House of Oracles at the Walker Art Center

Currently at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is a Huang Yong Ping retrospective entitled "House of Oracles".

Huang Yong Ping
"11 June 2002--The Nightmare of George V"

"The title identifies the hunter as King George V of England. Huang explains that in 1911 the king, while hunting in Nepal, killed four tigers in three days, a remarkable feat. One of the tigers attacked the king, and he donated this specimen to a museum in Bristol, where Huang found it. In Paris the artist located preserved animals from other treks. He attached to a wicker howdah on the elephant’s back a tiger in the documented position of attack, but he replaced the royal howdah–an emblem of empire–with the sort used to protect well-heeled tourists. The tableau looks back to the approaching end of the colonial period." - Artforum


Crate Logo for Huang Yong Ping Exhibition at the Walker Art Center
Designed by Phil Docken

The Walker's visual arts blog has a wonderful piece on the transportation and installation of Huang Yong Ping's massive elephant:

"A tour-crate bears the likeness of one the show’s key works, a 2,000-pound concrete elephant with a tiger on its back. Installation technician Phil Docken designed the logo after receiving two drawings, sent by a registrar in Paris, on the correct and incorrect ways to lift the hulking pachyderm (the image, above, shows the wrong way to hoist the animal: 'Non!')"