.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Born in 1983, artist Zai Liang’s bibliophilia has inspired the primary content of his paintings. In The Logic of Fostering a Hexagon, the background is brushed in flat burnt sienna and yellow ochre, and the figures pose in exactly the same stance so as to limit the kinetic energy exposed, while a serene ambience wreaths the overall scene. Yet this stillness is somewhat disquieting, and one seeks to divine what manner of tale this picture ultimately relates.
Inspired by Borges‘ 1941 novel The Garden of Forking Paths, analysis and reconstruction of literature from a multiplicity of visual latitudes is the primary pivot of Zhai Liang's creation. With himself set as a literary critic, he adopts a variety of analytical methodologies as his starting point. The achievements of his creation are visual, but they are also imbued with the more implicit structure of the literature itself. The three figures in this item echo The Garden of Forking Paths in their main roles of a German spy, a western sinologist, and a British captain, while their three pairs of hands hold a piece of cloth in the form of a hexagon. It is thus the story of three people in an interlocking ring: each layer drives forward the generation of six chapters in a linear view of history where each chapter holds the power to explore the textual framework by changing the overall plot development.
If reading constitutes a unique kind of transmission of perception between writers and readers, The Logic of Fostering a Hexagon is a visual re-presentation of this transmission process. This secondary transmission of a transmission connects the reader to an imaginary realm that extends from the storyline, by presenting a re-presentation of a re-presentation.
Inspired by Borges‘ 1941 novel The Garden of Forking Paths, analysis and reconstruction of literature from a multiplicity of visual latitudes is the primary pivot of Zhai Liang's creation. With himself set as a literary critic, he adopts a variety of analytical methodologies as his starting point. The achievements of his creation are visual, but they are also imbued with the more implicit structure of the literature itself. The three figures in this item echo The Garden of Forking Paths in their main roles of a German spy, a western sinologist, and a British captain, while their three pairs of hands hold a piece of cloth in the form of a hexagon. It is thus the story of three people in an interlocking ring: each layer drives forward the generation of six chapters in a linear view of history where each chapter holds the power to explore the textual framework by changing the overall plot development.
If reading constitutes a unique kind of transmission of perception between writers and readers, The Logic of Fostering a Hexagon is a visual re-presentation of this transmission process. This secondary transmission of a transmission connects the reader to an imaginary realm that extends from the storyline, by presenting a re-presentation of a re-presentation.