Shang Kuang-shih
The Chinese Room
 
in “Maurizio Pellegrin, The Chinese Room, The Italian Room, The African Room”
November - December, 1997
catalogue of the exhibition (Nuova Icona, Venice)
 

21
Demonstrations of great virtue
Are only consequences of way
The nature of the way is vague and indistinct
Oh, how vague and indistinct!
On its inside there are images –
Oh, how vague and indistinct!
On its inside there are things –
Oh, how profound and obscure.
On its inside there are essences-
These essences are very real.
On its inside there is truth.

From antiquity until today, this name hasn’t been abandoned for the opening origin of everything. How do I know this is the origin of everything? From this.

22
That which has been broken will become whole.
That which has been curved will become straight.
That which has been empty will become full.
That which has been consumed will become new.
Who has little will obtain.
Who has a lot will be deceived.

Therefore the sage embraces the unity and becomes the model of the empire.

He doesn't draw attention to himself and therefore he will shine.
He doesn't declare himself and therefore he will reveal himself.
He doesn't show himself off and therefore he is given merit.
He doesn't glorify himself and therefore he will become elated.

In fact, since he doesn’t quarrel, no one in the world can quarrel with him.
Is the old saying “That which has been broken will become whole” maybe
an empty formula?
To that which is truly whole, everything returns.

23
To be of reserved is second nature, because a whirlwind doesn’t last the entire morning, a downpour doesn’t last an entire day. Who produces them? The sky and the earth. If even the sky and the earth can’t last long, least of all man. Therefore, he who acts in conformity with way, can identify with way. (2)

It is a common opinion that when one speaks of China millenniums aren’t very important. But one mustn’t underestimate the fact that only a prodigious evolution was able to be brought, beginning from the Neolithic era, to the formation of a vast centralized empire, comparable to the Roman one, but much more populated and technically more advanced. China owes a lot to the nomad tribes and to the stable populations of High Asia and the Middle East: Huns, Turks, Mongols, Manchus, Sogdianis, Iranians, Indians and Arabs, that have not only developed a sometimes fundamental role for its history, but they have also exercised a profound influence on Chinese art, games, techniques, thought and religion. It is equivalent to say that the history of China can’t be isolated from that of other cities in Asia.(3)
Maurizio Pellegrin’s China is smaller than a room. It doesn’t celebrate the visual and artistic diversity of elements stemming from another culture, but looks to organize a suitable space for the containment of energies emanating from the objects themselves. The energies of the memory of the objects converge with the energies of the new functions of the same. The objects become wrong footed and then placed in a new physical geography and in a different mental condition. The numerations established in the work quantify and qualify, through ancient symbologies, these esoteric energies.
For the Chinese, the Chi is the energy that crosses and composes the Universe,
and pervades everything. The Chi is also the energy for the movement of the mind and body.
Man can perceive and control the Chi through daily, rigorous practice, and through millenniums, hundreds of meditation and movement techniques are handed down. The Tai Chi Ch’uan is one of these.
The Chinese Room, with its walls of stuffed white cloth, becomes one of the ideal places for the perception of these energies, and an occasion not only for opening a dialogue with the work, but for the identification of a personal harmony, and to be able to free ourselves from the same material through the materiality of the objects.

Notes

(1)Kisa Gotami, Commento all'Anguttara, 225-227, in Burlingame,
Parabole Buddhiste, p.80, n.31, Bari, 1995.
(2)Lao-Tzu, Il libro del Tao: Tao-teh-ching, edited by Girolamo Mancuso, p.35-36, Roma, 1995.
(3)Jacques Gernet, La Cina antica: dalle origini all'Impero, p.7/10, Milano