STATEMENT

MASTERS OF FIRE - ART AND CHANGE

Only those who work with fire and steel can perceive the moment when the red hot Yang iron meets the cool Yin water and hears the cries of the metal being transmuted from iron into steel, in a most significant marriage of the opposites that for long have been formulated by Daoism.

In a moment when deep changes in concepts go across the world we live in, when technologies provide instant communication, information and globalization, cultural hybridation accelerates and concepts once thought to be unchangeable - such as the definition of art – begin once more their process of mutation, for the history of the world is but the history of evolution.

Once art was considered an unchangeable concept of nationalistic nature, categorized as superior or inferior, depending on its origin being of intellectual or popular nature, immutable and authoritative. The art object was defined only as something without any other purpose than be art itself.
Yet, what today is considered art was not so when it was originally produced.

Therefore let us remind ourselves from this episode of Confucius, pertaining to Li (Ritual): When the Master was in the Grand Temple he asked questions about everything he saw. Someone then said: “Who says this son of a villager understands Ritual?”.
The Master replied: “Questioning is itself Ritual”.

In times when concepts require a new formulation, one of the possible answers is to look for the roots of Ancient Knowledge. The Earth’s core, its very soul, is molten iron that ensures gravity and the magnetic field that protects the Earth’s surface, Yang and Yin once more.
One of the most powerful icons that have presided over mankind, the sword, a product of ancient technology so very often overlooked has now, when its use is obsolete, acquired the right to enter the ranks of art objects especially when its artistic purpose is absolutely evident.

António Conceição Júnior
Exhibition Coordinator
Cultural Consultant
Macau Museum of Art