as Daniel said, creating a fiction about our life. However, nobody know what really happened with us. No matter what you did when we are alive, "now" we are like nothing. So it makes me feel pretty sad. 

Anyways, it is just my own opinion. The exhibition is lasted from September 11 to October 10, 2015, open from 11 AM to 7 PM from Tuesday to Saturday. Address: 50 Connaught Road Central, 17th Floor, Hong Kong, +852 3758 2180, Make sure to check it out before it is ended!

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