Luis Adelantado Valencia is pleased to present Tristes Tropiques, the second solo exhibition by Taiwanese artist Ting-Ting Cheng. The exhibition includes the artist’s most recent works, which were created during an artist residency in Brazil between 2015 and 2016.
The title of the exhibition is homonymous with the book Tristes Tropiques by the French anthropologist and structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss, published in 1955, who documented his trip to Brazil, where he carried out a series of outstanding anthropological studies. Despite its travelogue format, the book explores his interest in the philosophy, sociology, geology and history of South America through a European anthropological perspective.
During his time in Brazil, Cheng was influenced and inspired by Lévi Strauss’s critical analyses of the country. Ironically, he found a connection between colonisation and anthropology. In his constant travels from one end of the country to the other, the intention to catch the moment, to know the culture at first hand, is evident.
In conclusion, Cheng generates his own travel guide through his artistic proposal, in which we can find photography, video, painting and installation, through which he examines the concepts of travel, south, knowledge, fiction and resistance, tracing a journey both of the country and of his relationship with it.