He is one of the iconic contemporary Chinese artists in the global art scene, who considers "the surface is everything."

Zhan Wang’s artworks address complex issues with simple materials and forms. The curator, Fumio Nanjo, comments that "his creative process is often serendipitous.” His ongoing interest is to explore the possibility of highly integrate ideas to sculpture, placing the viewer in an intellectual game that searches for the balance between the worlds of fun, intellect, and senses. Zhan Wang’s work surprises the viewer without providing any clear answers. He is one of the few artists who work independently within the framework of one's own artistic issues and insists on discovering an illuminating and conceptual relationship between materials and techniques.

Since the early 1990s, Zhan Wang began to observe his life in the immediate urban environment. Underground, created in 1990, envisages a future in which highly intelligent beings seek human existence by excavating the earth’s strata in the city. Therefore, for Zhan Wang, the city is a sum of all human activities, and the perspective through which to understand them exceeds the dimension of the earth.

Zhan Wang’s "Artificial Rocks" series, which he began producing in 1995, has become the artist's iconic work. The sculptures' stainless steel surfaces reflect a distorted reality in real-time, making each view a unique and personal experience. These works are placed in various public spaces such as ponds, lawns, or office buildings, reshaping the viewer's visual memory of traditional art iconography in modern society while suggesting a cultural place for tradition in the modern age.

In the 21st century, Zhan Wang’s practice shifted to investigating the global urban landscape and urban life. The reflection of stainless steel is no longer limited to communications between a work of art and people but also reflects the changes of the metropolis. His "Urban Landscape" series assembles stainless steel kitchenware and cutlery into impressions of Beijing, London, and other iconic cities worldwide. It explores the symbiotic relationship between cities and individuals, urban development and natural resource t, and other public issues of the modern era.

In his exhiniton, "My Personal Universe", Zhan Wang attempts to trace the genesis of the universe and present its origin from an artistic point of view. He explodes a boulder in the air and uses a high-speed camera to record that moment. The artist then remolds the 7,000 pieces of rubble he picked up after the explosion in stainless steel and hung them at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. As a means to encapsulate time, the language of sculpture has become the path to search for forms and concepts.

展望

Zhan Wang was born in 1962 in Beijing, China. In 1996 he graduated from the sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and he currently lives and works in Beijing where he teaches sculpture at CAFA. His art uses simple materials to formulate complex assemblages and issues. The experimentation in his art can be compared to a mind game, seeking a balance between amusement, temperament and sensation, bringing viewers surprises and revelations but never clear answers. The “Mao Suit” series was first shown in 1994; the “Artificial Rock” (Jiashanshi) series was produced in 1995; the “My Universe” series was produced in 2010; the “Forms in Flux” series was first shown in 2017; and the “Sensing” series was produced in 2019.