Kunstausstellung Reconstituted von Hongtao Zhou

Designer und Künstler Hongtao Zhou spricht mit seiner neuen Kunstausstellung Reconstituted auf die globale Umweltkrise an. Dazu nutzt er alte Möbelstücke und formt diese zu einem sterbenden Büffel. Er spielt dabei auf die Prärie und den Traum der grenzenlosen Freiheit eines Cowboy an. Diese Wildromantik hat in der Industrialisierung schon fast ausgesorgt oder wurde zerstört. Um dieses Gefühl zu behalten müssen Anstrengungen im Bereich der ökologischen Nachhaltigkeit getroffen werden. Nach nur einem Klick gibt es das Original Statement von Hongtao Zhou zu dieser Ausstellung.

About the exhibition: Reconstituted

This body of work talks about a kind of relationship engendered between human society and our living planet. We are no longer a part of our eco system. We are destroying the environment and in effect, consuming life. This work started by saving chairs from dumpsters during the moving seasons in Madison, when articles for daily use over flow the dumpsters and go everywhere alone the streets.

When I saw a chair in a dumpster, I saw a life abandoned.
When I saw piles of belts in thrift stores, I saw a bull killed.

I admire the material freedom and plenty of this culture, but am also dismayed by the cost of such freedom: rainforest and species extinction, massive landfill and garbage patches, CO2 emission and ice cover shrinkage. Beyond environmental damage, our life style negatively impacts the social, political, and economic ethos both here and abroad: wars fought over resources, unfair labor practices, modern slavery and human trafficking, animal rights issues, drug battles.

We may not recognize them in front of us every day, but we have untold connections throughout our lives patterned by our daily consumption of products. The cowboy is a symbolic image of America; almost everyone the world over now regards the cowboy as a role model. People want to achieve this materialized American dream in China, India, Brazil and so many other countries. I believe everyone has the right to dream, but if this is not a mode of sustainability environmentally, morally, or economically. We must change.