Tethered Lamb in the Flow: The Tension Between Historical Contemplation and Present Aliveness in the Odes of Taca Sui

Abstract

Inspired by the ancient Chinese canonical poetry anthology The Book of Odes (Shijing), the photographer Taca Sui created the Odes (Shishan hekao) series through textual research and field investigation. While the poems in The Book of Odes depict the natural landscape and social environment of the Zhou Dynasty and the thoughts and feelings of ancient people, the Odes seeks Chinese cultural roots and, in retrospect, reveals the tension between historical contemplation and present aliveness. By highlighting one plate entitled “Chou Feng Series, Lamb” from the Odes project, this essay aims to shed light on several points regarding the photographer’s working mode, as well as the underlying paradoxical ways of seeing. He attempts to stagnate the historicity in The Book of Odes with photography. However, history itself is in constant movement and this dimension of motion cannot be eliminated. The photographer tries to approach the present at close quarters, but the historical gaze has already saturated the artist’s work. These tensions in Taca’s photography imply that photographic images, as one of the most contemporary forms of media, hold the possibility of resisting time.

Keywords:

• Landscape photography
• Lamb image
• The Book of Odes
• Ancient China
• Contemporary media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 “Patina” here refers to the layer of oxidation that forms on the surface of an object as a result of oxidation over time. In the antique trade, “patina” is also known as the “lustre” or “aura” that forms on the surface of an antique object over a long period. It can be found on many objects, such as porcelain, wood, jade, and bronze.

2 Born in 1984 in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, Taca Sui studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China in 2003 and moved to New York City, USA in 2005.

3 In this essay, the idea of historical contemplation is stemmed from the Kantian aesthetics. Kant believes that contemplation is a state of disinterested viewing, in which one views something without doing, acting, and intervening (Kant 2001, 80). Drawing on such a concept of aesthetic contemplation, I propose “historical contemplation” as a state of non-participation, where the object is in a relatively stable and fixed status. In contrast, the idea of “present aliveness” has more of an existential character in the Heideggerian sense. There are various kinds of beings, among which the entity concerned for its existence is called Dasein. The actual existence of this entity in all aspects of reality is Dasein’s being (Heidegger 1962, 73–86). Based on this, I suggest that Dasein’s being is alive, present, highly participatory, and fluid. The fluidity and aliveness of Taca’s work are indicative of its existential nature in the dimension of actuality.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC, 22ZD04).

Notes on contributors

Yueqin Luo

Luo Yueqin is a PhD candidate at the School of Arts, Peking University. Her research focuses on art theory and media theory, with interests in issues of mediality and automaticity in contemporary photography, as well as the involvement of archaeology and anthropology in art and its study.