Walk by the Cantor Art Gallery on the first floor of O’Kane Hall, and you are likely to do a double take.
Are those really more than a hundred wooden statues in the gallery?
Last week, artists Yin Peet and Viktor Lois spoke about their current installation, Peace Between Human and God on two different occasions. At Wednesday’s Artists’ Talk and Friday’s Gallery Walk-Through, the duo offered details behind the exhibit.
The installation by Peet and Lois happened by chance during a visit to Taiwan. In December 2005, driving past a highway bridge under construction, they spotted a line of wooden Daoist deity statues. After uncovering 153 different figures, Peet expressed her hesitancy to remove them from their place.
The two artists, each from different religious backgrounds, were confronted with their first test. Lois, a Catholic, and Peet, raised in the Buddhist tradition, found that they viewed the deities very differently.
“I had my own superstitions,” said Peet, who is an adjunct professor at Holy Cross where she is currently teaching the course The Art of East Asia through the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies. “These deities are equivalent to saints in the Christian canon. Each [deity] has his/her own religious ‘duty’ as well as his/her own fate and life.”
Lois, though, had no problem putting the deities in the back seat of the van they were driving. “It was easy for me to treat them simply as art objects,” he said. “Our two brains, our two cultures needed to come together.”
And they have. Peet and Lois have used their differences to their advantage to create an exhibit that draws upon both Asian and Western traditions. In conjunction with their contrasting cultural and religious practices and the use of archeology, painting, sculpture, and photography, the exhibit “promotes an understanding of Taiwanese deity culture.”
Peet admits that Lois’ Western ways have influenced her. Peet has become less rigid in her approach in creating artwork because much of her superstitions toward deities have vanished. “I have found that there is no harm in this work. There is no harm in presenting deities with sincerity and respect,” she says.
This change of heart is particularly obvious in the small paintings that she and Lois included alongside each wooden figure. The deities are displayed on wire stands to give the impression that they are suspended in the air.
“I want to show humor in these paintings, to show that I am not afraid of these deities,” she says. “I was much more serious when I first set out to paint these deities. I have become more playful as I’ve gone along.”
In addition to the paintings, Peet and Lois also incorporated sculpture into the installation. To further emphasize the connection between humans, God, and art, Peet used Lois’ head as the subject for the sculptures. Lois’ strong facial features are evident in several pieces — one made in clay, one in charcoal and a resin head installation.
The process of compiling the installation has been a long one, but Peet and Lois treasure the experience.
“We were able to look at each deity carefully and spend time with each one,” says Lois. This allowed them to make the necessary repairs over a two-year period on each of the statues, which had been battered by outdoor wear-and-tear.
Peet and Lois say that discovering these deities was a “right place, right time” occurrence. They have been able to build something that initially seemed ruined and worthless into an exhibit for all to appreciate and contemplate.
The two artists are happy that their first-ever collaborative installation in the United States is taking place at Holy Cross.
“Students here can learn a lot from this,” says Lois, emphasizing his desire for the audience to see the link between religion and humans, and therefore art. “Holy Cross is a very religious place,” says Lois. “I want people here to see the connection that I have made.”
By Cara Joyce ’09
Related Information:
• Press Release: The Cantor Art Gallery Presents Yin Peet & Viktor Lois: Peace Between Human & God