Chinese artists at the Louis Vuitton Foundation...

8:44 p.m.

02/29/16 - The newly opened Louis Vuitton Foundation is currently presenting "Bentu: Chinese artists in time of turbulence and transformation", an exhibition starring 12 Chinese artists who live and work most of the time in their home country. "Bentu" means land. But in Contemporary Art this word is not related to Nationalism, but with the interaction of local and global concepts, to create a new identity.

The exhibition takes up all the floors of the building and explores many techniques, from local tradition to new technologies, in a confrontation that reveals an ever-changing society.

The top floor is occupied a a series of contemplative works by Haung Yong Ping, Zhang Huan and Ai Weiwei.

Sudden Awakening, by Zhang Huan (2006)

Materials: steel and ashes / Measures: 70 x 78 x 100 cm

One of the works by Zhang Huan (Anyang, 1965) is a reproduction of Buddha's head, with his eyes closed and extreme calmness, but with the artist's own features. Incense is burnt inside. The work was made with ashes picked by his many assistants in different temples.

A trip to Tibet in 2005 served as inspiration for "Long Island Buddha". There, the artist discovered, and collects, pieces of Buddhists statues destroyed or damaged by Mao's regime. The inmense copper structure, placed directly on the floor, is a reproduction of Buddha's head. In spite of the damage by the rusting process, the work results in an overwhelming peace.

Long Island Buddha, by Zhang Huan (2010-2011)

Material: copper / Measures: 277 x 177 cm

The talented Huang Yong Ping (Xiamen, 1954) combines, in his installations and sculptures, Buddhism, Taoism and Christianism, with references to Western History and Philosophy. Most often his works refer to society, its future and the hybridization of identity. "L’Arc de Saint Gilles" is based on the 7th-Century-legend of Saint Gilles, a hermit who lived among animals in the south of France and who saved a deer from an arrow shot by the King. According to the legend, the arrow stabbed directly into the Saint's hand. In Ping's work, the deer, divided in two by an arch, reveals the golden center of his body, becoming a mythical object.

Another work on display by Huang Yong Ping is a large scale reproduction of Duchamp's Bottledryer, covered with different objects. The work was inspired by a visit to the church of St Ludgeri in Munster, Germany, where handless crucifixes have the inscription: "I have no hands but I'm counting on yours". "Buddha's fifty arms", recreates the compassionate figure of the Buddha of the hundred arms, in relation to Duchamp's 1914 metallic structure "Bottle dryer". The arms were modeled with resin and the objects correspond to the Goddess Guan Yin's iconography, such as bells, receptables for rituals, Samsara's wheel, lotus flower and peacock's feathers. They are symbolic and everyday objects, placed side by side in a mixture of West and East, past and present.