Pharmakon, Pharmakeus, Pharmakos: GROUP EXHIBITION
In ancient Greek, these three words share the root "pharmakon," which collectively reveal a mechanism with dual characteristics—capable of both deception and complex effects. These words can induce transformation while also serving as a legitimate medium for purification. Through their sequential progression, they unveil the intricate interplay and mutations within ancient Greek society, where religious justice is intertwined with the tension between the revered order of purity and the potential for contamination. If contemporary artistic creation represents a toxic writing upon either objective material existence or established spiritual symbols, could the tension within this alternative narrative, along with its newly emergent and detached mode of intervention, be closer to the truth? Just as Oedipus ultimately realized he was the embodiment of defilement, artists transform into magicians who craft hallucinatory "filters." They navigate societal realities—acting both as medicine and poison—across multiple layers, revealing this modern scapegoat of bodily and cultural dilemmas.
Artist Liu Yi draws inspiration from the mural paintings found in the tombs of the Northern Qi dynasty. This period was marked by significant historical changes, during which the privileged classes commissioned grand underground realms to express their ambitions and cultural beliefs. The tomb murals often feature impressive hunting scenes that showcase mounted archery displays, reflecting a profound respect for nature and power. These images also symbolize the military campaigns that helped unify the northern regions at the time. Additionally, the murals illustrate ancient views on life and death, incorporating depictions of deities and immortals soaring through celestial realms, alongside fantastic creatures described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Liu Yi skillfully captures the refined lines, color gradients, and interconnected features characteristic of Northern Qi mural art. On canvas, she creates the new flow of time and space, deconstructing the violent relationships between creatures and connecting them to broader cosmic imagery. With delicate brushwork, she adds an extra layer of form lines that extend beyond the boundaries of overlapping creatures, creating a lasting interaction among animals, plants, and humans. This state illustrates both separation and mutual dependence between spirit and flesh. The independent, unidirectional relationships become integrated within multidimensional temporal and spatial cycles, continually unfolding between unity and conflict, mastery and reverence. This reinterpretation explores the primal totems of desire that connect diverse life forms in intricate, intertwined bonds.
Unlike Liu Yi's approach to deconstructing and reconstructing creature imagery, artist Lu Pingyuan's practice focuses on creating a pseudo-narrative illusion of subjectivity. Continuing the creative logic of the Best of the Best Draw series, Lu Pingyuan grounds his work in unofficial narratives—such as personal imagination, folk tales, and mythical legends—while collaborating with AI to repeatedly revisit and reinvent visual presentations. This body of work focuses on rabbits and foxes, which are protagonists in numerous animal fables and spectral legends. These figures continuously subvert each other's forms and historically significant symbols, hybridizing into provisional meanings. As they evolve, there is a gradual refinement of imagery that coincides with the disintegration of their original physical forms. In the mutually generative process between Lu Pingyuan and AI, narrative elements function like colonies in a petri dish, allowing for the formation of complex stories. The final images do not settle on a single narrative but instead suggest countless tales that feel familiar yet remain untold. The crafting of partial forms through paper-cutting, the collage-like assembly of biological bodies, and the tracing of edges correspond to the layering, compounding, and coloring of digital layers. This process resembles the ongoing malfunction and repair of human-machine symbiotic prostheses, producing legitimacy within the image while simultaneously generating new subjects and unspoken narratives.
Cinnabar is essentially a pharmakon, a substance that can be both medicinal and toxic. As noted in the Dream Brook Essays, its cool nature provides therapeutic benefits, while excessive heat can render it harmful. The unique property of cinnabar to decompose into mercury and then sublimate back to its original form has contributed to its status as an alchemical secret, believed to facilitate the cycle of life. Artist Zhou Xiaohu uses stop-motion clay animation to retrace and reinterpret the historical and contemporary significance of cinnabar across blurred temporal dimensions. His work explores how the material imagination of cinnabar is reflected in historical processes, ultimately dissolving into a spiritual essence. The climax of the film depicts an endless circular alchemical assembly line—showing quarrying, powder extraction, weighing, and smelting—illustrating humanity's relentless desire to attribute meaning to objects through a modernized factory-style process. In contrast, close-up shots reveal cinnabar powder being ground at a constant speed, gradually transforming into paint pigments and textures, thus re-emerging as another medium for writing. This cyclical process is accompanied by murmured sutras in the background, symbolizing the continuous journey of cinnabar. The work also presents the historical and geographical dissemination and evolution of cinnabar as a spiritual voyaging where a vessel filled with cinnabar transforms into an ethnically diverse band driven by the Muse. In his ceramic installation series, Cave Forum, Zhou Xiaohu grounds his work in more tangible aspects of contemporary social life. The semi-section of the cave reveals eight scenes, as if pausing a predetermined system of collective behavior—these frozen, rigid frames of model operas provide an ironic commentary on the broader social landscape.
Artist Park Wunggyu's creations function like a scalpel, dissecting the iconographic logic of classical Buddhist paintings from Korea and Japan through meticulous line work and pigment rendering. He introduces a critical perspective that projects a negative image of religious systems. In his reinterpretation of the Zen painting series "Ten Ox-Herding Pictures," he presents close-up portraits of bovine entrails, where the physical processes of feeding, digestion, and excretion correspond to the tensions between the sacred and the profane, as well as the pure and the impure, within Zen spiritual practice—permeating the body's porous cavities and crevices. In his vertical scroll series, Wunggyu retains compositional elements such as the halo of the Buddha and symmetrical designs while employing geometric and color distortions to deconstruct Buddhist imagery. He outlines contours that evoke the erasure of concrete divine figures. This approach dissolves the confrontational paradigm of religious solemnity, extending the realm of visual guidance toward a cosmic abstract divinity. Through these transformations, Park seeks to transcend rigidly defined doctrines, aiming to create chaotic ambiguities that cross boundaries—becoming either more authentic flesh or permeable shells.
The works of these four artists intertwine personal experiences with various external influences, allowing their 'contaminated or fabricated bodies' to serve as vessels that reflect the realities of their circumstances and act as channels for the broader social context. The exhibition title, "Pharmakon, Pharmakeus, Pharmakos," employs interconnected metaphors to reveal the violence hidden under the facade of orderly grand narratives. It embraces an imperfect symbiosis, highlighting the inherent hybridity and shifting dualities of existence. This representation of a flawed cosmos serves as tangible resistance, distinctly separate from the sacrificial and purifying deprivation found in ancient scapegoating rituals.
