The Golden Five Oranges

作品賞析

The Five Golden Oranges is one of a series of works developed by Huang Shun-Ting that hinge on the homophony in Taiwanese between “five oranges” and “rich.” This work consists of a sculpture of five oranges in a stack and the poem “Touching Five Oranges” written in Taiwanese rhyme. This brass sculpture was inspired by thinking about the figurines often seen in Taiwan’s temples to the god of wealth, so it is deliberately dyed and polished to create a luster that seems to be produced from being touched by worshippers for a long period of time. The more frequently the figurines are touched by believers in the temple, the more effective it is thought to be. However, since this is a work placed in art exhibitions, one cannot touch it. Unlike the touchable figurines in the temples, the “untouchability” of a work of art becomes a way of establishing the work’s value. Huang Shun-Ting hopes that through this clever arrangement of what is touchable and untouchable, viewers will be guided to ponder the question of whether our bodies and behaviors have been invisibly domesticated and restricted in daily life.