Zhang Hongtu
New York, NY
Website: www.momao.com

A Statement about the Wall Sculpture

The original idea to make a hole in my painting
was to experience a new concept of space in the
two dimensional art work.  But since the hole is a
significant image and it is familiar to the public,
the hole in my work became not only a visual
concept of space but also psychologically related
to the content of the work. Most of the holes in
my work are icon images. I cut Mao’s portrait, a book, the cross, etc. from the materials
which come from everyday life (burlap, metal, wood, etc.). This is a way to question the
significance of the image but from the absence of it.

Cutting something out from a painting can make different results based on the empty
space and the kind of contents surrounding it. For example, in the work “In memory of
Tseng Kwong Chi”, I cut out the figure of the photographer Tseng Kwong Chi (died of
AIDS in 1989) from one of his works, the remaining images were of monuments and other
popular images from reality which surrounds the artist in the original photo. The viewer’s
mind has to move between the present and the absent part, so the question goes
between the reality and the empty image—everything is still there, like before, but the
artist is gone.

If I make a hole on a wall, the result will be totally different. The hole can eliminate the
prime function of the wall, this is the basic idea of my wall sculpture. I hate walls.

Walls mean to separate, divide, isolate, obstruct, segregate. A wall is always a boundary, a
limitation, the cause for misunderstanding, distrust, alienation, and hatred.

A physical wall can be destroyed by the changing of political situations, like the Berlin
Wall, or can lose its function by the changing of time, like the Great Wall of China. But
psychologically, the invisible walls between different people, different religions, and
different cultures are difficult to remove. My project is to build a real wall but with the
holes in it to eliminate its function, from the visible object to the invisible walls in people’
s minds.

I started the idea of this project o making holes in a wall, but during he process of
designing it, I found a number of ways to arrive at the same result. I can twist the wall,
soften the wall, lay down the wall, or roll up the wall. All these different ways result in the
same goal.

The sculpture is not only a visual object, but people can also walk through it, kids can play
on it ….

Zhang Hongtu