Invisible Elephant

(Everyone was thinking it.)

Polk Museum of Art is thrilled to present our newest exhibition, Invisible Elephant, beginning Saturday, July 7th. The show is based on an ancient Buddhist parable of a raja (or teacher) who presents an elephant to six blind men. Each man is given a different part of the animal to feel. The raja then asks them to describe the elephant. The man who touches the elephant's head says it feels like a giant pot. The man who feels the elephant's leg thinks it is like a pillar. The man who is given its ear thinks the elephant is like a fan or a woven basket. The remaining three men touch other parts of the elephant and have very different responses. The six men soon find themselves in a debate,which quickly escalates into a quarrel. As each man refuses to question his own understanding of the elephant, they begin fighting.

 

The message here is that different perspectives result in different interpretations, and that alternate opinions should not be immediately dismissed, but rather analyzed and discussed. The parable can be applied to many controversial topics, including politics, religion, and racial and cultural differences. Artists Kirk Ke Wang and Theo Wujcik use Invisible Elephant to explore how this principle relates to the relationship between the East and the West (or more specifically, China and the U.S.).

Kirk Ke Wang, a Chinese-American artist, describes himself as both lucky and unlucky to live in two worlds, Eastern and Western. Seeing from both sides has enabled him to find commonality between the cultures, but he has struggled to balance his own identity. His art is about searching for various lenses to capture his understanding of the world.

In this show, Ke Wang enters a dialogue with his former professor, Theo Wujcik, who has become fascinated by Chinese culture, particularly their jade culture, and how it can be associated with contemporary American society.

Theo Wujcik, Imperial Jade Quarter Pounder with Cheese, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 56" x 56"

Nope, it's not a moldy cheeseburger. It's a jade cheeseburger. The above artwork is Theo Wujcik's Imperial Jade Quarter Pounder with Cheese, which will be included in the Invisible Elephant exhibition.

• Why do you think Wujcik has associated jade with a cheeseburger?
• What role does jade play in Chinese culture?
• How do you think this painting relates to the theme of the exhibition?

Write me back. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

To see a video of our curator, Adam Justice, discussing Invisible Elephant, you can follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrCbIucl6xA

Enjoy!

~ Loren from Curatorial