R
E
V N
E
X
T
Installation view of "Between Utopia and Dystopia” at Massimo De Carlo, Hong Kong, 2017. Courtesy Massimo De Carlo.
Massimo De Carlo gallery kicked off the year with its first group exhibition since debuting in Asia last March. Conceived by Beijing-based independent curator and critic Manuela Lietti, “Between Utopia and Dystopia” brings together paintings, sculptures and installations from six Chinese contemporary artists—Jia Aili, Liu Xinyi, Meng Huang, Qiu Shihua, Wang Sishun, and Wang Zhongjie—who each explore notions of landscape from their unique perspective. ArtAsiaPacific had the opportunity to speak with two of the artists, Wang Sishun and Wang Zhongjie, on the opening day of the exhibition in Hong Kong. The conversation not only led to discussions about the artists’ works and creative process, but also touched upon more esoteric subjects including time, enlightenment and a broader sense of what “landscape” means for them.
Wang Sishun, the term “landscape” recalls imagery that is typically large and vast, traditionally visualized in paintings. Working primarily in sculptures and installation, how does your practice make the connection with the ideas of landscape?
The experience from my solo exhibition “Truth” [at MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2014] would be a good reference for this question. I collected fire from a fire disaster and used it to light the sea and ocean, which I then photographed. I see the fire not only as a natural landscape but also a social landscape. When I drove to Paris to transport the fire last year, I found many stones in different shapes, which, for me, represented the local topography. This is exactly where my inspiration came from. I began to collect the stones that look like busts from around the world. For me, these stones are alive. They combine to reflect the conflict and harmony of human lives. They are natural products but are also the metaphors of this world.
I noticed that all your works have unique titles. Enlightenment is, for example, the title of one piece of the sculptures in this show at Massimo De Carlo. Can you speak a little on this?
I believe my works have connections with something beyond me, perhaps, sublime and elevated. It’s just a feeling and it’s difficult to describe. As for the name “Enlightenment,” I got this idea from the Bible: “God reveals himself by his creations of history and morality.” To some degree my stones, which are God’s creation, reveal human destinies and our doubts.
Some people see you as a “material-based” artist because of your affinity to experiment with different objects. In this exhibition, all of your sculptures were made of copper. Why did you choose copper as the medium? Can you describe this process?
I don’t think that I’m a “material-based” artist. People may have developed this misconception because I always use different materials in my work. But actually, it is more precise to say that I will not be limited by one specific material.
For all my sculptures in this show, copper was the perfect medium to capture the original forms of the stones. The only criteria I follow to select my materials is that it must help to reveal or enhance the thematic meanings of my work.
Wang Zhongjie, your earlier paintings such as Flower and Fire (c. 2009) were rich in color. However, your more recent work tends to be more minimal, with more white open space. What prompted the transformation?
Yes, I did apply intense color on my earlier works and tried to reveal a sense of narrative to the viewers via the symbolic forms in my works. But as I kept making works, I increasingly found that genuine and pure elements could not be described by language or any other means of expressions. Only the artworks that are inconceivable and inexpressible are pure. Once they can be realized or instantiated they would have lost their meanings. That’s why I began to weaken the narrative nature of my works years ago and replace it with abstract spaces, which will trigger deeper reflections and discussions.
In a previous interview you said, “A real human should not conform to the time.” Can you please expand on this?
What is time? Time slips all the time but in the meantime, it’s endless. Life, however, is different. Life itself never changes, but what has changed is just our appearance. Humans are born and die from generation to generation. I think it is more accurate to say that we are not capable of conforming to time, rather that we should not conform to time.
The curatorial theme Manuela Lietti posed for this show revolves around “landscape,” which has prompted works that touch upon its cultural, social and geo-political implications. What do you think is the connection between your works and show’s theme?
If you define the landscape as something that contains only natural creations, such as mountains and rivers, then your understanding is too narrow. The word “landscape” itself is fallacious, which limits our observation of this world in an oversimplified definition. I didn’t emphasize this notion of “landscape” in my works, to say the least. Because “conception” is describable and anything that is describable is meaningless.
“Between Utopia and Dystopia” is on view at Massimo De Carlo, Hong Kong, until March 11, 2017.
Zoey Tang is editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.
To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.