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Artist: Zhan Wang (Chinese, b. 1960)
Zhan Wang attended Beijing Industrial Arts College from 1978–1981 and also the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 1983–1988. He currently works as a Professor of Sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing while also creating and exhibiting new works. His series of stainless steel Artificial Rocks, begun in 1995, has garnered international acclaim and has been collected by institutions around the world. These works are based on an object symbolic of China’s past, the scholar’s rock, which was traditionally collected by the literati and placed in courtyards or other sites of private contemplation, such as studies. Zhan Wang’s stainless steel reinterpretations of this form draw attention to China’s shifting value systems and the reconstruction of its urban centers. These highly reflective works not only utilize the ubiquitous building material of his native country, but also reflect in a mirror-like fashion the rapid urbanization of modern-day China and its ongoing realignment with the natural world. These works are made through a painstaking handcrafted process for which the artist received a patent in 2002.