Zhan Wang & MVRDV

“Stacking wood blocks deriving from the shapes of 24 town houses of MVRDV’s “TheVerticalVillage©” project, Chinese sculptor Zhan Wang creates the artwork, “JIA SHAN DE WU”.

However, “JIA SHAN DE WU” is not merely a game of stacking blocks. Zhan Wang borrows the forms of MVRDV’s 24 town houses and applies the principles of Chinese garden to this work. The viewer can select and combine these elements to create the Chinese garden arcadia of their own in their hearts. For the artist, “JIA SHAN DE WU” is a dialogue between art and architecture to interpret the concept of arcadia. It also symbolizes the ultimate spiritual pursuit of the East and the West.

The design of a Chinese garden starts from artificial rocks, The forms of “artificial rocks” extracted from the “natural world” in Chinese gardens are reflected through the material created in the period of Western industrialization, stainless steel. Through this combination, the artist expresses a “new dream” that “combines East and West.” The artist then takes these elements and reallocates them in the sculpture space, and in this process of double transformation, the artistic value of the cross-field artwork is discovered. The artwork explores the problems that arise when integrating man and nature as well as man and the environment in the fields of artistic aesthetics and architectural aesthetics, inspiring people to think the way to achieve the ultimate pursuit of the human spirit through opposing or complimentary methods.”

- Yang Shin-Yi