Translating Wax: An Interview with Zheng Guogu and the Yangjiang Group

roslmesTranslating Wax: An Interview withZheng Guogu and the Yangjiang GroupRos Holmes

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Translating Wax: An Interview with Zheng Guogu andthe Yangjiang Group

Ros Holmes

The Yangjiang Group consists of Zheng Guogu (b.1970), Chen Zaiyan (b.1971),and Sun Qinglin (b.1974), and was established in 2002 in the city of Yangjiang,China. Yangjiang is located in the south west coastal area of Guangdongprovince, bordering the nearby Pearl River Delta, one of Chinas fastestdeveloping conurbations. The group produces work that responds to theirlocal environment, expanding the parameters of contemporary art beyondgalleries and museums. They thus use the city itself as subject, site, andmaterial for their interactive installations. The group is predominantly knownfor their experimental investigations and appropriation of calligraphy,frequently transforming the medium from an elite embodiment of Chineseculture into a vehicle for the exploration of contemporary social phenomena.By humorously combining sayings and phrases written by local inhabitants,they explore narratives of memory production, collective experience, and themetamorphosis of existence that has been a resultant bi-product of Chinaspost-urban expansion.

In recent years, the group has produced a series of works that fuse wax withcalligraphy to create monumental installations and sculptures that both suspendand animate these works within their experimental exhibition settings. In workssuch as Waterfall (2002), Pond (2003) and Garden of PineAlso Fiercer than Tiger II(2010), wax assumes centre stage as a highly experimental medium, capable notonly of transcending any culturally determined readings but also providing alayering of meaning that combines the historical and the contemporary withinits dripping surfaces. The Yangjiang Groups continued explorations in waxthus challenge the conception of wax as a marginal or disappearing medium,pointing to a reconsideration of the importance of wax within globalframeworks of contemporary art.

The Yangjiang Groups recent solo projects and exhibitions include: Colisseumof the Consumed Frieze Projects, London (2012), Yangjiang Group AfterDinner Shufa at Cricket Pavilion, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2012), Wax:Sensation in Contemporary Sculpture, Copenhagen Gallery of ContemporaryArt (2011) Garden of Pine Also Fiercer Than Tiger II, Tang ContemporaryArt Centre, Beijing (2010). Recent group shows include: Biennales de Lyon2009 The Spectacle of the Everyday Life, Lyon (2009) and Sprout fromWhite Nights, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2008) and The Real Thing,Tate Liverpool, (2007).

The following interview was conducted via email correspondence. Thetranslation from the Chinese is the authors own.

RH: You have used wax in several works including Waterfall, Pond and Garden of PineAlso Fiercer Than Tiger II, what first attracted you to using this material?ZGG: We were attracted by the natural properties of wax, as it allowed us to instinctivelyreturn to a more natural state. Wax has enabled us to observe the inner qualities of

# The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved OXFORD ART JOURNAL 36.1 2013 127135doi:10.1093/oxartj/kct007

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Fig. 1. Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin), Waterfall, wax, calligraphy, metal armature (2003). Height 82.7 in.; width 55.1 in.; depth

55.1 in./height 210 cm; width 140 cm; depth 140 cm. Image courtesy of the Yangjiang Group: Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin.

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objects, transforming them from one-dimensional entities to things of infinitedimensions, then returning them back again to one-dimensionality.RH: Wax can exist in multiple physical states, as something both liquid and viscous, it is asfragile as it is malleable. Do you see any similarities between these qualities and the wayyour work evolves?ZGG: The way that we lead our lives is a reflection of the way that we work, thisincorporates multiple physical states; be they liquid or viscous, abstract or amorphous,they are simultaneously as fragile and as malleable as you state. These are the truecharacteristics of what we call physical states. We hope that our working methods havethe same strength as wax, and that every work we create does not merely emergefrom nothingness, but materialises out of these existing developments. This is how wewould like our work to correspond with wax.RH: Within the European tradition, wax also carries connotations of death and theuncanny, it was frequently used in the creation of death masks and wax statues. Youhave predominantly used white wax in many of your works, and it has been remarkedupon that this may also be an allusion to the use of white in Chinese culture to signifygrief and mourning. Are those associations that you wanted to explore in these works?ZGG: Death is not the end of everything, in fact as far as we are concerned it is just theopposite. As such, white wax offers a good starting point to begin this creative process.By gradually pouring layer upon layer of wax over our works we create new meanings,

Fig. 2. Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin), Pond, wax, calligraphy, mixed media (2002), dimensions unknown. Image courtesy of the

Yangjiang Group: Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin.

