Shi Jin-hua has been observing and commenting on the society and its institutions with his own measuring and marking system. However, as he measures reality with his own flesh, he seems to be always biting off more than he can chew, and thus gives his creations a kind of ridiculous aesthetics that render them anecdotal or legendary. This aesthetics strategy helps draw a distance between art and reality, and reconciles the embarrassment of art in the face of the ugly and harsh reality. Another signature of Shi is that he tends to embark on artistic projects that never end. For example, the Pen Walking Collections, the never-dissipating particles from the pencil nibs, the endless transcribing of Buddhism mantras, Contemporary Art Alchemy that embodies the materiality and exchange of interests in the art market, and X Bodhi Trees project, a massive tree planting project, are all evidences of this signature.
Shi’s work provides no ending, and no ultimate answers. He interprets life and human desires with a kind of obsession and endearment, which allows him to remain humble and persistent while being critical with his creations. This makes his work more difficult to digest, but also shows us how conceptual art works. Ever since its inception, conceptual art has been exerting its subjectivity as a useless skill to inspire and touch the passive citizens under the political, bureaucratic, and consumerism bombardment out of their inertia.
Measuring the world with a small and mortal being
Shi’s artistic activities in measuring and marking remind one of the conceptual artist Walter de Maria. In 1997, de Maria inserted a one-kilometer solid brass rod into the ground in documenta VI in Kassel, making The Vertical Earth Kilometer barely visible other than the rod’s top reaching on the ground surface. Another de Maria work, 5 Continents Sculpture (1989), was composed of chunks of marble, quartz, and magnesite from the five continents stored in a giant square box. These rocks are not only natural resources, but also carriers of the earth’s geological history. De Maria’s artistic strategy allows this work to represent the natural elements, resources, history, and civilizations of the whole world, and gives rock, the oldest sculpting raw material, the symbolic power of transcending time and distance.
Taking measurement is the most basic scientific skill in knowledge building. Quantitative methods have propelled enormous advancement in scientific learning and knowledge. However, an over-emphasis on numbers can block the whole picture from being seen. German novelist, Daniel Kehlmann, provides a critical comment on people’s blinding beliefs on the power of science since the age of enlightenment in his book, Die Vermessung der Welt. In this semi-fiction, two reknown and ambitious scientists, Alexander von Humboldt (1768-1859) and Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777- 1855), started a competition on finding news ways of measuring the world and discovering ground-breaking scientific knowledge. During the course of their competition, their respective backgrounds, relationship with their families, rise and falls in their careers, and other funny anecdotes about their lives are also introduced to the readers. The title of the book itself is already mocking the inability of numbers in measuring human life, since the word vermessung (surveying or measurement) can mean both vermessung and ver-Messung (different measurement). Science is limited while human life is not. Although artists and scientists have different motives in measuring human life, they both are desperate and passionate in observing and surveying all the perceptible existences in the vast universe with their small and mortal beings.
The flesh as a metaphor
In Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization, the author Richard Sennett describes the history of the relationship between cities and human beings in the western world. The history of urban civilization illustrated in this book is one that is written by the connection between bodies and institutions, the constraint of morals and law, consumerism, and efficient transportation. Sennett argues that unless we become aware of the weakness of our flesh and body, we will never understand the difference between our own body and that of others. In other words, the sympathy of urbanites comes from the self-awareness of physical deficiencies, not from pure good wills or political correctness. This corresponds to the message implied in the story of Adam and Eve, who realized their imperfection and started to learn about the previously unknown beings and objects in the world only after they were casted from Eden. In Sennett’s discourse, human beings are compared with the steel and concrete in the cities to highlight the gradual loss of organicity in the modern world. Human bodies are also a symbol of the gap between perception and action. In the highly efficient and mechanized modern life, and under the guise of consumerism, human bodies have already become a metaphor, not a physical being.
That said, what else can our body experience now? Shi decided to turn his physical needs into a meter and use it to measure life. For example, once, after vacating his bladder, he drank one liter of water and started walking until he could not help but need to answer the call of nature. The mileage he walked in between drinking and urinating was named The Distance from One Liter of Water to One Liter of Urine, an action art work. The measurement Shi has done with this art work was indirect, and the experience temporary. Juxtaposed with Sennett’s discourse, Shi’s poetic or ridiculous measurement done with his body could be said to be a metaphor of a physical experience of loss.
Using the body as the meter of measuring all things, as illustrated in the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, is a concept not found in oriental traditions but inherent in the anthropocentrism that has governed the western world since the birth of ancient Greek civilization. Shi was converted from Christianity to Buddhism. Therefore, he inherited the cosmic view of Christianity as well as incorporated the idea of abandoning the world in Buddhism. While in Christian thinking, the physical body is essential, as represented in the scriptures’ account of Jesus’ flesh and blood can be disguised as holy bread and wine and that the Church is Jesus’ body, Buddhism invokes a philosophy of submitting to nature and giving up our physical beings. Both philosophies can be found in Shi’s creations. For instance, in Hugging Project (2004) and Searching Center and Boundary Project (2004), Shi manifested his desire in experiencing and understanding live beings, human beings, and land with his own body. On the other hand, in Pencil Walker Collection (1996-) and Living Beyond Measurement (2008), the physical body is the center of the universe but also gradually dissolves and lose its central status.
