Excerpt of the interview
Xiang Jing: I planned to make a very much powerful body at that time, with no hidden meanings. The reason to make it as this size is to emphasize, like you will bold a word, or speak with louder voice. With such a big size, it will never be ignored anywhere.
Such power is the feeling of reality in my own experience — woman’s body is looked in this way — we all know that there is little classical art which gave us the aesthetic or attractive feeling of woman’s body. Of course I didn’t mean to adjust other people’s concept of female body. Modern art endures too many concepts, too many meanings and explanations, always concentrating on the metaphysics. However, what I would like to create is only a work embodies nothing, as what you can see. The current age is quite different from the age when I was in my adolescence. It is an age lack of spirit. And this work of mine originates from one of Cui Jian’s lyrics: “this is the shaking of the corrupt soul by the body!” This sentence can be the exact footnote of this sculpture. You see, I have no concept, no thought, I am of low-intelligence, and I am just a labor, but, I managed to create such a big body, a body with simpleness and frankness. It is such a shock!
I always feel that there is something undone somewhere, and I have to force myself going forward. What we artists insist is the pursuit of the enriched soul, and the others are of no importance. The greatest and the most excellent artists are not those who are highly talented and not those who are showy and striking as what we thought at the green age. The greatest artists are those who have the great endurance, able to go on with all difficulties, always as tense as the ready bows. If you want to be an artist the whole life, you should know how to grow up, and how to become a completely determined and absolutely self-conscious person. When you finally have this absolute status, you can do anything, and nothing will be the obstacle ahead of you. To get this status, you need to keep going on and on through difficulties.
You Yong: In most of these sculptures you seem to try a new way of coloration which makes the surface of your sculptures as bright as the glossiness of human skin.