Hsi, Shih-Ping: A Horoscope Built Out of Our Chariots

Hsi Shih-Ping was selected as one of the artists of Bamboo Curtain Studio‘s Emerging Artists in 2009, and as the residency artist of Tung Ho Steel Enterprise Co. in 2010.  In addition, he was selected for “Made in Taiwan-Young Artist Discovery” in Art Taipei 2011.

Exhibition: Hsi Shih-Pin: A Horoscope Built Out of Our Chariots

Exhibition Opening：8/4/2012,15:00
Exhibition Dates：8/4/2012 – 8/31/2012
Venue：Liang Gallery
Address: No.366, Ruiguang Road, Neihu District, Taipei City, Taiwan
Website: http://www.lianggallery.com/#/eng/home

About the exhibition

In his dialogue “Phaedrus,” Plato compares the souls of gods and men, both immortal, to chariots pulled by two horses each.  Both of God's horses are good, but a man’s soul is pulled by one good horse and one bad horse.

Zeus leads a procession of gods’ and fairies’ chariots, each pulled by two flying horses, to the pinnacle of heaven: their colorless, shapeless and intangible dwelling place.
On the contrary, all men are impeded by the uncontrollable ups and downs of a bad horse that plunge them into a worrisome chaos.

Eventually, the souls of men fall to earth because of the broken wings.  It takes a 1000 years of reincarnation for the wings to grow back and return them to where they started.

As a grade-school student, I spent a summer at my grandmother’s, as my mother was too busy to look after me.

There was an active coal mine by my grandmother’s house, which was facing a railroad perched on a river cliff, not far away from a tunnel lined by several steel columns.
Covering the top of the tunnel were some fallen rocks beside a blanket of fern and grass.
On a sweltering summer day, we would always climb down the cliff to take a nap in a huge, cool and dried-up drainage hole, known as the “secret hole”.

I haven't returned to that hole ever since my uncle threw a snake he had killed into it.  

At the time, I was quite a good storyteller.

Whenever my teacher was too tired to teach, she would let me tell stories to the class, which were accompanied by drawings on the blackboard.