Gordon Cheung UK, b. 1975
A Thousand Plateaus, 2016
Financial Times newspaper, archival inkjet, sand and pumice on canvas and aluminium
78 1/2 x 177 1/2 x 2 in.
(200 x 450 x 5 cm.)
(200 x 450 x 5 cm.)
9457
A Thousand Plateaus depicts a mountainous forest pierced by several ‘nail houses’: a term borrowed from the Chinese proverb: “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down,” used in...
A Thousand Plateaus depicts a mountainous forest pierced by several ‘nail houses’: a term borrowed from the
Chinese proverb: “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down,” used in China to refer to properties whose
residents defy state-sanctioned developers’ demands to sell. Those who resist remain in their homes whilst their
surrounding neighbourhood is destroyed a contemporary landscape springs up in its place. Cheung’s
employment of nail houses, now censored symbols of resistance, unravels the conceptual framework of the
traditional Chinese landscape painting, intended to induce a psychic state of dream travel, but also related to the
omnipresence of dynastic civilisation. The painting’s title makes reference to the critique of contemporary
capitalist culture by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari of the same name.
Chinese proverb: “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down,” used in China to refer to properties whose
residents defy state-sanctioned developers’ demands to sell. Those who resist remain in their homes whilst their
surrounding neighbourhood is destroyed a contemporary landscape springs up in its place. Cheung’s
employment of nail houses, now censored symbols of resistance, unravels the conceptual framework of the
traditional Chinese landscape painting, intended to induce a psychic state of dream travel, but also related to the
omnipresence of dynastic civilisation. The painting’s title makes reference to the critique of contemporary
capitalist culture by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari of the same name.
Provenance
Provenance HSBC Art Collection
Exhibitions
Exhibitions Unknown Known ( 03/10/2017 to 04/16/2017 ) Into the Wild Abyss ( 06/09/2017 to 09/03/2017 ) Lines in the Sand ( 09/18/2016 to 11/07/2016 ) Here Be Dragons ( 04/30/2016 to 07/17/2020 )