Note on Exception
# NOTE ON EXCEPTION
## Note on Exception: Moshikou Has No Camels
*The Surrogate and the Exception* was originally planned as an ongoing presentation in a courtyard on Moshikou.
The exhibition had previously been announced in the opening announcement for *Honing the Edge*, together with its scheduled opening date. But it did not happen.
The exhibition site was located on a street that continues to operate through everyday commerce and management. Restaurants, shops, tourists, reconstructed historical architecture, camel sculptures, and various signs for guidance, explanation, and regulation surrounded the site.
During the preparation process, the exhibition encountered both administrative review and environmental management by local authorities, as well as the judgments of the space operator regarding business operations, commercial value, and the use of the site.
The exhibition was postponed and subsequently put on hold.
But the situation did not end there.
It simply did not appear in its original form.
For the first time, this revealed the actual condition of the exhibition itself.
**The exhibition still has to take place.**
It may happen in a rented room, or in the cargo space of a small truck.
Moshikou has Cheng’en Temple.
In *Records of Visiting the Scenic Sites of the Western Hills*, written by Wang Siren during the Ming dynasty, the abbot of Cheng’en Temple is described as the “surrogate monk” of Emperor Guangzong of Ming, Zhu Changluo.
The emperor was not at Cheng’en Temple.
The surrogate monk was there.
The emperor was present, and absent, at the same time.
Moshikou also has many camels.
There are camel sculptures, images of camels, the camel from *Rickshaw Boy*, historical camels, and imagined camels.
But there are no living camels.
A living camel would be too troublesome.
It would need to eat, drink, and leave waste.
A regulated, reviewed, and purified landscape has become the prevailing condition here.
**Camels and exhibitions are both inconvenient presences. Both are exceptions.**