Bekhbaatar Enkhtur: Hearsay

The exhibition showcases a series of new works inspired by familiar symbols of superstition and luck, such as the shooting star and its trail. “Hearsay” intertwines the concepts of faith and fallibility as two halves of a whole, exploring how humans attempt to understand the world around them through beliefs, mythologies, logic, and rational thought.

At the centre of the room stands a wax sculpture of an owl, surrounded by dozens of metallic shooting stars, each containing small sound fireworks ready to ignite. The owl represents mysterious, nocturnal wisdom and omens, while the stars serve as a quintessential example of how humans build meaning: seeing shapes in their constellations, the future in their alignments, or the opportunity to make a wish as they fall. Through the artist’s storytelling, these visual metaphors blend with linguistic and material ones, drawing a parallel between expressions like “reaching for the stars”, “a rising star”, or “written in the stars” and chemical formulations such as gunpowder, explosives, and supernovae.

“Hearsay” reflects on the rationality and absurdity of finding meaning in symbols, acknowledging the very limitations of language in communicating the world around us. For Bekhbaatar Enkhtur, form, material, and meaning are but different signs of expression for what is, ultimately, inexpressible.

Bekhbaatar Enkhtur is the winner of the illy Present Future 2023 Prize, an initiative supported by illycaffè and Artissima.