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these meanings are not disrupted by any mood or state of mind. If you are disrupted byyour own state of mind, you are unable to locate the nature of true existence. Only if youare able to resist this tug can you accomplish liberation from society.RH: There are of course some similarities and differences in the way that wax has beenused as a medium by Chinese and European cultural traditions. Are you interested in thesecross-cultural perspectives or is that irrelevant to your work?ZGG: A discussion of similarities and differences is ultimately futile, we might as well usewax to hold the world together. Allowing things to develop from a limited number ofdimensions to incorporate multiple dimensions is the only cross-cultural and genuinesolution.

Fig. 3. Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin), Garden of PineAlso Fiercer than

Tiger II (2010).


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RH: Waterfall contains over 1000 pieces of calligraphy, but calligraphy that was written byordinary people, instead of professional artists. By using these ordinary and quotidianwritings are you trying to transform calligraphy from an elite art form to a tool forsocial reflection? Do you think it is important to re-establish calligraphys relation toreal life?

ZGG: The intention behind Waterfall was to allow calligraphy to escape from themonotony of real life, to reflect upon the fact that it should no longer serve as aspiritually and culturally unwitting slave. We want to allow it to depart from merelybeing a vehicle for the study of elite or ordinary semiotics, to surpass the limitationthat analyses calligraphy purely on the level of form and allow it to be studied for itsenergy.

RH: Many of the groups works are obviously strongly rooted in your local context andgeographical setting the city of Yangjiang itself, is it important that your workcontinues to draw inspiration from your local environment?

ZGG: Inspiration is like dark matter, there is a fixed amount of it. In this respect, itspretty fair to everyone. So living or working in a large city or a so-called artisticcentre doesnt guarantee that youll automatically have more, similarly living in asmall city or existing on the artistic fringes doesnt imply an inherent deficit. Theadvantage of working in big cities and artistic centres lies in the profusion of culturalactivities, whereas in smaller cities and artistic peripheries your inspiration comes fromthe daily activities that surround you.

RH: In many of your works there seems to be an interest not only in geographical but alsotemporal contexts, in which you frequently combine the historical with thecontemporary. For example, the traditional aesthetics of pine trees are juxtaposedagainst gambling and feasting scenes. Do you think its important to try and bridgethese temporal divides?

ZGG: Time and space are interlinked, they are intimately connected with theenvironment, so that there is no distance between them. They enable historical andcontemporary knowledge to circulate, so that combining the traditional aesthetics ofpine trees with contemporary gambling scenes allows calligraphy to transcend thisapparent decadence. These two disparate temporal divides are not derivative of each

Fig. 4. Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin), Garden of PineAlso Fiercer than Tiger

II (detail of installation). Image courtesy of the Yangjiang Group: Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin.


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other, there is actually no need to separate or divide them. Just as sometimes there is noneed to expand your thoughts, there is similarly no need to stifle them.RH: Many of these wax works appear to incorporate imagery associated with traditionalaesthetics be it pine trees, landscape painting, garden design etc., but then you coverthem in this incongruous coating of white wax. Are you interested in these deliberatejuxtapositions?ZGG: Its not a deliberate decision, but one that arises naturally, as their intrinsic qualitiesare the same, the juxtaposition is not connected to their nature. Thats just a label that hasbeen affixed to us, in the same way that pine trees, shanshui (landscape) painting, gardendesign etc. are seen as markers of traditional aesthetics. Yes and no, good and bad, rightand wrong, big and small, harmonious and discordant, etc., these are all binary qualitiesthat wax works can transcend.RH: By enfolding other peoples calligraphy into your work, Waterfall contains manystories in one visual object; it both remarks upon cultural inheritance and fuses it withpersonal experience. Is this something that you deliberately aim for in your works?ZGG: The last question was about spontaneity, now we have returned to talking aboutintentions. Waterfall was definitely something that was deliberate and you could saythat calligraphy is concealed deliberation. Cultural transmission is similar to thedeliberate arrangement of dark matter in that it will produce hidden art. In everygeneration, personal experience shapes and is used to form decisions, the effect ofthese decisions is a result of our nervous systems, it constitutes the anti-matter.Fusion is a result of the interaction of matter and anti-matter. However, dark matterwill not fuse with these other categories, even though it exists in the universe at thesame time. Everyday invisible dark matter passes through us over eight trillion times,but of course we are completely oblivious to this as this is how things are meant tobe. So the waterfall that you can see in the artwork and the invisible waterfall that youcannot see are both part of our intention.RH: Many of the works which the Yangjiang group have made deal with the role andsignificance of calligraphy and you have frequently created works which emphasise thequotidian and the unprofessional (such as newspaper writing) over the work ofso-called masters. Do you consider this reclaiming the right to write theownership of the written word a very important aspect of your work?ZGG: Yes, definitely, calligraphy involves moving the hands rather than the mouth, andonly when the hands move can you exercise your body. The body is the nucleus as it alsoembodies our ideology. The form of our ideology shapes whether we succeed or fail,what is important and unimportant, just like the nucleus, it enables us to move freelyand moreover represents a renewed emphasis on the right to write.RH: In previous interviews you have stated that many ideas for these works frequentlyemerge after prolonged drinking sessions where you freely associate, with the resultthat you often cant remember where the original impetus or idea for certain piecescome from. Is this a more organic aspect of your praxis?ZGG: Yes, when we try to look back and think about what was going on, we can neverrecall what the initial starting point was, and because there is no initial reason or cause,reality merely presents itself as a set of conventions and restrictions. The original concepttherefore seems to appear out of nowhere, emerging in the boundless moment from onesecond to the next. This inability to recall allows us to transcend the restrictions andconventions that govern calligraphy, more accurately it allows us to organically createcalligraphy beyond calligraphy. When we wake up the next day, there is an extra pieceof calligraphy on the floor but we have no recollection or impression of writing it, itsquite a magical feeling.RH: You work with Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin. How does the collaborative processwork for you do you start off with an idea or concept and then confer? What is the


