Judging from the sculptural language and visual mechanism, Yang Pei-Chen’s work cannot be separated from the tradition of figurative sculpture and its influence. However, based on the internal logic that gives his work meaning, Yang’s sculpture is strongly conceptual. This is because the artist emphasizes on time, process, body, labor and gaze, which has enabled him to consistently bestow new possibilities on figurative sculpture.

For a very long time, visual representation was one of the most important objectives for the art of sculpture. The only difference was that artists from different time periods and art historical context might have varying priorities on “representation.” In the period of classical sculpture, sculptors prioritized the sculptural language and techniques. Consequently, instead of the mediality and materiality of sculpture, visuality became the dominate component. In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, the realistic, the representational, and scientific rationalism co-constructed the tradition of figurative sculpture due to the propelling force of realism. In the early twentieth century, the emergence of modernism then gradually crowded out traditional realism and visual representation. As a result, figurative sculpture suffered the impact from formalism and picturization. Since the 1970s, the advent of the age of image and digitization, especially the rise of conceptual art, accelerated the development of “dematerialization” and conceptualization in sculpture. Today, facing the challenges of 3D printing, virtual reality, and the metaverse, pessimistic as this may sound, figurative sculpture is doomed to decline.

In the artist statement, Yang writes, “from 1997 until today, I have limited my creative approach to an extremely narrow creative form and have been repeating this approach, utilizing a simple, clear yet slow wat to explore the processual meaning of mimicking reality through the process of removal and erasure. The mimetic portrayal of realism, to me, is a way of examining myself as well as a way of viewing other objects, and even how I am seen by the world. This is a fundamental issue of seeking the dimension of one’s existence in the infinite art.” Taking a retrospective look on the developmental trajectory of figurative sculpture, we have seen how the emergence of new materials, techniques, and artistic ideas have impacted the tradition of figurative sculpture; nevertheless, new challenges also demand and bring forth changes to figurative sculpture. Such dynamic has manifested in Yang’s work—on the one hand, Yang has adamantly defended the handcraftedness, materiality, and visuality of the sculptural art in this age of picturization and digitization. The labor work is repeated day after day, and the handcraftedness is reiterated continuously. The objective of Yang’s creative approach is to confer a new meaning on “representation” or “the figurative,” which is an aesthetic experience in response to the digital age – “hyperrealism.” This pursuit of the new visual also seems to echo the concept of “simulacrum” discussed by Jean Baudrillard. On the other hand, while the artist is pursuing such extreme visual presentation, he has consistently conceptualized the intertextuality, temporality and processuality in his work. In this sense, Yang’s figurative sculpture embodies not only classical and traditional elements but also conceptual and contemporary characteristics.

Different from simply representing of the world of representations, Yang’s figurative sculpture stems from a “meta-text”—that is, he uses ancient books that symbolize Western culture, knowledge and ideas as a starting point of his work. As a carrier of messages, ancient books hold a crucial place in cultural history. They are symbols of culture and knowledge, and at the same time, establish a context closely associated with history, ideologies, cognitive ideas. If we could view books as a system of knowledge, which show the characteristic of publicness, the choosing of the books, on the other hand, is entirely a personal action of the artist. To Yang, these books have special meaning to him—they might be related to a personal reading experience, involve the growth of his own mind, or serve as a tribute to classical culture and Western civilization. However, from the perspective of sculpture, the objecthood of the medium and conceptualized expression are inevitably involved. We know that Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp’s “anti-art” leaves two legacies in the development of Western modern art: the first one is conceptualization. Duchamp’s work subverts the linear, progressive developmental trajectory obeyed by modern art. Starting from questioning the nature of art, Duchamp eventually shifted towards the anti-art. Benefiting from Duchamp’s contribution, artists’ thinking and ideas have been able to surpass the value of art itself to become a crucial source of how an artwork can become meaningful. The second legacy is that readymade is bestowed the identity of an artwork when the boundary between art and “non-art” is dissolved. In Yang’s work, the meaning of a “meta-text” is manifested in the “intertextuality” between the ancient books and Yang’s sculptures. Such “intertextuality” not just provides a spatial-temporal context. More importantly, it produces references for the “visual” representations created by Yang, and engenders the possibility of a dialogue between the artworks and their references. For sure, these “books” cannot be read, which not only reinforces the sculptural quality of the works, but also compels the audience to notice their materiality. The question is that Yang’s sculptures are not “objects” in the sense of media, nor are they readymades. Instead, Yang utilizes “hyperrealist” visuality to infinitely approach the real “objects” to the greatest degree—that is, the ancient books. Following the logic formulated by Duchamp, the relationship between “art” and “non-art” and that of “objects” and artworks are dualistic, disconnected, and subversive. However, Yang tries to use “intertextuality” to establish an “intermediate zone” to give meanings to his works through conceptually intervening into the tension between the two opposites.

Time is an important component that allows the conceptualization of a work to be effective. In the artist statement, Yang describes the three levels of temporality in his work: 1. “The material time

of the object” (the time experienced by the object itself); 2. “The material time of mimetic portrayal”—that is, the time spent to produce a mimetic portrayal; 3. “The abstract time of the experience” (the illusion of time perceived by the spectator). We cannot help asking: how does the artist conceptualize time? Amongst these three levels of temporality, the one that can really make time processual and sublimate it to be conceptualized is “the material time of mimetic portrayal.” As a matter of fact, for a very long time, “time” was viewed as a subordinate, concealed component in art. Comparing to the topic of a work and the artist’s pursuit of a work’s completion, the time used to create a work and the process of creation were marginalized and did not produce aesthetic value independently. In 1950s, American art critic Robert Rauschenberg was inspired by Jackson Pollock’s techniques of dripping and splashing, through which he began noticing the temporal, processual, and bodily aspects in artistic creation. Combining time in the physical sense and the philosophical thinking of existentialism, Rauschenberg put forth the concept of “action painting.” Also drawing inspiration from Pollock’s work, Allan Kaprow coined the term “happening.” Nevertheless, post-minimalist artists in the 1960s were the ones who truly conceptualized “time.” To Yang, the conceptualization of time comprises two aspects: one is the time in the physical sense—that is, the consumption of time through the repetition of polishing and coloring guided by simple rules. The other one is the time experienced by people and objects, hands and minds, as well as in labor and through physicality. The latter is the time that can be conceptualized or philosophized. If we connect such conceptualization of time with the awareness of life in Eastern culture – in particular, the “daily liturgy service” and the “practice of Zen” – we would perceive the unique interpretation of life and individual existences behind artistic language and form.

To conceptualize time, especially to sublimate the thinking about time to the philosophical dimension, requires a necessary condition, which is a spectator’s gaze on an artwork. The mechanism of viewing, or the visual mechanism designed by an artist for an artwork, therefore becomes essential in the context of contemporary art. A more extreme viewpoint posits that the meaning of an artwork only emerges through viewing. Like it is mentioned earlier, Yang creates an “intertextuality” between the ancient books and his sculptures. In fact, as far as the viewing mechanism goes, Yang also incorporates a new default, which is an emphasis on the “sense of ritual” in viewing. This “sense of ritual” originates from his altering the quotidian visual experience of people’s viewing of books. Contrary to people’s everyday visual experience, the ambience co-created by the lighting, the plinths, and the environment in an art museum or gallery serves as a hint that informs the audience of an aestheticized viewing. “Gaze” eventually becomes the key; and it is under such “gaze” that the visual meaning of “the hyperreal” is truly unveiled.

Written at the Huxi campus of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, January 10, 2023