MOCA Studio Settles in ZhongShan Metro Book Mall

Meeting with the Canine Monk

Artist: Hung-Chih Peng

Title: DoGod (Original title: Canine Monk)

Duration: 2008/11/07-12/07

Time: 11:00~20:00 everyday

Venue: ZhongShan Metro Book Mall B35

How many possibilities could happen in ZhongShan Metro Mall? MOCA Studio chooses to set in the Book Mall to play creativity. Hung-Chih Peng brings his recent video-recording work DoGod along with plenty of TVs filling in the dark space.

Hung-Chih Peng was graduated from San Francisco Art Institute. Most of his works are surrounding Dog, God and Man, which altogether present a conflict relationship and sense of spirit, animal, and humanity. The reason why Peng favors dogs is because they are uncontrollable yet trainable; they are totally wild yet spiritual.

In the work of DoGod, Peng’s dog literally steps in his artist-owner’s place as creative subject. In the videos, the dog writes texts from central religious scriptures on the wall. The artist first painted the words in oil and then covered them with dog food. When the common video feature of rewind was used, the role of the dog changes from instinctive creature to creative agent, thereby thematizing another “rewind;” DOG is GOD in reverse. At once innocent creature, inferior species as well as trusted companion, the dog holds an ambivalent position as mediator of often sacred texts. The dog intervenes between reader and text, thus defamiliarizing what are often familiar passages. The piece therefore raises questions that are not normally pondered: who is the writing subject of these writings and to whom are they addressed? When articulated via the mouth of the dog, the words, strangely, seem all the more human.