Female Self-Presence
Xiang Jing x Zhu Zhu
Water all took a childlike or adolescent point of view, opposing the adult world. There was also an ultra-large piece, Gift (my first oversized piece), which definitely deals with an intrusion from the adult world and uses a child’s point of view. This is one of my prototypic works. Later that mood became more moderate in Bang!.I started out with that girl cowering in the corner, her whole body tight with tension, sensing all the intrusions of the outside world. But having sculpted that part, I found that the mood was not as extreme as I had imagined, and to continue in that vein would have looked contrived. This gave rise to a girl miming with an imaginary gun, grinning and pretending to shoot the girl cowering in the corner. The closed-off world of one individual was decoded in a mood of playfulness.
Later while preparing for the Keep in Silence series I did the Virgin series, of which Virgin in White was the first piece. After that I made several other virgins. The idea of the virgins was an extension of my steadfast adherence to what is pure. I treated this as a source of power which could be turned toward the antithesis which I was establishing. Of course this theme was also dissipated in the process of execution, and I added various figures such as a pregnant woman, children, homosexuals, a policeman, and old lady. These became a small crowd, a crowd showing the makeup of society. But I had regrets over this set of figures. It was a theme that had to be shown means of quantity, but I did not have time to complete a large enough crowd of figures. Ideas for other pieces were continually popping up in my mind, so this theme was not given adequate treatment, and I had to put it aside. But putting it aside most likely meant that I would not resume it.
Sculpting is too slow, so while I work on a project, my ideas keep changing. In the exhibit called “Keep in Silence” I wanted to deal with several ideas. Some of them were made manifest, and some were not. Anyway I can take my time working on them later. If meaning shifts and I miss the right moment for a piece, I won’t force it. In this exhibition there are several pieces about the female body which pack an emotional charge for me: Your Body, And You?, Heaven, Adumbration — for Wu Shuang. Among them, Your Body was a creative milestone for