Zhan Wang

Zhan Wang (born 1962 in Beijing) is a Chinese sculptor.

He wrote in 1966:

This was the emergence of two eras that Zhan Wang thought "formed an interesting juxtaposition".

The concept of the rock or maybe the placing of rocks outside these modern builds lead to the creations of Zhan Wang, which are known as the "artificial rocks".

Zhan's scholar rocks takes the concept of new technologies and cultural traditions for a modern collaboration.

However, he considers these works authentic and depiction of Chinese history in postmodern world.

To create these rocks he applies a pliable sheet of steel over the rocks and then hammers it to reproduce the same surface of the rocks.

Later on, he got a formal art education in 1978 at Beijing Industrial Arts College.

His instructor there was specialized in the Soviet style of sculpture that he primarily what he studied during this time.

Then he went to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1983, where he studied in the Sculpture Department.

It wasn't until after he graduated from the art schools that he then started to get into modern sculptors.

His style concentrates primarily on abstract forms, which he calls floating stones, which are large, highly textured rock-like pieces coated in chrome.

They are also called mountain or scholar's rocks.

"Zhan Wang's career as an iconoclast began with In a Twinkling (1993), an installation of superrealist figurative sculptures. The figures' style was not new, but the method of installation was: after creating a group of figures in poses of arrested movement, he propped them in unlikely positions outside a building, creating a surrealistic vision of a world gone awry," wrote Britta Erickson in Art Journal.

He is known for being a contemporary Chinese sculptor; however, he is also known in other art forms such as installations, photography and video.

His pieces consist of conceptual ideas where he "embraces and subverts several other major traditions in modern art, both Chinese and Euro-American".

Many of his works include the use of simplistic object that serve a purpose of telling a complex idea.

Many of his ideas that are expressed through his works pertain to Chinese culture.

In 1993, he was featured in his first exhibit and since then he has been showcased in over 125 exhibits, 24 of which were solo exhibitions.

Wang refers to the series, which he began creating in 1995, as Artificial Jiashanshi.

Many of Zhan Wang's works concentrate on abstract forms, that go by many names such as floating stones, artificial rocks, or the most famous, scholar rocks.

These are large, highly textured rock-like pieces coated in chrome.

These rocks are also known as Scholar Rocks.

In the Chinese culture, the rock holds a high value; rocks have been thought to possess the purest qi, or vital energy, and collected as objects of art and tools of meditation.

His fascination with the concept of the rock may have led to some of his most famous works or maybe the placement of artificial rocks outside the entrance of modern buildings in China.

It is seen that even though China was going through change in modernizing the world around they still held on to parts of the traditional culture.

Artificial Rock #99 (2006), like a number of other pieces on view, brings to mind the more abstract work of Henry Moore (1898–1986) or even Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975).

But the mirror finish of Wang's rock sculptures gives them a mercurial, shape-shifting look that brings them closer than Moore ever came to the sort of indeterminate form the surrealists wanted.

Closer also to the hood ornament look of boastful luxury that Jeff Koons seeks when he casts work in stainless steel," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle's Kenneth Baker in a review of the exhibit. "To underline the oddity of these contradictory qualities, and the colliding histories they evoke, Wang has a traditional wooden stand fabricated for each of his table-top rock pieces."

The project started in December 2010 and wasn't finished until its revealing in January 2012.

The concept that he had for this installation was to try to recreate the beginning of his universe through the explosion of this single rock and about "removing the boundary of time and showcasing power in its most primitive form".

Though Wang was the artist behind the project he had help.

Many steps were taken to get the end results.

The process in which he took resulted in the use of a camera crew of 32, six high-speed cameras that took 2,000 frames per second, an explosion technician, dynamite, one rock, picking up of 7,000 pieces, recreating each piece out of stainless steel, rearranging them in the pattern in which they landed, and the amount of time it took to reassemble "his universe".

The cost exceeded $63,000; that alone was the price to rent cameras for the project.

However, Louis Vuitton supported the project.

In return, he was able to create "My Universe – The Beginning".

His last exhibition was "My Personal Universe" in 2012.

As a child, he was interested in art.

"My Personal Universe" is a 2012 exhibition done by Zhan Wang.