Wang Keping article in Quintessentially -iWinter 2013 Issue

ACCESSING THE INACCESSIBLE • WINTER 2013

ASIA

QUINTESSENTIALLY WORSHIPl 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

QUINTESSENTIALLY

WORSHIP

root & BRANCH The Tianjin-RAISED artist Wang Keping has been changing the face of contemporary sculpture for over 30 years with works that capture in wood a rare combination 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

50

51

QUINTESSENTIALLY

WORSHIP

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)

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 governmentapproved 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.”

52

53

QUINTESSENTIALLY

WORSHIP

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

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)

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

54

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

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.”

55

QUINTESSENTIALLY

WORSHIP

Wang Keping in his own words Why 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)

56

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.

57