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most interesting aspect of this collaborative process? How does it affect the type ofartworks that your produce?ZGG: The most interesting thing about our group is that it went from being anon-existent entity to a complete three-person entity. The world incorporates allthings, it is made of matter, anti-matter and dark matter, it is a construction of thesethree things. The reality of this existence also affects the form of our artworks. Ourwork is to gather the little information and knowledge that we amass every day andtransform it into a sea of subversion.RH: By utilising the most orthodox of art forms but employing them in ways thatsomehow escape and challenge the limitations of tradition, your work seems toexplore and highlight the enfolding of history and tradition into more contemporaryexpressions. Is this collision an important element of your practice?ZGG: Yes, it gives our work two directions, both traditional and contemporary.RH: On a more practical level, some of these installations appear to use vast quantities ofwax, which have been applied in multiple layers, was it difficult to physically create theseworks and achieve the effect that you desired? Was there a specific outcome that you werelooking for?ZGG: No, the actual operation is very easy, but the original concept behind theseinstallations is much more difficult to anticipate and grasp. The original idea emanatesfrom our bodies, our nervous systems and our minds, and these three categoriescorrespond to the aforementioned matter, antimatter and dark matter. Returning tothe level of art, we could make an analogy between art, anti-art and concealed art.This triumvirate interacts with each other. So any specific outcome is impossible topredict, its like a formless world attempting to grasp a physical one.RH: Due to the nature of wax these works will ultimately decay, is this finiteness, or theirimpermanence an important element of the work itself?ZGG: Yes, destruction, limitation and impermanence are all just phenomena, whetherthese phenomena are important or not, and the qualities that they express, actuallyhas nothing to do with them. When you return to view the world through the lens ofnature, you will find it intact, but whether it is finite or infinite, permanent orimpermanent, is merely a binary opposition that is created by our confrontation withfour-dimensional time-space.RH: In Pond the calligraphic works were made to undulate like waves, so that they appearliving, vibrating and moving, whereas in Waterfall they have been frozen and suspended.Is there a deliberate desire to create tension between the two works?ZGG: Yes, Pond would appear dreamlike even in a dream, whereas Waterfall has beensubjected to a sort of wonderful solidification. But the tension that exists betweenthese two works was not deliberately created, there is always a beautiful andungraspable aspect of tension that exists between dreams and reality.RH: Recently there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in wax as a material,highlighted by the exhibition Wax: Sensation in Contemporary Sculpture (2011) in whichyou participated in Denmark. Wax as a material is often seen as being new andexceptional, even revolutionary, as it continues to somehow resist the mainstream bymaintaining an aspect of radical innovation and peculiarity. Would you agree with thisstatement?ZGG: Wax possesses qualities that ally it with certain special characteristics of nature, it iscold, calm, rational, static, sealed, solidified and often devoid of impurities. But what isinteresting about it is this revolutionary quality; the seeds of radical innovation andoriginality are all buried deep within it, capable of springing forth at any second.Because it possesses all of these qualities, it reminds me of our lives endlesslyrevolving, which is in itself a way of resisting the mainstream.


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Translating Wax: An Interview with Zheng Guogu and the Yangjiang Group

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