Finally, I found a mind-blowing artist to cover who will actually be showing in my city this month! Don’t get me wrong, LA has amazing art shows happening all the time, but it seems like every time I find someone I really want to see, they are showing in London or SF or somewhere I have no hope of getting to in the near future. But Zhang Huan, whose sculpture has been shown at the Met, LACMA and the Vancouver Art Gallery among many, many other prestigious galleries worldwide, will be opening his new exhibition, 49 Days, and first ever LA solo show, at Blum & Poe in Culver City this Saturday, May 21st. Huan is one of China’s foremost modern artists, and does most of his work between Shanghai and New York. His sculpture is towering, both in size and in emotional impact. His media are strange and varied – 49 Days features mostly brick and ashes, and past works have used cow skins, metals and wood to create his giants. Likewise, his subjects are the “giants” of human cultures and folklores – mostly different interpretations of Buddha with a Jesus thrown in. However, he doesn’t represent Buddha or Jesus in the straightforward reverential way they are usually shown; when you make Jesus entirely from ashes, it’s easy to see and feel the tragedy behind his story and what humanity has made of him. My favorite Buddha of Huan’s is the giant skeleton in a box he did in 2002 – sitting casually while pigeons fly around his head. His cow skin giants are incredibly creepy and lifelike, and the skins give them a sense of movement and animation that makes me expect to seen them roaming in unexplored corners of the earth. Huan has some interesting stories up his sleeve that I am looking forward to checking out at Blum & Poe. He adopted a pig that survived being buried in the rubble of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake for 49 days, so many of his subjects of his 49 Days exhibition are based on his miracle pet pig. 49 days is also the time that Buddhists believe the human soul remains between death and reincarnation. His pig was reincarnated from a pathetic and hopeless life in the rubble to living in luxury in a famous artist’s studio. A very inspiring story no doubt. After the jump, check out a couple of preview shots from his upcoming 49 Days exhibition, and also some of his works from past years…oh yeah, and he also does self-portraits dressed in raw meat. But you’ll have to google that. Well OK, I’ll include a couple of shots at the end…
49 DAYS
49 DAYS
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