Art Review: Huang Yong Ping "From C to P"

Perhaps it's appropriate for the Lunar New Year that a thought-provoking new show of Huang Yong Ping's work has opened at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Once again this Xiamen-born artist cleverly incorporates Western and Eastern motifs in this exhibit "From C to P"—"C" as in Coliseum of Rome and "P" as in Pentagon. Ingenious room-size models of both of these monumental buildings feature all manner of plants gracefully potted within their interiors as well as erupting from the edifices. Thus, these world-historical centers of state violence are mollified or even tamed through foliage. They recall the classic mid-18th century etchings of Piranesi, wherein trees and foliage spring forth from ruined edifices. A testament to the classic term coined by Spinoza, natura naturans, Huang Yong Ping here depicts changing identity when nature takes over after the violence of man. For the cracked and decayed exteriors of this Coliseum and Pentagon further evoke their transmutation through random growth of flora—think of that trip up the river in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, "when vegetation rioted on earth and the big trees were kings." Or think perhaps of that famous tree precariously growing from a temple at Cambodia's Angkor Wat, the colossal growth of which became possible in part by benign neglect and nature's overpowering forces at the massive temple complex.

In contrast, the intriguing set of oversize glazed jars that greet the visitor upon entering the Gladstone Gallery explore this theme in a converse manner. Rather than nature erupting from the exteriors, here nature is trapped within interiors. These jars, some four or five feet high, each contain an animal within, and the startling effect of peering inside has multiple effects. A fierce wolf appears ready to jump out of one; a rather sad bovine stares pitifully from within its jar; a steinbock appears trapped in a rather creepy twist of fate, but not of nature; birds and rats permeate one jar, and tiny bats another. And yet from within any other sightlines of the gallery, these pitfalls are completely invisible, and the animals utterly unseen. Meaning? Has Huang Yong Ping mastered Brecht's alienation effect with these jumbled things and heterogeneous themes? Or is he simply the playful virtuoso of the Xiamen Dada group, again creating a masterful illusion some twenty years later?

photo credit: Coliseum (2007). Ceramic, soil and plants; 89 x 217 x 298 1/2 inches (226 x 556 x 758cm).

Tags:   angkor wat, gladstone gallery, huang yong ping, piranesi, spinoza

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Posted on 2/18/2007 ( Permanent Link )
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