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Lot Essay
"In my series of works copying jiashanshi, I force the imagination to play upon the texture of the original material. By way of the mirror surface of the copy, I can induce a most direct and pure response from the viewer. Such visions produced through experience of the material nurture the life of the human spirit." - ZHAN WANG
The artist Zhan Wang works in photography, installation, performance events, and occasionally video, but he is best-known for his elegant, conceptually rigorous and physically laborious stainless steel sculptures. With these works, Zhan hearkens back to long-standing Chinese philosophical and aesthetic approaches to nature, the environment, the "real" and the artificial, while also revitalizing them for his distinct contemporary reality. In the work featured in the Evening Sale here, Artificial Rock No. 86 (Lot 2027), we can see both the elaborate and infinite variations to the slippery and voluptuous surfaces of Zhan's artistic inquisitions, suggestive of different strains of the cultural and commercial shift taking place in Zhan's contemporary Beijing.
The present lot is the only artist proof in this rare work from an edition of two. The other two works from the edition works are held in private collections in China and the United States. Zhan discusses this particular work in the book "Xin Su Yuan Shipu" ("New Rock Garden Manual") which he authored, musing on the strangeness of the original rock somewhat resembling the form of a tree. These "tree rocks", a special type of garden rock documented and discussed in the original Su Yuan Shipu (Rock Garden Manual), are highly regarded due to their relative rarity and aesthetic uniqueness. Zhan contemplates the incredible forces of nature that are capable of posing such paradoxes in perception in its original and new forms, which he then adds another layer of "fakeness" to by transforming the rock into aluminium.
Chinese interest in collecting rocks for spiritual or aesthetic purposes has been traced to the Han Dynasty. Aptly labeled "Scholar Rocks," the smaller size specimens were carried around affectionately by Chinese literati who took these portable mountains into their sanctuaries, admiring the rocks for "surfaces that suggest great age, forceful profiles that evoke the grandeur of nature, overlapping layers or plans that import depth, and hollows or perforations that create rhythmic, harmonious patterns." Rocks in a Chinese garden symbolize the craggy, inaccessible peaks of fanciful paradises for the immortals, and in tandem with water form a microcosmic representation of nature on a grand scale. With these, Zhan enters into China's long philosophical inquiry into the relationship between man and nature. Traditional scholar's rocks were natural stones kept in studios of literati and other elite, and were meant to serve as objects of contemplation, microcosms of nature and the universe.
Zhan's artificial Jiashanshi are made by hammering sheets of stainless steel onto the surface of a meticulously sourced genuine Jiashanshi or Scholar rock. They serve as a provocative reinterpretation of the classic form in stainless steel. Small pieces are pounded, removed, and then welded together, in an extremely laborious process, polishing the steel to an illusory metamorphosis of material. Similar to the traditional rock, formations are irregularly formed to hide the hand of their author. Forcing the imagination to play upon the texture of the original material; the mercurial shell, polished to a high sheen, reflects the colours of its surroundings with, consequently, no colour of its own, the exterior adapting and altering in its environment. Zhan induces a most direct and pure response from the viewer where such mirrored visions "produced through experience of the material, the life of the human spirit." Rather than offering the viewer an opportunity to contemplate the mysteries of nature, the viewer's gaze is lost in the highly polished surfaces of Zhan's forms, reflecting instead an infinite variety of superficial surfaces.
As such, the pleasure Zhan Wang takes in this "ostentatious glamour" is somewhat distinct from the sugar sweet pop satire of Jeff Koons' contemporaneous series, "Celebration", but perhaps more akin to the experience of viewing one of Anish Kapoor's concave mirrored wall sculptures. Zhan's works are not necessarily a cynical take on Chinese culture, but an embrace of core Chinese aesthetic values that the artist attempts to revive with contemporary materials. At a distance the rocks appear as mystical and enigmatic - almost alien - forms that seem to shimmer with life. As one approaches Artificial Rock No. 86, the experience becomes seductive, vertiginous, almost unsettling, the surrounding environment revealed in distorted, darting reflections, and the viewer becomes lost in the visual fantasia around him.
As Wu Hong has written, "We must realize that to Zhan Wang, glittering surface, ostentatious glamour, and illusory appearance are not necessarily bad qualities, and that his stainless-steel rocks are definitely not designed as satire or mockery of contemporary material culture. Rather, both the original rockeries and his copies are material forms selected or created for people's spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different needs at different times." As such, these "fake" stones are perfect monuments to China's contemporary engagement with the "real." They are shells, and it matters not their source and their authenticity is a matter of perception; rather, it matters only that they delight and seduce. Through the infinitely variegated surface which is literally hollow, we see a celebratory monument to China's past, present, and future, one contains and mirrors for us all the glittering surfaces of this new world.
