Video: Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads: in the bronze circle of the zodiacs by Ai Weiwei
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
A dozen bronze zodiacs, huge images of animals that are responsible for a particular year in the Chinese horoscope, will travel around the world as part of a large-scale exhibition called Circle of Animal / Zodiac Heads. The author and mastermind of the project is a modern Chinese artist and sculptor with a name amusing for a European. Ai Weiwei … And there seems to be nothing original - well, heads and heads, well, zodiacs and zodiacs … If not for a small background. The fact is that all 12 sculptures cast in bronze are a modern interpretation of the zodiacs that adorned the fountain clock in the 18th century, created during the time of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795) in his summer residence Yuanming Yuan in Beijing.
Honestly, the heads of animals look a little scary, especially the Rat, Pig and Monkey, and if we also take into account the gigantic size of each of them … However, Ai Weiwei is a fairly popular sculptor, known for his extraordinary projects, take at least the anti-bourgeois glowing cube, about which we once wrote, or the original installation of a sea of seeds from Chinese porcelain, so his new project Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads will also be popular and in demand.
In general, it would be interesting to visit such an exhibition and see with your own eyes what there is so much talk about. According to historical data, the imperial water clock-zodiac was designed by the French priest Michel Benoit, and its bronze jewelry was the work of the famous Italian Giuseppe Castiglione. It is known that after the plundering and destruction of the palace during the Anglo-French occupation of Beijing in 1860, many statues fell into various world collections, and Weiwei gives us the opportunity to see what this historical monument was like. Albeit in a very peculiar interpretation.
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