Artificial Garden Rock #91

Artificial Garden Rock #91 (2006) by Zhan Wang

Stainless steel, ed 3/4, 50cm x 50cm x 38cm

Collector: Susan Acret

I bought this work from a charity auction for Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, in 2008. Zhan Wang is well-known for his stainless steel ‘rocks’, which take their inspiration from natural rocks, including the scholar rock and meteorites, among other natural rocks. The scholar rock, found in traditional gardens in China, serves as an object of meditation, contemplation, and beauty.

Zhan transforms these rocks from solid, natural objects into hollow, dazzling ones by hammering stainless steel on the various surfaces of the rock to imitate its character, before soldiering together the pieces of stainless steel to create a cast of the original. The highly reflective but uneven surfaces give a distorted version of the environment the sculptures are placed in, somewhat subversively altering the traditional scholar rock’s role as a faithful representation of beauty in the natural world. Zhan has said that his work explores the concept of artificiality, and we can see this in the images these works reflect back to us, which provoke questions about what is ‘real’ and what is our perception.

Susan Acret

(Susan Acret is a writer, editor, advisor and collector with particular expertise in the field of contemporary art of the Asia-Pacific region.)