totem index by Xiao-yang Li reviewed in ArtAsiaPacific
July 5, 2017
In his 2012 treatise The Origins of the World’s Mythologies, linguist and philologist Michael Witzel suggests a commonality between all the world’s major myths. However, that original story is long forgotten. Although boundlessly generative in its influence on the stories we tell today, it is unspeakable. A great deal of erudition is required to evince the form of such old and ineffable things, because their truth is to be found in between an innumerable multitude of effable ones. In Xiao-yang Li’s first solo show, “Totem Index,” at Narrative Projects gallery in London, the artist exploits a wide base of knowledge to explore one such truth. Text by Ned Carter Miles.