© Gibbs Farm 2013
Inspired by monumental office block sculptures in Beijing and feng shui landscape gardening traditions, Wang’s scholar’s rock is an enlargement of the so called 'Chinese miniature landscape.' In the past, people would search for an idealistic world of immortals within these miniature landscapes. Aside from using the industrial material of stainless steel to create a hollow mountain, the work retains the image of an ephemeral floating island of immortals.
In this case the artist has created a scaled up copy of a miniature rock, but often he fabricates his sculptures by moulding the flat steel over a natural rock formation and then extracting the rock.
Zhan Wang was born in Beijing, China in 1962 and studied at the Beijing Industrial Arts College and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Practicing for more than 25 years, Wang has exhibited internationally since 1996; and since 2000 he has presented numerous solo exhibitions including at
Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, National Museum of China, Beijing, The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and projects in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Lingshan Island Jiaonan City, Shandong Province, China. His work was also selected for the 2009-2011 Vancouver Biennale, Canada;
the 3rd and 6th Shanghai Biennales in 2001 and 2006; and the 50th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2003.

www.zhanwangart.com
Floating Island of Immortals
2006
Stainless steel
4.8m x 8.6m

Zhan Wang

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