Carrying One Object on My Head Every Day
Artists: Chen Wenling
Academic Adviserr: Li Zhenhua
At the door to my house, there is a creek where a line of poetic stepping stones have been installed since ancient times, which helps the settlers in the village to cross over. When I was a child, floods often submerge those stones in springs and summers. In order to reach the hill on the other side to play or study with peers,The children in my neighborhood invented a kind of vertical swimming style. In other words, we took off all our clothes, carrying them with simple travelling bags on top of our heads. Our legs in the water kicked downwards constantly to move forward to cross the creek. After going ashore, we shook off the water drops on our body, put on clothes and continued with the journey. During the epidemic when the village was blocked, the childhood story nearly forty years ago kept coming back to me, making me indulge in a train of thoughts. "Carrying An Object on Head A Day" is inextricably linked to this life experience in my childhood. In fact, my life story is the history of my art.
——————The "Carrying one object on my head everyday" series by Chen Wenling has been created since February 20th, 2020.
Chen was born in 1969, the year Bryan Adams sang "Summer of 69" at the Woodstock Festival in the United States. In the same year, the exhibition "When Attitudes Become Form" was held at the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. The tremendous shift in global art was on the trigger.
Close to the end of the Spring Festival 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic broke out. The ones who stayed in Wuhan, couldn't get out. Those who stayed in their hometowns couldn't get into the city.
I reconnected with my old friend Chen Wenling via the WeChat moments. I really appreciated his postings about carrying objects on top of the head. The artist stands at the foreground, his perspective disappearing at one point in the distance. Bodies and expressions, found objects and artistic creations, the mechanics balancing the transient moments, are what you can find in the images, which have formed into a consistent whole.
Buddha and Mazu, Zen and all spiritual existence, man and this era, are perhaps all in a parallel relationship with possible intersections.
In unpredictable reality, one learns how to live with memory and encounter with history. The artist who has never been present in his previous creations, finally appears as a on-site artist. Performance or photography become his media and continue to grasp the attention of the public, rolling forward with his messages. I'm not surprised at the media that he switched，such as brushwork or photography, which are inherently in his bloodline, and the connection between seeing, being seen, self-possession and the community through his earlier accumulation.
He talked about his family, his memories, the logic of his vertical swimming, the weight and the techniques of carrying things on head. The river is still flowing in his hometown. The old people, children and the peaceful times are all included in the description of a beautiful idyllic countryside. Portraits, objects, and the joy that comes from the heart, the sculptural, surrealist, documentary photography, the momentary art, the time-based art and every other thing all take place among people, to generate unchanged emotions and nostalgia. It is like a river that will dry up, or somewhere on a certain day, it will flow again.
Chen Wenling, Carrying One Object on My Head Everyday, 2020.
Chen Wenling, Carrying One Object on My Head Everyday, 2020.
Chen Wenling, Carrying One Object on My Head Everyday, 2020.
