These are highly eccentric exercises to Western and Chinese eyes, but Cang Xin has never aspired to be part of the mainstream. His work is a personal quest that has taken him far away from the monumental ambitions of Chinese communism or capitalism.
John McDonald | The Sydney Morning Herald
May 20, 2016
The current show, Something from Nothing, features paintings, sculptures and video by Cang Xin, who readers may remember as the artist who went around the world licking famous monuments. He was also part of the mound of naked flesh called To Add One Metre to an Anonymous Mountain (1995) that has become an iconic image for the new Chinese art.
Cang Xin is a philosophical artist with a long-standing interest in Shamanism, which posits underlying relationships between all life forms. This has resulted in a series in which the artist has painted himself into copies of Old Master paintings, along with overscaled seeds and plants. These are highly eccentric exercises to Western and Chinese eyes, but Cang Xin has never aspired to be part of the mainstream. His work is a personal quest that has taken him far away from the monumental ambitions of Chinese communism or capitalism. Who needs Mao or designer labels when you’re searching for the origins of life?
