B.1963, Yumen, Gansu, China
Zhuang Hui is a multifaceted conceptual artist whose main activities include performance, sculptural installation and photography.
Born in Gansu Province, he attributes his early interest in art to his father, who was an itinerant studio photographer. Performance is an important part of Zhuang Hui’s work, although often it does not take place in front of the public but is fundamental part of his work and its realisation. Zhuang’s best known works include impressive installations and a series of large-scale portraits of groups of workers made with a party camera that allows very long formats.
Zhuang Hui has always been deeply motivated by humanistic as well as aesthetic concerns. While his work spans a wide range of materials and approaches, almost all his works tell us about real events and places. At the core of his work is the direct experience of the political ideals that underlie the era in which we live and which are slowly unraveling in the face of modernity.
Qilian Range – 11
2015
Inkjet color print
30 pieces: 88 x 110 cm each; 34,6 x 43,3 inch
Ed. 3 + 1 AP
Most of the works contained in the series ‘Qilian Range’ resulted from his trips to the Qilian Mountains and were made between 2014 and 2016. ‘Qilian Range - 11’ can be understood as a microcosm of Zhuang’s experiences in the mountains. A group of 30 photographs of mountain peaks silhouetted against vivid monochrome skies make up Qilian Range – 11. For each of the 30 images, the unnatural color of the sky has been selected to bring out the particular texture and color of the landscape photographed, creating a complementary clash between artist and nature.
Qilian Range – 16
2016
Pigment drawing
5 pieces 77 x 107 cm each; 30,3 x 42 inch each
2 pieces 77 x 214 each; 30,3 x 84,2 inch each
unique work
‘Qilian Range - 16’ is a personal homage to the strange indigenous culture of the region. Temple murals that he visited showed people and mountains of equal dimension, with people straddling mountain ranges as if sitting on a chair, or emerging out of a mountain like getting out of bed. The people of Qilian mountains have a symbiotic relationship with their landscape to the extent that they have become indistinguishable from it, becoming a part of it. Zhuang has painted these murals using pastels on handmade paper, inserting his own image into their compositions, almost like one of his childhood dreams come to life.
Leftover material from the Carpenters
2009
resin, acrylic
variable dimension
unique work
“Leftover material from the Carpenters” is what I saw in a carpentry room where woodworkers had cut off all the useful plates and discarded some of the remaining strangely shaped wastes. When you pick up these wooden blocks and make them 5 times with a sculpture, you suddenly find that it is also a shape, which forms a space by itself. We originally could not see this invisible space, it was ignored. As all our energies are now focused on how to solve the problem, the wider space that we cannot see is discarded by us.
Qilian Range – 04
2014
Single-channel, silent color video
10’23’’
Ed. 5 + 1 AP
"Qilian Range - 04" shows Zhuang performing the act of ‘drawing from nature’ or perhaps ‘drawing nature’ itself. He is shown with his back to the camera during summer. Nature has been Chinese artists’ primary model throughout its art history, but Chinese artists never painted directly from nature. Zhuang Hui’s painting performance emphasizes the predicament he faces as a Chinese artist making contemporary art. On the one hand he wants to establish a elationship with the landscape of his childhood in order to connect with a fundamentally Chinese idea of what it means to be an artist. But on the other hand that tradition has been lying dormant for nearly a century, buried deep beneath a complex history of cultural interaction.
