They Poach the Rhino, Chop off His Horn and make this Drink

Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, Tang Da Wu began addressing social and ecological issues in his art, believing that art should provoke discussion instead of merely providing aesthetic pleasure or entertainment. They Poach the Rhino, Chop Off His Horn and Make This Drink (1989) was a response to the practice of hunting rhinoceros for their horns to be used for traditional Chinese medicine. It preceded Tang Da Wu’s seminal work, Tiger’s Whip (1991) which continued to address the implications of a community’s cultural beliefs upon the natural world, to the point that it could bring about the extinction of an entire species. A combination of performance and installation art, the life-size papier-mâché rhino without a horn lying in the middle of the bottles of liquid medicine and in front of a white axe, alludes to the rhino’s immense suffering and impending extinction. Made out of paper, the rhino’s fragility is further emphasised. In the performance segment, Tang performs around the installation. With his face powdered white with Chinese opera powder, Tang delivered a simple yet moving narrative of the subject concerned.

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