ARTpiece | 李鴻韋的“平衡的寓言”系列

Working at the intersection of tradition and innovation as he juxtaposes Eastern and Western aesthetics, Li Hongwei expands the parameters of sculpture by introducing the vessels he makes, as a superlatively gifted master of an ancient form of glazed pottery, into the realm of abstraction. By combining baked clay with stainless steel in his sculptures, Li Hongwei joins fragility to solidity. The former medium transformed civilizations around the world before the beginning of history, while the latter medium has ties to industry, construction, and modernism.

 

 

When glazes containing crystals are applied by Li Hongwei onto his vases before firing, and then the temperature in the oven is suddenly dropped by opening the hatch, effloresces appear on the surface of the pots, adding immense visual richness to these. In three bodies of Hongwei's work, the vessels are carefully sawn into, at one or both ends of the pot with either a straight or wavy, curvilinear cut. The removed parts are then restored-as it were-with new, stainless-steel pieces fashioned by hand, sealing off the hollow body, which was originally open at the top. 

 

The act of removing and replacing could hardly be made more explicit, as not only is there an abrupt, collage-like transition between materials (one brittle, the other hard) and processes (modeling, glazing, and firing versus hammering, soldering, and polishing), but there is also a sudden shift from polychromy and pattern to silvery monochromy. The latter is broken as we, the viewers, approach the metal, see ourselves and our environment reflected in the shiny surface, and witness something even beyond the object's skin that dissolves its integrity. 

 

Constantin Brancusi-one of the founding fathers of an entirely autonomous form of abstract sculpture (independent, that is, from the architecture to which it was traditionally attached), and an artist who exploited the tensions obtained by juxtaposing materials and processes-introduced shininess and mirroring effects in many of his works. Jeff Koons brought porcelain and luster back to Western sculpture, and Wim Delvoye embraced both the patterns of Delftware and the gleam of stainless-steel in several of his series of sculptures. Li Hongwei inscribes himself within this fascinating line of avant-garde practice, as he breaks new ground and-by doing so-expands the field of sculpture. 

 

 

Despite the efforts in the West of the likes of Pablo Picasso, Robert Arneson, Betty Woodman, Anthony Caro, and Peter Voulkos, and despite its deep impact upon generations of sculptors, clay-with its ties to craft and the so-called minor arts-remains marginalized within the world of modernist sculpture. Li Hongwei's work offers a strong argument in favor of clay, ornament, color, and the morphology of vases, as both visually and conceptually enrichening forces with the realm of sculpture.  

 

The works belonging to the "Allegory of Balance" series are surprising, playful, and exhilarating. Here, different bodies of porcelain covered with variously colored glazes are forced to "cohabit" (a term deliberately borrowed from the political landscape of 1980's France). Both there and here, the resulting tensions, compromises, balancing acts, deceptions, pyrotechnics, and tricks can be highly entertaining. The combinations of abstract biomorphic forms in this series have more than a little in common with certain works produced by Surrealist artists (card-carrying members of the group, or not) including Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, and Isamu Noguchi. Unlike Miró however, Li Hongwei does not use chance procedures to arrive at his compositions. Instead, he embraces the rigorous self-discipline of the Chinese calligrapher, or potter, who repeats the same actions over and over again and in so doing arrives at a meditative state. 

 

 

Allegory of Balance #11 (2016) evokes the type of unexpected formations that water, wind, and particles are able to carve out of rock or wood. As elsewhere in this series that bodies are built up of distinct parts stacked one on top of the other, the verticality of these bodies evokes two standing figures, with a person seated in between them. The engineering behind this type of composition heightens our sense of wonder, as the supporting structure is hidden within the hollow forms.