VIP Day: 2016.4.30
Public Days: 2016.5.1 - 3
Grey Bricks – the symbol of the ancient Chinese agricultural society, the material with which Emperor Qin built The Great Wall Red Bricks – the building material that the post 1949 Communist China used during the Great Leap Forward vehemently; and the Concrete – the inexpensive material that became widely used in construction in the Industrial Age. These three materials, representative of three different eras of Chinese history, have now been transformed into the artistic medium of the young, contemporary artist Dai Yun for his sculpture.
Born in the seventies in the ancient city of Xi’an, Dai Yun moved to Shenzhen, the first Special Economic Zone in China in 2000. Deeply fascinated by the ancient durable bricks and tiles dated back to Qin Dynasty in his hometown yet living in a hustling and bustling city populated with concrete high-rise, Dai Yun witnessed the changes in the country and gradually found his individual artistic language. He uses grey and red bricks in a brand new way to create his sculptural works. No matter they are classical figures or vessels and daily objects, the rough texture and cracks of the bricks give the detailed sculptures rich historical flavours, bringing to the audience some novel insights to the relations of men and their own history.
“I am particularly interested the bricks and tiles making during the Qin and Han Dynasties. Handmade from clay, these durable bricks contain the charm of simplicity and are a great medium for expressions. By using bricks - the basic building materials in the agricultural society, to express the urban life and features in modern China gives the works fascinating visual tension between medium and image. I like the mass-produced pots and pans in the commercialised world today, yet the plague of our materialistic world make me treasure even more the simple society in the ancient times. Here, I use bricks as my medium for the sculptures again”, said Dai Yun