The artist Zhan Wang works in photography, installation, performance events, and occasionally video, but he is best-known for his elegant, conceptually rigorous and physically laborious stainless steel sculptures. With these works, Zhan hearkens back to long-standing Chinese philosophical and aesthetic approaches to nature, the environment, the "real" and the artificial, while also revitalizing them for his distinct contemporary reality. In the work featured in the Evening Sale here, Artificial Rock No. 86 (Lot 2027), we can see both the elaborate and infinite variations to the slippery and voluptuous surfaces of Zhan's artistic inquisitions, suggestive of different strains of the cultural and commercial shift taking place in Zhan's contemporary Beijing.
The present lot is the only artist proof in this rare work from an edition of two. The other two works from the edition works are held in private collections in China and the United States. Zhan discusses this particular work in the book "Xin Su Yuan Shipu" ("New Rock Garden Manual") which he authored, musing on the strangeness of the original rock somewhat resembling the form of a tree. These "tree rocks", a special type of garden rock documented and discussed in the original Su Yuan Shipu (Rock Garden Manual), are highly regarded due to their relative rarity and aesthetic uniqueness. Zhan contemplates the incredible forces of nature that are capable of posing such paradoxes in perception in its original and new forms, which he then adds another layer of "fakeness" to by transforming the rock into aluminium.
Chinese interest in collecting rocks for spiritual or aesthetic purposes has been traced to the Han Dynasty. Aptly labeled "Scholar Rocks," the smaller size specimens were carried around affectionately by Chinese literati who took these portable mountains into their sanctuaries, admiring the rocks for "surfaces that suggest great age, forceful profiles that evoke the grandeur of nature, overlapping layers or plans that import depth, and hollows or perforations that create rhythmic, harmonious patterns." Rocks in a Chinese garden symbolize the craggy, inaccessible peaks of fanciful paradises for the immortals, and in tandem with water form a microcosmic representation of nature on a grand scale. With these, Zhan enters into China's long philosophical inquiry into the relationship between man and nature. Traditional scholar's rocks were natural stones kept in studios of literati and other elite, and were meant to serve as objects of contemplation, microcosms of nature and the universe.
Zhan's artificial Jiashanshi are made by hammering sheets of stainless steel onto the surface of a meticulously sourced genuine Jiashanshi or Scholar rock. They serve as a provocative reinterpretation of the classic form in stainless steel. Small pieces are pounded, removed, and then welded together, in an extremely laborious process, polishing the steel to an illusory metamorphosis of material. Similar to the traditional rock, formations are irregularly formed to hide the hand of their author. Forcing the imagination to play upon the texture of the original material; the mercurial shell, polished to a high sheen, reflects the colours of its surroundings with, consequently, no colour of its own, the exterior adapting and altering in its environment. Zhan induces a most direct and pure response from the viewer where such mirrored visions "produced through experience of the material, the life of the human spirit." Rather than offering the viewer an opportunity to contemplate the mysteries of nature, the viewer's gaze is lost in the highly polished surfaces of Zhan's forms, reflecting instead an infinite variety of superficial surfaces.
As such, the pleasure Zhan Wang takes in this "ostentatious glamour" is somewhat distinct from the sugar sweet pop satire of Jeff Koons' contemporaneous series, "Celebration", but perhaps more akin to the experience of viewing one of Anish Kapoor's concave mirrored wall sculptures. Zhan's works are not necessarily a cynical take on Chinese culture, but an embrace of core Chinese aesthetic values that the artist attempts to revive with contemporary materials. At a distance the rocks appear as mystical and enigmatic - almost alien - forms that seem to shimmer with life. As one approaches Artificial Rock No. 86, the experience becomes seductive, vertiginous, almost unsettling, the surrounding environment revealed in distorted, darting reflections, and the viewer becomes lost in the visual fantasia around him.
As Wu Hong has written, "We must realize that to Zhan Wang, glittering surface, ostentatious glamour, and illusory appearance are not necessarily bad qualities, and that his stainless-steel rocks are definitely not designed as satire or mockery of contemporary material culture. Rather, both the original rockeries and his copies are material forms selected or created for people's spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different needs at different times." As such, these "fake" stones are perfect monuments to China's contemporary engagement with the "real." They are shells, and it matters not their source and their authenticity is a matter of perception; rather, it matters only that they delight and seduce. Through the infinitely variegated surface which is literally hollow, we see a celebratory monument to China's past, present, and future, one contains and mirrors for us all the glittering surfaces of this new world.