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M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Wang Qingsong
On View
Mediatheque
Wang Qingsong 王慶松
123456 Chops 123456刀
2008
In 123456 Chops, Wang Qingsong’s younger brother appears from the darkness wearing a mental patients uniform. He approaches a theatrically lit platform and throws a goat carcass onto it. With a butcher’s knife in each hand, he begins to chop at the animal until it has been completely obliterated.
This lengthy and grisly process of disintegration is shown as an increasingly fast time-lapse, with the sound of the knives’ blunt force on the carcass and wooden platform filling the scene. Alternately crouching on the platform and circling it, the butcher performs repetitive arm motions that accelerate and blur. At the end, we see a pulpy red mass mixed with wood splinters. When the butchering is over, the man returns to the darkness. A metaphorical calm after the storm, the violence of the action feels contradictory to the tranquility of the result.
This lengthy and grisly process of disintegration is shown as an increasingly fast time-lapse, with the sound of the knives’ blunt force on the carcass and wooden platform filling the scene. Alternately crouching on the platform and circling it, the butcher performs repetitive arm motions that accelerate and blur. At the end, we see a pulpy red mass mixed with wood splinters. When the butchering is over, the man returns to the darkness. A metaphorical calm after the storm, the violence of the action feels contradictory to the tranquility of the result.
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