SHANGHAI.- LINSEED has launched the outdoor project “Outlook” at the terrace of the gallery to explore the vast potential of various creative media within the perhaps limited framework of art, inviting the audience to immerse themselves in creative scenes with unconstraint concepts and approaches.
The first edition of “Outlook” presents the ongoing project “A Kitchen Blessing” by artist Tant Zhong, that opened on November 11, 2022. Initiated before the citywide lockdown of Shanghai in 2022, the project first involved garlic, this lively creature that is so close to daily sustenance and grows in groups, an almost “communal” manner, which carried Zhong’s and our hope that it would bless us in the first year of the gallery’s permanent space, after three years of the pandemic. However, unexpectedly, the garlic that the artist had initially cultivated for the exhibition became an important food source during the lockdown. After almost an entire year, the garlic has been planted, grown, digested, and now returned to the terrace, eventually incarnated into a “kitchen” where one can make a wish to the “Kitchen God”. Here, the scattered food ingredients on the table will be processed, absorbed, consecrated, and become part of an artwork again, continuing the artist’s contemplation on the production of meanings.
“The first time we discussed the terrace proposal, I was falling into the trap of searching for meaning, the periodic self-denial that is probably familiar to everyone: feeling alienated from the ‘things’ that have been produced in the past, and impotent for what have not been produced for the future. So I decided to leave the content of my work to something that I didn’t have to control, something that was alive, evolving, and changing on its own (although the sense of control had been reduced by the use of ready-made materials, it still didn’t feel invisible enough).
There was a time when I was going out, and I looked into my kitchen and saw the sprouting garlic. It had been passively invited into my kitchen and continued growing actively, becoming a silent loop in the important chain for life to sustain. I then decided to cultivate some garlic, which represented other organic matter in my kitchen, as some ‘sculptures’ that could change over time with minimal intervention from me. The project underwent the lockdown when I had just started it, and all the garlic I had hoarded since March was just finished recently. Going back to this terrace in September, I feel grateful for the garlic, the nature. I want to invite it back to the terrace—not only the garlic, but also my vegetables, my fridge, my cooking pots, and my Kitchen God. Hail these foods that feed and nourish me, that keep my life running! They save me from the swirling trap of meanings, and I want to express my gratitude.
Let us make offerings to the Kitchen God on the terrace! Look at the corner niche, the place that can accommodate a person. We welcome all to climb in, sit down, and become that consecrated entity—who knows what the Kitchen God looks like? If we think in our minds, there will be words to chant. When the Kitchen God comes, invite it to stay. It usually lives on the east or north side, and the niche on our terrace is just right for it. Pushing open the door, perhaps the kitchen door, we can collect our ingredients from the table on the left, fresh from the soil. We can also face forward, hold some (maybe) chopsticks in our hands and make a wish. They are as united as the garlic, bound and idle, instrumentalized and spiced. Turning right to the countertop, we cut and chop, hide and seek—the stove pictured over the tiles, ah, is not alone.” (Tant Zhong, October 2022)