Shi treats his life as a salvation, his artistic activities inner mind trainings, and his walking tours pilgrimages. His attitudes toward life and career were not inspired by anything external but his years of experience as a diabetic patient who has had to regularly measure blood sugar levels. Shi did not wish to allow the repetitive blood sugar testing and insulin rejections to reduce his life to a composite of regular and meaningless medical procedures. He refused to be conquered by the repetitive measurement and be convinced that his body and mind are mere survivors after a disease’s attack. Therefore, Shi uses his body, this flesh and blood that has been constantly measured and reliant on medical readings and prescriptions, to measure and mark every being in the world in order to gain evidences of the meaning of his body’s existence and resist destiny’s bearing on human lives.
Writing medical history in the vast world
Other than measuring, another signature of Shi is the never ending nature of many of his works and his diligence in collecting memories. Some of his action art creations feature colleting as the central act, such as the cotton pads used when testing blood sugar, the shopping bags accumulated in his years studying abroad, the urine collection project, the Intimacy Measurement that involves collecting all the dust and hair left on a bed, or the particles of pencil nibs. It seems like Shi wants to preserve every single trace of his life. Folding for X Years (1983-), a creation that involves a massive display of the blood sugar levels of Shi since the year 1983 spanning all the walls in a single gallery reminds one ofLeben, leben / Life, living by the German artist Hanne Darboven. Also featuring a gallery full of numbers, Leben, leben is composed of all the dates from 1900 to 1999 hand written by the artist. The artistic creations of American artist Douglas Huebler in the 1960s is also brought to our mind when looking at Shi’s work. Using a technology that resembles today’s GPS, Huebler marks out on specific lands and places. However, he made meaningless connections between insignificant places, and used maps, itinerary maps, or correspondences between two places to document these connections. In Darboven and Huebler’s artistic worlds, the connection between two points are fictional. However, for Shi, reaching the next point could be an amazing grace, for his life and death may not be entirely in his control. Shi’s documentation make every inch of his life visible and perceptible. His documentation also exudes a sense of compulsive monitoring and control. This intense collecting and documenting behavior from point to point reveals the artist’s fear for the loss of life. It is this fear that drives his obsession with even the most insignificant trace of life. Therefore, the artist decide to write his medical history in the vast wide world, marking and inscribing every sign that can be of evidence of him being alive.
In 2010, Shin came up with X Trees in Taipei for 10TB Taipei Biennial. In reference to Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks, Shi created this work to, on the one hand, criticize Taipei Municipal Government's tree-hacking for the sake of the coming Taipei International Floral Expo, and on the other hand, highlight the huge gap between Taipei and Kassel in terms of urban development and artistic literacy. With 7000 trees planted in Kassel versus 162 tress uprooted in Taipei, it is not difficult to see how vastly different these two cities are in terms of material resources and respect for art. The mockery of the society we are in by X Trees in Taipei is never more timely as citizens grow ever more resentful towards the government who is too generous in forking money out of the coffer but too ignorant of the society's want of prosperity and peace. Later on, Shi expanded X Trees in Taipei to a conservation program involving the planting of over one hundred trees, X Bodhi Trees project.
When the curtain was down for 10TB, Shi’s criticism on public policy remains unheard, and conceptual art conceptual. On the expansion project, , Shi projected his long-term concern on issues surrounding life and body, and turned the project into a metaphor of death and resurrection. Trees and rocks in X Bodhi Trees represent the artist’s affection to the environment and life. Bodhi trees are the symbols that replace the original headline. The rocks are memorial stones for the tress uprooted, reminders of the inappropriate public policy, and symbolic representations of the trees' waiting for reincarnation. X Bodhi Trees will be a long fund-raising process. After all the trees are replanted with the funds raised in this project, the rest of the money will go to two charities. Through this project, Shi as an artist leverages the power of the crowd to give back to our land.
Shared responsibilities and wills
The execution of X Bodhi Trees involves fund-raising, harnessing the power of unity, and the marking of marginalized corners in our society. In essence, this work matches Sennett’s words, that unless we become aware of the weakness of our flesh and body, we will never understand the difference between our own body and that of others. The sympathy of urbanites comes from the self-awareness of physical deficiencies, not from pure good wills or political correctness. Shi does not expect politicians to come to a sudden awakening or to become philanthropists. With the work submitted to 10TB, Shi marks how marginalized art is in the current society. As 10TB ends, and X Trees in Taipei goes into a metamorphosis, we need to understand that art is not raucous displays in festivities or holidays, but shared responsibilities and good wills.
(Originally published at Artco, Vol. 221, P. 104-106, February 2011)