Wang Ling, Sun Wenjia: A Process Concerning Objects and Time
Return to the Void and Enter the Whole Yuan Museum 2021-06-26 11:00
"Returning to the void and entering the murky" is a dual exhibition by Wang Ling and Sun Wenjia, exploring the process of objects and time, passing through things to 'see' the layered echoes of civilisation's past and future.
Wang Ling
Human civilisation began by the rivers, forming cultural river veins that converge from all directions and flow together into the sea, appearing like the twinkling Milky Way in the sky, making the world both cultured and enlightened. The reason why the land of abundance, where Wang Ling from Chengdu resides, is called a land of abundance is its "capacity". In Sichuan, over fifty ethnic groups live together, with the perilous mountains and rivers of Sichuan and Tibet connected, leaving traces of millennia-old civilisation. This vast living fossil of civilisation is the destination he travels to for research throughout the year.
Sun Wenjia
The climate of Fujian is the proper place for producing lacquer, yet the ideas seen in the works of this young Fujian artist are somewhat 'unorthodox'. In ancient times, Fujian was a territory of the Yue people. The ancient Yue were skilled in navigating boats and rafts and had the custom of 'cutting hair and tattooing'. In fact, in the water regions of the ancient world, this practice reflected a simple religious belief. Cutting the hair represented water and tattooing symbolised personal spiritual symbols, intended to ward off spirits in the water, thus the underwater world was also clear and orderly. At the centre of this exhibition hall, Wen Jia has installed a pool filled with water from the Min River of her hometown in Fujian. Lacquer installations float on the water's surface, resembling the bodies of ancient Yue people gliding through the river, drifting in a haze with no clear destination.
China was the earliest country to use lacquer. From an archaeological perspective, lacquer bows unearthed at the Kuahuqiao site in Zhejiang date back more than eight thousand years, making them the oldest existing lacquer products. The often-mentioned 'useless' Zhuangzi discusses the philosophy of 'usefulness' in "On Human Life," stating, 'Osmanthus can be eaten, so it is cut; lacquer can be used, so it is harvested.' What is harvested is naturally the lacquer tree, cut into a V-shape, from which raw lacquer flows. This vivid V-shape is hidden within the character for 'lacquer' and is also the source of the pictographic character for lacquer.
Lacquer comes from trees and forms the base, then layers of lacquer are applied, some having the 'vitality' of life. Newly completed lacquer work is as lustrous as a baby's skin, and the lacquer layers gradually 'awaken' through different environments and human contact, becoming mellow and smooth like jade; this jade-like quality embodies the 'restraint' of traditional Chinese philosophy. This material characteristic allows lacquer work to grow together with time and people, giving a sensation truly akin to jade.
The vessels in this exhibition are visually more like installations. Clearly, Wen Jia is doing something beyond traditional lacquerware with his use of lacquer. Lacquerware from the Han and Warring States periods represents an early peak, with lines imbued with a sense of gilding in gold and silver, curving upwards and floating in the air, possessing an absolute divine ascent. In Wen Jia's works, the textures of the vessel bodies contain an indescribable sense of air flow, with slightly square shapes that are rounded off, exuding a sense of ambiguity. Eastern, particularly Chinese, cultural practices have always emphasised this ambiguity; it is through the uncertainty and multi-layered meanings of Chinese that Chan Buddhism emerged. Chan has an extreme form of 'ambiguity', guiding the openness of concepts, which is essentially the philosophical peak of the Song dynasty. Works on Chan from the Song, such as "The Blue Cliff Record" and "The Essential Sayings of the Five Lamps", begin by asking about the intention of the ancestor's coming from the West, offering one interpretation after another, each one breaking and extending the previous meaning, thus allowing enduring reflection and personal interpretation. Chan represents the individual's freedom in the present moment.
The famous saying in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 'The limits of my language mean the limits of my world'. Similarly, the part of visual arts that can transcend language is that layer of the ineffable 'blood' beneath the 'skin of language', just as the concrete form of artistic language serves to describe the indescribable aspects of language.
Mr Song Tao, curator of the Yuan Museum, invites two authors with different appearances to generate meaning in this 'dialogue' in the same space, and everyone is invited to join and listen to this rare opportunity.
Critic Profile
Huang Hankan
Professional artist, currently living and working in Shanghai, China, and Paris, France. Graduated from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’ARTS Paris-Cergy in France with a National Diploma in Visual Arts (DNAP). Has held exhibitions in China, the United States, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, among other places, and has written art criticism for media such as LEAP Art Journal, Artforum, and Phoenix Art.