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Works / Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
29 works

17 October — 11 November 2017 · The Pottery Workshop · Jingdezhen, Jiangxi

Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition

From 17 October to 11 November 2017 at The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen (Jiangxi). A solo exhibition built around “Meng Chunsheng” — the alter-ego Mu Yuming dreamed into being on 4 June 2014, the first day of his three-year retreat in Kunming. Three years and three months later, this dream-born experiment took complete physical form in twenty days of preparation — echoing his 2000 Oslo project 《二十天》 across seventeen years.

The exhibition gathers high-temperature colored-glaze porcelain panel paintings 《察》《性》《节日》, pottery sculptures, mixed-media installations, and the full documentation of his ten-installment “Conceptual Landscape” (观念山水) fieldwork from Jingdezhen 2014. Six core works — Headless Torso, Mask Wall, Red Plastic Bag Wrap, Terracotta-style Head, Broken & Whole Juxtaposition, Double-Buddha Person Sandwich — anchor the room, paired with the Zen koans and field reports that gave them their source code. Mask is the central metaphor. Beuys, Yogācāra, Zhuangzi all walk through.

It was meant to end Mu Yuming's five years in Jingdezhen. Instead, the response was so strong that the show was extended by two weeks — and it opened another beginning.

The Works

Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-001
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-002
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-003
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
MYM-2017-004
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
MYM-2017-005
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-006
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Double-Buddha Person Sandwich
MYM-2017-007
Double-Buddha Person Sandwich
Mask Wall
MYM-2017-008
Mask Wall
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-009
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Headless Torso
MYM-2017-010
Headless Torso
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-011
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-012
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-013
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-014
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-015
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
MYM-2017-016
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
Terracotta-style Head
MYM-2017-017
Terracotta-style Head
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-018
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Mask Wall
MYM-2017-019
Mask Wall
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-020
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-021
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
MYM-2017-022
Red Plastic Bag Wrap
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-023
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-024
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-025
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Broken & Whole Juxtaposition
MYM-2017-026
Broken & Whole Juxtaposition
Broken & Whole Juxtaposition
MYM-2017-027
Broken & Whole Juxtaposition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-028
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition
MYM-2017-029
Lao Mu & Meng Chunsheng — Mr. Mu Solo Exhibition

The Full Essay

The Exhibition

Artist: Lao Mu (Mu Yuming). Venue: The Pottery Workshop, 139 Xinchang East Road (Sculpture Porcelain Factory), Jingdezhen, Jiangxi. Duration: 17 October — 11 November 2017 (originally to close 29 October, extended due to public response). Works: porcelain panel paintings, ceramic sculpture, mixed-media installation, video and text.

I · Genesis — A Dream-Born Experiment

“No-one can say clearly who, in the end, created whom.” In the early morning of 4 June 2014, on the first day of his “three-year retreat” in Kunming, the Naxi artist Mu Yuming “gave birth” in a dream to Meng Chunsheng — another self, inseparable from him, mirror to mirror. But Meng Chunsheng was not born from nothing. During the Jingdezhen fieldwork of February to May 2014, using the methodology of “Conceptual Landscape”, Lao Mu had been rehearsing every one of Meng Chunsheng's identities on riverbanks, in trash, in fire, in mud, in water. Jingdezhen was Meng Chunsheng's womb.

Three years and three months later, this art experiment that had begun by chance was presented as a full solo exhibition at The Pottery Workshop. To experience and seek the total amount of humanity's “wisdom-energy”, Lao Mu burned this fictional double in the fire of desire — and was twice pulled back from the edge of life and death by the 120 emergency services. “Lao Mu created Meng Chunsheng. Meng Chunsheng killed Lao Mu.”

II · The Site — Documentation & Sculpture

The exhibition presents in full the documentation of the ten-installment 2014 Jingdezhen “Conceptual Landscape” field reports, alongside the first physical materialisation of Meng Chunsheng in 2017. Documentation and sculpture are intertextual: the documents explain the sculptures' source code; the sculptures materialise the documents' energy.

Six core works anchor the exhibition:

· Headless Torso (无头躯干) — answers to “Speechless turn” and “Found my true body”. To vanish is to lose the head; to return is to prepare.

· Mask Wall (面具墙) — answers to “Alchemy” and “Skin, fur, shadow”. To devour is to protect; Brother An is the other.

· Red Plastic Bag Wrap (红色塑料袋包裹) — answers to “Demon, Dao, dialogue”. Red clothes are the red; to catch a demon is to conceal.

· Terracotta-style Head (兵马俑式头像) — answers to “Lao Mu Heart Sutra”. Scripture is eternity; the QR code is the grid.

· Broken & Whole Juxtaposition (破碎与完整并置) — answers to “A boring person”. Boredom is the shard; the scavenger is the whole.

· Double-Buddha Person Sandwich (双佛夹人) — answers to “To ~ Every Mother”. The meal is the offering; the dream is the crevice.

The hall is split into a bright zone and a dark zone. The documentation wall runs along the left. The visitor can move through it three ways — by timeline, by correspondence, or freely — walking through the border between consciousness and unconsciousness in alternating light and shadow.

III · Foreword — Experiment vs Test

The distinction between “experiment” and “test” — semantically separate in Chinese (实验 vs 试验) — constitutes the methodological root of the exhibition. The first is a chance-driven art project rooted in the Chinese folk-cultural context. The second is an examination of, and a challenge to, tradition.

The mask is the Meng Chunsheng behind Lao Mu — and may also be the weakness in human nature, or the part of it most in need of protection. Invoking Joseph Beuys's “shaping society like a sculpture”, Lao Mu's real desire is to sculpt the soul of Meng Chunsheng. The Zen koans “Can you be the master in dreams?” and “Where is the master when there is no dream and no thought?” are brought in; Zhuangzi's “the perfect person has no dreams” and the physical law of gravity reflect one another. Making love and making love, day and night, the seven-year itch and three years of precept-keeping — all binary oppositions dissolve in the coarse roughness of clay and the brilliance of glaze, only to be re-formed in the concealment and exposure of the mask.

IV · Threads — Ending & Opening

This exhibition is both a milestone summary of Mu Yuming's five years of porcelain research in Jingdezhen, and the beginning of a new plan. From planning to opening took only 20 days — echoing across 17 years to the 《Twenty Days》 project of 2000. The show was originally scheduled to close on 29 October; due to strong response it was extended to 11 November.

“I had meant to bring everything in Jingdezhen to an end. Instead, I opened another beginning.” The exhibition is a banquet at which the artist shares his soul and body with the public — and the banquet never disperses, because Meng Chunsheng is still in the dream, and Lao Mu is still asking.

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