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M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Hu Qingyan
Hu Qingyan 胡慶雁
The Story of Imitation 模仿的故事
2008–2010
This installation consists of a series of photographs, a video, and marble fragments. The photographs and the video document the artist sculpting objects. Starting as a marble block, each object is sculpted into smaller objects, such as a box, a bone, a bar of soap, and a die. The photographs show each sculpted object with the original. The final object, a soybean, is eventually ground into powder. The marble chips from each carving are gathered and placed on a table in the installation. The transformation of material is a key theme in Hu Qingyan’s sculptural work, which also incorporates performance and video. Made over a two-year period, this work was a reaction to the trend amongst Chinese artists of making increasingly large sculptures that require huge spaces to be displayed. The work also reflects Hu’s interest in exploring the ambiguous nature of the copy by simultaneously moving towards and away from the original object. Hu further examines these themes of transformation and reproduction in his later sculptures in clay and wood.
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