Wang Keping article in Quintessentially -iWinter 2013 Issue

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ASIAQUINTESSEN-TIALLY WORSHIP l

RAF SIMONS l LIU WEN l WANG KE PING l INSIDER TREATS l CHIMERA TIME l KAMALAYA SPA l STARRY BITES

l MOGAO CAVES l COUTURE CHOCOLATE l

l JOURNEY’S END

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ro to& BRANCH

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OF SEnSUALItY, ErOtICISM AnD YEArnInG. whEn A MAJOr EXhIbItIOn OF hIS wOrk OPEnED In hOnG kOnG thIS wIntEr SUMMEr CAO wEnt tO MEEt thE MAn whOSE InStInCtIVE FEELInG FOr

SCULPtUrAL FOrM IS SO POwErFUL thAt hIS FIGUrES SEEM tO bE bUrStInG FrOM thEIr SkIn

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Late november and hong kong finally escapes the sultry grimy air of summer. A pleasant breeze from the northeast brings a deep chill from distant seas, sweeping away the stale dust of the city and soothing the uneasy languor that accumulates in the body during July and August like a witch’s potion. For a moment, the air carries an illusion of spring scents from the north, carrying the expectations of a new year and fresh plans.

After passing packs of cheerful barflies on Wyndham Street, the stone steps of

Chancery Lane offer a rare sensation of quiet and solitude, but my feet move forward

quickly, because my rising sense of expectation is not derived from the mirage of spring

in my Tianjin hometown, but from a meeting that is about to begin with renowned

sculptor Wang Keping at the 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, where an exhibition of his work

began on November 23rd 2012 (it runs until January 28, 2013).

Wang is a founding member of the Chinese contemporary art group The Stars, better

known in Chinese as Xing Xing. The first exhibition of The Stars was held outside the

China Art Gallery in 1979, which was then the official exhibition space for government-

approved socialist art in Beijing. It created a sensation and attracted unprecedented

media attention, especially from the west. Wang’s work Silence was so unique that the

New York Times ran a story about it on their front page.

In 1984, Wang immigrated to France with his French wife and focused on wood

carving, creating a unique aesthetic for the genre. In 1999, he joined other world-class

sculptors at an exhibition of work on the Avenue Champs-Elysées in Paris. Since then his

sculptures have been avidly collected and the Chancery Lane exhibition is a rare chance

to see so many pieces of his work in one place. Wang advised me to “have a good look,

because there will be no such opportunity in the future” once all the pieces travel to the

four corners of the world, along with their owners.

Wang’s sculptures are subtle and do not appear to follow any trends, nor resort to

clichéd Chinese elements to please. They simply attract and inspire, and by doing so sit

at the forefront of modern art. Collectors talk about how they love Wang’s work because

it has a good sense of humour, is beautiful and can also be sharply revealing.

“Chinese artists who make ‘Chinese art’ are inferior. The good ones make their own art.”

PReVIOUS PAGe: UNTITLED WORK 3-WK12 BY WANG (2011)OPPOSITe PAGe: WANG CREATING ONE OF HIS SCULPTURES

ABOVe: UNTITLED WORK 5-WK12 BY WANG (2010)BeLOW: UNTITLED WORK 4-WK12 BY WANG (2006)

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Wang’s work is full of uneven curves and unique forms that insinuate themselves

into memory and influence aesthetic perception in ways that are profound and

enduring. The name of the Chancery Lane exhibition is Wood Flesh and refers to

the way Wang explored the grains and imperfections of his materials to reveal the

exotic lines and form of women. The name is also filled with a Zen spirit that refers

to way the beauty of the wood and of women’s bodies is interchangeable because

beauty doesn’t belong to anything, but is shared by everything.

Wang’s sculptures don’t have facial features or bodily details, but they enchant.

