Prestige ( March 2008)
Chen's China Changes

From the statues of red boys and the humanized pigs, he became famous for, to his latest giant "melting" sculptures, Chen Wenling keeps reinventing himself, writes SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP.
The works of many contemporary Chinese artists are instantly recognizable—the laughing men of Yue Minjun, the masked figures of Zeng Fanzhi or Wang Guangyi's pop art reworking of Cultural Revolution propaganda. Rising contemporary sculptor Chen Wenling is no exception, having become associated with his stark representations of naked red boys.
But over the past two years, Chen has quietly embarked on a radically different body of work, far removed from the realistic and naturalistic approach of his earlier pieces. Blending traditional and modern imageries, he's now creating surrealistic mountain landscapes and giant animals that appear to be melting like ice, a reference in his eyes to the state of fluidity that Chinese society currently faces.
"My latest work may not sell so well, but I think it will withstand the rest of time," the sculptor says. "Many artists keep on copying themselves, just striving to make a lot of money. Money is important, but not the most important thing. You're not a true artist if you remain close to the commercial realities. As an artist you must keep your distance. You must even have resistance."
With his jet-black, shoulder-length hair and grey T-shirt, Chen looks every inch the bohemian artist. Today his smaller little red boy sculptures start at around HKD136,000, but if the 39-year-old father of one now lives comfortably, working out of a large studio on the outskirts of Beijing, he also acknowledges life was not always a bed of roses.
Born in 1969 in Anxi, a remote village in Fujian province, Chen remembers his family being so poor that his parents couldn't afford to buy him toys. Showing artistic flair from an early age, he grew up making figurines out of mud and wood to entertain himself and drawing with charcoal on the white walls of his neighbours' houses. His parents encouraged his talent and Chen went on to study at Xiamen Academy of Art and Design, and then at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. During those artistically formative years at art school, Chen remembers greatly admiring the famed French sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose works he considered to be ground-breaking, as well as Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali and Colombian artist Fernando Botero. More recently, he's been closely following the work of British artist Damien Hirst.
After graduating, Chen spent five years wandering around China, trying to find work as an artist. He ended up in a series of short-term jobs including teaching painting, drawing comics and making craft sculptures to order before a Taiwanese collector who was holidaying in Xiamen chanced upon one of his works in a local bar. The collector was so impressed he bought a dozen pieces from Chen, paying RMB1 million, which enabled him to strike out as a full-time artist. That was in 1998, and the artist has never looked back.
Moving to a small studio in Beijing, he started work on his first big series, Bed Memories, in which he sculpted young, innocent boys with emaciated bodies and exaggerated facial expressions, revealing a wide range of emotions and states of being, from shyness and puzzlement to hunger and cold. "This series was based on my childhood memories, but I think it also represents all Chinese children of a certain era. Obviously not today's, because children are much fatter now," Chen explains. "With this series, I wanted to talk about human nature and emphasize the unpretentiousness of children in contrast with what is happening in contemporary China."
Chen spray-painted his bronze sculptures flaming red, a color that's ingrained into Chinese consciousness and can be given many interpretations. "It's a color associated with wealth and happiness, but it's also a very political color in the context of China."
In 2003 the artist started his Happy Life series, with most sculptures using a pig-drawing on memories from his childhood raising pigs-as a parable of human nature. In these indirect satires of an increasingly consumerist society, Chen dressed his pigs in clothes and stood them up in anthropomorphic poses, thereby commenting on self-indulgent materialism. "No other animal can represent today's China better than the pig. This is an animal full of energy, which grows fat fast. It's my reflection on the current speed of growth in China," he explains, pointing out that the pig represents a symbol of good fortune for the Chinese.
Two years ago, the series evolved into Valiant Struggle, a commentary on daily struggles in a more violent society. In one sculpture, Valiant Struggle No.1, a man is riding a pig, appearing to surge forward, holding an axe in his hand, yet seemingly confused, "How can you slaughter the pig if you're riding it? For me this work represents how humans can get lost in today's society," Chen explains, saying the work's composition was inspired by 19th-century French painter Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass. At Shanghai Biennale 2006, Chen installed a huge 8.3m-high pig sculpture featuring a pig-snouted red car with a long red tongue from which dangled a golden pig and overfed humans. "This work is about people striving for wealth, but sometimes the higher you climb the more you can fall," he says. "There is no end to climbing up and no end to falling as well."
Although Chen notes he could have just continued with his red boys and pig sculpture series, he admits to being afraid of being pigeonholed. So while still occasionally working on Red Memories and Happy Life, he's now focusing his attention on a series of monumental sculptures, Chinese Scenes, with a new and more experimental imagery.
"The reality, today's China has evolved from spurts of rapid economic growth and the nation has transformed with capitalism, materialism and future aspirations," he says. "My current works are large, solid constructions composed of hard materials, yet there is an undeniable fluidity about them-there are flowing mountains, flower blossoms and animals. There exists a dichotomy between permanence and movement."
The artist aims for his work to reflect the contradictions in China today. "This latest series reflects how traditional Chinese culture and new economic growth are interacting and changing with each other and coursing forward together. I want viewers to be aware of how China is constantly changing. It is neither criticism nor praise. I want to highlight this phenomenon through my artwork and leave it to the viewers as to whether this rapid change is indeed ideal."