The Trained Eye begins with an eye that can no longer fully trust what it sees.
Its Chinese title, 目困目困, suggests an eye burdened by accumulation: artworks, books, teaching materials, memories, and inherited habits of perception. Rather than producing clarity, knowledge generates uncertainty. The more one learns to recognize, classify, and interpret, the less stable recognition becomes.
Bringing together painting, moving image, sculpture, archival materials, and writing, Wu Jiaru examines not only how perception is formed, but how images persist beyond the moments in which they are first encountered. A teaching slide, a masterpiece, a travel photograph, a personal memory, or a passing observation may all become equally available for reinterpretation.
