PI LI:
I’m Pi Li, a member of the curatorial team for the exhibition M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story.
When I first saw Wang Jin’s My Bones, I was blown away by the gigantic scale of this installation. Each bone has a height of over two metres. That’s much taller than the average height of a human. The bones actually feel rough and grainy—the white porcelain isn’t as smooth as you might think. So, at first glance, you may have the illusion that they’re some kind of weird-looking fossils.
NARRATOR:
These gigantic white porcelain bones were all completed by Wang Jin, all by himself. We’ve invited Pi Li to talk about the manual labour that the artist invested in creating the work and to share his thoughts on the meaning of the bones.
PI LI:
To create these huge masses of pottery, the artist had to shape the clay, apply the glaze, and fire them in a kiln. Given that each bone is over two metres tall, you can imagine the intensive labour of this process. Fundamentally, that’s what an artist is all about—getting their hands dirty by doing all the physical work.
The artist was trying to say that these bones belonged to him, like a manifestation of his body. But at the same time, the imagery of the bones was related to death. They provided a striking contrast to the wave of enthusiasm hitting China around the year 2000, when the country had won the bids to host the Olympic Games and the World Expo and everyone was celebrating the beginning of a new millennium.
I don’t think contemporary art is all about showing the best side of the times we’re living through. In many instances, it allows us to recognise the societal crises that lie beneath the shiny veneer of prosperity, or remind us of the things we need to reflect on. I think this is one of the fundamental roles of contemporary art.
