Stravinsky's 1913 ballet The Rite of Spring is a metaphor for European modernism's anxiety about its own civilization. Under the devouring of mechanical rationality after the Industrial Revolution, people tried to find the life force that had not been alienated from the primitive rituals. However, this “primitiveness” is in fact a Western-centered symbolic appropriation of the “other” - an amalgamation of Slavic pagan elements and colonial anthropological field reports. This cultural misinterpretation is reflected in the deliberate avoidance of colonial plunder and ecological exploitation, while ignoring the essence of primitive beliefs - a worldview of human and ecological reciprocity. In today's context, the primal urge for “rebirth” is no longer confined to staged sacrificial narratives. The theme of “The Rite of Spring” has been reintroduced into the realm of contemporary art: “Who has the right to define the sanctity of life?”
On March 8th, Nan Ke Gallery will present the group exhibition “The Rite of Spring”. Through the cross-media practice of nine artists, the exhibition not only traces back the untamed spirituality of primitive beliefs. It also attempts to correct the contemporary semantics of “sacrifice” - from “appropriation” to “mutual subjectivity”, and from consumption of the “primitive” to a prayer for equal symbiosis.
Lhamo Yue Liu
Scabs of History, 2023
Hemp Rope, white oil paints, milk, honey, salt
Dimensions variable
© Courtesy of the artist
/'Knitted History and Memory'
In Lhamo Yue Liu 's installation “Scabs of History”, the artist restores an ancient symbolic recording system of the Alaskan Native people, the knot. The historical fact that the American colonists plundered the land with two cents per acre in 1867 is transformed into a topological dialog between telegraphic codes and knot forms. This ancient knot system has its own specific coding rules, with flat knots, live knots, and dead knots forming a fluid cognitive network. In a primitive society without writing, facts were woven into the warp and weft of matter in a symbiotic way with nature, and twisted knots expose the folds of disciplined history writing.
Shinetana
Hohhot Diary 53 & 79 , 2019
Mixed media on canvas
75h x 75w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Mongolian artist SHINETANA seeks to strike a balance between the “curiosity” perspective of minority identity in today's society and her personal creativity. Her series of works, “Hohhot Diary”, does not feature any labeling elements or concepts, but rather uses old objects from the grasslands of her hometown as materials, preserving the authenticity and obscurity with her rustic approach, and building a barrier against symbolic interpretation in the midst of the wave of cultural consumerism. Resonating with this is Xuan Liu's installation “Untitled”, in which the artist tries to avoid using materials with strong symbolic meanings, instead stripping the hemp threads from the twine as the main raw material. The presence of wood, resin and rope in the work violently signals the wildness and vitality that has not been domesticated by modernity, rejecting the romanticized “back to nature” narrative. This methodology is in dialogue with Tim Ingold's “The Ecology of Lines” - material is no longer an objectified medium, but a life trajectory that is woven together by mountain survival instincts and physical memory. The material is no longer an objectified medium, but a life trajectory woven by mountain survival instinct and body memory.
Xuan Liu
Untitled, 2024
Flax, metal, plastic, palm, cement
Dimensions variable
© Courtesy of the artist
/'From Limb Myth to Multispecies Symbiosis'
In the creation myths of the North American aborigines, the gods created mountains and rivers through physical movements, and the body became the origin of natural landscapes. German artist Olaf Hajek's works incorporate folkloric elements into gorgeous visual narratives and is obsessed with deconstructing the boundaries between nature and human beings. In his images, the human body is transformed into plant roots, animal bones are symbiotically grafted with mechanical parts, and human and non-human beings share the same embodied matrix. In dialogue with this, artist Weiyi Hu's light-box installation “Dream Body No.4”. The artist collects X-rays of injured human bodies from hospitals, and through the “intervention” of medicinal plants, the work transcends the mere metaphor of the body and proposes a cross-species, post-human imagination, which also responds to the contemporary eco-philosophical reflection on “multi-species symbiosis”. It also responds to the contemporary ecological philosophy of “multi-species symbiosis”. In the context of this exhibition, such images constitute an implicit critique of “human exceptionalism”-just as “The Rite of Spring” asks about the violence of sacrificial logic: is the human body merely a temporary container for the flow of natural energy? Perhaps the human body is merely a temporary container for the flow of natural energy?
Olaf Hajek
Zauberber, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
140h x 120w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Weiyi HuDream Body No. 4, 2025
Cyanotype on glass, LED light box, stainless steel bracket
291h x 163w x 20d cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Meng Zhou's paintings seem to respond to this question. The artist uses his own dreams combined with mythological metaphors to abstract the entangled and symbiotic relationship between man and his environment. In his paintings, the human subject is placed in different scales of time and space, and man and nature are no longer separated into the dualistic objects of study constructed by Enlightenment rationality, but seem to exist in a contractual order of man-god-nature.
Meng Zhou
The Rite of Spring 2, 2020
PVA, paper, paper mache and ink on canvas
170h x 170w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Wenjie Yu's “As Above, So Below” series reveals the holographic correspondence between the micro and the macro - that is, the local contains the whole, and the individual mirrors the structure of the universe. The gesture of the tree is endowed with ancestor-like symbolism, a metaphor for the harmony of the natural order of “up and down, inside and outside”. In the pictorial documentation of the performance “flying buttresses”, artist Chloé Silbano presents a dynamic spatial dialog through the deep fusion of limbs and artificial boundaries. With almost unconscious natural movement, the dancers follow the ancient culture where dance is the core of rituals - the body is used as a medium to obtain guidance and reconfigure order, thus reconnecting and returning to the power of nature.
Wenjie Yu
As above, so below #3, 2024
Cotton cloth, linen, elastic fabric, cotton sewing thread,
sand, soft pastel, resin and wood paint
70h x 60w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Chloé Silbano
Chain, 2022
Oil on canvas
114h x 145w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
/'Ultimate Questioning'
As a key point before the final chapter of the exhibition, artist Kunniao Tong's work “Do something to leave the pig ass” points to the ultimate dilemma of the Anthropocene with a provocative gesture. As the ultimate symbol of global industrialized farming (pork consumption accounts for 36% of the world's meat), the pig's tail beats on the drum as if in a ritual, as if praying for some kind of freedom. In shamanic drumming rituals, the human being as the subject manipulates the drumsticks to connect with supernatural forces; in this work, the pig's tail, the most marginal organ in the animal's body, becomes the “pseudo-subject” of the drumming. The artist's juxtaposition of violence and ecstasy, without providing a redemptive solution, and allowing it to speak out in helplessness, makes us reflect on the arrogance of “anthropocentrism”.
Between the violence and gentleness of “The Rite of Spring”, the exhibition tries to build a dialogue across time, which transcends the center or the edge, and is constantly reborn in the tearing between civilization and barbarism, technology and nature. Perhaps the true “The Rite of Spring” begins with the acknowledgement that human beings are merely temporary inhabitants of this world, and its revelation is that the true “primitive” is not a symbol for consumption, but a reminder that all civilization grows out of a reaction to the other. It is a reminder that all civilizations grow out of humility and reverence for the Other.
Kunniao Tong
Do something to leave the pig ass, 2015
Silica gel, motors, tambourine, etc
115h x 65w x 65d cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Bibliography
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Ingold, T. (2007). Lines: A brief history. Routledge.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern (C. Porter, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.
Taussig, M. T. (1987). Shamanism, colonialism, and the wild man: A study in terror and healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Text by Rachel Wang
