"Go" is the name of a game that originated in China and is now played mostly in Japan. It is not just a game of strategy, but a complex, subtle form of chess.For The Master of Go, after Yasunari Kawabata the artist looks at the subtlety of the game and its mysterious quality rather than at its very precise rules. It is in fact ignorance (as symbolized in the way the board is erased) that makes it possible to appreciate these abstract constellations in pictorial terms. The artist refers to the positions of the stones of one actual match described by Yasunari Kawabata in his book The Master of Go, evoking themes of time, emotional tension, and endurance. This silent work plunges us for a few moments into that historic match played in 1938. The spectator’s viewpoint is that of the old master, playing the white pieces.
 
Das Ich in jeder Kartoffel

For a long time, Su-Mei Tse has been interested in the idea of uniqueness that exists in Nature, including those seemingly characterless or indistinguishable elements, such as sand grains or snowflakes. Using something so banal like potatoes, the artist’s intention is to point out the unique quality inherent in all natural things, in particular, in human beings.

During her japanese residency last july, in Lee Mingwei “Artist-in-Residence” project in Echigo Tsumari for the triennial 2006, Su-Mei Tse stayed in a small traditional village for several weeks and worked with a local ceramicist. These hand-made ceramic potatoes give form to her initial concern about individuality and the uniqueness of every human being.