On the 4th of May, 2024, The Antipodean Gallery of Post-Modern Art will play host to the art works of one of this countries premier young artists. Pau Pei, originally from the Chinese province of Onthera Dio, is presenting his latest collection “The Concentric Curiosities.” Below is a selection of some of the highlights of the collection for your perusal and prospective purchase.[1]
Pre-display purchases can be made over the phone and via the website. Payment methods taken are Cheque, money order, Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Diner's Club and American Express accepted), Debit Card, Cash, Paypal, International Draft (excluding the Royal Bank of Nigeria), and Cash Passport.
The ballet mecanique of the manufacturing industry can't help but be nostalgic for an industrialised audience. Where have our factories gone? To the third world, of course, which Pau Pei's sculpture “Utopian Ambivalence” represents flawlessly. While we have the sharp coalescing figures demonstrating the creation of “The Man Machine” from start to finish, we also have this abstract and gorgeous melting, when hopelessly soft human parts appear. The bulbous bodies take their toll on the flesh ones — an old story — but that's not the end of it. The flesh fights back.
Despite the conflict that is inherit within the piece, however, this still evokes a feeling of peace and contentment that is commensurate with the Buddhist teaching that Pau Pei still adheres to today, and yet at the same time displays an isolationists heartbreak at the juxtaposition of his own meritocracy and sensuality.[2]
”
— Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell
“Utopian Ambivalence”
Pau Pei
2024
Onthera Dio Province
Stainless Steel
$45,000
“Untying the Pretzel”
“
Pau Pei's “Untying the Pretzel” undercuts the cliché that art is something that appears magically, but instead is a laboured process whereby the artist examines their own psyché and deconstructs their foibles and dreams to create a cacophony of cornucopia. In “P.S.1 Symposium: A Practical Avant-Garde” it is stated “Everybody is described as the love child of so-and-so and so-and-so, so everybody gets called neo this or neo that, unless the parents are divorced—then they get called post. Not that we need a new 'ism' exactly, but, ironically, looking back has gotten old.” It is this neglecting of the nostalgic urge that had propelled the jutting symphonies of this piece to a delightful aspect of a new humanity.
Ironic, then, that this piece was designed initially to be donated to the “Museum della Fellatio” as, in the artists own words “There is always a time and a place for these things, and this may not be either the time or the place.” Upon inspection of the facilities at the Museum Pau Pei felt that it would not be displayed to it's fullest potential, especially given the proximity of the unflattering “Schultz's Beagle” that designer Charlie M Schultz to cast his “indecisive conceptualisation of art versus science.”[2]
”
— Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell
“Untying the Pretzel”
Pau Pei
2024
Onthera Dio Province
Stainless Steel
$50,000
“Oedipus Completely Wrecks...”
“
In a dramatic deviation from his previous works, Pau Pei has produced the starling yet seductive “Oedipus Completely Wrecks, yet Summer is not My Maiden.” Here he dramatically contrasts the new technology, based on computerised systems, meaning flexibility, smaller plant-size and a different workforce, leading to the death, or at least the peripheralisation, of the mainly white, male and relatively well-paid group. In essence he has displayed the low-paid, temporary, often part-time, often non-white, often female workforce that is at the centre of post-Fordism, producing what, according to the Marxism Today analysis, is an increase in income and freedom for some and a decrease for others.
In effect the very feeling of feminine mystique that is given here is almost overpowered by the austerity and dominance of Corporate greed that underlies the vivisection of Freudian psychoanalytical thought, however when the entirety is viewed as per the Degaussian method is seems to shimmer and shake in an electrifying display.[2]
”
— Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell
“Oedipus Completely Wrecks, yet Summer is not My Maiden.”
Pau Pei
2024
Onthera Dio Province
Stainless Steel
$67,000
“Here's my New...”
“
In stark contrast, Pau Pei has also produced the “Here's my New Erection. I Think it is Rather Lovely. I Must be Important with an Erection Like This.” Here in many ways he supplants the cultural values of contemporary society both the consciousness and the innate physical manifestation of the masculinity. The inherent “maleness” has been described as an identity in flux. Today masculinity is transcribed and understood as a historical, politically, theoretical construct. The representation of masculinity both in art and in popular culture is the product of language and ideology and much less of nature. Man is a site of covert critical discourse as much as he has been for the deconstructive actions delivered from a feminist and sociological perspective. The representation of contemporary man is an entity going through a critical acknowledgement. Theorist such as Michel Foucault and Slavoj Zizek differentiate the impact of sexuality on both its physical and conceptual manifestation on our society.[2]
”
— Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell
“Here's my New Erection. I Think it is Rather Lovely. I Must be Important with an Erection Like This.”
Pau Pei
2024
Onthera Dio Province
Stainless Steel
$79,000
“It's exactly...”
“
In this piece entitled “It's exactly the same as the Last One” Pau Pei has managed to present the exact same piece of metal, effectively a bunch of ellipses cut out of extruded aluminum and welded together, photographed from five different angles, and with the use of over-bearing and tragically meaningless diatribe, convince us that each of these is worth the equivalent cost of an Audi A5, or the alternate luxury vehicle of your choice. This has all been bundled under a banner known as “Post-Modern Art” so that if you see no inherent value in these pieces, it is not the fault of the artist, or the artworks themselves, but your own damned fault, because you obviously just don't have the refined palate and good taste to appreciate its deepest subtleties. Of course those that have purchased these in the past will defend the quality and superiority of them to the death, as this is not just an “art work” but it is also an “investment”, although in all likelihood their purchase was simply part of a complex tax evasion scheme involving at least three offshore companies.[2]
”
— Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell
“It's exactly the same as the Last One”
Pau Pei
2024
Onthera Dio Province
Stainless Steel
$85,000
References
↑Descriptions taken from the original “The Antipodean Gallery of Post-Modern Art: A Visitors Guide” by Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell, curator of “The Antipodean Gallery of Post-Modern Art”
↑ 2.02.12.22.32.4Professor Oliver N Acute-Tell, “The Antipodean Gallery of Post-Modern Art: A Visitors Guide”, Pomp Press, April 2024
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