White Rabbit GalleryChippendale
Black Myth
Drawing on the video game Black Myth: Wukong and the novel Journey to the West, this show curated by David Williams explores myth, transformation and the dark side of modern China through works by Sun Xun, Xu Zhen, Zhu Jinshi and others.
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You walk in to Zhu Jinshi's The Ship of Time, a hull of Xuan paper and bamboo about 15 metres long. Time and Tide's reviewer said it looks abandoned mid-build and sits in the room "the way a wreck sits on a seabed".
The thread is Journey to the West, by way of the 2024 video game Black Myth: Wukong, and more than 40 artists from the White Rabbit collection carry it up four floors. Mountains keep coming back, from Fu Xiaotong's 6.5-metre paper relief Spiritual Mountain to an embroidered Oblivious Mountain, and the third floor holds Sun Xun's 13-panel woodblock scroll. The reviewer found the show "gets stranger, and frequently funnier" as it climbs. If you lost a chunk of 2024 to Black Myth: Wukong, this is the one gallery visit that counts as lore research.
Entry is free, Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, and the show closes on 15 November.
Editor's pick
Sun Xun, Xu Zhen, Zhu Jinshi and others take Black Myth: Wukong and Journey to the West as a way into myth, transformation and modern China. Free, and no controller needed.
Look for
The Ship of Time
On the ground floor, Zhu Jinshi's 15-metre hull of Xuan paper and bamboo looks too fragile to float and unfinished on purpose.
Chen Chun-Hao's nail paintings
Look for Song-dynasty landscapes and zodiac animals made entirely of driven nails: calm from across the room, pure hammering up close.
Sun Xun's Luocha: An Infinite Journey
On the third floor, 13 coloured woodblock panels run almost 16 metres, mixing classical ink technique with Cultural Revolution-era graphic design.
Liang Shaoji's Heavy Clouds
On the second floor, camphor wood forms carry silk that live silkworms spun directly onto them.
Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea
Hou Chun-Ming's 14 cardboard printing plates, seven metres across, show the Eight Immortals with almost no reverence at all.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Rainy Days
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Image credits
7
- Andy Ewing: Ancestor Spirits / Kirthana Selvaraj: In the Half Light© The Estate of Andrew Ewing
- Migrating Modernism: The Architecture of Harry SeidlerPhoto: David James
- Fibre Optics: First Nations women in fibrePhoto: Trixie Young
- White Rabbit GallerySmart Design Studio / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian ArtChris Olszewski (Kgbo), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Chau Chak Wing MuseumNick-D, CC BY-SA 4.0
- CarriageworksNick-D, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0