Each of the untitled figures carries an air of aristocratic aloofness, as if to upbraid

the worldly outcry for attention that we associate with celebrities and socialites. A

work that was made using the cross section from a tree is Madame Butterfly,

which could be a dancing geisha, face slightly turned, speaking her lines to the

audience. She could also be a girl from ancient China, just turned 15, who is finally

able to have her hair tressed as a sign of maturity. Now she is admiring her new

look in the mirror, looking forward to a good husband. Desire could be parted lips

with a tongue protruding. The juxtaposition between straight lines and curves,

plane and solid, concave and convex are imaginative and artistic.

These figures show that it is the spirit, not substance, impression or meticulous

detail that Wang has sought to capture with the Wood Flesh series. “I am not

trying to create women out of the wood, but the simple forms of women,” he

says. “There are no noses, or eyes, but one can tell it is a woman’s head. By

catching the spirit, things can be alike.”

Wang is an admirer or artists such as Qi Baishi, Wu Changshuo and Bada

Shanren, whose spirits could be detected in their work. “Bada’s birds have brought

out his state of mind, while Qi Baishi revealed his masterly technique, strong will

and personality through trivial details like shrimps, chickens and Chinese cabbage.

Good works are invariably simple and spontaneous. And what I aim to achieve is

simplicity and singularity.”

Influenced by traditional Chinese aesthetics, Wang is guided by the words of Qi

Baishi who said, “The ingeniousness of art lies in the balance between likeness and

unlikeness. If it leans to the side of likeness, it would be worldly; to the side of

unlikeness, deceiving.” Thus Wang deliberately leaves out the soft and delicate

facial features of women, but has echoes of a feminine hairstyle, suggesting a vivid

and committed interpretation of Qi’s words. Wang believes that it is more difficult

to make a piece of art that is simple, because tiny flaws will be magnified on such

pieces. “It is like writing a play,” he says. “Sometimes when the story lines are

lacking, singing and dancing will be included to fill the blanks. If a work doesn’t

have creative ideas, it needs gimmicks. Good work is always simple.”

He ridicules art that is devoted to likeness and realism. “A lot of oil paintings are

meticulously made by single brush strokes,” which he says is commerce, not art,

before making a trademark joke. “Once a painter told a potential buyer that ‘one

stroke equals ten dollars. This work is worth several hundred thousand, and you can

count the strokes yourself.”

Although being a lover of Chinese culture and aesthetics, Wang insists that he does

not create ‘Chinese art.’ “I am a Chinese artist,” he says. “But I don’t make Chinese

art, nor contemporary art. One’s art belongs to one’s nation, but the characteristics of

the nation’s art don’t necessarily belong to an individual work. Chinese artists who

make Chinese art are inferior. The good ones make their own art.”

Wang is disappointed that most of Chinese artists graft “Chinese themes” onto

existing western art forms. He believes that most Chinese collectors are still not

very familiar with western art, so they “think everything new is interesting and they

will treat works as heavenly if they have good PR and a good performance in

auction houses.” He believes that media coverage gives people readymade

perceptions, so “they don’t need to think themselves, nor do they need their own

feelings, and the only thing they want to know is which work is covered in the

newspapers or on TV shows.” This is also the reason he rejects attempts to label

his work as “Chinese contemporary art”.

For Wang, good artists must have certain qualities. “They can not be churned

out by the currant ‘Great Leap Forward’ in the art scene,” he says. “It takes decades

and decades to have a handful of good artists emerge. A good artist doesn’t make

a beautiful work, but a unique work. It doesn’t matter what stories one is telling,

the only thing that counts is that it has a unique language and structure.”

Wang’s candor and uninhibited tone is typical for a man who was brought up

in Tianjin, the hometown of Xiangsheng (cross talking show) and a place where

eloquence is prized and common. He is worldly, witty, cynical, and likes to ridicule

convention, which is unsurprising for a man who spent many years working in

television.

Before he become a sculptor, at the age of 30, he had been a screenwriter for

10 years, and had a close relationship with avant-garde poets such as Beidao and

Mangke. He also starred in the TV series Jinding Mountain. When his name first

appeared in the New York Times in 1979, he had only been making wood

sculptures for half a year. He gradually stepped from the literary world into the art

world, but the mocking innuendo that he developed as a trademark when he was

a screenwriter remains in his sculpture, although he is fully aware of the animosity

he can sometimes provoke. It’s the price he pays for being different.

