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Menshen

2021, Sculpture, Plaster, Concrete, Size 30 x 30 x 170 cm (Each)

Installation view at Gallery 4B103, Shanghai as part of the exhibition ‘Drives’, 2021

     Reimagining traditional Chinese threshold guardians1, the installation presents Menshen through sculptures inspired by ancient stone steles and brick walls from Han Dynasty tombs. Changes in the presentation of Menshen’s characters and costumes reflect shifts in historical traditions over thousands of years. Here, the broken, repetitive, and elongated image of Menshen symbolizes historical rupture and the deterritorialization of history and culture by mass media in a postmodern society.

     Each historical rupture retroactively changes the meaning of history by transforming interpretation of the past.2 Menshen (2021) serves as a conduit, citing broad historical narratives with personal, imaginative ones. Through these sculptures, cultural memory merges with individual perception, shifting away from fixed historical interpretations toward a dialectical standstill. 

1  Or, Menshen, which symbolize protection and appear widely on doors in China. 

2  Zizek, Slavoj. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso. 

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Details of Menshen (2021)

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Details of Menshen (2021)

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