Asiatic Black Bears

Asiatic Black Bear by Mu Pan (Taichung City, Taiwan, 1976) tells the legend of Wu Feng, a Chinese of the Han ethnic group who supposedly sacrificed himself so that the Tsou of Taiwan would stop their ritual of slitting their enemies’ throats. The artist studied this legend as a child, but as an adult he discovered that Wu Feng was actually exploiting the Indigenous people, that he was a businessman and the story was false. The Asian-American artist Mu Pan has made mixing cultures his personal brand. His works present multiple narrative layers, personal reflections on human behaviour where humour and violence often come together.