“In the history of sculpture, my work is unique,” he says. “And it could not be

imitated in the future because a lot of my ideas were influenced by the wood I was

working on and my state of mind. Besides, it took me many years of groping in the

dark before I could handle wood in a way that satisfied me.”

Wang values and respects the works of other artists, such as Matisse and

Picasso but they do not intimidate him. “After I moved to France, I went to see the

works of many masters, but unlike a lot of other artists, the experience did not

leave me with less confidence,” he says. “I always feel that my works are in tune

with theirs, although I am different – that is the most important thing. I have my

own style and language, and it can be called unique, although frequently when I

saw a master’s works, I was amazed, thinking how much we are alike.”

Picasso was good at depicting women, and many of them were his lovers. His

affairs inspired many paintings, including Seated Woman in a Armchair for his first

wife Fernande Olivier, Portrait of Olga in an Armchair for the actress Olga

Khokhlova, Bather with Beach Ball for Marie-Thérèse Walter, Portrait of Dora Maar for the photographer, La Femme-fleur for Françoise Gilot, Portrait of Jacqueline Roque with Flowers for his second wife with whom Picasso spent the last two

decades of his life.

By contrast, where do Wang’s inspirations come from? Does he look at women

on the street and find his models there?”

Wang replies, “I don’t observe women on the street because I was brought up

not to. If a cute girl comes by, boys usually pretend not to see her at first. When

speaking to her, he should not look in her eyes but at the sky. After she is gone, he

needs to look around and see if he has been caught talking to a pretty girl. That’s

how I was brought up. Now I don’t observe much because you know, the less one

sees, the less one is distracted. For making sculptures, one needs experience,

imagination and you must take into account the wood’s characteristics.”

To Wang, wood is like a human being, having tender parts, hard parts, solid

parts and fragile parts but he differs from most traditional Chinese wood carving

masters who tended to be in love with either extravagant red sandalwood, ivory

like boxwood or beautifully grained Huanghuali rosewood. Wang has no preference

on the variety of the wood but rather seeks out raw materials with character. He

likes joints, knobs, knots, and other small protuberances or imperfections because

the joints are the strongest part of a tree and the peculiar shapes they form bring

him infinite inspiration. In France, he usually asks gardeners and foresters for help,

“I drive to look for wood, not knowing what I will bring home. Maybe there is

nothing at the end of the day, or maybe there is so much that it cannot all be

brought back. Everyday is like a gamble.”

If life is a gamble for Wang, it seems that luck is often on his side. His incipient

bond with wood was formed by accident. His favorite painter Matisse was

admitted to hospital at the age of 21 for an appendectomy. His mother bought

some brushes and paints for him to kill time while convalescing and Matisse

discovered in painting “a kind of paradise” as he later described it, and set out

to become an artist. For Wang, his starting point was a firewood shop below his

apartment in Beijing.

Wang recalls, “At that time, people still used a lot of coal in their homes, and

the government gave a certain amount of coal as well as logs to each region based

on the population. A bunch of old ladies usually sat on a small stool to chop logs.

But they could not tackle tough parts like the warts and joints.”

“There are no noses, or eyes, but one can tell it is a woman’s head. By

catching the spirit, things can be alike.”

