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Hung-Chih Peng, <God Pound Busan>, abandoned statues and one Single Channel video “The Chronicle of the Misfortune Deities”, Dimension variable, 2016
Hung-Chih Peng God Pound Busan
Diminutive god statues became especially popular during a gambling craze in Taiwan in the 1980s. After failing to successfully divine a winning number, many of these were abused and abandoned at recycling centers, much like how dogs are sent to pounds when unable to fulfill their owners’ inflated and unrealistic expectations. Thus, in what seems a rather extraordinary instance of reversal, humankind took the liberty to punish the gods, seemingly without fear of retribution. Moreover, these gods were conveniently embodied in an easily manipulatable size. For the installation <God Pound Busan>(2016), 501 gods filled an entire space and they look at the screen that is framed by Taiwanese puppet stage set. In the video, a dog recounts the tale of the deities’ passing from idolized vessels to abandoned remains, reminding us of the parallel between the god pound and its canine counterpart. Somewhere between ubiquitous commodity fetish and sacred totem that knows no market value, the accumulation of these little beings conveyed both the tremendous power they were initially thought to possess as well as their present status as valueless cast-offs. |
