Myself, I Long for Love and Light, installation, magazines, wire, cinder blocks, dimensions variable, 2010我, 渴望爱与光明 装置, 杂志, 铁丝, 石灰渣, 尺寸依据现场而定, 2010
Myself, I Long for Love and Light
installation, magazines, wire, cinder blocks, dimensions variable, 2010
Q: What is the title of the work?
A: “Myself, I Long for Love and Light,” as all the works in this series, this vase has a title taken from the lyrics of a pop-song. I chose this title because it reinforces the content of the Chinese erotic magazines I used to make the paper flowers with. The naked girls are hidden in the creases of the folded paper, as if they shun the light. And of course, for paper flowers there is no vital need for light, on the contrary it might bleach the images over time.
Q: For the first time in the series of vases, colored paint is applied on the cinder blocks.
A: I painted the cinderblocks before sculpting the vase. The paint was in my studio as a leftover of my partner’s paintings. Painting the blocks first was a way to emphasize their architectural qualities. The blocks become more clearly marked in space and the idea that works could somehow color match made me smile. The colors were not chosen by me, they happened to be in my studio, in a similar way as most things in our environment are beyond an individual’s control. By sculpting the blocks, most of the paint disappeared again.
Q: The first time the vases where shown was in a similar context, in a group show in a gallery in Brussels, Belgium. Back then, in October 2007, the works were conceived as site-related works. What about this work in this gallery context?
A: When I first showed the vases I was thinking a lot about the relation of my work to the existing space. The gallery in Brussels was an old Bourgeois house transformed into a white cube. I placed my works on the original marble chimneys and on the gallerist’s table or desk; those places in the gallery that pointed to its former use.
It is not clear yet how exactly I will show the vase in OV Gallery but it is certain that the images of the Chinese ladies on the origami flowers are more exotic for the Western visitor and more immediate identifiable for the Asian visitor.
Q: The vase with the flowers refers to construction and decoration at the same time - a house in a state of ‘becoming’ and ‘being’ simultaneously.
A: It could be seen as a combination of the masculine and the feminine. The cinderblocks are modern, repetitive, manufactured to construct interior walls with but are now shaped as a decorative object. The origami flowers are made of magazines to please the masculine senses but folded in a way that reminds us today of handy craft and thus a female pass time.
Q: What is the source of the magazines of which the flowers are made?
A: I bought the magazines in newspaper stands in Shanghai and on Chinese websites. The content is erotic. I was told that they are officially sold as material to study the naked body for artists, which is a direct reference to a western tradition in Art.
