Heavy Artillery

A metric ton of fake marble. Two tons of leather. Three tons of compressed paper. Five thousand porcelain leaves, 10,000 identical books, 130,000 minute photographs, 600,000 painted dots. In these artworks, mass and scale are as important as media. Gigantic statues of Mao erected in the 1960s still dominate town squares all over China. But for contemporary artists, monumentalism is a way to express new realities and new ideas. It reflects confidence and ambition, a sense of China’s rising power, and the desire to make a mark. As photographer Guo Jian puts it: “I wanted my picture to be huge to have an impact.”

Artists go big to grab the attention of fickle audiences and position themselves in a crowded marketplace. They also do it to convey large ideas, about life and death, technology and nature, change and eternity. In China they have an additional reason. Contemporary art is a Western import, and many Chinese artists name European and American masters as their greatest influences. Now, mixing what they have learned from the West with China’s classical culture and crazy commercial zeitgeist, the former students are taking contemporary art in bold new directions. Whether they enlist computers and teams of low-cost workers or rely on their own patient skill, they are making works as hefty as their nation’s profile, and as hard to ignore. Their creations may embrace, confront, intrigue or enthral, but all are intended to stop viewers in their tracks.