Humanity

Humanity

Li Xinmo, Calligraphy, Mixed Media, 150 cm x 500 cm, 2024

Piece Description:

Text: Li Xinmo

This installation work is a part of or a result of performance art “Birth”. An inverted triangle covered with green fur (simulated long-pile fur) is hung on the wall. During the performance, I shaved the words “human” into the fur of the triangle with a razor. Triangle is a geometric shape created by human beings. An equilateral triangle with its vertex pointing upwards symbolizes male genitals and fire in many places, and the Mayans use it to represent the sun and fertility. In the native art of Pueblo tribes in the Americas, it represents the sacred mountain. While an equilateral triangle with its vertex pointing downwards often symbolizes women in traditional culture, representing the pubic region of women in ancient India, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome, and also representing the element of water. The combination of inverted triangle and animal fur symbolizes the integration of female life and natural power. Shaving fur with a razor has the symbolic meaning of violence and conquest. During the buzzing of the razor, “human” was born. This work profoundly explores the themes of human and nature, violence and life through unique artistic forms.

Humanity

Li Xinmo, Calligraphy, Mixed Media, 150 cm x 500 cm, 2024

Text: Zhong Ting

For the artist, the upside-down triangle symbolizes the triangular structure of the female reproductive system. Judy Chicago once created an artwork in the shape of a huge triangular table as her feminist masterpiece The Dinner Party, with the female vagina presented from flat to three-dimensional on each dinner plate. This triggered people to think about the female body, identity, and gender with a strong visual impact. In “Postmodern Wetlands. Culture, History, Ecology,” Rodney Giblett uses the Mekong River Delta as a metaphor for female genitalia and pubic hair, associated with the flow, purification, cultivation, and regulation of the ecosystem’s metabolism in the wetlands. The artist’s carving of the word “human” on the triangle of fur seems to symbolize the disempowerment of women when it comes to gender. Should women have the right to be human before being labeled with a woman’s gender? The work reestablishes the female body as the source of life, doing away with the stigma associated with womanhood, while suggesting the complexity of humans and their ecosystems.

Humanity

Li Xinmo, Calligraphy, Mixed Media, 150 cm x 500 cm, 2024

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