Chinese sculpture(1)
Heart Rising by Zou Liang. Above right: Taking Off by Xia Hang.
Talk about Chinese sculpture usually conjures up serious images such as terracotta and Buddhist-like fi gures, with the start of a new year, an exciting exhibition is seeing young Chinese sculptors take the genre to another level, creating innovate art in their own unique way and injecting fresh vitality into the old art form that has thousands of years of history.
At the exhibition New Language Sculptures, underway at the New Age Gallery in the 798 Artistic District, sculptures with avant-garde and contemporary concepts and utilizing a range of di. erent materials are bringing art-lovers a new era of Chinese sculpture.
"Different from traditional Chinese sculptures that often look serious, all works here are quite amusing, but with deep refl ections on social reality," commented Xia Yun, curator of the exhibition.
Created by emerging young artists including Xia Hang, Zheng Lu and Xiu Zhipeng, all born after the 1970s, the exhibition is being considered by art critics as one presenting new hope for the Chinese sculpture world.
At the center of the exhibition hall is Xia Hang's Taking O_ , a UFO-like machine made of stainless steel. With several wheels and a propeller on top, it is hard to decipher exactly what the work represents at first.
"I myself also don't know what it is, maybe a bicycle, a helicopter, or even a sleigh," explained the artist. "I think it's just a toy existing in my mind, but not the real world."
While a toy on the surface, Xia's sculpture is also a transformer: the audience can take it apart and reorganize it at will, each time making it a different UFO.
"I'm trying to refl ect that there are immense possibilities in today's society, so, each one of us could be another if we liked," Xia added, saying that technology enlightened his artistic creation.
"Of course it also involves knowledge of mechanics," Xia explained. "How to organize each component of the 'toy' is quite complicated."
Zeng Chenggang, director of China Sculpture Association and vice-chairman of Chinese Artists Association, spoke highly of this kind of innovation in China's sculpture world.
"I think it is a good trend that sculptors are turning to make deep refl ections of the world and not only portraying what exists in our lives," Zeng said. "Sculpture also needs to be refreshed in the new era."