THIS PAGe: WANG CREATING A VERSION OF HIS UNTITLED WORK 23-WK12 (2010)ABOVe: UNTITLED WORK 7-WK12 BY WANG (2004)BeLOW: MADAME BUTTERFLY BY WANG (2000)

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He uses one hand to simulate the tree joint, with the other hand pointing to the

bottom of his fingers. “This part is very tough, and the grains are in circles,” he

says. “The old ladies would complain, ‘why give me the wart again.’” He imitates

the grumbling of an elderly woman. The vividness of his old Peking accent

transformed the Chancery Lane gallery into a Beijing Hutong. The voice-over

comes in, “Because they were assigned many tree joints, they were not happy and

put the tough parts aside. I passed by the castoffs everyday because nobody cared

to move them. So I started to take notice, and realised that they could be useful. I

started to ask, ‘Can I take them?’ Wang put on the face of a disgruntled old lady,

and swings his hands as if to shake off something, saying ‘of course, the sooner

the better’. They were happy for me to take the castoffs away because if the

foreman saw them, he would be angry about the waste. Latter I used to exchange

some thank-you gifts for the castoffs. It was a destiny that the wood was brought

to my doorstep.”

As he spent more time with the wood, he found out that “...wood is able to

inspire because they have different shapes, and each part of a same piece also

varies although they appear to have no differences. It poses problems as well as

inspiring me. Once I got used to carving wood, it started to be infused with my

personality and that became my style.”

While speaking, he stands up to show what the sculptures were like when they

were just wood, waiting to become art. He walks toward one with the appearance

of tressed hair and says, “The tressed hair was a tree hole, so it is easy to make the

hair curl like this. If the curl was manmade, it would have been broken.”

Wang picked up a half a metre tall sculpture by its head, which looks tenuously

connected to the body, then said with pride, “It won’t break because it was

originally a big joint, which means it is the strongest part although it looks barely

connected.”

When Wang talks about his works, it seems like he doesn’t want to miss any,

patting this one, stroking that one, as if to say his last good-bys. Because two hours

latter, these sculptures would be showcased to the public for the first time, bought

by collectors and taken away. “Have a look while you can,” he says, but he seems

to be talking wistfully to himself.

wAnG kEPInG In hIS Own wOrDSWHY ARe THeRe MORe SCULPTUReS OF WOMeN THAN MeN IN YOUR WORK?In the history of sculptures, the female form has been the most important theme. In terms of the creating process, a woman’s form consists of a head, two breasts, then a stomach – it’s very rhythmic. A man’s form lacks this. So it is much easier to make a beautiful female figure. A man’s figure is often thought to be beastly and ugly, and it is more difficult to make an interesting male sculpture. In terms of galleries, most of them like to exhibit female figures, buy female figures, and even women like to place a female figure at home. Women in life are usually associated with kindness and charm, and men with power and vulgarity.

WHY ARe THeRe PeOPLe SAYING YOUR WORK IS INFLUeNCeD BY AFRICAN ART?My sculptures are dark and made of wood, so a lot of people have the impression that my work is derived from African. But they are different to the eyes of people who know both of them well. Some people who don’t know art very well used to say to me, “Aha, your work has African style.” I didn’t bother to reject this, but just said, “okay, okay.” Do you know what I mean? They are totally different. But I take great interest in the origins of Primitive Art, not just in African art.

THe LOWeR PART OF YOUR WORKS IS MAINLY CYLINDRICAL. IT THIS FOR SIMPLICITY’S SAKe?It saves trouble this way because that is what wood looks like originally. Although there is no legs or feet, you can tell that the figure is a complete woman figure. It is the same reason that I left out the nose, eyes, arms and hands. It would be so vulgar if the figure has all these details. It is simply an extract of a woman’s form, and shows it in a more conspicuous way.

HAVe YOU DISCOVeReD ANY NeW MATeRIALS TO WORK WITH?Last year I made a number of empty iron boxes with a slit in the shape of a mouth on each one. They have the size of a brick, and can be heaped as walls or floors, presenting infinite possibilities. They are abstract and can be associated with human beings, or otherwise. The boxes can be welded together for pillars, building, paving. I name them Eternal Smile – which I think is very auspicious.

“The less one sees, the less one is distracted.”

OPPOSITe PAGe ABOVe: UNTITLED WORK 23-WK12 BY WANG (2010)OPPOSITe PAGe BeLOW: THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

ABOVe: DESIRE BY WANG (2008)BeLOW: UNTITLED WORK 6-WK12 BY WANG (2011)