Ouyang Wendong

“A De-materialized Sculpture, Nos 1 and 2,” installation, Chinese eaglewood, sandalwood, Benzoin sand, aluminum, dimensions variable, 2013

After the Enlightenment, people began to question the idea of marble and wood as symbols of immutability. This is a problem that art museums will face in the future and stimulates introspection on the question of the artist as an individual. With this question, Cezanne began to deconstruct painting as a medium; Duchamp used a urinal to raise questions; Boyce directly expressed the inner spirit of sculpture through the vehicle of the human body. And the torrent of creativity unleashed by the minds of creative individuals up until today has resulted in a number of excellent works — especially today with the endless production of surprises. But in this boundless expression, in this “everyone is an artist” era, artists are limited by their own religious sentiments, philosophical ideas, market mechanisms, and so the artist is lost and the public is lost as well.

This is something we must first reflect upon. However, if we regard the current chaos as a product of the long history of contemporary art practice spanning thousands of years, we can liken it to the words of child, in need of correction. Problems will be easily solved, since children eventually will grow up. From Hegel’s “Lectures on Aesthetics” to Danto’s “end of art theory” it all seems like preaching to the choir.

If the root of art is to serve and disturb, or to disturb us and express abstract ideas, then it can only become a “walking corpse” something of negligible value.

To take the “materiality” out of the sculpture or de-materialize it, we weaken the habitual aesthetics of the object in order to learn to different points of view — looking both outward and inward. The only way is for the artist to put down the harness which limits his thoughts and his abilities, and for the public to lay down their reliance on habitual aesthetics — then art can have a powerful effect on every one.