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“Some things, like technologies, come and go,” says Zhang Deli 张德丽, artist behind Northern Song. “But so much always stays the same: inevitability of the seasons, for example. Despite all the mathematical programming and digital clocks and nanoseconds the great physicists of the world refer to, the natural sign of the harvest moon works as well as a timepiece as any other. Spring comes after winter. Always has, always will.” Zhang’s Chinese paper cut series is a steadfast allusion to the paper cutting traditions that date back at least as far as the 6th Century in Chinese art, and his works hold imagery drawn from ancient Chinese landscape pieces throughout the dynasties. Yet with Liu Dao 六岛, for Northern Song, Zhang adds the presence of LED birds shining through the paperwork. Despite the changes in the world that make paper more and more obsolete, there is something about the concreteness of the material that we won't let go of. The LEDs are just another form of the timeless nature of the Chinese landscape pieces. They are about man coming to grips with nature around him. [Pete Bradt] |
