Author:Tsong Pu(1947-)

Category：Installation Art

Media:Buckets, cement, and hemp rope

Year：1990

Introduction：Tower of Spirit, debuted in the artist’s solo exhibition, “Physical Space and Spiritual Space,” at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1990, comprises 23 buckets commonly used at construction sites. With the larger ones at the bottom to the smaller ones at the top, the buckets are stacked into a tower that is entangled with a knotted hemp rope, another common tool used at construction sites to ensure safety. As a response to the then on-going construction of the Taipei metro, the work not only pays tribute to the labor class in its monument-like form of a freestanding tower, but also conveys the artist’s reflection on environmental changes. Tower of Spirit evokes the image of the Tower of Babe―a symbol of humanity’s challenge to God. Its unstable structure made of buckets implies the fragility of human being’s vain dreams. Covered in dust as well as unintelligible scribbles, the work is a representation of an everyday corner found in the urban jungle, and alludes to the urban high-rises, each resembling a Tower of Babel itself. Linguistic barriers increase gradually among the separated people, which eventually lead to the impossibility of dialogues.

Author Introduction：「Tsong Pu」-Born in Shanghai, China, Tsong Pu graduated from the La Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Madrid. His creative journey began in the modernist period, where he embraced Western conceptualism and minimalism. Drawing upon his own Eastern perspective of nature and the cosmos, the artist pioneered a signature interpretive approach, exploring materiality to elaborate on reflections about space. In recent years, he co-founded the art group Xindian Boys with fellow artists living in the Xindian area, continuing the openness and sensibility of his work through collaborative art making.

Accession number:20210120