Zheng Lu: Reconstruct the oriental culture with a contemporary expression
“Creation now for me is a part of my life, every one of my work is like one of the tiny pieces of my life. I blow it up because it is importante to me, and I interprete it in an unique way.”
——Zheng Lu
Zheng Lu, Sculptor, born in Chifeng in Inner Mongolia in 1978.
In the artist’s own words, he has been brought up in a family who lived a life close to the texts, both in work and off time. The family atmosphere gave him such a strong influence that the texts from Chinese literature once became the core of his sculpture creation and the source of the inspirations.
Chinese Ancient Literature as A Starting Point With Contemporary Expression
In childhood Zheng Lu has spent lots of time staying with texts, he helped his father to copy his articles when 6 years old. Based on this experience, the audiences should not be too surprised to think about the artists idea when looking closely at his metal work, Water in Dripping(2015), constructed by “words”. Actually these texts are from the Chinese ancient poem Wan Zhi Shui written by the realist poet Bai Juyi in Tang Dynasty. It talks about the metamorphosis of the water between the statical and dynamic status as an metaphor of principles for conducting. The artist intended to present the drastic moment of the water, interpreting both the static and dynamic aspects of it with the whole text of the poem.
According to Zheng Lu, the Wan Zhi Shui by Bai Juyi is to some extent the continuation and development of the thought of Zhuangzi, the ideologist, philosopher and representative of Taoism. Today, it comes to him to reinterpret the thoughts of these grand ideologists using contemporary languages and expressions on the base of his own observations and reflections, trying to give the oriental classic culture a contemporary appearance. This is highly thought of in the field of Chinese contemporary art.
The Uniqueness May Become the Limit
When everything is rapidly developing, taking a look back can actually be another way of moving forward.
——Zheng Lu
In Zheng Lu’s point of view, one big question of the process of sculpture creation is how to break the traditional rule fixed at the beginning of professional studies, which always requires the artist to start from a concrete object. For example some of his works are based on texts, an object quite concrete, which for him is to some extent a kind of limitation against the creation. Being willing to and good at breaking the old way of thinking and the fixed method of creation is hard but extremely necessary for the artists.
The Crossover Concept Should Fulfill the Need of Expression, But Not to Be the Starting Point
Zheng Lu believes that, the trend in the future will no longer be based on single media o material. The world changes rapidly at every moment, the everyday information is in an explosive growth, all these require that the artists should catch the pace of the world. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t let the trend to limit his creation.What he concerns about is not the media, due dimensional o three dimensional is not so important, what he is doing is to consciously give up the inherent awareness and way of expression, keeping the creative state through the continuous self- criticizing.
