Interview｜He Xiangyu: Turtle, Lion and Bear

2017/3

1. What was the original intention of the exhibition project at Joe Space? What are the new experiments in this exhibition? How do you consider the relationship between the works and the new space in the presentation of the works?

This exhibition can be considered as a continuation of the previous one and a beginning of a new one, while reviewing my own creative lineage. The sketches in this exhibition are the largest of their kind, and they are the origin of art creation, so this is quite a bold move for me. I’ll leave the relationship between the work and the space to the viewers to experience for themselves, so I won’t spoil it for you.

2. Your solo exhibition at White Cube in the first half of 2014 and the exhibition “Imaginary Line” at Blank Space in Beijing in the second half of the year felt rather different.

The characteristics of an exhibition are not my special concern, because it is a natural result. My work is more about how to present the works in an unfamiliar space, so that they can have more meaningful connections and interactions.

3. Most people probably know your first works through the two voluminous works, “Coke Project” and “Tank”. Compared to the period before 2014, your creation in the past two years has been more conceptual, what is the main reason for this contrast?

In my own opinion, the core of creation always starts from the concept, the change or “contrast” in form and appearance is the difference brought by the medium, it is natural to try and explore different mediums in the process of continuous creative practice, but the inner thread of creation is from one to the other.

4. You chose teeth and gold as the main materials for “Tower of Wisdom”, how did you consider them in your creation at that time? Did you have a deeper consideration about the tooth series and why did you choose teeth?

Due to the sensitivity of perception, it was important to me that the works could present a sufficient sense of weight. In my attempts to create the works at that time, I found that the only way to bring a sense of sinking gravity to the works was to use gold – more precisely, the gilding process. I chose the tooth because of the practice of oral project, and because of the spirituality and multi-layered symbolism of the “tower” itself, which is an attempt to establish a connection between the body and the spirit in terms of its function; while the “wisdom tooth” contains The complex imagery contained in the “wisdom tooth” and the meaning it carries, makes it a metaphor and echo with the imagery of the “tower”.

Your sculptural installations are mostly made of bronze, gold, wire, etc., and are very textural. Do you have a particular preference for materials?

I have no particular preference for materials or processes, the choice depends only on the concept itself.

6. “Oral Series” and the paintings about “Lemon Flavored”, I can see that you are not averse to painting either. How do you think about the role of painting in contemporary art, where there is a wide range of media? What does painting mean to you?

Not only do you not reject it, I think it is a very important medium, it is one of the most instinctive means that human beings use to express themselves pictorially, and because of this instinctive nature, you could even say that it is the closest to the idea in a way: just as the creative process usually starts with a sketch, no matter what the medium of the final work is, the idea can be traced back to the sketch in the end.

7. From the earliest “The Coke Project”, which alludes to the consumer society, to 2014 “4850 grams of gold, 62 grams of protein”, which is interpreted as a satire on China’s family planning politics behind the scenes, and 2014 “The Distance Between Two Socks”, which I personally understand as a metaphor for class division. What are the public social topics that you have paid more attention to in the last two years? How do they relate to your creative work?

I have blocked a lot of social media recently, so I haven’t been paying attention to social hotspots on purpose. Of course, living in this society, it’s impossible not to be influenced by it implicitly, but it’s hard for me to comment on myself when I’m in it.

8. You had two solo exhibitions in Japan in 2016, and you brought some of the images you shot and produced with you at that time. In recent years, your video works have been seen in exhibitions. What are the differences between your grasp of this new media technology to produce works and the previous works that were more engineered and required management to complete?

Actually, the process of creating and producing video works also requires management and coordination, which involves a lot of work. The difference between video and other traditional media is that it adds the dimension of time, so it can be extended to more possibilities; moreover, it is linear, and when you intervene from different points in time, it will show different states, which is a very interesting point.

9. It’s refreshing to see that some of your works use yellow as a visual stimulus, and some are also about the visual transmission of the human body’s senses, although they may be minor details outside of your larger thematic works. How do you personally understand these more personal sensual experiences and your own body, and how do bodily sensations stimulate the imagination?

Perception is a basic human physiological function, a capacity that every able-bodied person possesses, but specific perceptions vary from person to person, and it seems to me that this universal and personal character is the core of perception – no experience is completely universal, but no experience is absolutely private either. Everyone more or less “shares” the perceptual experience with others.

Are there any projects in the works of art that you can reveal in advance?
There are a lot of experiments to be done, and I will continue with the current mediums while trying new ones. Sense and perception will continue to be my main focus.