11 June 2002—The Nightmare of George V

11 June 2002—The Nightmare of George V
2002


		Image: Huang Yong Ping, 11 June 2002 - The Nightmare of George V, 2002 concrete, reinforced steel, animal skins, paint, fabric cushion, plastic, wood, and cane seat 96 x 140 x 66 in. Courtesy the artist, Paris

In 1911 Britain’s King George V traveled to Nepal for a hunting expedition. For three days, sitting on an elephant’s back and surrounded by various guards, he hunted game in the jungle. He is said to have bagged four tigers in a single day. In 2000, during a visit to a museum in Bristol, England, I came across a stuffed tiger. The caption said that the tiger had been donated by George V in 1911. By sheer luck, I discovered a group of stuffed animals from various safari expeditions in the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris, including a tiger attacking an elephant on its back. The position of the tiger on the elephant’s back happened to be the same as that of George V when he was standing up to shoot a tiger. Of course, the animal exhibited at the natural history museum was designed by the duc d’Orléans in 1887 based on his personal experience. The years from 1887 to 1911 were the apogee of the development of Western colonialism; everything, including “pure” natural history and animal specimens, is closely related to political history. I replicated this scene but replaced the elephant seat with one carrying the British royal crest and, by doing so, made it become the nightmare of George V in 2002. June 11, 2002, was the opening date of the international contemporary art fair Art Basel. —HYP