“I want my art to be about something bigger than me. If it wasn’t involved in society I would feel guilty.”
Born: Tianjin, 1958. Lives and works in Beijing
To most people, garbage is about as far from art as it gets. To Wang Zhiyuan, it’s a medium like any other. When he started collecting discarded plastic containers from the dumps around Beijing, he says, “I thought it would be difficult to make these dead objects interesting or beautiful. But I discovered that if you bring order to them”—by arranging them according to size or type or colour—“you can create beauty.” His Thrown to the Wind (2010) is an 11-metre-high tornado of plastic inspired by the avalanches of rubbish that deface the artist’s home city and the countryside around it. Wang Zhiyuan’s earlier works were also based on items not usually thought of in the context of art: underpants. Starting with delicate pink briefs carved from plywood and mounted on the wall, he employed the motif more and more boldly, until by 2008 he was making giant bas-relief underpants carved like antique bronze (Unearthed Artefact) and decked with neon signs with musical accompaniment (Object of Desire). For this artist, the things we keep hidden, throw away or ignore are always worth a second look.
