Celebrated artist finds inspiration in silkworms
Print Edition
THE latest multi-media installation by artist Liang Shaoji features curved fiberglass panels covered with silk and resting on a bed of sand. To one end, shards of metal and broken glass jut from the ground. Meanwhile, beams of light illuminate a circle of silk representing the moon, and a video shows silkworms spinning their silk directly onto the bits of mirror and glass used to make the installation.
Titled “Moon Garden,” the work is meant to capture the contrasts of the Middle East, a land of warmth, beauty and violence. It’s currently on display at Doha’s Qatar Museums Gallery Alriwaq as part of the exhibition “What About Art? Contemporary Art China.” Curated by Cai Guoqiang, the artist credited with the fireworks displays at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the exhibition features artworks by 15 prominent contemporary Chinese artists.
For more than 26 years, Liang has raised silkworms, drawing artistic inspiration and enlightenment from their delicate threads. Observing the worms is how he understands the world, said the 71-year-old artist. To him, “silks are traces of life and time, and proofs of existence,” Liang told Shanghai Daily in a recent interview.
A devotee of Taoism and the writings of existentialist philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, Liang has long sought to communicate ideas about the universe, life and time in artworks featuring silkworms, cocoons and silk.
After studying under Bulgarian artist Maryn Varbanov, Liang carved out a place for himself in the Chinese contemporary art scene in the late 1980s with his tapestry works. In 1988, he abandoned tapestries and set up a studio in Tiantai Mountain in neighboring Zhejiang Province, a place often credited as the birthplace of zen Buddhism. It was while attempting to live his life in accordance with zen teachings that Liang fell under the spell of silkworms.
That same year at a major exhibition in Beijing, he used silk fabrics and dried cocoons in one of his works.
“I remember the day when that piece was finished. It had just rained; a dim light came through the window of the studio, creating a poetic ambience. The dried cocoons seemed to come alive,” he recalled.
Soon after this moment, he decided to incorporate live silkworms into his art. He started experimenting and spent years studying the habits and behaviors of these creeping critters.
Creative potential
The artist quickly noticed that, with the right stimuli, the worms could be coaxed and manipulated into producing patterns that could not be replicated in traditional textiles. He discovered that changes in season, temperature and light all had an effect on the output of various kinds of worms.
“To control the thickness of the silk,” he said. “You have to be at home with the worms’ biological nature.”
With his new-found knowledge, the artist tried getting his worms to spin their silk on pieces of inorganic material, including metal and glass, that would later become part of his installations. Professors from Zhejiang Agricultural University were startled when he showed them bunches of raw silk produced on metal.
“Scientists study the worms in their own terms. What concerns me is the shape of the silk, and the space for imagination when it comes to producing silk on various materials,” Liang said.
In 2009, Liang was honored with the Prince Claus Award in Holland for his work as a conceptual artist who “creates unique meditations on nature and human existence.” Liang prefers to describe himself as a sculptor who also dabbles in science, fibers and the behavioral arts.
After years of studying silkworms, Liang has spun his own threads between these insects and zen Buddhism. Indeed, in a discussion with Shanghai Daily, he wove a complex web of metaphors involving silk and the questions that have perplexed philosophers since the dawn of time.
Over recent years, Liang’s output has become increasingly abstract. Also among his latest pieces is “Planar Tunnel,” a large circle of nearly transparent silk with a hole in the center. Liang said he was inspired by the plain silk gauze unearthed at the Mawangdu Tomb in 1972 in Changsha, in central China’s Hunan Province. With a diameter of 128 centimeters, the gauze weighs only 49 grams.
“It’s sheer, light and thin, yet bears the heaviness of history,” Liang said, referring both to his own work and the artifact that gave rise to it.
“Some say it looks like a jade pendant, or a disc, or a wormhole in the universe… There are countless ways to interpret a circle,” he said.
“You can take it as a manifestation for today’s society, which is fragmented; or you can capture the depth of time inside.”
Liang also told Shanghai Daily he wants to challenge the minimalism of the West, which is often “indifferent.” His own version of minimalism, he said, “has warmth and feeling.”
“Planar Tunnel” appeared last December in Shanghai along with nine other works at Hermes Maison. The French luxury house, renowned for its silk products, staged a solo exhibition for Liang to celebrate his creative application of silk in art.
In May, Liang is scheduled to take his works to Suzhou Silk Museum for a group exhibition titled “Silk Area, Dancing with Contemporary Art.”
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